The old brand model, which advocated the creation of an external brand image to influence consumers, is a thing of the past. We think it’s time to do things differently. So, we wrote this whitepaper drawing upon the anthropological concept of culture to introduce a new model for brands. We argue that its time for true values to replace the external brand image. In other words, looking good is no longer enough. To compete in today’s fast paced landscape, brands must be better from the inside out. We call this new model Brand Culture—and we think it has the potential to transform companies into truly amazing brands.
This is the presentation that I gave to the Young Planners at Cannes 2014. The data herein is taken from survey distributed through @cheiluk, @yellif and @cr
60 Minute Brand Strategist: Extended and updated hard cover NOW available.Idris Mootee
This book includes the very latest thinking on branding and brand strategy. It has been published in different many languages and use by top global brands to train their brand managers. New updated hard cover version is not available from Amazon May 2013
Pls view in full screen mode. Published in more than 5 languages.
Jonathan Lee, Managing Director, Brand Strategy, and Ken Allard, Managing Director, Business Strategy at HUGE, gave this presentation at "Ambidexterity 2," the VCU Brandcenter's Executive Education program for account planning on June 24th at the VCU Brandcenter in Richmond, VA.
A Planner's Playbook - Everything I learned about planning at Miami Ad School...Sytse Kooistra
After being in advertising for 4 years, I needed some new guidance and inspiration as a strategist. And that is exactly what I found: I spent the summer of 2013 with 17 other (soon to be) planners from all over the world attending the Account Planning Bootcamp at Miami Ad School New York.
Thanks to the 38 industry heroes and instructors that shared their knowledge and coached us in those 3 months, I learned more than I ever could imagine about planning.
'A Planner's Playbook' is my attempt to summarize all that wisdom in 30 short nuggets (or plays, to stick with the metaphor of a playbook) and share it with you. I left out all the difficult frameworks and models and kept in simple by just stating, in my opinion (and in that of my instructors), what a planner should be and do.
Enjoy reading.
50 planners to watch in 2014 - The Planning SalonJulian Cole
Twitter list of the 50 Planners - https://twitter.com/emma_hines/top-50-planners/members
thanks @emma_hines and @E_for_M
50 planners to watch in 2014 was picked by The Planning Salon.The list is a mix of the top planning talent from across the globe as well as the next generation of planners. The list has diverse mix of planners from big markets like London and New York to emerging markets like Athens and Cape Town.
The Planning Salon is a platform for all planners around the world to meet and learn from our industry's greatest minds. It was started in 2013 to showcase some of the biggest stars of the industry, guests such as Gareth Kay, Rob Campbell and Heather LeFevre. Check out the interviews here; http://theplanningsalon.com/
This is the presentation that I gave to the Young Planners at Cannes 2014. The data herein is taken from survey distributed through @cheiluk, @yellif and @cr
60 Minute Brand Strategist: Extended and updated hard cover NOW available.Idris Mootee
This book includes the very latest thinking on branding and brand strategy. It has been published in different many languages and use by top global brands to train their brand managers. New updated hard cover version is not available from Amazon May 2013
Pls view in full screen mode. Published in more than 5 languages.
Jonathan Lee, Managing Director, Brand Strategy, and Ken Allard, Managing Director, Business Strategy at HUGE, gave this presentation at "Ambidexterity 2," the VCU Brandcenter's Executive Education program for account planning on June 24th at the VCU Brandcenter in Richmond, VA.
A Planner's Playbook - Everything I learned about planning at Miami Ad School...Sytse Kooistra
After being in advertising for 4 years, I needed some new guidance and inspiration as a strategist. And that is exactly what I found: I spent the summer of 2013 with 17 other (soon to be) planners from all over the world attending the Account Planning Bootcamp at Miami Ad School New York.
Thanks to the 38 industry heroes and instructors that shared their knowledge and coached us in those 3 months, I learned more than I ever could imagine about planning.
'A Planner's Playbook' is my attempt to summarize all that wisdom in 30 short nuggets (or plays, to stick with the metaphor of a playbook) and share it with you. I left out all the difficult frameworks and models and kept in simple by just stating, in my opinion (and in that of my instructors), what a planner should be and do.
Enjoy reading.
50 planners to watch in 2014 - The Planning SalonJulian Cole
Twitter list of the 50 Planners - https://twitter.com/emma_hines/top-50-planners/members
thanks @emma_hines and @E_for_M
50 planners to watch in 2014 was picked by The Planning Salon.The list is a mix of the top planning talent from across the globe as well as the next generation of planners. The list has diverse mix of planners from big markets like London and New York to emerging markets like Athens and Cape Town.
The Planning Salon is a platform for all planners around the world to meet and learn from our industry's greatest minds. It was started in 2013 to showcase some of the biggest stars of the industry, guests such as Gareth Kay, Rob Campbell and Heather LeFevre. Check out the interviews here; http://theplanningsalon.com/
Lovemarks Presentation - Brand Pioneers April 9 2013Panelteam
Lovemarks
Arjan Kapteijns – CEO Saatchi & Saatchi
Saatchi & Saatchi is the Lovemarks company. Arjan looked closely at the question: What makes some brands inspirational, while others struggle? With inspiring case studies he will explain what Lovemarks are and how they deliver beyond their expectations of great performance.
How to Create a Killer Creative Brief with Wild AlchemyUnited Adworkers
United Adworkers had the honor of hosting Lynette Xanders with Wild Alchemy to share her incredible knowledge and insights on "How to Create a Killer Creative Brief". For more information about Wild Alchemy and Lynette Xanders, visit WildAlchemy.com.
The Creative Brief frames the strategy and positioning so your Agency can creatively express the brand promise through communication.
1, Marketing Execution must impact the brand’s consumers in a way that puts your brand in a stronger business position. The Creative Brief is the bridge between the brand strategy and the execution.
2. Through our Brand Positioning workshop, you will have all the homework on the brand needed to set up the transformation into a succinct 1-page Creative Brief that will focus, inspire and challenge a creative team to make great work.
3. The hands-on Creative Brief workshop explores best in class methods for writing the brief’s objective, target market, consumer insights, main message stimulus and the desired consumer response.
4. Brand Leaders walk away from the session with a ready-to-execute Creative Brief.
This is a presentation that I gave to a USF Masters of Business Administration class on Brand Planning for Clients. My hope was to share some thoughts with the future generation of clients on planning, positioning, relevance and new product development.
The Dictionary of Brand by Marty NeumeierLiquid Agency
The Dictionary of Brand: Sponsored by Google. Written by Marty Neumeier. Designed by Liquid.
Before Google came on the scene, advertising was little more than one-way communication—companies talking “at” their customers instead of “with” their customers. But thanks to web communications, customers can now “talk back” to companies, turning brand-building into job one for all competitive businesses. Google recently established BrandLab, an innovative workshop-based program and collaborative center dedicated to helping brands get the most out of the web through education, inspiration, and hands-on practice. One of BrandLab’s first acts was to publish The Dictionary of Brand. Google asked Liquid to write and design this groundbreaking book—no easy task in a world where definitions are evolving daily.
Sponsored by Google. Designed in Silicon Valley by Liquid.
