Topics

Strategy

Business Imperative: Socializing Strategy

August 27, 2019 —

Business Imperative: Socializing Strategy

One of the first things we learn in business is the importance of “having a plan.” Preferably, it should be a strategic plan, complete with milestones, action items, KPIs, and other important measures. This is definitely true. You need to have a plan, and you need to be socializing strategy. As someone who’s been in the consulting game for many years, I can’t count the number of times I’ve sat down with new clients only to discover that while there may, in fact, be a carefully (and expensively) constructed strategic plan, it’s a mystery to most employees. Chances are, they learned...
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Make It Sexy: The Big Impact of Branding “Boring” Things

May 30, 2019 —

Make It Sexy: The Big Impact of Branding “Boring” Things

Branding and advertising are infamous for making us covet things we don’t actually need. The super sleek sheen of a Tesla or an iPhone or a bra designed by NASA’s top scientists are alluring, but at the end of the day, they are merely luxuries. The question of getting people to need something they want is sales 101. But more and more, branding agencies are tackling the inverse. How do you get people to want the things they need? Is there a space for surprise and delight in the most boring, pedestrian motions of daily life: applying a bandage, brushing our teeth, wiping our bums? Welcome to...
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Mind the Gap: Bridging Strategy and Design

April 16, 2019 —

Mind the Gap: Bridging Strategy and Design

Here’s a simple truth I’ve learned working at both design-led and strategy-focused agencies. Strategy and design work best when they work together – from beginning to end. The problem is that strategy and creative are often regarded as separate instead of complementary disciplines. They have separate teams, separate processes, different skillsets, different client interactions. They approach problems from different angles. They may sit on different floors, different buildings, or even different firms. And, typically, the biggest communication between the teams is a handoff from one to the...
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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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Getting all the Stakeholders on the Same Page

February 19, 2019 —

Getting all the Stakeholders on the Same Page

In America, there is a strong belief that the success or failure of your venture comes down to individual drive. It’s you, and you alone, that can turn the tide in your favor. In reality, as even the most steadfast founders learn, much of your time will be devoted to appeasing external stakeholders. Sometimes, those who know the least about your vision will have the most influence over its chance of survival. Navigating the C-suite requires knowing how to engage stakeholders by building and nurturing relationships. The meaningful enterprise has moved from a transactional foundation — where...
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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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The Role of Company Culture in Business Success

October 16, 2018 —

The Role of Company Culture in Business Success

The Corporate World is Restructuring Company Culture Your company culture matters more than ever. Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends 2016 survey, “The new organization: Different by design,” maps and draws connections between the talent, leadership, and competitiveness challenges organizations around the world face. This year’s data indicates a shift: CEOs and HR leaders are more focused on culture as a source of competitive advantage than ever, and they are turning to restructuring their organizations to increase employee engagement and retention, improve leadership, and build the...
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How Brand Strategy Can Uplevel Your Company’s EQ

August 28, 2018 —

How Brand Strategy Can Uplevel Your Company’s EQ

Emotional Intelligence (EI or EQ) may account for as much as 80% of peoples’ personal success – more than intellectual intelligence (IQ). At Emotive Brand, we believe EQ matters as much as smarts for brands too. So how does EQ apply to brands, and what can B2B CMOs do to uplevel their organizational emotional intelligence? EQ has five components: self-awareness, self-regulation, internal motivation, empathy, and social skills. All of these apply to businesses as well as people. And all of them can impact basic business strategy, from how to articulate your brand to who to hire and how to...
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Aligning Business Strategy to Brand Strategy for Long-term Growth

August 13, 2018 —

Aligning Business Strategy to Brand Strategy for Long-term Growth

Planning for Tomorrow We’ve written a lot about the importance of aligning brand and business strategy. But many leaders dismiss the business strategy as something necessary for the brand strategy. However, without understanding where the business is going, the brand can’t help the business grow in strategic ways. Aligning Leadership It’s obvious to work with the marketing team when developing a brand strategy. But gaining clarity on the business strategy can’t happen in a silo. You can’t develop a coherent brand strategy without internal alignment around the business strategy. That means...
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The Balancing Act of Creative Direction

August 2, 2018 —

The Balancing Act of Creative Direction

The Journey Is the Destination When I was studying fiction at San Francisco State University, I had a professor that used to say, “If you know exactly what you want to write about, then why are you writing it?” It was a soft-ball criticism aimed at a particular kind of writer. Those that came in overconfident, inflexible, and usually with their entire story already mapped out beat for beat. In their rigid defense of what they thought the story should be, they missed the opportunity to truly discover what it is or what it could be. If there’s no journey of discovery, no unanswered questions...
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