Topics

Emotive Branding


When Your Employees Are Your Advertising Campaign

When Your Employees Are Your Advertising Campaign

I’ve been reading a number of books on branding written by people from advertising agencies. They invariably regard advertising – most often citing TV ads – as the most potent vehicle for branding. They have a case. Television is an excellent vehicle for emotional storytelling. These experts point to ads we all know (and love?) as proof of its power. From cars to sugar water to potato chips, TV advertising has driven brands to success by making even the most prosaic product features resonate with emotional importance. But what about all the (big) brands in this world that...
Read more >

Should Your Business Embrace a Purpose-led Brand Strategy?

Should Your Business Embrace a Purpose-led Brand Strategy?

Purpose-led The notion of purpose-led  does more than make brands appealing to people – it makes money for the businesses that embrace the concept. So claims the chairman of Deloitte, an active evangelist for the “squishy business attribute” called purpose. Why invest in a woolly, emotional, and squishy idea like purpose? Won’t it be hard to get everyone in my organization and all my customers to understand and embrace it? What is it really beyond a set of words? What value does brand strategy deliver? These are the questions I often confront as a proponent of empathy, purpose, and emotion....
Read more >

Is Your Brand Holding Back Your Business?

Is Your Brand Holding Back Your Business?

There’s a price to pay when your brand simply languishes. It’s the cost of lost opportunities. Are you missing the opportunity to change the way people feel about your brand, and hence, what they can do to make your brand more successful. By people, we mean customers, employees, partners, investors, communities, influencers, and so on…. Indeed, we mean all the people who are vital to your brand’s succcess. It’s their decisions and actions that determine your fate. They think and act based on what they feel. If your brand doesn’t make them feel something,...
Read more >

A Brand Strategy that Focuses on “Truths”

A Brand Strategy that Focuses on “Truths”

In our latest white paper we list five fundamental principles that drive our efforts to help your brand thrive in the 21st century. Here, we explore one of our drivers: “truth, authenticity, and credibility.”Here’s an explanatory extract from the white paper: “Emotive brand strategies are built out of what is already true about your brand. As such, the new purpose and behaviors we propose are authentic to what your brand is, and are welcomed by customers and employees as credible offerings from your brand.” But exactly what “truth” are we seeking?...
Read more >

What is Emotive Design?

What is Emotive Design?

Emotive design is a component of emotive branding that engages people in a focused way that strives to evoke the specific feelings the brand seeks to own. Using color, lines, shape, form, texture, light – and nothingness – designers create both passive and interactive experiences that resonant with the brand’s emotional space. Emotive design is not overtly emotional design. Operating at a subtle and subconscious level, these design cues work to reinforce and enhance other dimensions of the way people interact with the brand. From the highly tangible experience of using a product to the...
Read more >

Bridging the Meaning Gap

Bridging the Meaning Gap

A great post by Tom Fishburne talks about the risks of going too far in your efforts to matter to people. He cites the example of the “Dove Campaign For Real Beauty”, a notable example of a meaningful brand presence, which started as a concept many steps up the brand ladder. When those “too grandiose” ideas were shot down by real people (formerly known as consumers), the focus turned to building meaning from the product up. The lesson: in your pursuit to bridge the meaning gap, and to create more meaning around your business, product, service or brand (a smart thing...
Read more >

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

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  –...
Read more >

The Next Wave of Brand Strategy

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,...
Read more >

Brand Truths That Focuses on What’s Truly Meaningful

Brand Truths That Focuses on What’s Truly Meaningful

Brand Truths In our latest white paper we list five fundamental principles that drive our efforts to help your brand thrive in the 21st century. Here, we explore one of our drivers: “truth, authenticity, and credibility.” This is what we refer to as brand truths. Here’s an explanatory extract from the white paper: “Emotive brand strategies are built out of what is already true about your brand. As such, the new purpose and behaviors we propose are authentic to what your brand is, and are welcomed by customers and employees as credible offerings from your brand.”...
Read more >

Is a Misunderstood Brand Holding Back Your Business?

Is a Misunderstood Brand Holding Back Your Business?

  There’s a price to pay when your brand simply languishes. It’s the cost of lost opportunities. First, you are missing the opportunity to change the way people feel about your brand, and hence, what they can do to make your brand more successful. By people, we mean customers, employees, partners, investors, communities, influencers, and so on…. Indeed, we mean all the people who are vital to your brand’s succcess. It’s their decisions and actions that determine your fate. They think and act based on what they feel. If your brand doesn’t make them...
Read more >