Liquid’s Director of Transformation, Marty Neumeier, has written several definitive books on brand strategy, including The Brand Gap, Zag, and The Designful Company. Now he’s written an exciting reference that is destined to join these titles on every brand-builder’s desk: The Dictionary of Brand. The new book—commissioned by Google—is a “relational” glossary containing 500 interconnected terms in brand strategy, advertising, design, innovation, and management. As part of their curriculum to help companies build their brands and connect with global customers, Google BrandLab provides copies of The Dictionary of Brand to every agency and client it collaborates with—a roster that includes companies such as Capital One, Coca-Cola, and Toyota.
Why a dictionary?
Brands are increasingly built by specialists, and specialists can only succeed through collaboration, which depends on a common language. The Dictionary of Brand is the first step in creating a “linguistic foundation”—a set of terms that allow specialists from different disciplines to work together in a larger community of practice. Although many of the terms are widely used by brand specialists, some haven’t yet appeared in other dictionaries. There are no copyright restrictions on republishing any these definitions word for word; all that’s needed is a credit line.
Want a copy, here you go!
As Marty Neumeier says, “Brand is the most powerful business tool since the spreadsheet.” Since we are in the business of helping companies build brand values, we are making The Brand Dictionary—otherwise available only to BrandLab participants—available free online as a SlideShare document. Download your copy of The Brand Dictionary and begin redefining the ways we speak and think about brand experience.
Effectiveness is at the heart of everything we do. David Ogilvy himself wrote a series of full-page ads in the New York Times in the 1960s with headlines such as "How To Create Advertising That Sells." His most famous book, Ogilvy on Advertising, is packed with guidance on the success factors of effective campaigns.
However, the marketing landscape has changed beyond recognition in the past fifty years. We are delighted to share our latest publication, The Ogilvy & Mather guide to effectiveness. In it, Worldwide Effectiveness Director, Tim Broadbent, deals with one of the most central questions in marketing: how to increase the effectiveness of our campaigns.
As marketing budgets come under increasing pressure in response to economic uncertainty in Europe and elsewhere, effectiveness is rising higher on clients' agendas. The message is timely.
You can now download the presentation directly from Slideshare.
*Disclaimer this is just my imaginary example of a Comms Plan for the Puma work and not the actual strategy that was created by Droga5 for Puma. I had nothing to do with that plan and am just a fan of their work.
What is Comms Planning? is a presentation that provides a clear answer of the role of the Comms Planner within an Advertising Agency. I use the example of the Puma Social campaign to prove the point.
Workshop for Brand Leaders to help define your brand positioning statement, brand concept and organizing big idea.
https://beloved-brands.com/brand-positioning/
This is the first session (Sep 4) of our Free Open Advanced Branding Masterclass at www.mootee.typepad.com. Pls rememebr no books are needed. We will forward additional reading material for all registered participants.
Top 10 Planning Departments in Advertising ShortlistJulian Cole
For more strategy resources sign up to Planning Dirty at https://www.planningdirty.com/newsletter
A common problem for planners moving markets is understanding the best agencies to work for. With a great list of international planners in the Planning Dirty newsletter group I thought I would ask the planners who they thought was the best agency to work for.
I compiled the first 10 agencies for the shortlist by analyzing the planning (IPA, Effies, Jay Chiats) and creative awards (Gunn Report) from the last three year looking at the agencies that consistently perform well.
I am making a shortlist of 20, so would love to get recommendations on agencies that you think should make the list.
Next week on the newsletter through an anonymous vote, I’ll put out the poll and report back the results. Sign up to the Planning Dirty newsletter to vote and get the best planning tools and resources fortnightly. bit.ly/PlanningDirty
You can now download the presentation directly from Slideshare.
Here are 17 of the best free online tools for Digital Strategists to help cultivate killer insights on consumers, competitors and the industry. In this toolbox we you will find how to use each tool with an example insight drawn for the client, as well as each of their benefits and limitations.
The tools helps to conduct Consumer Research, Category Research, Discourse Analysis and Environmental analysis.
This is our brand management training workshop on brand positioning. Your brand positioning statement defines the target market, consumer benefits, both functional and emotional, as well as support points.
Today global branding is important for B2B and B2C products and services. This presentation gives a comprehensive insight into brand management with examples of power brands.
Lovemarks Presentation - Brand Pioneers April 9 2013Panelteam
Lovemarks
Arjan Kapteijns – CEO Saatchi & Saatchi
Saatchi & Saatchi is the Lovemarks company. Arjan looked closely at the question: What makes some brands inspirational, while others struggle? With inspiring case studies he will explain what Lovemarks are and how they deliver beyond their expectations of great performance.
How to Create a Killer Creative Brief with Wild AlchemyUnited Adworkers
United Adworkers had the honor of hosting Lynette Xanders with Wild Alchemy to share her incredible knowledge and insights on "How to Create a Killer Creative Brief". For more information about Wild Alchemy and Lynette Xanders, visit WildAlchemy.com.
The Creative Brief frames the strategy and positioning so your Agency can creatively express the brand promise through communication.
1, Marketing Execution must impact the brand’s consumers in a way that puts your brand in a stronger business position. The Creative Brief is the bridge between the brand strategy and the execution.
2. Through our Brand Positioning workshop, you will have all the homework on the brand needed to set up the transformation into a succinct 1-page Creative Brief that will focus, inspire and challenge a creative team to make great work.
3. The hands-on Creative Brief workshop explores best in class methods for writing the brief’s objective, target market, consumer insights, main message stimulus and the desired consumer response.
4. Brand Leaders walk away from the session with a ready-to-execute Creative Brief.
This is a presentation that I gave to a USF Masters of Business Administration class on Brand Planning for Clients. My hope was to share some thoughts with the future generation of clients on planning, positioning, relevance and new product development.
The Dictionary of Brand by Marty NeumeierLiquid Agency
The Dictionary of Brand: Sponsored by Google. Written by Marty Neumeier. Designed by Liquid.
Before Google came on the scene, advertising was little more than one-way communication—companies talking “at” their customers instead of “with” their customers. But thanks to web communications, customers can now “talk back” to companies, turning brand-building into job one for all competitive businesses. Google recently established BrandLab, an innovative workshop-based program and collaborative center dedicated to helping brands get the most out of the web through education, inspiration, and hands-on practice. One of BrandLab’s first acts was to publish The Dictionary of Brand. Google asked Liquid to write and design this groundbreaking book—no easy task in a world where definitions are evolving daily.
Sponsored by Google. Designed in Silicon Valley by Liquid.
Liquid’s Director of Transformation, Marty Neumeier, has written several definitive books on brand strategy, including The Brand Gap, Zag, and The Designful Company. Now he’s written an exciting reference that is destined to join these titles on every brand-builder’s desk: The Dictionary of Brand. The new book—commissioned by Google—is a “relational” glossary containing 500 interconnected terms in brand strategy, advertising, design, innovation, and management. As part of their curriculum to help companies build their brands and connect with global customers, Google BrandLab provides copies of The Dictionary of Brand to every agency and client it collaborates with—a roster that includes companies such as Capital One, Coca-Cola, and Toyota.
Why a dictionary?
