Who and what do you stand for?
A considered brand is key for organisations wanting focus and purpose, whether you’re a start-up looking to set out what you stand for, or an established player pivoting in challenging business and social environments. Our brand thinking focuses on your audience both inside and outside of your organisation.
Do-gooder or doing good?
Audiences demand to know what you stand for, whether they’re considering buying your products or services or choosing to come and work for you.
More specifically, they want to know - is yours a brand that does good? Or one that falls by the wayside? No brand can exist only to make money any more. The next generation of consumers sees straight through it. They demand something more from the brands they buy into.
People first. Brand second.
Marketers talk about target audiences. But where is the humanity? Where are the people? The individuals. The characters.
Let’s be blunt: you’re wasting your time and resources unless you’re building a brand with a primary focus on people and their needs.
How we think about audiences
We take the time to consider who your brand will be interacting with: whether it’s one targeted audience or several varied groups. Regardless of numbers, we dig deep; going beyond the statistics to identify each person’s needs, nuances and pain points. We then rank them into primary, secondary and tertiary audiences so you can be sure that your brand messaging is targeting the right people.
Those people are outside and inside your organisation - customers and colleagues, clients and partners. As your brand and business evolve, you may find your audiences change, along with what you need to say to them.
Data builds brand insight
We gather and analyse your quantitative data. We talk to sales agents and your people on the front line. Then we build detailed customer personas. Qualitative research and quantitative research working hand in hand.
Twenty years of building brands tell us extended periods of arbitrary research will never benefit a client. Yet that’s not an excuse to abandon a commitment to working in-depth. We gather, understand and execute, using research to take the subjectivity out of decision-making.
Finally, we complete the circle. Sense-checking our findings with customers and employees, understanding your audience intimately before building a purpose-driven brand strategy.
Successful brands feel human
Have you noticed how the most successful brands feel natural, deep-rooted and emotive? We know a brand’s humanity comes from a deep understanding and sympathy for its audience. When many fall back on creativity to produce lightweight image-driven solutions, we stress insight over instinct.
We major in human communication, considering how your audiences will interact with your brand across every possible channel and touchpoint. From your website and social media presence through to print and campaign, we ensure that your brand message connects with your audience each and every time they encounter it.
Our focus is on the stakeholders that feed your brand’s profitability and potential: we believe you won’t get any meaningful results without their belief in the brand’s purpose. We set out to define their individual and collective needs; this allows us to create a brand that recognises and speaks to what matters most to them.
Be memorable, emotional, ethical, functional and diverse
With so many touchpoints online and across social, a brand must be digital from inception. But we never ignore the more traditional interactions such as packaging, brochures or even radio commercials. We know your audience can be reached via many channels.
But the challenges for today’s brands stretch further than covering those channels. Brands need to be memorable, emotional, valuable, ethical, functional and diverse to satisfy increasingly demanding audiences. Although if you’re wondering what people want from your brand, frankly we couldn’t guess. But we find out. Every time.