Topics

Growth

The Value of Investing in Your Brand to Drive Long-Term Growth


January 8, 2019 —

The Value of Investing in Your Brand to Drive Long-Term Growth


Attention Span Is Dead, Long Live Attention Span For years, we’ve been told that our attention spans are shrinking. There is so much information, so many channels and devices vying for our attention, that we couldn’t possibly focus on anything for too long. Combine that with economic pressures, shareholder expectations, and the race to keep up in the digital age, and you get something called short-termism. Fueled by our fixation on metrics, short-termism is a concentration on quick wins to move the needle. It posits an immediate, attention-grabbing impact over strategically driven,...
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The Pros and Cons of Launching a New Category

November 20, 2018 —

The Pros and Cons of Launching a New Category

What’s Old Is New Again People have been drinking coffee, listening to music, and shopping for groceries forever. But if you peered into the modern household, chances are these common operations would look completely foreign to someone ten years ago. One might load a coffee pod while streaming an album from their phone, then ask their voice assistant to add something to their online cart. This is the brave new world of brand category creation, and it’s something that we’ve written about extensively. The reason we spend so many words on this topic is that it’s absolutely paramount to...
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Integrating Company Cultures After a Merger or Acquisition

October 22, 2018 —

Integrating Company Cultures After a Merger or Acquisition

High M&A Activity Mergers and acquisitions are at an all time high, with $4.7 trillion of global deals signed last year according to a recent M&A report by KMPG. And although the payoff of a successful M&A is great, these are high risk deals. It’s not just about the financial gains. Reputations are on the line. Stakeholders observe nervously. And in order to ensure the expected return on investment is delivered, a great deal of planning around integrating company culture must go into the preparation. Cultural Integration Issues After an acquisition, the merger is a difficult...
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Business Growth: Steps to Success for the Mid-Market

September 26, 2018 —

Business Growth: Steps to Success for the Mid-Market

Leveraging new data about business growth from the National Center for the Middle Market, Emotive Brand identifies three key factors that make all the difference. Business growth is always good. But sustained, consistent growth is always better. Data from the National Center for the Middle Market shows that the best indicator of company’s financial future is not how fast it grows, but how often it grows. Those that expand incrementally are more apt to survive, thrive, and outperform. Companies that grow consistently are more adept at aligning their organizations’ people and practices around...
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Marketing Strategy That Fuels Growth

April 10, 2018 —

Marketing Strategy That Fuels Growth

More than ever, CMOs are being looked to as the primary growth drivers of their companies. But what if you seem to be doing everything right and growth is still falling short? You have a strong brand strategy in place, a good sales team, and your marketing strategy is being executed on time and on budget. What then? Chances are good that, if you’re experiencing a disconnect like this, the problem lies in the connection between your brand and your target audience. You may be reaching them. But how successfully are you really connecting with them? How can you identify the problem? And what can...
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How to Bring in a Branding Agency (And Still Thrive as a Creative Director)

April 3, 2018 —

How to Bring in a Branding Agency (And Still Thrive as a Creative Director)

Agency or Enemy? If you’re a Creative Director, chances are you’re some lovely mix of imagination, diplomacy, market knowledge, and damn good design sense. You bring focus to every project. You know how to communicate across disciplines and departments. After all, that’s why you were hired. So why in God’s name would you ever need to bring in an outside branding agency? And if by some cruel twist of fate you’re forced into this position, how do you avoid effectively hiring your replacement? If You’re Reading This Creative Brief, We’re Already Behind Schedule...
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How CMOs Can Control Their Brand Message in the Age of Digital Sprawl

February 21, 2018 —

How CMOs Can Control Their Brand Message in the Age of Digital Sprawl

The New CMO What does a CMO do? Just a few years ago, that was an easy question to answer. You focused on building a brand. You managed your channels: press, radio, a TV spot, maybe even an outdoor installation if you were feeling ambitious. Like a conductor, you could orchestrate your brand message with Mozart-like precision. Marketing, itself, was a pure sport, clearly defined. Flash forward to today, and the blurred lines between technology, marketing, and sales are harder to discern than ever. Fluency in digital transformation has gone from a specialty to a requirement. CMOs need to be...
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Emotive Data: Designing Quantitative Research for Emotional Insight

February 13, 2018 —

Emotive Data: Designing Quantitative Research for Emotional Insight

Emotive Brand may not seem like a green eyeshade kind of place. After all, we’re in the business of creating emotional connections between brands and people. You may ask, “Why use quantitative research at all? Isn’t qualitative better for emotional insight?” In fact, we find quantitative research very rich – and extremely useful for building our clients’ brands and businesses. Qualitative insight is important too, but whenever we can, we start with quant. It helps us move the needle on both functional and emotional measures. It also provides a baseline from which to measure change. We...
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Is an Agile Strategy the Right Approach for Brand Strategy?

October 27, 2017 —

Is an Agile Strategy the Right Approach for Brand Strategy?

Dynamic Times Require Agile Strategy We have seen a a large rise of requests for our proprietary agile strategy methodology for brand strategy. More than ever, sudden market changes, disruptive business models, rapid-paced technology, and ever-evolving competition demand agility. As customers change, new competition enters and new categories emerge, so businesses must be able to flex and adapt with the times. Without Agility, Less Impact Agility is becoming more and more of an expectation. And being agile doesn’t mean being hasty or impulsive. In fact, it’s the opposite. Agile strategy...
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Getting Executives to See the ROI of Brand Strategy

October 6, 2017 —

Getting Executives to See the ROI of Brand Strategy

Emotive Brand Expert #2: Matt Wolfrom Continuing our Emotive Brand Experts series, 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 post, we speak with Matt Wolfrom, the Vice President of Corporate Marketing & Communications at Synacor. Before that, he worked in a VP role at both PubMatic and ShareThis. *** Business Solutions vs. Branding Solutions There are few things trickier than getting an executive to invest in brand strategy. It’s never the right...
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