There’s been a fundamental shift in how business is conducted. Businesses can use LinkedIn, blog posts, and social media to reach customers in new, unexpected ways, and the purchasing process itself has become more informal. Rather than relying on the formal pitch and conference call, companies are constantly interacting. They’re looking to form…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Frank Sinatra is quoted as saying, “Orange is the happiest color.” And he isn’t alone in thinking that, as brands often choose to incorporate orange into their logos as a way of infusing a sense of fun, cheeriness, warm exuberance, and approachability.
Indeed, it is energetic and positive, uplifting and cheerful. The color orange…
The ironic thing about your brand’s image is that you can’t actually see it. Image as it relates to your brand is a metaphor, an idea meant to conjure up the assured sense of truth that comes with witnessing something concrete (and hopefully positive) with your own eyes. Your customers can’t see loyalty, trust, or any other quality, but an effective brand strategy can help them make the connection. First though, you’ll need to learn to see these qualities yourself.
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…
Innovation. It’s been a recurring theme in almost every one of our conversations with B2B companies looking to refresh their brands. From the CMO to the CEO, B2B executives have been laser-focused on building brands that convey innovation.
When did this word become so ingrained in our lexicon? According to Google Ngram, the…
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…
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…
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…
Me-too brands just don’t cut it anymore in the professional services arena. This whitepaper examines best practices for creating a distinctive and compelling brand position in professional services.