ABOUT
I am a creative leader, and a strategic business partner. I have a heavy stake in the success of new brands, the repositioning of existing brands, the expansion of their audiences, and the results these decisions create in the market. I am guided by a few simple beliefs:
That to create a successful business, being radically different must be built into the core of the brand strategy, and the creative team's daily approach.
That people make emotionally-driven decisions, seeking shared values and a sense of belonging, rather than"more stuff"— no matter how compelling that new product or service may be.
Great brands require great creative teams and cultures to keep them great. I take as much care in building teams as I do any other key deliverable.
If we act on these beliefs together, we will create not just a great business, but real trust with our audience, manifesting the loyalty that will sustain our brand and our dominance in the marketplace for years, rather than months.
Radical Differentiation
In an attention-economy, marketplace clutter makes the consumer highly resilient to new offerings and new ideas. While great branding is the most effective way to reach the audience, we don't control our brands. Instead, brand is defined by the audiences' gut–feeling about your product, and you. My job is to delight customers and earn their loyalty. But, in the end, I serve at their pleasure: they determine our value, and what they want more than ever is trust, not claims. Substance, not clutter. Starting with these assumptions is the first step towards standing out in a sea of sameness.
Emotive Selling
Today, selling products is a failed strategy. No matter how innovative, how integral, or how much convenience your offering brings to everyday life, people are simply disinclined to try new products, and brutally resistant to switching allegiances. An emotive approach to brand marketing can bypass these instincts. Chris Ramey, president of Affluent Insights, said it best: “Tapping into your prospect’s deep-seated values and emotions is key…" This is the new reality for marketing now. Consumers aren’t looking to aquire more things. They are looking to join tribes — tribes that share their values, and help them express their individuality. People are desperate for integrity, and hungry for emotional fulfilment, not feature sets. Product superiority is assumed, while emotional resonance and shared values have become our highest currency.
Craft at Scale
How can we accomplish these things? How do we create emotive, competitive brands that engage audiences, and build new tribes that last years? It all starts with a company’s creative culture. No one is more familiar with your product, and the way you want people to think about it, than you are. For this reason, perhaps the most important part of my practice is building lean, nimble in–house teams that can not only collaborate with agencies of record, but compete with them. I have a proven record of reigning in out–of–house budgets, and redirecting resources to building internal brand, marketing, and overall design IQ — money well–spent. It’s my primary mission to build up creative cultures and individuals, and put companies in a position to not only sustain, but grow their positions over time.
Loyalty
In all this work, loyalty is the real end product. It’s the best outcome we can hope for. It's the greatest ROI, the most informative KPI. If nothing else, remember that a 5% increase in brand loyalty can yield a 95% increase in sales. When you've earned the customer’s trust, they become loyal to your brand, and now they're more than a consumer: they're a collaborator, an ambassador, and an evangelist. Loyalty turns the audience into participants in your story. They will pull more people into the tribe they feel they've helped create, garner more engagement, and give you enormous insight into your own strategy. Loyalty is the key ingredient that determines the performance of every product, and the longevity of every company.
These are some of the tenets of my practice that I have cultivated over the course of my career. They guide me as a leader helping companies deploy brands, and assemble the best creative teams and cultures to expand them. They are based on observation and experience, not ideology, so they are always changing and growing, as does our field.
Contact me to start investing in your brand and business strategy needs.