Brands are increasingly built by specialists, and specialists can only succeed through collaboration, which depends on a common language. The Dictionary of Brand is the first step in creating a “linguistic foundation”—a set of terms that allow specialists from different disciplines to work together in a larger community of practice. Although many of the terms are widely used by brand specialists, some haven’t yet appeared in other dictionaries. There are no copyright restrictions on republishing any these definitions word for word; all that’s needed is a credit line.
Want a copy, here you go!
As Marty Neumeier says, “Brand is the most powerful business tool since the spreadsheet.” Since we are in the business of helping companies build brand values, we are making The Brand Dictionary—otherwise available only to BrandLab participants—available free online as a SlideShare document. Download your copy of The Brand Dictionary and begin redefining the ways we speak and think about brand experience.
Effectiveness is at the heart of everything we do. David Ogilvy himself wrote a series of full-page ads in the New York Times in the 1960s with headlines such as "How To Create Advertising That Sells." His most famous book, Ogilvy on Advertising, is packed with guidance on the success factors of effective campaigns.
However, the marketing landscape has changed beyond recognition in the past fifty years. We are delighted to share our latest publication, The Ogilvy & Mather guide to effectiveness. In it, Worldwide Effectiveness Director, Tim Broadbent, deals with one of the most central questions in marketing: how to increase the effectiveness of our campaigns.
As marketing budgets come under increasing pressure in response to economic uncertainty in Europe and elsewhere, effectiveness is rising higher on clients' agendas. The message is timely.
You can now download the presentation directly from Slideshare.
*Disclaimer this is just my imaginary example of a Comms Plan for the Puma work and not the actual strategy that was created by Droga5 for Puma. I had nothing to do with that plan and am just a fan of their work.
What is Comms Planning? is a presentation that provides a clear answer of the role of the Comms Planner within an Advertising Agency. I use the example of the Puma Social campaign to prove the point.
Workshop for Brand Leaders to help define your brand positioning statement, brand concept and organizing big idea.
https://beloved-brands.com/brand-positioning/
This is the first session (Sep 4) of our Free Open Advanced Branding Masterclass at www.mootee.typepad.com. Pls rememebr no books are needed. We will forward additional reading material for all registered participants.
Top 10 Planning Departments in Advertising ShortlistJulian Cole
For more strategy resources sign up to Planning Dirty at https://www.planningdirty.com/newsletter
A common problem for planners moving markets is understanding the best agencies to work for. With a great list of international planners in the Planning Dirty newsletter group I thought I would ask the planners who they thought was the best agency to work for.
I compiled the first 10 agencies for the shortlist by analyzing the planning (IPA, Effies, Jay Chiats) and creative awards (Gunn Report) from the last three year looking at the agencies that consistently perform well.
I am making a shortlist of 20, so would love to get recommendations on agencies that you think should make the list.
Next week on the newsletter through an anonymous vote, I’ll put out the poll and report back the results. Sign up to the Planning Dirty newsletter to vote and get the best planning tools and resources fortnightly. bit.ly/PlanningDirty
You can now download the presentation directly from Slideshare.
Here are 17 of the best free online tools for Digital Strategists to help cultivate killer insights on consumers, competitors and the industry. In this toolbox we you will find how to use each tool with an example insight drawn for the client, as well as each of their benefits and limitations.
The tools helps to conduct Consumer Research, Category Research, Discourse Analysis and Environmental analysis.
This is our brand management training workshop on brand positioning. Your brand positioning statement defines the target market, consumer benefits, both functional and emotional, as well as support points.
Today global branding is important for B2B and B2C products and services. This presentation gives a comprehensive insight into brand management with examples of power brands.
Presentation of a conceptual study on "brand", "global brands" and "global brand management strategies" that covers the basic elements on the brand management.
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What Marketers Can Learn From the GoldiBlox "Girls" Parodyjimbler
We all loved the goldiblox "Girls" parody. Here's a quick framework i used to explain to some marketers why i thought it was great. The goal of the presentation was to create a framework for understanding why this worked and what we as marketers can learn from it.
We all loved the goldiblox "Girls" parody. Here's a quick framework i used to explain to some marketers why i thought it was great. The goal of the presentation was to create a framework for understanding why this worked and what we as marketers can learn from it.
Five awarded essays on branding by MEC's rising stars:
- I Believe in the Future Brands Must be Superhuman..
- I Believe that in the Future Brands will have to Earn the Right to Communicate
- I Believe the Future Belongs to Brand-Driven Businesses
- I Believe that the Future of Brands Lies in making Loving Fun
- Statics & Flows: The Creation of Brand Fame in theDigital Age
Communication strategy lessons @ Panteion University (Dept. of Communication, Media & Culture).
This is my first one, a prologue to advertising history.
06/03/2012
http://1story.tumblr.com/
From gold lamé to vin rosé, Cannes is a special place indeed.
It’s home to the world’s largest and most revered awards festival for the best creative work in Film, Creative Effectiveness, and more.
The week’s content includes seminars, forums and workshops presented by creative leadership from around the world — both from inside and outside the marketing industry.
We learned of brand experience examples such as the Google Creative Sandbox and the Ipsos Ladies Lounge provided insight and inspiration in a relaxed environment.
Oh — and of course — there was legendary partying in true industry style.
Content marketing is all the rage. In a distracted world, where consumers are bombarded with advertising and overwhelmed by media and device choices, brands are searching for a new ways to connect—ideally over the long...
Are you sick of meaningless advertising / social media / marketing trends that make no sense to you or your business? So are we. That's why we've created our Anti Trend Report, to cut through the BS and help you focus on what counts – using digital and social to actually grow your brand.
The World Cup has become one of the most anticipated and celebrated sporting competitions on the planet, watched by about half of the world’s population. Countries spend years and billions of dollars preparing to compete—not to mention hosting the Cup. Brazil spent $14 billion this year. Clearly, this is a branding success story of phenomenal proportions. How has the World Cup brand evolved over time? Every four years, FIFA selects a host nation and they design the event in their vision, revealing not just how the host country views itself, but how our world has changed—and design along with it. Believe it or not, the World Cup had no logo until the 1950s; by 2014, the logo was created with animation in mind demonstrating the kinetic nature of brands today. What stories do these graphic identities tell about their moments in time and our shared global experience? We reached back in branding history to find out.
Use this presentation when you feel a little stuck and need some help coming up with new ideas and ignite creative growth. Would love to hear what you think about Marty’s tips, and of course if you have any tips of your own it would be great if you could share them through our comments button.
Innovation by Design exhibition catalogLiquid Agency
At Liquid Agency we're interested in the potential of design to improve the human condition, and we appreciate innovations that offer us new and better ways to interact with the world and with each other. The recent "Innovation by Design" exhibition at Liquid Space PDX, our experimental gallery in Portland, features a collection of diverse products that challenge the status quo in the worlds of furniture, art, apparel, medical devices, toys, typography, photography, jewelry and more. We hope you'll get a chance to stop by and see it, but in case you can't, this is a digital version of the exhibition.
Success at retail is about creating great experiences. Just like dating.
