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November 6, 2014 — Jerry Holtaway

Gaining Customer Trust Through Both Experienced and Sensed Empathy

Barclay’s Bank wanted to create a more empathetic understanding of customers with mobility issues. In this video, a Barclay’s office manager is outfitted with a special suit designed to recreate the physical world of his own elderly Mother. The suit includes weights that make it hard for the manager to take steps, or to raise his hands. Goggles dim his vision and cast a yellow light over the scene. Headphones distort his hearing. Electric sensors make him feel the pain of arthritis in his joints. In this way, the manager literally “walks in the shoes” of his mother – and every other...

September 27, 2016 — Tracy Lloyd

Purpose-led Business Leaders Gain Competitive Advantage

Long ago we fell in love with this Fast Company article about purpose-led business leaders who are changing the way business works by embracing purpose. Here we recap its main points, and add additional perspective. Generation Flux is a group defined less by age than by attitude. According to the article’s author, Robert Safian, Generation Flux “refers to the group of people best positioned to thrive in today’s era of high-velocity change.” Safian continues, “Fluxers are defined not by their chronological age but by their willingness and ability to adapt. These are the people who are...

October 14, 2014 — Jerry Holtaway

Winning Leaders Change the Conversation

We recently came across an interview with Lee Clow, who has been responsible for a slew of famous ad campaigns, including the landmark 1984 Apple commercial. In the interview he talks about how he now describes his role: “Finding a voice as a tone for a brand is the art of what I do. I want to consider myself now as a media artist, not an advertising person, because advertising is kind of defined these days and has a negative stigma attached to it. But to be a media artist is to take a brand and find its voice and tell its story and make it interesting and likeable. I think brands are...

September 7, 2016 — Tracy Lloyd

Win by Going Beyond Features and Benefits

Convincing minds by capturing hearts: the new brand-building approach What comes first? The rational decision to take the next step on the path to purchase, or the emotional trigger that gets them started on that path? Aren’t we humans cool? We pride ourselves on our cognitive skills, our ability to weigh pros and cons, and our decision-making power. After all, these factors separate us from other life forms. We also prefer to emphasize our thoughts because we are able to talk about them, explain them, and defend them. However, what is clear is that we are emotional beings. We navigate...

October 2, 2014 — Jerry Holtaway

Brand Strategy: Why Are Purpose and Feelings so Important Now?

Brand Strategy: Why are purpose and feelings so important now? An emotive brand is the persona-driven presence and experience of an organization that has proactively decided to orient itself around a meaningful and purposeful promise. Such brands do so with the intent of emotionally connecting to people on a deep level, by addressing core human needs. Most significant, an emotive brand strives to forge these attitude and behavior changing connections both inside and outside their organizations. To summarize, an emotive brand is: – Proactively meaningful across all its actions –...

September 29, 2014 — Tracy Lloyd

How to Mindfully Lead Change

Empathy in leadership In this thought-provoking video, KPCB* partner John Maeda reminds us of the importance of empathy in leadership. He suggests that leadership is a design problem, and notes that the best design comes from people who ask and listen before putting forward their ideas. Mindful leaders are, by nature, empathetic. They know that failing to listen first creates irrelevant communications and misunderstood gestures from leaders. As John Maeda says, “The people are there in the room, but nobody’s hearing what you say.” Connect more meaningfully To connect meaningfully to...

September 23, 2014 — Jerry Holtaway

Brand Strategy Without Brand Behavior = A Car Without an Engine

Brand strategy is step one. Defining the shifts to the brand required to live the new brand strategy is step two. We call that brand behavior. It’s becoming increasingly clear that brands need to run deep if they are to prevail in today’s world. This is because modern brands need to compete with not only each other, but also with an overwhelming number of ideas, considerations, and issues that flood the minds and hearts of the people important to any brand’s success. To cut through this noise, and to stand out in a meaningful way, brands need to exude a holistic and deeply...

September 22, 2014 — Jerry Holtaway

Human Friendly Brands

Should brands be more like humans? Or is the real goal to be “human-friendly” in form, behavior, and function? It’s something worth thinking about. Most of us in the advertising/marketing/branding biz tend to anthropomorphize brands. We think and write about them as if they were living, breathing people. However, in a thought-provoking piece, “The Human Paradox”, Gareth Kaye, Chief Strategy Officer of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, questions if that is the right approach: “I’ve come to believe that this failure of brands is down to us blindly believing that brands that are more human...

September 18, 2014 — Jerry Holtaway

The Next Wave of Brand Strategy

The role of brand strategy What makes your brand unique? How does it stand out in your category? What “significance” gets people flocking to your brand? What “stickiness” keeps people coming back to your brand? We wouldn’t be surprised if these questions keep you awake at night. After all, it’s clearly getting harder for brands to differentiate themselves. Categories are becoming commoditized as competitors mimic each other in both products and communications. Brand advantages based on innovation are short-lived as others rapidly copy technology, benefits,...

September 10, 2014 — Jerry Holtaway

The Role of Patience and Fortitude in Branding

The business world is tough out there It’s only natural, especially given today’s pressure cooker environment, to want instantly actionable ideas and immediate results. This is especially true the closer you are to the marketing machine within your business. At the same time, more and more businesses are realizing that they need to transform themselves in order to remain competitive, if not stay viable, in the 21st century. They are recognizing that their traditional strategies and tactics simply no longer work as expected. Also, the commoditization and price/value pressures they...

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