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…
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…
What’s the difference between a brand refresh and a wholesale rebrand? How do you know which you need? Read on for a demystification of the difference — and tips for determining which approach is right for you.
A tricky distinction
In most people’s minds, a brand refresh is a surface-level makeover, one that…
From a business perspective, few things are as critical to get right as a major merger or acquisition — and few things are as challenging. On the long list of considerations during M&A activity, merger branding is one of the most crucial. Not getting brand right is a key reason that, according to the…
In today’s digitally-driven B2B marketing environment — one which offers buyers easy access to access to an array of information and a plethora of opinions — companies no longer control exactly where or when customers or prospects encounter their brand. And with 68 percent of B2B buyers preferring to conduct independent research online, it’s…
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…
For a business to be successful, it’s no longer enough to just have the best offering or most talented employees. These have become table stakes thanks to players like Amazon and Airbnb that have reinvented what it means to be customer-centric. Now, customers can order almost anything with the click of a button…
When a company makes a major strategic pivot, such as M&A or entering a different category, leadership often ponders a new name, design language, and messaging. These are all important considerations, but too often one of the most crucial underlying aspects of a customer’s experience is overlooked—the company’s brand architecture…
It’s the classic chicken or egg question — which element comes first when aligning brand and culture? Leadership teams often ask us this question during transformation initiatives. While there is no one-size-fits-all answer, there are three critical questions that any leadership team must answer to understand how to begin optimizing the relationship…
A thoughtfully developed tagline can be a concise expression of a brand, an effective way to quickly communicate its unique value proposition. Too often, though, B2B taglines are formulaic and predictable.
Case in point: Shopify created an online tool called the “Free Slogan Maker.” It asks you to “simply enter a term that describes your…
We recently visited the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum’s exhibition, “Saturated: The Allure and Science of Color.” The exhibition covers the development of color theory, and traces its application from antiquity to modern times through more than 190 objects. The director of the museum, Caroline Baumann, emphasizes that the exhibit “advances our understanding of…
DeSantis Breindel recently met with Forrester as part of Huddle — an intimate community of B2B marketing leaders who come together to connect, collaborate, and learn from each other and from outside experts. Forrester researchers and branding experts shared some of their latest CMO research about human-centered branding and B2B customer obsession. Here are key…
What’s a talk trigger, and how can a company use one to strengthen its brand and drive business? Jay Baer and Daniel Lemin, co-authors and marketing experts, tackle this phenomenon in their aptly-titled book Talk Triggers, which demonstrates the importance of word-of-mouth marketing through a diverse collection of case studies…
Before institutional investors turn over millions — and sometimes billions — of dollars to an asset manager, they want to know how their money is going to be invested. It’s not a question of which equities or bonds or alternatives the manager prefers. That’s easy enough to determine by looking at their current portfolios. What…
In the second post of our archetype series, we looked at how a brand team can successfully identify which archetype their brand is and why. Once they’ve aligned around the role the brand plays in its customers’ lives, that information will serve as a guide as they develop brand strategy and express it through…
The need for powerful storytelling has become a common refrain among marketers as they think about how to better connect with audiences. With ever-increasing opportunities for brands and audiences to interact digitally, marketers know they need to find ways to cut through the noise and engage with audiences at a deeper level – and film…
For decades, law firms went to market with stale messages that did little to create compelling impressions in the minds of their audiences, let alone lasting ones. To a large extent, they got away with it — relying on the strength of their bench, their personal relationships, and the knowledge that big companies had big budgets…