Topics

Brand Narrative

Nothing Sells Itself: Why Storytelling Should Drive Demand Generation

September 13, 2017 —

Nothing Sells Itself: Why Storytelling Should Drive Demand Generation

Emotive Brand Expert #1: Greg Howard As a brand strategy and design agency, we have the privilege of being able to visit innovative companies from a myriad of fields. From global law firms to burgeoning start-ups, we get to pull back the curtain and observe how brands are built, from the inside out. Drawing on our ever-growing network, we’re excited to launch our Emotive Brand Experts series. In these posts, we’re interviewing past and present Emotive Brand clients to discover what they do better than anybody else – and how that expertise can be used to embolden your brand today. In this...
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Thoughts on Creating a Strategic Narrative: Interview with Strategist Sara Gaviser Leslie

September 11, 2017 —

Thoughts on Creating a Strategic Narrative: Interview with Strategist Sara Gaviser Leslie

At Emotive Brand, we’re blessed with an incredibly diverse pool of talented individuals. Our team comes from the management consulting world, branding agencies, technology industry, advertising and everything in between. Each of these viewpoints brings something new to the table. In this post, Sara Gaviser Leslie discusses how her background as an analyst makes her a better writer and the importance of creating a strategic narrative  for brands. You’re a bestselling author, executive communications consultant, strategist, analyst, and storyteller all wrapped up in one. Can you walk us...
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Authentic Brands Just Feel Right: Inject Purpose and Feeling

June 5, 2017 —

Authentic Brands Just Feel Right: Inject Purpose and Feeling

Everyone’s Claiming Authenticity Where are all the authentic brands? In today’s world, where curation is everywhere, vacuous claims are made left and right by brands, and people are inundated with meaningless media content, authenticity is a hard feeling to come by. You can’t visit a website or see an ad where you don’t see brands declaring that they are, in fact, “the most genuine and the most trustworthy.” The problem is, with so many choices and so much available content, people see right through brand claims that don’t ring true. And because declarations of “authenticity” don’t always...
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Brand Narrative is a Necessary Part of Brand Strategy

October 18, 2016 —

Brand Narrative is a Necessary Part of Brand Strategy

Here we explore the brand narrative as a key element of brand strategy, by explaining what constitutes a brand narrative, demonstrating how it supports the overall brand strategy, and showing the brand scenarios which call for a strong brand narrative. What is a brand narrative? A brand narrative is a central building block of a meaningful brand strategy. It is built upon the insights and information gleaned during the kickoff process, with a particular focus on the business-related shifts the brand seeks to make. A brand narrative contains five elements: Truths – four to five high-level...
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Why Your Brand Needs to Be a Sustainable Brand

July 10, 2016 —

Why Your Brand Needs to Be a Sustainable Brand

Being a Sustainable Brand Is Now An Expectation What does it mean to be a sustainable brand? Sustainability measures have become table stakes for Fortune 500 companies. People now expect every reputable business to have a sustainability department and as a result, some level of corporate sustainability reporting is the norm. More and more companies are becoming B Corp because they believe in the inherent value of using business to solve social and environmental problems. A shift is underway to make sustainable business something every department needs to get behind. But Where’s The Brand?...
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Editing Your First Draft: How To

June 6, 2016 —

Editing Your First Draft: How To

Time For Editing In an earlier post, I wrote about the anxiety that can accompany writing and how you can overcome it with some simple steps designed to jump start your drafting. In this post, I’ll tell you how to get from the first draft to the finish line. The key to this: editing. So you’ve got a first draft. Congratulations. A first draft, no matter how rough, is cause for a minor celebration (coffee, maybe, not Cristal). A break helps you make the mental transition from writing mode to editing mode. Editing is how you get your rough draft to the finish line. Your mileage will vary here,...
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Brand Narrative : The New Origin Story for your Business

May 27, 2016 —

Brand Narrative : The New Origin Story for your Business

Is Your Origin Story Enough to Make Your Business Stand Out? Origin stories have been embedded into modern marketing’s rulebook for as long as we can remember. And for good reason. Historically, they did help companies stand out. Origin have traditionally been the place where a brand explains what business ventures meant to their leaders and for the greater world – personally, historically, economically, and culturally. They helped make brands more human and emotive. People could empathize with stories embedded in the American Dream and felt connected to self-starters, underdogs, and...
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Bridging the Gap Between Your Startup Pitch and VC Funding

May 1, 2016 —

Bridging the Gap Between Your Startup Pitch and VC Funding

We know its not easy to put together your startup pitch deck as you shop around to the hottest VCs. You’ve got the most amazing idea ever. You’ve brought together a dream team to develop the app, service, or product that’s going to take over the world and be the next unicorn. Now there’s just that small matter of getting your value proposition, technology, growth projections, and your life’s work into the dreaded startup pitch to present to VCs. On your side of the table are people who understand technology – the masters of bits and bytes. On the other side of...
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Does your Business need an Updated Brand Narrative?

May 7, 2015 —

Does your Business need an Updated Brand Narrative?

Does your brand need a Brand Narrative? Your brand does if it faces any of these situations: Differentiation: Does your brand have a sober, unexciting, or blurry identity in an increasingly competitive and perhaps commoditized market? Are you able to cut through the clutter in ways that matter? Growth: Is it getting harder to increase market share, drive sales, and improve profit? Are new markets and products growing quickly enough? Talent: Is it getting increasingly difficult for your brand to recruit the talent you need? Is your top talent leaving? Are competitor’s hiring the talent you...
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The Greatest Story Never Told?

February 3, 2015 —

The Greatest Story Never Told?

  Based on our experience working with clients, we believe there are thousands of companies out there sitting on a very valuable asset. This is an asset that could generate new revenues, build customer loyalty, enthuse and motivate your workforce, recruit top talent, help quickly scale your business, truly differentiate you from competitors, and help you business and brand thrive. The asset is a meaningful story, a brand narrative about your business that’s waiting to be told. It’s a story based on meaningful truths about what you do and how you do it. It’s a story...
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