Reading Time: 4 minutes Here’s a salutary little tale about strategic goal setting. It’s no news that there is a global water crisis and that large corporations, which consume 40% of all the water used in the developed world, have an important role to play in being part of the solution. Which brings us to the dichotomy. On the […]
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Perspectives
Taking the time to build a sustainable brand
Reading Time: 10 minutes On the face of it, building a sustainable brand looks relatively straight-forward. After all many brands already claim to be doing this. That’s both good news – and misleading. Taking the time to build a sustainable brand requires patience, focus and an ability to rethink priorities. It’s inspiring to see brands addressing their environmental impact, […]
Why linking strategy, culture and stories matters
Reading Time: 5 minutes It’s tempting to ignore linking strategy, culture and stories. After all they seem like different things, and address different aspects of bringing a brand to life. At first glance, strategy focuses on where the business needs to get to. Culture talks to how you bring out the best in people. Stories are how audiences receive […]
How to identify and meet unmet customer needs
Reading Time: 10 minutes Many people believe that an innovation will sell itself; that if they present a solution that is well crafted, brimming with features and solves the problem they have identified, then they will enjoy success. But catering to unmet customer needs, while potentially lucrative, is nowhere near as simple as just presenting buyers with something new. […]
Refreshing your brand promise
Reading Time: 6 minutes If you need to change how you are seen in the market, refreshing your brand promise (and committing to what it now requires) could be a powerful and effective solution. It’s tempting to believe that great products will sell themselves. Or even that having a great product is enough. Producers and entrepreneurs sometimes believe their […]
The invisible language
Reading Time: 3 minutes Mark’s friend Simon used to be a designer. One of his favourite lines was “Great kerning will save the world”. Chances are if you’re an art director or a designer or, if like us, you work with art directors and designers every day, you’ll find this amusing because it references a whole bunch of things […]
Challenging a brand category
Reading Time: 5 minutes Sectors have conventions. In fact, a brand category is really a set of vertically-held behaviours and attitudes. That’s what you’re really confronting when you set about challenging a brand category. As Paige Lansing Valle of Emotive Brand identifies in a white paper on brand category creation, “People hold on tightly to their established understandings of […]
Successful brand expansion
Reading Time: 5 minutes Several years ago, brand strategists Pete Canalichio and Mark set out to develop a framework for brands that were looking to expand. Both were intrigued to know why some brands were able to successfully grow within and beyond the sector they started in, while others struggled or even declined when they attempted to expand their […]
Managing unexpected brand success
Reading Time: 7 minutes Marketers are relentlessly judged on performance. Growth is everyone’s KPI. And yet, as every direct marketer knows, be careful what you ask for. One of the biggest challenges any brand can face is managing unexpected brand success. In this post: Dealing with unexpected success Too much, too little, or both Controlling unexpected brand interest Building […]
Setting your north star purpose
Reading Time: 6 minutes Keith Yamashita started it – companies and brands finding their northern star. At least, that’s where we first heard it. The term isn’t astronomical, it’s aspirational. Your north star purpose is an ideal of your company or brand that burns bright in front of you and your staff, that leads you on, that fires you […]
Every pricing strategy needs a story
Reading Time: 8 minutes The temptation is to see story as a luxury item: something that brands implement to lift their margin. There’s nothing wrong with that of course – it’s powerful and it works. But we don’t think that story is just a top-end nice-to-have. Our view is that most brands, no matter where they are positioned in […]
Finding your brand mandate
Reading Time: 5 minutes What gives you the right to sell a product/service at margin today? It’s easy to assume you have a brand mandate. Or that you deserve one. But what is your brand doing to earn/retain the mandate it wants/has?