Brand positioning. It was a concept pioneered by branding legends Jack Trout and Al Ries in the 1960s. Today, it’s the essential foundation on which comprehensive B2B marketing plans are based—from print campaigns to digital engagement, from sales outreach to recruitment efforts, and from content strategy to customer journey mapping.
Brand positioning defines…
According to Harvard Business Review, the failure rate of mergers and acquisitions ranges from 70–90%. Many factors can contribute to the success or failure of companies being combined. But too often, brand is not championed or leveraged during these critical moments—even though it can provide clarity and inspire invaluable unity across essential stakeholders…
Technology has been a business game-changer at every level—revolutionizing customer experiences, 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.
As a result, B2B tech…
Just a few years ago, companies were content to place a statement on their website, often buried deep within the recruitment section, about their commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). No longer. Today, companies want to express more than a commitment to these goals; they want to demonstrate a genuine passion for achieving them…
The Great Resignation’s Enduring Impact on Employment
Absolutely everyone’s heard of it, and chances are you’ve experienced its effects as a manager, coworker or jobseeker. The Great Resignation, triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, was a remarkable phenomenon that reflected people’s evolving expectations and hopes for employment. Accelerating existing job-hopping…
Mergers and acquisitions are most often viewed from a financial perspective. However, as brand strategists, we have seen firsthand that success often relies on less tangible factors. The “fit” may look great on paper, but achieving that promise requires more than a rationalized product portfolio. Success requires a rationalized workforce that understands the how’s…
The legendary management consultant, educator, and author Peter Drucker liked to say that “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” The best-laid strategic plans invariably hit a wall if they are not aligned with the organization’s culture — the beliefs and behaviors that determine how a company’s employees and management interact and handle business transactions…
While a comprehensive verbal and visual system forms the foundation of a brand, it’s only the beginning of executing an effective branding strategy. To be successful, a brand needs to be expressed consistently across all internal and external touchpoints. Consistency is critical to establish a well-defined brand and eliminate confusion in the marketplace…
We published a whitepaper that examines how professional services firms can leverage the power of branding to stand out in an increasingly competitive industry. It’s a fairly comprehensive look at the process of building a solid and differentiated brand, from conducting internal and extensive research to identifying core brand attributes and developing a positioning…
Our clients have delivered many bits of wisdom as we’ve navigated the pandemic era together. One, from consulting firm West Monroe, stands out in particular: 2020 was the year of the customer, while 2021 is the year of the employee. With so much focus on customer-facing pandemic pivots, employees went above and beyond…
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 tale as old as time
From early humans drawing pictures on walls to parents telling bedtime tales; from ancient civilizations that invented myths to modern creators who create sagas on the screen and plots on the page — storytelling is a tradition as old as humanity. Today, it’s also one of the most popular…
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…
As we noted in the first post of this series, brands are similar to people — they’re driven by unique personalities that help create their identities. To help our clients tap into their own archetypes, we’ve developed an interactive exercise that guides them through an exploration of nine Jungian archetypes. We challenge workshop participants…
In a crowded market, it can be tough for brands to find whitespace. Identifying an ownable market positioning while maintaining brand authenticity is infinitely harder — but doing so is imperative for a brand’s ongoing success.
Our client, CDISC, was facing this challenge. CDISC began as a grassroots, nonprofit organization determined to develop and advance…
Few would dispute that the world in which we live and work is changing at an extraordinary pace. In this dynamic landscape, business executives face immense pressure to not only survive – but thrive. In other words, they have to keep up with the pace while bumping up profits.
Continuous innovation is a strategy we hear…
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…
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…