Topics

Positioning


Positioning Testing: Is It Worth It? 

Positioning Testing: Is It Worth It? 

Now that data-driven decision making has become the norm in marketing, it’s shocking when a brand misses the mark so badly. As the Twitter-sphere implodes, everyone is wondering ‘What happened? Why didn’t they test with customers?’ Most brands do rely on some form of testing before launching an advertising campaign…and the ones that don’t pay the price. But what about brand strategy? Is testing necessary before deploying a brand positioning? The answer isn’t one that data-driven organizations like to hear: it depends. For some brand teams, it’s absolutely necessary to pause and gather...
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Eight Questions to Evaluate the Strength of Your Brand

Eight Questions to Evaluate the Strength of Your Brand

Do you ever wonder about the strength of your brand? And its impact on your business? Do you monitor it and measure it? Do you evaluate it like you do for your business? If you wanted to know how it’s doing, would you even know what questions to ask? We’ve put together a quick diagnostic test to help CEOs assess when it’s time to for a strategic brand check-up. Eight Questions to Ask Yourself to Evaluate the Strength of Your Brand Does your company have a purpose that your employees live up to every day? Is it meaningfully activated in your corporate strategy, inspiring how your business...
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Is it Time for a Brand Refresh?

Is it Time for a Brand Refresh?

What Got You Here Sometimes it’s hard to recognize that it’s time for a brand refresh. Why embark on a brand refresh if your business is successfully growing? Many high-growth companies grow organically, without any strategic direction. Things takeoff. Your team expands. New offices open. Your product line multiplies. And growth mode may happen without making plans for how the brand will accommodate and flex as the business develops. At these times, decisions are often made that help an internal team manage change. In many cases, this means that some of the key brand components end up...
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To Every Marketing VP: How to Talk About Brand so Your CEO Will Listen

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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Using Benchmarking Research to Track Growth and ROI

Using Benchmarking Research to Track Growth and ROI

Many of our clients count on their brand strategy to be a springboard for growth. Whether they’re falling short of ambitious goals or have truly hit a wall, brand strategy can help create the shifts they need to move ahead. But how do you measure success beyond hard numbers like revenue and inbound queries? How do you get insight into whether, how, and how much your brand strategy is fueling your growth – and what more it might be able to do? Brand perceptions, after all, are a squishier metric than dollars. Right? Benchmarking Research Demonstrates ROI Not necessarily. Brand perceptions can...
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Category Creators: Creating a New Brand Category to Drive Growth

Category Creators: Creating a New Brand Category to Drive Growth

Category As A Frame Of Reference A brand’s frame of reference is the foundation of its positioning. It will determine the points of parity the brand has to meet in order to be considered a legitimate player, and highlight opportunities to differentiate. As such, your brand needs to fit into the framework of a brand category that people understand and relate to in order to really ‘get’ your brand. As UC Berkeley Professor George Lakoff explains, a frame of reference is absolutely essential, get it wrong and your difference may be ignored: “Framing provides a mental structure that shapes the...
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Brand Strategy Trends: What These Shifts Mean for Businesses and Brands

Brand Strategy Trends: What These Shifts Mean for Businesses and Brands

Looking Back, Looking Forward: 2018 B2B Brand Strategy Trends Any new year brings up the opportunity to reflect on the year that’s been – and what’s to come. As Emotive Brand’s Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, I talk to individuals in different roles, at companies of every size and maturity. I am truly lucky – it puts me on the frontline as B2B brand strategy trends develop in real time. Here are some of the most interesting trends I observed in 2017 and what’s on my mind as we move into 2018: 1. Messaging That Can Flex Whether it’s short attention spans or Twitter’s influence, our...
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Nothing Sells Itself: Why Storytelling Should Drive Demand Generation

Nothing Sells Itself: Why Storytelling Should Drive Demand Generation

Emotive Brand Expert #1: Greg Howard As a brand strategy and design agency, we have the privilege of being able to visit innovative companies from a myriad of fields. From global law firms to burgeoning start-ups, we get to pull back the curtain and observe how brands are built, from the inside out. Drawing on our ever-growing network, we’re excited to launch our Emotive Brand Experts series. In these posts, 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...
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Naming a New Brand Category is Harder Than it Looks

Naming a New Brand Category is Harder Than it Looks

Failed category labels are laughable. Before there were snowboards, there was snurfers. PDA phones preempted smartphones. Charga-plates rolled out before credit cards took their place. It seems obvious now why each current category name is so much stronger than its predecessor. But missing the mark with category naming is a mistake that’s easy to make. In our last post about how to define a new category, we left off with what is most commonly considered the fun part of strategy: naming. If you’ve gotten this far, you’ve identified that your existing category isn’t serving your brand’s needs....
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Why It’s Frickin’ Hard for Organizations to Brand Themselves

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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