Sources:
1. 2011 Rightnow Customer Experience Impact Report
2. Harbor Industries: Industry Trends and Insights
3. Kissmetrics - The Price of Bad Customer Service
4. Forrester / The Business Impact of Customer Experience, 2012
5. Dr4ward / What is Social Currency and How Does it Effect Social Commerce? Infographic
The thorniest question in brand strategy is how to keep growing. At some point in the life of a successful brand, marketers will feel the pressure to extend its success by “leveraging” the brand into other offerings. Brand extensions can make a lot of sense, if the original brand has positive associations for customers.
If you’re repositioning a brand, or if you’re curious about where to take your brand after you launch it, this tool will help you understand how and when to renew your zag as it moves through the three stages of the “competition cycle.”
What kind of name will work hardest for you? Should the name literally describe the offering, or should it suggest a benefit? Is it better to imply an idea, or to invoke a brand’s history? Getting the answer to these questions will help you choose the right name. But before you can do that, you have to know your options.
Get to know Chile’ was originally an internal campaign created by MagiaLiquid, our Santiago office, for the purposes of better understanding Chile and its vast business potential. Chile tops most of the regional rankings because of it’s rapid and sustained growth, which makes it the country most likely to lead Latin America forward.
Get to know Chile’ was originally an internal campaign created by MagiaLiquid, our Santiago office, for the purposes of better understanding Chile and its vast business potential. Chile tops most of the regional rankings because of it’s rapid and sustained growth, which makes it the country most likely to lead Latin America forward.
Get to know Chile’ was originally an internal campaign created by MagiaLiquid, our Santiago office, for the purposes of better understanding Chile and its vast business potential. Chile tops most of the regional rankings because of it’s rapid and sustained growth, which makes it the country most likely to lead Latin America forward.
Get to know Chile’ was originally an internal campaign created by MagiaLiquid, our Santiago office, for the purposes of better understanding Chile and its vast business potential. Chile tops most of the regional rankings because of it’s rapid and sustained growth, which makes it the country most likely to lead Latin America forward.
Get to know Chile’ was originally an internal campaign created by MagiaLiquid, our Santiago office, for the purposes of better understanding Chile and its vist business potential. Chile tops most of the regional rankings because of it’s rapid and sustained growth, which makes it the country most likely to lead Latin America forward.
Get to know Chile’ was originally an internal campaign created by MagiaLiquid, our Santiago office, for the purposes of better understanding Chile and its vist business potential. Chile tops most of the regional rankings because of it’s rapid and sustained growth, which makes it the country most likely to lead Latin America forward.
Steal This Idea: Ladder of Design Leverage Liquid Agency
Design—and design thinking—are powerful processes that are now getting more traction in management circles. While it’s well understood that design can be used to improve products and communications, it’s less understood that it can be used to craft services, customer experiences, internal processes, organizational structures, strategic decisions, and business models.
Steal This Idea: Organic Drivetrain / By Marty NeumeierLiquid Agency
In a survey by Liquid Agency (formerly Neutron) and Stanford University, 1500 business leaders were asked to rank their top ten biggest problems. Their number-one problem? “Balancing long-term goals with short-term demands.” In large corporations, the phrase “short-term demands” is code for “shareholder demands.”
Get to know Chile’ was originally an internal campaign created by MagiaLiquid, our Santiago office, for the purposes of better understanding Chile and its vist business potential. Chile tops most of the regional rankings because of it’s rapid and sustained growth, which makes it the country most likely to lead Latin America forward.
Steal This Idea: The No-process Process / By Marty NeumeierLiquid Agency
Designers have been touting process for decades. Why? Because clients need reassurance that their investment is safe. By turning creativity into a rational business process, designers have persuaded companies to trust them with mission-critical projects and substantial budgets. Process equals predictability. But what does the rational process really predict? Unfortunately, only sameness. If you want real innovation, you’ll need a much different process.
How to make your customers fall in love with you.Liquid Agency
Success at retail is about creating great experiences. Just like dating.
Technology, mobility and access, among other things, have dramatically changed the retail landscape. The future of retail is bigger than flashy technology and the hyper-connected Internet of Things. In this new world, the consumer is in charge. Retailers and brands must build meaningful relationships if they want to see continued sales growth. And the way to do this is by getting to know your customers well, cater to their needs, create moments of delight, stay connected, be nice to their friends and invite them to share their thoughts and experiences. In other words, retail is a lot like dating.
Attending a job Interview for B1 and B2 Englsih learnersErika906060
It is a sample of an interview for a business english class for pre-intermediate and intermediate english students with emphasis on the speking ability.
What is the TDS Return Filing Due Date for FY 2024-25.pdfseoforlegalpillers
It is crucial for the taxpayers to understand about the TDS Return Filing Due Date, so that they can fulfill your TDS obligations efficiently. Taxpayers can avoid penalties by sticking to the deadlines and by accurate filing of TDS. Timely filing of TDS will make sure about the availability of tax credits. You can also seek the professional guidance of experts like Legal Pillers for timely filing of the TDS Return.
Taurus Zodiac Sign_ Personality Traits and Sign Dates.pptxmy Pandit
Explore the world of the Taurus zodiac sign. Learn about their stability, determination, and appreciation for beauty. Discover how Taureans' grounded nature and hardworking mindset define their unique personality.
Accpac to QuickBooks Conversion Navigating the Transition with Online Account...PaulBryant58
This article provides a comprehensive guide on how to
effectively manage the convert Accpac to QuickBooks , with a particular focus on utilizing online accounting services to streamline the process.
Buy Verified PayPal Account | Buy Google 5 Star Reviewsusawebmarket
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Remote sensing and monitoring are changing the mining industry for the better. These are providing innovative solutions to long-standing challenges. Those related to exploration, extraction, and overall environmental management by mining technology companies Odisha. These technologies make use of satellite imaging, aerial photography and sensors to collect data that might be inaccessible or from hazardous locations. With the use of this technology, mining operations are becoming increasingly efficient. Let us gain more insight into the key aspects associated with remote sensing and monitoring when it comes to mining.
[Note: This is a partial preview. To download this presentation, visit:
https://www.oeconsulting.com.sg/training-presentations]
Sustainability has become an increasingly critical topic as the world recognizes the need to protect our planet and its resources for future generations. Sustainability means meeting our current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs. It involves long-term planning and consideration of the consequences of our actions. The goal is to create strategies that ensure the long-term viability of People, Planet, and Profit.
Leading companies such as Nike, Toyota, and Siemens are prioritizing sustainable innovation in their business models, setting an example for others to follow. In this Sustainability training presentation, you will learn key concepts, principles, and practices of sustainability applicable across industries. This training aims to create awareness and educate employees, senior executives, consultants, and other key stakeholders, including investors, policymakers, and supply chain partners, on the importance and implementation of sustainability.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Develop a comprehensive understanding of the fundamental principles and concepts that form the foundation of sustainability within corporate environments.
2. Explore the sustainability implementation model, focusing on effective measures and reporting strategies to track and communicate sustainability efforts.
3. Identify and define best practices and critical success factors essential for achieving sustainability goals within organizations.
