Capabilities

Our approach combines data science with ethnographic explorations for a more complete understanding of your audience. We dig deep into the data to uncover the ah-has hiding in plain sight, then employ less conventional methods for more intimate and empathetic insights. We’ve walked retail stores on our knees to see from a kid’s perspective, ridden shotgun through drive-thrus with hungry customers to capture what waiting really feels like, and used employee diaries to get an unfiltered view into company cultures.

We define what makes your brand unique, then build the platform to share it with the world. Purpose, positioning, personality … they all play a role. Our job is to turn these tools of the brand trade into assets that focus and energize how you engage customers and employees.

Today’s top talent expects more from a would-be employer than a job description or mission statement. They want to know how it feels to work there, where it will take them, and what it all adds up to at the end of the day.

Our approach connects the desires of your ideal candidate with what your organization uniquely offers — personally, professionally and culturally – then brings it to life through immersive storytelling and experiences.

Growth is what business is all about. Products and services. Mergers and acquisitions. Sub-brands and expanding portfolios.

But managing all these elements can get unwieldy. Companies with overgrown portfolios confuse customers and compete against themselves in the battle for mind share.

We develop simple solutions that create a place and a purpose for every product, service or company in your portfolio.

A well-crafted brand identity is not a “nice to have.” It’s a strategic tool that ensures every customer touchpoint stands apart from competitors and leaves a lasting impression.

We design identities that are evocative, expressive and devised to send precisely the right signals. Then deliver them with the standards and management systems to ensure they’re replicated consistently.

It’s a brand’s most powerful secret weapon. But companies struggle to define it or use it confidently to stand out. We hone personality into a strong voice, complete with guidelines that direct the specific speech and swagger to set you apart.

Messaging is a marriage of strategy and storytelling. We start by determining what needs to be said to communicate your unique value, then apply voice to make it ownable and engaging. We create architectures, taglines, signature phrases and elevator pitches that read like mini-movies, then give you the tools to tweak them for every audience and occasion.

A brand’s name heralds its experience. It’s the most powerful piece of messaging you’ll ever own and, arguably, the most challenging to create (although taglines are up there too). The process is charged with emotion, opinion and strategic hurdles – such as the more than 400,000 trademarks applied for each year in the U.S. alone. Our naming process navigates these challenges and walks you through the journey.

Innovation requires the ability to crash insightful creative into the realities of business, designing, testing, and evolving at a rapid clip. We’ve worked in all kinds of innovation processes, which have honed our ability to work fast. We help inspire and dream up ideas, then guide clients through the rigorous testing needed to get them to market.

The strongest brands create meaningful experiences for their customers. They fuse simplicity and magic in a way that turns basic products and services into memorable moments. We analyze existing customer journeys to help clients decode what does and could make them unique, then design meaningful experiences that foster loyalty.

Companies with engaged employees outperform their uninspired peers more than two times over. But strong cultures aren’t built from frivolous perks and annual surveys. You have to dig into the details of how the day-to-day delivers on the purpose of the brand.

We believe that brand-led employee experiences can transform organizations by addressing the physical environment, the way employees work together, and how they grow. And we anchor them all in a shared set of beliefs and behaviors that create an energized and highly productive workplace.

Brands are only as powerful as an organization’s ability to put them into action. We help clients drive brand into their operations, addressing everything from rollout plans and brand governance to training and internal communication campaigns.

For a brand to take root in the hearts and minds of its employees, leaders must champion it forward. We help leadership align around the brand, then provide training and support to share the story throughout the organization.

The successes of a well-executed brand project can be far-reaching. But that’s no excuse not to track them. We help clients establish the brand equity and perception benchmarks, then put processes in place to measure the brand’s health over time.