Our Branding Philosophy

The truth will set you free

We've learned that honesty is the best policy.  Always.

Especially in today's market, consumers are just watching, waiting for brands to fumble morally—to make a claim that can't be substantiated, have a product recalled or its CEO caught misappropriating company money. Consumers rally around brands passionately like they do their football teams. The brands we cheer on are expected to be squeaky-clean. Our brands are expected to set a higher standard.  Our brands are supposed to be moral, trustworthy and accountable for their actions. And when a brand violates this consumer trust, it's taken as a very personal attack on the consumer himself.

The backlash can be brutal.  Remember Exxon? How many of us to this day drive out of our way to fill up at any other competing gas station just to stick it to them in our own little way for what they did to those poor baby seals? How many of us will rethink booking a flight with Jet Blue after trapping women, children and diabetic passengers on a runway for over eight hours? Those bastards must pay.

Never before in history has the human race been so connected by technology and information; so there's no excuse for getting it wrong, for not doing the right thing, for not checking your facts. It looks deceptive. And never before have people been so connected to each other. Ideas and opinions are exchanged globally with the click of a mouse, shortening the distance between otherwise isolated groups of listeners. The neighborhood just got a whole lot smaller.  So when brands get it wrong, you can bet there will be hell to pay.

The old adage of "do something right and they'll tell someone, do something wrong and they'll tell everyone" has never been more relevant.

Behind every business, though, there is a compelling, true story; an emotional truth that is pure and honest, that embodies the very essence of the brand, its beliefs and values. We believe that this essence, this "truth" is what today's consumer seeks.

The most successful brands didn't start big with a devout brand following. Likely, they were built by individuals who followed a passion to do something good, who formed a business around following this passion and who embodied this passion in the form of solid products and services that fulfill a real need in the market. If you recall, Apple Computer was started by two guys out of a garage who wanted to empower the average person to benefit from otherwise complex and mystifying computing technology by creating a simple, easy-to-use personal computer and interface that could be brought into any home. Before Disney was a global enterprise, it was simply a bright man with a willingness to produce wholesome entertainment that brought families together.

Traditional advertising has built barriers between consumers and the emotional truth that lies within good, solid brands. It's why we sometimes come down hard on traditional advertising and marketing tactics. They worked for a long time because people behaved differently than they do today. They wanted to be pushed into loving something, they wanted to be "sold." Today anything with a distant scent of tactical is sniffed out as an artificial, deceptive ploy to woo consumers into taking a brand leap of faith with no real emotional payoff at the end.

Even in a day and age of unprecedented connectivity to consumers through television, e-mail and mobile phones, a majority of consumers have spoken out loud and clear with TiVo that enables them to skip the distracting ads, ad-blocking software on their computers, and an overwhelming number have signed up for the National Do Not Call Registry. Almost overnight, the consumer has cut off advertisers and marketers key in-roads. It couldn't be any clearer that the playing field has changed, that brands are being held to a higher standard, and that advertising, marketing and communications has to be rethought altogether.

Marketing and advertising is no longer the fishing tournament that ran since the 1960s where baiting unsuspecting consumers with increasingly more realistic lures actually worked. In fact, what we're finding would spin the advertisers and marketers of the Golden Age in their very graves: if you simply build a strong, clean, water-tight boat, the fish will jump in willingly.

Today's consumers seek a deep connection with the products and services to which they pledge their undying loyalty. They covet the brands that share their own core values; brands that they can effortlessly internalize and "own." A brand's success today relies on a its ability to pull people to it by earning their trust and allowing the consumer to play a role in the success of the brand.

This collaborative brand experience is a key factor in driving consumer and business buying decisions. That's why our strategies focus first and foremost on building a strong brand image that personifies the brand's essence; its emotional truth. No matter what the deliverable, supporting and strengthening the brand (the story) should be the most important focus. Each deliverable—the logo set, the web site, public relations, the print ad campaign—is a vehicle through which to tell the story.

The end-goal remains to build powerful brands on solid foundations. We seek the story behind brands that can be shared with the rest of the world, that is real, honest and true. We then work tirelessly to share these stories in a variety of ways that create positive perceptions about your business, its products and services. We exist to help you to identify the true magic behind your brand and find effective ways to connect people to it.