CONTENTS
1. Introduction and Key Concepts of Sustainability
2. Principles and Practices of Sustainability
3. Measures and Reporting in Sustainability
4. Sustainability Implementation & Best Practices
To download the complete presentation, visit: https://www.oeconsulting.com.sg/training-presentations
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2. 2
LIQUID AGENCY
This whitepaper draws upon the anthropological concept of culture
to introduce a new model for brands. The old brand model, which
advocated the creation of an external brand image to influence
consumers, is a thing of the past. We think it’s time to do things
differently. In the new model a company’s true values replace the
external brand image. In other words, looking good is no longer
enough. To compete in today’s fast paced landscape, brands must
be better from the inside out. They must embrace a cultural shift.
We call this new model Brand Culture—and we think it has the
potential to transform companies into truly amazing brands.
3. 3
LIQUID AGENCY
The theory of Brand Culture was
partly informed by Douglas Atkin’s
groundbreaking book, The Culting
of Brands,1
which was one of the first
books to apply anthropological theory
in understanding how certain brands
work—specifically “cult” brands. While
cults, by definition, are experienced
by the few, every human experiences
culture, and every brand has the
potential to develop a brand culture.
Our concept of Brand Culture has also
been influenced and validated by the
recent writings of some really bright
anthropologists who are studying the
way consumers use brands.2
And we
love reading stuff written by really bright
anthropologists. Don’t you?
Please let us now what you think. We’d
love to hear your thoughts on the matter,
so feel free to send me a note or—better
yet—visit our blog, where you can
participate in an online discussion about
the Brand Culture model.
Dennis Hahn
Chief Strategy Officer
PARTICIPATE IN THE DISCUSSION ONLINE
CLICK HERE
4. 4
LIQUID AGENCY
Neanderthal Days
Back at the dawn of the twentieth century, back before
the internet, back when there was still a thing called
privacy, a nearly impenetrable shell surrounded every
company. It was a shell of darkness and silence.
The consumer had no idea what was really going on
inside a company, and the company had no real way of
communicating with the consumer. Companies needed
a way to talk to their audience.
Advertising was essentially invented to accomplish
just that, first announcing that the product or service
existed, then promoting the price of the product or
service, and eventually touting some superior feature
or unique ingredient that made a certain product or
service supposedly better than all the rest.
Fickle, Fickle Truth
Science has taught us that truth is pretty much
temporary. Just look at the shift from the Copernican
cosmos to the Galilean. Or the leap from Newtonian
physics to Einsteinian relativity. The Copernican
and Newtonian systems were each believed to be
absolutely, positively, and unchangingly “the truth.” That
is, until the new system came along which proved there
was a truer truth.
It’s the same with modern-day branding, which, until
fifteen or twenty years ago didn’t exist as a business
category, even if in fact its underlying concepts were
being practiced by inspired marketers for some time.
Over the last hundred years, as the art of creating
brands has evolved from designing logos and placing
ads to the more complex integrated endeavor known
as branding, we see a constantly shifting sense of
what is true. We believe it’s time for another one
of those shifts.
5. 5
LIQUID AGENCY
The Creative Revolution
Jump forward to the glory days of the Creative
Revolution, when Bill Bernbach commanded the
Volkswagen account. Advertising was not exactly
treating consumers as intelligent beings. Ads were
full of trumped-up claims and hard-sell messages.
Bernbach discovered that if you took a good product
and peppered the magazines, the newspapers, and the
three television networks with unprecedented ads telling
a story in a smart, sassy, and bluntly-honest voice
(“Lemon,” “Think Small,” etc.), you would sell product.
His insight was that people would be wooed by ads
which spoke to them in ways they always wanted to
be spoken to—intelligently. He believed people would
conclude that Volkswagen as a company was likeable.
He was right. And many Volkswagens were sold.
Bernbach’s genius was the realization that people
didn’t just want product features shouted at them.
They wanted the product story told in a compelling
and satisfying way. He knew that, given a choice,
people would patronize a company that spoke to them
intelligently—as long as the product was good. In the
sixties, the only three ways to experience Volkswagen
as a brand were to read or watch the ads, to talk to
Volkswagen owners, or to buy the car—all of which
proved to be highly positive experiences. Bernbach,
in effect, created an external brand image—one
that existed outside of the company—that told the
company’s story in an unmistakable voice and style
that people enjoyed. Such a controllable external
brand image was fairly easy to create back in those
days because there were so few other sources of
information about a company.
Consumers either paid attention to the ads or they
didn’t. They either liked the message or they didn’t. If
they paid attention and liked the message, odds were
good they would at least try the company’s products or
services. Awareness, a well-told product story, and trial
were enough to drive sales.
WHEN THIS
AD WAS FIRST
PUBLISHED, IT
WAS NOTHING
SHORT OF
REVOLUTIONARY.
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LIQUID AGENCY
One Revolution Deserves Another
The second Creative Revolution, led by Chiat/Day,
Wieden + Kennedy, and other agencies in the eighties,
took the external brand image to an entirely new level.
People distrusted what advertising said to them.
Most ads were lame, boring, and unbelievable.
The second Creative Revolution turned advertising
into a series of engaging and entertaining events that
didn’t overtly speak about the product or service, but
instead gave consumers an experience they loved. This
experience was what separated one competing brand
from another.
The famous Apple “1984” spot and Nike’s “Revolution”
are perfect examples. It was like building a stage
and putting on plays for consumers. It was a way of
demonstrating the brand rather than telling a product or
service story. If your play caught consumers’ attention
and pleased them—and if your product was good—
consumers embraced your brand and were loyal to it
because it gave them an experience they appreciated
and remembered.
APPLE'S 1984 AD WAS - AND
REMAINS - ONE OF THE MOST
TALKED ABOUT ADS IN THE
HISTORY OF ADVERTISING. IT
WAS MORE OF A MANIFESTO
ABOUT THE APPLE CULTURE
THAN AN AD ABOUT A
PRODUCT.
7. 7
LIQUID AGENCY
WHY DO
I EXIST?
Now, whether the play being shown had anything to
do with the company who owned the theatre was
sometimes beside the point. In the worst cases it
was like bad vaudeville desperately trying to find an act
people liked. Take, for instance, the Dr. Pepper brand.
What does it stand for? Who is it talking to? Why does it
exist? God only knows. The only reason anyone drinks
Dr. Pepper is because they like the taste or possibly
the high caffeine—or both. The brand certainly has
no greater meaning than the product itself—no soul. It
has tried on dozens of different advertising campaigns
searching for something meaningful to say. The efforts
have been embarrassing. All they’ve managed to do is
remind people that Dr. Pepper exists.
In the best cases, as with Nike and Apple, the
advertising accurately depicted the soul of the
company, and the brand and the company were
congruous. But the advertising still fundamentally relied
on creating an external brand image that delivered a
monologue to its consumers, counting on memorability,
awareness, and affection to drive sales.
So, doesn’t that still work today? Sorry Charlie. First
of all, there’s no such thing as a controllable external
brand image anymore. Thanks to the internet,
consumers now have an unprecedented view into
a company and access to its most sensitive internal
secrets, not to mention instant word-of-mouth reports
from people who’ve tried a company’s product or
service. For a long time a company’s brand could
say one thing and, internally, safely protected by the
impenetrable shell, the company could act another
way. Not any more. It’s as if a company’s walls are
now made of glass and everyone can instantly read
everyone else’s minds around the world. If you doubt
this for a second, think back to when Nike’s brand
was suddenly threatened by alleged unfair treatment
of foreign labor.
