We recently found ourselves in the following conversation:
Client: We need to engage employees in our company’s new mission. We need your help with the execution of the communications campaign. We already have the positioning and messaging. The CEO wrote it.
DB: Oh, that’s great. What kind of research was conducted in developing…
Getting the green light to undertake a rebranding project is a moment to savor. You’ve got a mandate and a budget: time to hit the ground running. But you’re going to need an agency partner — even companies with in-house capabilities often go outside for fresh perspectives and expanded resources. So you’re…
Technology has been a business game-changer at every level — revolutionizing customer experience, enabling groundbreaking innovations, and accelerating the speed of business. Technology giants are expanding their reach while companies with decidedly non-tech histories like Maersk and even McDonald’s have reinvented themselves to excel in the digital era.
B2B tech companies need to…
In the months and years ahead, what should B2B marketers expect from branding design trends? For better or worse, pretty much what they’ve been seeing in consumer marketing for the past few years.
In early March 2020, New York magazine published an article asking “Will the millennial aesthetic ever end?” Its author, Molly Fisher…
What is brand experience? Yashumi Kasumi, Innovation and Creative Manager at IKEA, says,“A brand experience resembles the experiences you have with the people in your life…[it is] literally everything you have seen and heard — or even felt or smelt or tasted — about a brand.” This reflects a shift in the meaning of the…
In 2015, a year marked by unprecedented M&A activity in the technology industry, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (itself a spin-off) made headlines with its announcement of plans to spin-off its technology services operations and merge them with those of Computer Sciences. As then-Chief Executive Meg Whitman told it, the deal was…
Keeping the world safe from cybercrime is big business. In 2019, the cybersecurity market totaled $112 billion annually. By 2027, the market is expected to swell to more than $282 billion annually, an annual growth rate of over 12 percent, according to Fortune Business Insights. The reasons for this massive growth include the increasing prominence…
In 2018, there were more nearly 50,000 M&A transactions around the world. From tech to healthcare, consolidation is on the rise, and companies small and large are placing their bets on M&A activity as a strategic driver of growth. In this environment, it’s safe to assume that most B2B…
Successful B2B brands are built from the inside out. A company’s own people are the living embodiment of the brand in a way that is rarely the case with consumer businesses. How a B2B company’s people act, speak and even think will be far more effective in communicating the brand’s promise than…
To rename or not to rename? Clients often want to answer this question early in the project. And it makes sense. A new corporate or sub-brand name is not only very exciting, it’s also a huge investment. However, for this very reason, it’s may be best to postpone a naming decision until…
Once, “environmentally conscious” could be tossed off as a corporate buzzword. And companies could claim that the cost of sustainability was just too high. But, driven by technological advancement, the price of sustainable technologies and practices has plummeted, and the potential for savings is impressive. A 2018 report by the Global Commission on the Economy…
As behemoths are built, so do they separate. Corporate spinoffs are often in the news these days. From Bayer, to HP Enterprise, to DowDupont, many major conglomerates are spinning off divisions in hopes that narrowed focuses will result in easier management—and thus, higher profits. Siemens AG is one of the most prolific dismantlers, carving…
Although it seems like just yesterday we were reading about the rise of the millennials, a new generation is hovering outside the threshold of the corporate world. Generation Z is about to hit the workforce, and their unique motivations will force brands to reevaluate their internal and external strategies. While businesses have a few years…
Two regional banks’ futures are on the line, and all stakeholders await the decisions of the top brass: will a merger-of-equals result in lay-offs? At large firms today, most communication happens through email, and that’s how a lot of news is delivered (hopefully employees never have to learn company news via…
What is brand behavior? Simply put, brand behavior is how your brand interacts and reacts with real customers in the real marketplace. While your positioning statement may say one thing about your values and strengths, truly demonstrating them is another matter.
A missed opportunity
Picture this. You’re sitting at your desk flipping through a…
When large, complex organizations combine – whether through M&A or internal reorganization – a strong new brand can be the essential glue that holds the new entity together, both internally and in the minds of customers.
But a new brand is just one element in the successful integration of two organizations. There are myriad other…
Influencer marketing is gaining momentum across the marketing landscape, but rapid growth sometimes comes with growing pains. Consumer influencer marketing in particular has often nabbed the wrong kind of earned media.
One of the more notorious episodes: a 2017 video spot featuring influencer Kendall Jenner handing a Pepsi to a police officer at a staged…
A lot has been written about the ‘prolonged demise’ of Yahoo, which is still puttering along, despite its purchase by Verizon Media in 2017. The internet company has suffered a tumultuous and tiring 25-year identity crisis. This was perhaps most famously crystalized in the leaked “Peanut Butter Manifesto,”an internal memo from 2006 that…