Topics

Marketing

How to Get the Most Out of Strategic Messaging

February 4, 2021 —

How to Get the Most Out of Strategic Messaging

Traditional Messaging Isn’t Working For as long as people have communicated, we’ve had messaging. Many of the most well-known messengers are religious figures — the usual suspects like Moses, Muhammad, and Jesus. In business, messaging has always been part of some corporate function like marketing, communications, or investor relations. Messaging is not going away. What’s changed is the way we communicate. We and other agencies have for years delivered messaging in a one-page, multilevel framework. While still useful, these one-page grids are no longer valuable tools on their own. So we’re...
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Talking Marketing Strategies in a COVID-19 World: Interview with Joshua Schnoll, Marketing VP

May 12, 2020 —

Talking Marketing Strategies in a COVID-19 World: Interview with Joshua Schnoll, Marketing VP

An Interview with a VP of Marketing: Marketing Strategies, Growth, Innovation, & Teamwork in a COVID-19 World We sat down with Joshua Schnoll, VP of Marketing at AppDirect, a subscription commerce platform that gives businesses the freedom to grow, to talk about marketing strategies in a COVID-19 world and beyond. Joshua shares insights and thoughts on how strategy has shifted, the implications of this time on growth, brand, innovation, and teamwork, as well as what kind of mindset leaders should be adopting as this crisis continues to unfold. Obviously, our world has been greatly...
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How to Tune-Up Your Bullshit Detector


May 23, 2019 —

How to Tune-Up Your Bullshit Detector


In the immortal words of Jon Stewart, “Bullshit is everywhere. There is very little that you will encounter in life that has not been, in some way, infused with bullshit.” As a brand strategy and design agency, we live in the intersection between people and brands. This is perhaps one of the most fertile, organic spaces for bullshit to thrive. The speed of technology has created a sizeable gap between those who know what they’re talking about and those who don’t. Our job, to the best of our abilities, is to eradicate the nonsense, the fluff, the jargon, the overpromising and...
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How to Launch a New Brand Category

March 4, 2019 —

How to Launch a New Brand Category

Launching A New Brand Category The decision to join an existing category, or to launch a new brand category is not an easy decision. Evaluating your product maturity, the product roadmap, and overall market maturity is critical. Once the decision is made, the strategy shifts to creating the right budget and plan to launch the new brand category. Building momentum is paramount to both the category’s success, and by proxy, your own brand’s position as the category leader. As we’ve previously discussed, timing is critical for launch. You need to consider factors of competition, messaging,...
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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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Finally Create Marketing Materials Sales Actually Uses

August 7, 2018 —

Finally Create Marketing Materials Sales Actually Uses

Marketing Materials: Is Sales Using Them? If you’re in marketing, you’ve probably created some awesome campaign assets only to find out that the sales team never used them. Or maybe you planned a customer event with a meaty agenda, but no one in Sales sent invites. You spend tons of time creating marketing materials and executing events and campaigns only to find Sales finds no value in them – and doesn’t share them. So how do you create marketing materials Sales actually uses? You work with Sales as much as possible. Know the Sales Strategy First, you’ve got to bring Sales into the...
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To Every Marketing VP: How to Talk About Brand so Your CEO Will Listen

July 26, 2018 —

To Every Marketing VP: How to Talk About Brand so Your CEO Will Listen

The Role of VP of Marketing – It’s Not Easy Is VP of Marketing one of the hardest corporate jobs? We think so. As a Marketing VP, you have a set of responsibilities that varies dramatically day-to-day – and company to company. You touch every area of an organization and engage with almost every member of the leadership team to solve your business’s most pertinent problems. People look to you to drive demand gen campaigns, build awareness for products and the overall brand, support sales teams, support the company’s HR, and fuel recruitment efforts. And, of course, no technology marketing job...
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AI and Machine Learning: A Future Forward for Brands?

June 28, 2018 —

AI and Machine Learning: A Future Forward for Brands?

The Future, It’s Here: AI and Machine Learning It’s easy to think of an AI-led world as a thing of the future – that movie-like image where robots run hotels, TV ads know your name, and data is more valuable than the gold people ran to California for decades ago. Yes, the future is blurry, exciting, full of fear, and countless unknowns. Yes, it is changing every day – and fast. But the future is happening, now. In fact, AI is already integrated into the way each of us experience brands every day – even if we don’t know it. You wake up in the morning and ask Alexa what the weather is. You...
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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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