Second of all, people don’t want an act, they just
want honesty. They don’t want a manufactured
brand that tries to pander to their tastes. They
want something real.
Yes, Bernbach and company were right. People do
long for more than just product features and sales
messages shouted at them. But what has changed
is that people aren’t just shopping for a good product
or service anymore. They are no longer satisfied with
being entertained by memorable brand advertising.
That’s because people today are using brands in ways
Bernbach and others could never have anticipated.
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LIQUID AGENCY
Papa Got a Brand New Model of Branding.
Let’s say the old philosophy of branding revolved
around the creation of an external brand image.
And let’s say, in an era where “transparency” is
the word of the day, consumers will no longer buy
the external brand image we create, but will take
it upon themselves to find out what a brand really
stands for by probing for their own truth. And if they
catch a whiff of contradiction, they will bolt. The
real question is, why? Why are they bothering to
probe? Why is it that, no matter how cool the Nike
advertising was, people were outraged over what
they believed was unfair treatment of workers at
Nike’s factories in Asia? And what does this have
to do with sneakers?
Here’s where anthropology comes in. Clifford
Geertz, a seminal cultural anthropologist of the
latter twentieth century, and who continues to
inspire the latest generation in his field, has said
that all human behavior is symbolic action.4
We are
not a species concerned with mere transactions.
We are creatures of meaning. From the time when
Neanderthals began burying their dead, we have
been concerned with the larger meaning of life—
who we are and why we’re here. Throughout history
and, presumably, pre-history, these questions of
meaning and identity have been primarily answered
by the culture in which we grew up. Our cultures
have given us the symbolic tools we needed to
create our own sense of identity.
Today we’re seeing that certain issues which could
be considered secondary to a brand are suddenly
primary. People are not just choosing the best,
the fanciest, or the cheapest. They’re choosing
brands that have the right meaning. For instance,
a few years ago Nike built a decent skateboarding
shoe that was certainly as well-made as an Etnies
skateboarding shoe. Yet the hardcore skater
wouldn’t be caught dead in Nikes. Why? Because,
in the rebel world of skaters, Nike stood for The
Man. The Etnies founder is a famous skater who
lives and breathes skater culture. Nike doesn’t
come from that world. Nike didn’t embody the
beliefs of skater culture. And a pair of Nikes would
have sent a conflicting message to the skater’s
friends—if he dared wear them to the skate park.
Nike had the wrong meaning—a few years ago.
Then Nike launched a new line of skater shoes,
called Nike SB—essentially Nike’s third attempt
to break into the skate market. But this time they
somehow got it right. They hired the right people
with the right street cred and deep understanding
of skater culture. They plucked these people from
the “legit” skater brands and put them to work
creating an internal culture that aligned with their
“ In a consumer culture
people no longer
consume for merely
functional satisfaction, but
consumption becomes
meaning-based, and
brands are often used
as symbolic resources
for the construction and
maintenance of identity.”
ELLIOTT & DAVIES3
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LIQUID AGENCY
audience, and they created a series of shoes that finally
undermined the “corporate” image and quietly grew
the Nike SB brand. Then, in 2005, they launched their
6.0 line of shoes designed for the multi action sport
audience (skate, snow, surf). Some shoes were issued
in small, limited editions, and this put Nike over the top.
As of today, Nike offers the hottest shoes in the skate
and action sports category. They didn’t pull this off
with a classic TV and print campaign. They started
from within, built a legitimate skater culture, built the
right shoes, built the right team of riders, sold only
to the small core shops, and built a culture that core
skaters wanted to belong to. And it worked.
Another example: a Columbia Sportswear polar
fleece vs. a Patagonia polar fleece. People who
choose Patagonia could hardly call it a difference in
quality at this point—at least when it comes to polar
fleece. And the Patagonia fleece is more expensive.
Yet Patagonia has a customer base that, while smaller
than Columbia’s, is absolutely committed to Patagonia.
Why? Patagonia donates money to environmental
causes. Patagonia gives its employees surfing breaks at
work. And Patagonia was founded by Yvon Chouinard,
one of the greatest climbers in history. Patagonia is also
a serious high-performance brand. In this case, it’s not
that Columbia Sportswear has the wrong meaning,
it’s that Patagonia has more of the right meaning for
this audience. The Patagonia consumer, like those of
so many other brands, is making a choice based on
meaning, not just quality, features, or price.
“Right,” you could say. “Two great examples of
successful brand image campaigns.” Well, not really.
Because neither Patagonia nor Nike SB and 6.0 have
relied upon the old model of creating external brand
images. Instead, they’ve drawn upon their core beliefs
and values to create views of the world and ways of
acting in the world that have become their central
truths. These internal beliefs have replaced external
brand images. Their brands are created by living
these beliefs inside the company and letting these
beliefs drive external communications and consumer
experiences. And consumers are attracted to the
meaning embedded in those beliefs.
THE NIKE SB BRAND
WAS CREATED BY
FIRST BUILDING A
LEGITIMATE SKATER
CULTURE INSIDE
THE COMPANY.
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LIQUID AGENCY
The Traditional Self
Geertz uses the concepts of ethos and worldview
to describe how cultures create a seamless, unified
system. The ethos (an understanding of how we should
act in the world) is supported by the worldview (a
picture of how the world really is), and vice versa.6
In a sense, ethos and worldview are what differentiate
one culture from another. And it is the culture that
traditionally gives individuals their definition of self—who
they are, what they believe, and how they should act.
Two hundred years ago, if you were born in a Dayak
village on the island of Borneo, you were likely to live
and die without being exposed to anything other than
the Dayak culture. Your ethos and your worldview
would be essentially the same as those of any other
Dayak Indian. The practice of headhunting, for instance,
would be a part of your everyday life, intimately tied to
your religion and your social practices. And, while every
culture has allowances for individual personalities, your
sense of self, beliefs, and values would be generated
primarily by your Dayak culture.
That’s the traditional role of culture. It’s the system
that defines the world and how we should act. It is the
material we use to shape our sense of self. It’s probably
safe to venture that these dynamics have been in place
since human kind evolved. Things get much more
confusing, however, when we see multiple cultures
coming together, as in cities, for instance, where
traditional single cultures start to break down and
mingle with other cultures. By the time we reach the
modern industrialized world, people begin to gain more
decision-making over who they are, what they believe,
and how they act. The traditional culture starts to lose
its authority and choice enters the picture.
“ A people’s ethos is the tone,
character, and quality of their
life, its moral and aesthetic
style and mood; it is the
underlying attitude toward
themselves and their world
that life reflects. Their world
view is their picture of the
way things in sheer actuality
are, their concept of nature,
of self, of society. It contains
their most comprehensive
ideas of order.”
GEERTZ5
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LIQUID AGENCY
The Do-It-Yourself Self
Today, a Dayak Indian could attend a missionary
school and be exposed to western culture and religion,
go to college in Sydney, Australia and study Greek
philosophy, join a punk rock band, and then take a
career in banking. Rather than describing himself as
a Dayak, he now might describe himself as a post-
modern-ex-headhunting-neo-Platonist-rebel-capitalist
with animistic tendencies. In other words, he could
make all the choices most of us face when it comes to
shaping our own ethos, worldview, and sense of self.
