Reading Time: 6 minutesIf you’re responsible for growing a brand, what are you trying to achieve? What does success look like? Some measure awareness. Others look at penetration. Or campaign results. But here are the five success criteria for brands that we look to use to judge progress over time and for proving brand effectiveness. Our five success […]
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Perspectives
Telling your whole brand story
Reading Time: 6 minutesEven the phrase “brand story” implies one thing. A single artefact. But the story of a brand comes together in more than just one piece of text. Telling your whole brand story is cumulative: a series of stories, told in different ways, to different audiences. In point of fact, the best brand stories are an […]
Motivation: Step 4 in activating a purposeful culture
Reading Time: 6 minutesThere’s a temptation to believe that the sheer logic of a good decision will sway the crowd; that if you make a good case and present it in an inspiring way, you’ve done everything you need to for that idea to gain instant uptake in an organisational culture. We’ve yet to see that happen successfully. […]
How to develop a brand positioning strategy
Reading Time: 12 minutesThe purpose of a brand positioning strategy is to identify the particular place in the market you want to dominate and where you can best deliver value. To do that, you need to mean something specific to customers. And to establish clear space between where you are and where others sit in the market. This […]
Your guide to a successful brand language audit
Reading Time: 11 minutesBefore you make changes to how you express your brand verbally, it’s important to understand how you talk now, how others speak and how customers think about what you offer. A brand language audit will help you accomplish all that. It’s the first step to understanding why – or even if – your language should […]
Exploration: Step 3 in building purposeful culture
Reading Time: 6 minutesHaving clearly outlined why change is needed and the opportunity that change could generate, too many culture change programmes then leave people to make the changes themselves without very much more explanation. This is the right time for exploration: for people to talk things through, in terms of the broad and personal implications of building […]
What makes a great brand story?
Reading Time: 5 minutesStorytelling is of course very much an idea whose time has come. And brands are increasingly using story formats to express themselves and to explain their place in the market and the world. But, what gives a story “lean-in” value? What turns any brand story into a great brand story? In this TED talk, filmmaker […]
Three ways brands are evolving – and what we think that means
Reading Time: 4 minutesAs brand marketers continue to search for ways to keep brands relevant, some recent inputs from Wharton on how brands are evolving are worth noting. Meaning vs moment Americus Reed has observed that the connection shoppers are looking to build with brands through purpose and vision spurs the need to build “a very deep, well […]
Inspiration. Step 2 in activating purposeful culture change
Reading Time: 6 minutesAn amazing thing happens when you ask people to imagine their current workplace working to its potential. First, they smile. Then they hesitate. Then they want to talk about everything that’s wrong and why a better workplace is not real or practical or feasible. Purposeful culture change takes time. If you’re patient though and you […]
Three different types of brand strategy
Reading Time: 4 minutesBrand strategy is often thought of one thing. At Audacity, we describe it as the ability to imagine a future for a brand to look forward to. An anticipated history. The implication is that one set of strategic skills is needed. Except that, confusingly, brand operates in a range of settings– and the strategic skills […]
Agitation: Step 1 in building a purposeful culture
Reading Time: 6 minutesWhen we ask people about whether they want to change the brand culture, there is ambivalence. In a distressed culture, everyone can see that something is wrong. But the thought of change is not necessarily comforting. To make the commitment to building a more purposeful culture, it’s critical to point to a cultural agitation point: […]
Great brand storytelling is all about structuring your storylines
Reading Time: 6 minutesBrand story has two distinct roles: it forms the basis for the different levels of narrative you unfurl over time to your audience; and it acts as the “brand in your head” reference point internally. The key to success is structuring your storylines so that they incorporate all the classic elements of good storytelling. Any […]