01
Marketing’s not an island.
It’s landlocked, dead center amid finance, logistics, technology, service, trends, data and a ton of other facets that make business go. Marketing touches everything, so everyone at the marketing table needs to be savvy about the broader business: to understand the real problems, in a deeper way, and to understand the customer better than the competition does. To face the reality around you isn’t always easy, but there’s a reason it’s our #1.
02
Always. Be. Simplifying.
You’ve fiercely stared down reality and, well, reality can look pretty complex. No worries. We help narrow your focus to just one or two Growth Drivers. These are the situations that are, when dealt with, your best opportunities. Now that you have clarity and direction, things aren’t so complex. Always Be Simplifying is useful for our creative, too: sharper brand platforms, refined messages, uncluttered packaging. Simple is powerful.
03
Disproportionate Mindshare.
Admit it, you want to be more important. Our job is to make people notice your brand much more than they rationally should based on the resources you have to apply against it. Period. We call this Disproportionate Mindshare. This can happen through the power of compelling creative, valuable insights only you (and we) know, the ability to disrupt a market, zagging against mainstream zigging, embracing micro-targeting, or a combination. Doing more with less takes, smarts, creativity and our favorite, ferocity. Be fierce.
04
Brand as an economic engine.
Economics? Sounds boring—unless you like profit. Strong brands drive greater amounts of it. They create value if you craft and care for them well. Weak brands erode value. Perpetual discounting is one symptom and it’s all too common. A compelling brand, one with meaning and distinction, changes perceptions about a product, changes a commodity into something unique, increases perceived value, can help open retail doors, and can command a higher price. Brands can be bankable.
Growth Drivers
Our job is to understand, then declutter your world to reveal the top opportunities and a clear path to success.
Simplifying may sound hard when the terrain around you is complex. But this is exactly why we take a Focused Approach, and central to focus is our Growth Driver discipline. Our experience in CPG branding has shown us there really are only a number of situations that challenge clients. These are the Growth Drivers. And when you arrive at and start focusing your resources on the one or two biggest ones, you, too, will believe in the power of simplification.
Featured Growth Driver
BRAND CLARITY
A great example of brand clarity is the work we did for The Olde Mecklenburg Brewery. See OMB’s case study.
Lack of message clarity is symptomatic of weak branding, either creatively or strategically—or both. Without a clear, consistent message, your audience becomes more fragmented, more confused and disengaged. This can leave you with shallow transaction-based customer relationships, not deeper emotional ones.
Clarifying and simplifying is even more important for challenger brands because they have to do more with less. With less resources to apply, concentration needs to be focused in a specific direction. To find that direction, our Brand Brief and Brand Story (end of the strategy process) help to bring a fine point to a client’s purpose, tone, personality and value proposition.
In creative development, the brief and story drive our Single Strand approach. This is the idea that a single, focused concept threaded into all brand touchpoints and marcom will provide more intensity, consistency and recall. The Brand Brief, Brand Story and Single Strand approach are critical steps in achieving brand clarity.
Leadership Team
Our skills and histories are diverse enough to see and solve more problems in more ways. What do we have in common? We’re all fiercely ambitious and brutally candid. In a nice way.
Bob Shaw
Founder/President
Kelli Masilun
VP of Brand Development
Mathis Martines
VP, Brand and Strategy
Mark Conachan
Creative Director