In fact, we all are in the continuous process of defining
our sense of who we are and what we believe. We are
constantly building and rearranging our mosaic of the
self. This is possible because we have unprecedented
choice in terms of religious beliefs, moral systems,
philosophies, worldviews, places to live, careers,
friends, income levels, lifestyles, and personal codes of
behavior. We are not limited to the traditional choices
offered by the culture we were born into. And this is
where contemporary anthropologists see brands taking
on a new and intriguing role.
“ The self is conceptualized in
postmodernity not as a given
product of a social system
nor as a fixed entity which
the individual can simply
adopt, but as something the
person actively creates,
partially through
consumption.”
ELLIOTT & WATTANASUWAN7
BRAND
12. 12
LIQUID AGENCY
The Brand as Meaning
As people in the post-modern industrialized world
are creating this mosaic of the self, the question
anthropologists have asked is: what role does brand
and consumption play? The answer many of them are
returning is: brands are symbolic units which are used,
along with other symbolic units drawn from career,
music, fashion, religion, etc, to create this mosaic of
the self. Given how fast competitors can copy each
other, the world of branding has moved way beyond
features, benefits, and entertainment. Brands are now
creating value not just by the products or services they
represent, but by the meanings they generate.9
This meaning is being adopted by consumers to
express who they are and what they stand for.
Meaning, in fact, may be the most important product a
brand creates today.
Go back to the difference between Patagonia and
Columbia Sportswear for a minute. By choosing
Patagonia, the consumer is saying, I believe many of
the same things Patagonia believes in, and I am using
Patagonia as an expression of who I am. I am attracted
to the meaning of Patagonia. And my sense of self is
partly represented by Patagonia. This dynamic has
been prevalent in the luxury category for some time,
and cars, for instance, have always been an expression
of identity. But what is crucial today is for companies
to understand that it’s what their brand believes in,
stands for, and does in the world that is being judged
by consumers. Apple’s challenges with foreign labor is
a perfect example of this.
It seems that many of us in the post-modern
industrialized world have moved beyond the needs
at the lower end of Maslow’s pyramid—survival and
safety—and are focused more on the higher needs of
esteem and self-actualization. Therefore brands aren’t
just about the product or service they provide, but the
“ A brand may be viewed
not solely as a sign added
to products to differentiate
them from competing
goods, but as a semiotic
engine whose function is
to constantly produce
meaning and values.”
HEILBRUNN8
CORPORATE
VALUES
CUSTOMER
VALUES
THE BRAND’S
VALUES ARE
COMPATIBLE WITH
THE CUSTOMER’S
VALUES.
13. 13
LIQUID AGENCY
meaning they represent, which people are using, in
turn, to represent themselves. Think of the owner of
a Toyota Prius who wears eco-friendly Nau clothing,
buys fair-trade coffee at Whole Foods, carries a Prada
bag, and wears blood-free diamonds from Tiffany’s.
This person is borrowing the meaning from these
brands to tell a story about herself that ranges from
her commitment to social responsibility to her love of
quality and dedication to style. If she chose different
brands, even if they offered the same quality level
but did not represent her social consciousness, she
would be telling a different story about herself. She
would be, in effect, representing a different person.
The Brand as a Culture
There are a myriad of anthropological definitions of
the word “culture.” The most useful one, from our
perspective, is Clifford Geertz’s definition, which is “…a
historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied
in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions
expressed in symbolic forms by means of which
men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their
knowledge about and attitudes toward life.”11
We believe that a brand, in order to be relevant
to consumers and sustainable over time, must
operate much like a culture. This is the opposite of
manufacturing a series of external brand images in the
hopes that one of them will eventually be attractive to
the target audience. A company must figure out its core
values and understand why, beyond the profit motive,
it exists. This means that, essentially, a company must
develop (or unearth) an ethos and a worldview that
it absolutely believes in, and then perpetually act in
accordance with that ethos and worldview. Everything
the company does—every product or service it offers;
every public statement, advertisement, and website it
generates; every internal policy, memo, and business
decision it makes—must be congruent with that ethos
and worldview.
“ In a ‘desecularized’
context, economic
entities (and mostly
brands) have taken
the symbolic place left
empty by the retreat
of the divine.”
HEILBRUNN8
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LIQUID AGENCY
Consumers who are shopping for meaning are either
drawn to that ethos and worldview or not. But if the
brand truly represents an ethos and worldview that
are attractive to consumers, those consumers will not
just patronize that brand, they will not just prefer that
brand, they will not just be loyal to that brand, they will
embrace that brand as part of their own identity. They
will, in essence, join the brand’s culture and participate
in that culture as a way of expressing to the rest of the
world (and to themselves) who they are and what they
believe in. They will also join the culture because, in
doing so, they are enacting their own values and voting
with their pocketbook.
The value of this to a company in terms of dollars
should be absolutely obvious. Think of the stranglehold
Apple has on the MP3 player category. (Remember
back when the term “MP3 player” was still used?) It
started with the iPod, which was not just a product,
it was a way of life. The iPod didn’t just put all other
MP3 players to shame when it came to usability and
functionality, it killed the category. Within a few years,
Apple was seeing growth in their computer sales
because of the iPod. People were buying into the Apple
way, the Apple experience, and (duh) the Apple brand.
By October of 2007 Apple jumped from owning 2% of
the personal computer market to owning 8%, with a
64% increase in profits for the year. And we all know
what’s happened since then with the iPhone launch.
Apple stands for a courageous, inventive, rebellious
and intuitive approach to life, and that’s converted PC
owners to Mac owners and, most importantly, to the
Apple way in general.
Belief, passion, commitment, identification. People
want to belong to something bigger than themselves.
People want to stand for something that matters.
People want to champion good over evil. People
want to do the right thing.
In the supermarkets, consumers are choosing to pay
twice as much for eggs from humanely-treated cage-
free chickens because of their values, not because it’s a
better egg. They do this because they don’t want to be
the cause of any mistreatment of chickens (caged birds
with their beaks clipped and all that).
WHEN BRANDS ADD
AUTHENTIC MEANING
TO PEOPLE'S LIVES
THEY BECOME A
PART OF PEOPLE'S
IDENTITY.
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LIQUID AGENCY
They don’t want to support such practices with
their dollars, and they don’t mind spending more
dollars to do so. People are carefully considering the
consequences of their actions, and they want brands
to do the same. When a consumer connects to a
brand that aligns with their most deeply-held beliefs
and sense of identity, they are essentially both pulling
that brand into their own world and entering the world
of that brand. What’s vital is to create a world that the
consumer can enter.
This is the idea behind Brand Culture. If you look
at what Harley Davidson has done, they have created
a rich body of meaning and embodied that meaning
in a system of symbols and actions. Whether it’s just
wearing an official Harley jacket or riding your hog to
Sturgis for a week, there are a multitude of symbols,
rituals, behaviors and objects that perpetually invite
people to join the Harley Davidson Brand Culture.
And Harley Davidson doesn’t even have to run the
brand culture—it essentially runs itself. They just
have to make sure the Brand holds up its end of
the bargain and operates in keeping with the Harley
ethos and worldview.
