Topics

Brand

Why It’s Frickin’ Hard for Organizations to Brand Themselves

July 22, 2017 —

Why It’s Frickin’ Hard for Organizations to Brand Themselves

The need for a branding agency is hard to determine sometimes. Many of Emotive Brand’s clients come to us after failed attempts to develop their own brand strategy. Just last week, a client sent us some themes they’d identified in an internal brand survey, along with a frustrated note: “We’ve gotten this far. We’re stuck. Can you help?” Why is it so hard for organizations to brand themselves from the inside? Aren’t the people who live and breathe a brand every day the most obvious choice to articulate it? That’s a logical conclusion, and clients who have tried often feel frustrated that they...
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Creating Meaningful Brand Connections

June 29, 2017 —

Creating Meaningful Brand Connections

Creating Meaning by creating more meaningful brand connections In our latest white paper, “Transforming your brand into an emotive brand”, we introduce a number of key drivers of our thinking, including the notion of “Meaning/meaningful brand connections”. In our white paper we top-line this key driver in this way: Emotive and meaningful brands strive to operate at a higher level than conventional brands. They act, interact, and react in ways that make every moment emotionally meaningful. Your customers and employees are left feeling more secure and connected. They...
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Nostalgic Brands are Capturing Hearts and Minds

June 19, 2017 —

Nostalgic Brands are Capturing Hearts and Minds

A Nostalgic Age As technologies continue to innovate and find new modes of connection, businesses need to move faster than the speed of light. But while moving forward is key to business success, many brands are looking backwards…and with success. Nostalgia is, no doubt, in. Bath & Body Works just announced the reintroduction of the old scents of the ’90s. The Sacramento Kings have embraced nostalgia with a new logo. Urban Outfitter’s is full of Polaroids, records, and retro cassette players. TV networks are bringing back ’90s favorites like Boy Meets World and...
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Feel the “Good Burn” of a Strategy that Surprises

June 13, 2017 —

Feel the “Good Burn” of a Strategy that Surprises

Get out of Your Comfort Zone How do you feel about the brand strategies your agency is producing? Good? Comfortable? If that’s the case, those strategies may not be doing as much for you as they can. Staying in your comfort zone strategically is about as impactful as staying in your comfort zone at the gym. If excellence is your aim, you’ll only get there by feeling the burn. Of course, a bad strategy will make you uncomfortable too. So how do you know when a strategy is pushing your brand uncomfortably toward excellence? Here Are Three Components of a Feel-The-Burn Strategy: 1. Information...
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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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Disruptive Brands: How to Challenge the Status Quo and Succeed

June 1, 2017 —

Disruptive Brands: How to Challenge the Status Quo and Succeed

Disruptive Brands Are In We’ve talked some about disruptive brands, why challenging the status quo and presenting information in a fresh way is an important driver of successful businesses today. Millennials value disruption more than any generation before. Many brands and businesses today are thriving because they aren’t afraid to do something new and make a splash. Companies everywhere are trying to figure out how to be the next Uber, AirBnB, or Amazon of their industry – innovating faster than their competition, hiring the most creative people out there, and doing something that’s never...
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Marketing vs. Brand? Do You Know the Difference?

May 15, 2016 —

Marketing vs. Brand? Do You Know the Difference?

Marketing vs. Brand People are sometimes confused about the difference between marketing vs. brand strategy. This is not surprising, because they are not mutually exclusive ideas. They are interdependent strategic activities that feed, inform, and drive each other. The important distinction to make is in the intent and desired outcome of each area. Brand Brand defines how people should ideally feel about your business and products. It strives to find how to optimize belief in what you do offer and what you stand for in the world. It is an abstract idea held in the hearts and minds of people...
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Why Brand/Artist Collaborations Are Taking Center Stage

April 19, 2017 —

Why Brand/Artist Collaborations Are Taking Center Stage

Brand/Artist Collaborations In the Spotlight The rise of brand/artist collaborations in recent years says a lot about where branding is headed. What were once two separate playing fields are now overlapping more than ever before. And for brands and artists alike, it’s a powerful joining of forces. The list of recent brand/artist collaborations is ongoing. French visual artist, Ludo, collaborated with cutting-edge fashion brand MINOTAUR to create a capsule collection that tied the brand to Ludo’s unique, hybrid style of juxtaposing the natural world with technology – helping MINOTAUR live up...
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Entrepreneurs — Why You Need This Advice for Your Next VC Pitch

March 22, 2017 —

Entrepreneurs — Why You Need This Advice for Your Next VC Pitch

The Entrepreneur Pitch Every day, in offices up and down Sand Hill Road, founders meet with venture capitalists to make their pitch. For entrepreneurs, these aren’t mere meetings. They are defining moments, perhaps life-changing ones. Only the truly clueless would be unprepared for meetings of this magnitude. Rock-solid business plan? Check. Technology road map? Check. Go-to-market strategy? Market analyses? Financial projections? Check. Check. Check. And yet…despite all that exhaustive effort, many entrepreneurs are not truly ready for what might one of the most important meetings of their...
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