Decoding the strategies of successful brands.
Our industry insights deliver some of the most relevant theories, concepts, and information in the world of branding, marketing, and beyond.
De-positioning: The Most Effective Way to Position a Brand in Market
Ask not how your branding agency can help you change the world. Ask how your branding agency can help grow your business. My twenty-plus years career running branding agencies have taught me what works and what doesn’t work in terms of positioning a business for growth. Many trends, perspectives, and buzzwords come and go. New ones continually pop up.
B2B Brands Communicate the Wrong Messages, Says McKinsey
Recent research suggests a surprising gap between what B2B brands communicate to customers and what customers really want to hear. In an article published in McKinsey Quarterly, the market research firm delivers what may be shocking news to some: customers do not care as much about low prices or a commitment to sustainability.
B2B Brands Do a Poor Job of Differentiating, Says Google
A study we found, commissioned by Google and The Corporate Executive Board Company (CEB), places the blame for poor sales performance squarely upon the shoulders of brand managers, reporting a 500% gain in consideration, 1,300% gain in purchases and 3,000% gain in willingness to pay a premium for products with which the customer has a high brand connection.
Is Your Brand Going through an Identity Crisis?
What happens if your brand makes a bold change and it backfires? Maybe your customers hate your new tagline or logo, or they think your new packaging is off-putting. Whatever the reason, you’re seeing a wave of negative feedback on social media – which feels pretty devastating when you’ve just invested time and resources on your project.
Why Brands Need to Keep It Simple (Seriously)
But they still do it, shoving the proverbial five pounds in the four pound bag. And so I must say, we’re in the midst of a true branding crisis—a crisis of wordiness, of TMI and unabashed oversharing. We’re in a Crisis of Content.
Should You Disrupt? That’s the Question for Business Leaders
Has the word “disruption” been thrown around so much that it’s lost all its power? The idea of brand disruption has been thrust so far into the limelight, businesses are clamoring to disrupt without really knowing if it’s the right business move to make. Brand disruption means breaking away from the marketing norm and doing things differently: differentiating your brand look and feel, your brand voice, how you design your packaging, how you advertise and, of course, creating an innovative product.
When Recruitment Is the Problem, Internal Branding Is the Solution
Brand story is at the core of what we do at our consultancy. Working directly with CEOs and leadership, we identify marketing and business pain points that both customers and employees experience. Once discovering those challenges, we design strategies to alleviate them and, off of those strategies, create messaging campaigns that deliver clear, compelling and purposeful brand stories. An interesting trend we’ve noticed with clients and prospects in the past year is that cultivating new business isn’t the first thing of importance on their list. It’s recruiting.
On Weight Watchers’ New Name: Why Simplicity Isn’t So Simple
Is Weight Watchers’ name change the right brand strategy? On the heels of Weight Watchers’ recent rebrand, Adweek published a scathing critique, calling the rebrand “directionless and forced.” The renaming from Weight Watchers to WW got the most criticism. Now, on one hand, Weight Watchers had the right idea. Like Dunkin’ Donuts’ recent simplification to Dunkin’, these household brand names underwent brand-surgery to get leaner.