You can’t deny that the brand story is all the rage with companies these days. Pop open forbes.com or Inc.com and you’ll likely see at least one article on the homepage with the words “story” or “storytelling” in the title. And I can’t tell you how many consultants, agencies, and even former literary authors I’ve Read More
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Protip: Find Your Brand’s Enemy
When you identify your enemy, you give everyone inside and outside your company a shorthand by which to understand and describe who you are, your values and what you probably do. Think about it: Your enemy: termites. Your organization: pest control Your enemy: the confusion of the tax code. Your organization: tax prep. Your enemy: Read More
No Brand Can Be Everything
Brands fail when they try to be everything. And even though we can easily tell the difference between brands that know who they are and brands that don’t, developing your own brand can seem random and uncontrolled. Let’s see if we can arrive at some clarity. “The World Needs You As You Are.” And it Read More
Protip: Pretest Your Brief
The creative brief tells anyone touching or reviewing the piece—whether it’s a blog post or set of social media posts—exactly what the piece is supposed to do. So how do you pretest its effectiveness? Find out if it inspires your creatives. “What is it we’re selling, who’s it for, and why does it matter to Read More
4 Reasons You’ll Have To Rebrand This Year (Part 2)
In our first part of this series on rebranding, we covered the first two reasons you’ll need to rebrand your company: You have a new vision You’re scaling up Both of these focused on the positive, internal changes that are causing your brand to need to change to keep up with your company, leadership, and Read More
The One-Page That Will Focus Your Content
Much of the unfocused marketing crap we see in the world comes from a lack of focus and discipline. This post is about a document that will change all that, creating a sharp focus for all of your messaging. It’s called the creative brief, and it’s been used to devastating effect in the famous “Got Read More
4 Reasons You’ll Have To Rebrand This Year (Part 1)
It’s a new year, and I’m sure for some in your company, that means they’re bandying about the ‘R’ word in your latest strategic planning meeting. You know the word: Rebrand. But is this really the year for such an exhaustive (and perhaps exhausting) change to your company? Is this really what you need to Read More
Protip: Close Your Laptop and Think
How to discipline your research: avoid bottom-up thinking. Bottom-up thinking, in research, puts you at the mercy of the information you’re seeking. It might mean looking on the internet for insights related to your goal, but with no clear question. Without that question, you end up down rabbit trails that waste your time. A top-down Read More
Building Creative Strategy: Researching Connection
“Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.” – Zora Neale Hurston There is science in connection with your audience. After you’ve completed steps 1: the SWOT analysis and 2: Maslow’s Pyramid, you now know the benefit you want to convey to your audience. Now, it’s time to find out how Read More
Protip: A Simple Test of Relevance
You are most relevant when you’re in your audience’s story. So how do you know which kind of story you’re telling? I other words, is it about me, my customer, or about something we all believe is bigger? The simple test is in how it fits into a sentence. Attribute: “Our product has x.” Example: Read More