ILLUSTRATIONONSHIRTDESIGNEDBY13THFLOORDESIGN
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LIQUID AGENCY
“We argue that moving away
from product to corporate
branding means moving from
a communications/marketing
driven activity towards
adapting a brand-based
strategy for managing the
organization. Corporate
branding implies that the
whole organization serves as
the foundation for brand
positioning...”
ELLIOTT & WATTANASUWAN, 1978 13
Brand Culture is the driver.
Here’s a dirty little secret. We’re finding that, more
often than not, when we sit down and have an honest
conversation with the CEO and executive leadership
of a company, their biggest problem is not how the
outside world sees them. Sure, that’s an issue. But the
bigger issue is how to mobilize the company internally
around one single vision and purpose. Whether it be
the result of growth by acquisition or just a nasty case
of internal siloing, it is rare for a company to be unified
with everyone pulling together in the same direction
and for the same reasons.
Why is this? Sometimes there isn’t a strong,
clearly-articulated set of core values driving behavior,
so employees feel rudderless and adrift. Or, if there
is, employees don’t see anyone living those values and
they become cynical and demoralized. Coca-Cola is a
great example. Here’s one of the world’s most enduring
brands, but internally there is severe infighting and
multiple conflicting agendas. It hardly seems they are
living their brand values, and the company’s
brand equity continues to decline while Pepsi’s
continues to grow.14
BRAND
VALUES
EMPLOYEES CUSTOMERS
THE SAME CULTURE
THAT ATTRACTS
CUSTOMERS WILL
ALSO ATTRACT AND
KEEP EMPLOYEES.
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LIQUID AGENCY
Johnson & Johnson is an excellent example of an
organization that lives its brand values. Every decision
the company makes is vetted against a statement
called “Our Credo” which makes their number one
priority the welfare of doctors, nurses, patients,
mothers, fathers, and all who use their products.
The Credo was written in 1943 and is still guiding the
company’s decisions today.
Johnson & Johnson’s voluntary discontinuation of
Tylenol in capsule form after the highly-publicized
poisoning episodes cost them $100 million. Their
Credo—their values—wouldn’t have allowed them to
do anything else, even though the company and the
product were blameless. Johnson & Johnson has
created a powerful ethos and worldview that drives
both their internal behavior and their branding efforts.
You’d better believe consumers are attracted to a brand
with such strong values. And employees want to work
at a company that’s driven by its values—beliefs
they share.
Start with values and the rest will follow.
Branding today must be a company-wide initiative
based on core values. A company’s performance in the
marketplace usually starts with the internal dynamics of
the company. And if a brand sprouts from an internal
truth rather than a manufactured image, then the brand
starts here as well—on the inside of a company.
Executive leadership must realize that branding is no
longer solely the province of the marketing department.
Companies must build a brand culture that is rooted
in the heart of the organization and radiates outward
as a natural set of actions based on a common ethos
and worldview. This brand culture will not only unite
employees in a common purpose and vision, it will also
attract consumers and engage them in a deep and
meaningful relationship that transcends the traditional
marketing goals of brand preference and brand loyalty.
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LIQUID AGENCY
Appendix
1
Atkin, Douglas. The Culting of Brands: Turn Your
Customers Into True Believers. Portfolio (Penguin),
2004.
2
See our various footnotes.
3
Elliott, Richard and Davies, Andrea. “Symbolic Brands
and Authenticity of Identity Performance.”
In Schroeder, Jonathan E. and Salzer-Mörling, Miriam.
Brand Culture. Routledge, 2006.
4
Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. Basic
Books, 1973.
5
Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures.
Basic Books, 1973.
6
ibid.
7
Elliot, Richard and Wattanasuwan, Kritsadarat.
“Brands as Symbolic Resources for the Construction
of Identity.” International Journal of Advertising, 1998.
8
Heilbrunn, Benoît. “Cultural Branding Between
Utopia and A-topia.”
In Schroeder and Salzer-Mörling. Brand Culture.
Routledge, 2006.
9
McCracken, Grant. Culture and Consumption II.
Indiana University Press, 2005.
10
Heilbrunn, Benoît. “Cultural Branding Between
Utopia and A-topia.”
In Schroeder and Salzer-Mörling. Brand Culture.
Routledge, 2006.
11
Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures.
Basic Books, 1973.
12
New York Times, October 27, 2007.
13
Elliot, Richard and Wattanasuwan, Kritsadarat.
“Brands as Symbolic Resources for the Construction
of Identity.” International Journal of Advertising, 1998.
14
Lesley Kump, Kurt Badenhausen and Maya Roney.
“Beyond the Balance Sheet.” Forbes Magazine,
June 20, 2005.
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LIQUID AGENCY
An overview of Liquid Agency.
Our mission is to transform companies into amazing brands through Silicon Valley
Thinking. What this means is that we’re not satisfied with just making our clients look
better—we want them to be better. After all, who does not want to be amazing?
Over the years we’ve crafted branding programs
with some of the most innnovative people in Silicon
Valley. In the process we have learned what it takes
to build the kind of brands that attract the best talent,
make amazing products, and turn a good profit while
making a positive difference in the world.
We’ve had the distinct pleasure of working with
well-known brands, like Adidas, Anheuser-Busch,
Cisco, HP, Hitachi, Jeep, Intel, Microsoft, Sony,
T-Mobile and Visa. And, we have also worked with
lots of lesser known brands, including Amyris, Meebo,
Olive, Plastic Jungle, and others.
Our work has received numerous regional, national
and international awards, including multiple ADDYs,
ROSEY’s, REBRAND Awards, RedDot Awards, and
awards from other respected institutions.
Most importantly, we take great pride in doing work
that gets results for our clients. Whether we are
developing a new brand identity or an integrated
product launch campaign, we enjoy working with
people who aspire to do work that is innovative,
memorable, fun and effective.
Our headquarters are in Silicon Valley (CA), and we
also have offices in Portland (OR), New York (NY),
and Santiago (Chile), allowing us to provide services
to clients with a global footprint.
If you’d like to learn more about us, please visit:
liquidagency.com
OUR SERVICES INCLUDE:
• BRAND STRATEGY
• BRAND IDENTITY
• ENVIRONMENTAL BRANDING
• RETAIL BRANDING
• INTERNAL BRANDING
• DIGITAL BRANDING
21. 21
LIQUID AGENCY
LATIN AMERICA
Scott Gardner
CEO and President
T 408.781.2729
E scott@liquidagency.com
Alfredo Muccino
Chief Creative Officer
T 408.781.2717
E alfredo@liquidagency.com
Dennis Hahn
Chief Strategy Officer
T 503.330.4332
E dennis@liquidagency.com
USA
Marty Neumeier
Director of Transformation
T 650.327.2066
E marty@liquidagency.com
Katie Wagner
Director of Client Services, Pacific NW
T 503.705.0444
E katie@liquidagency.com
Cristián Montegu
President and Chief Creative Officer, LATAM
T (56.9) 9 433 3000
E cmontegu@magialiquid.com
We’d love to hear from you.
If you’re interested in learning more about Liquid and how we could help you gain
a competitive advantage, please feel free to contact: