3 Levels of Emotional Design

EMOTIONAL DESIGN – deals mostly with how design makes you feel – not how it looks. But of course, how it feels is intrinsically tied to how it looks. As

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What love and hate teach us about brand strategy

All people possess deeply rooted thoughts and feelings that can quickly assign meaning to what they see and hear. When the emotional message is clear, the meaningful value is understood, and a deeper connection is made.

There are no new ideas. Embrace it.

Take pride in your mash-ups. They are truly your only original creations. And although they are really combinations of other ideas, the world will see them as fresh and new.

Positioning? Who cares… just get some results!

Positioning has to be the most important thing you do as a brand, product, service or business. Why? Because as humans, context is all we have to delineate ideas and understand communications. It’s the reason that every letter of any languages alphabet has a different shape, mark or symbol for each letter or idea.

Big data alone, won’t get results (without strategy)

You can pile all the data you want in front of a room full of numbers people and look at trends and patterns, anomalies and exceptions – but that will leave you knowing only what happened – not what needs to happen next.

Warning: This Habit Can Become Addictive

I adopted this :15 minute-a-day productivity habit and I am addicted to it. Sit in a sunny place, set your computer in your lap. Open your favorite writing app. Tilt your head back and write.

67 Branding Insights

An on-going article featuring tips and insights on branding and marketing strategy, practices and processes. This article is an ongoing series of posts. Feel free to add your own insights

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Is your audience invited to the party?

How many ads, messages, emails, communications, articles, posts and promotions go by unnoticed, or barely noticed? Why are you not interested? Why are you not engaged? Of course you are not in the market for everything. So the

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6 reasons your target is too big

When defining a target audience, what makes marketers reach for the shotgun rather than the rifle? Is it the belief that throwing the widest net possible, with messages to the

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Take a position – and own it

Positioning is the first place that every brand needs to be bold. You cannot be a leader by following. If you don’t start with a differentiating position, don’t expect differentiating creative. The magic starts with one benefit that holds a unique place in your prospects mind.

Creating the creative strategy

We have strategies (or plans of action) for everything – Business Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Communication Strategy – and while these are all important plans of action, the one we’re focused on here is the Creative Strategy. We could also call it a creative plan of action – or better yet, A PLAN FOR CREATIVE ACTION.

I know what you must be thinking…

What’s the difference between your thoughts and your customer’s thoughts? Context. And your customers context of thought could very well be the key to businesses discovering what it is that

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