July, 2015 | Branding Breakthroughs

Sometimes You Just Need to Nurture Your Creativity

Posted by Branding Breakthroughs / Brand Personality, Communications, Passion

These days, there seems to be an insatiable desire to link everything we do on social media back to ROI, a statistic or something else that helps move your business forward in a dollars-and-cents kind of way.

How many new prospects did you generate on Twitter?
Did your LinkedIn article show how knowledgeable you are?
Did your Facebook post make people want to work for you?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I agree that there has to be a purpose for it all at the end of the day. Why spend countless hours and brain cells working on something if it doesn’t elevate your business in a quantifiable way?

But lately, I can’t help but wonder if we are missing some of the really important ‘soft’ benefits of engaging in social media.

Like creativity, for example.

Posting to your social media account can allow you to flex your creative muscle and to solve some of those business problems that have been nagging you for days.

Branding Breakthroughs may be dedicated to advancing our client’s understanding of branding, but let’s be real … creativity is a critically important component of crafting an insightful and inspiring brand strategy.

For us, outlets like Tumblr and Instagram provide the opportunity to go beyond the day-to-day business workings (which can get tedious at times) and express ourselves in a way that brings new clarity and vision to the work at hand.

If you read any of the many articles written on breaking through creative blocks – like this one at Creative Bloq or this one at Fast Company – you see some common threads. Take a stroll around the neighborhood. Snap some photos. Draw a picture. Write aimlessly. Commune with nature. It is through these creative outlets that our brains are allowed to free float and to, sometimes miraculously, come up with a solution to a problem that has stumped us.

Perhaps Jill Davis is on to something when she says, “The waves of the sea help me get back to me.”

So, don’t be afraid to use a social media channel like Tumblr, Instagram or Pinterest to feed your intellectual curiosity and to nurture your creativity.

It may pay off for you in unexpectedly wonderful ways.

To see how Branding Breakthroughs nurtures their creativity, check out our Tumbler, Instagram and Pinterest accounts. You will notice each still pays off our brand by delivering consistent imagery in a voice that is in total alignment with who we are.

15
Jul

An Obituary Can Help Your Brand Come Alive

Posted by Branding Breakthroughs / Market Research, Marketing, Marketing Research, Qualitative Research

Obituaries Make Us Sad

The word ‘obituary‘ likely conjures up images of lilies, funeral homes and heartbreak. It’s generally not a happy thought … no matter how it is served up.

But perhaps it’s the context in which we think of obituaries.

Consumer-Written Obituaries Add Fresh Insight

A consumer-written obituary can be immensely helpful when it comes to the health of your brand. It can point out vulnerabilities before they become reality and help you understand why your brand is revered by its loyalists.

Doing an obituary exercise in a focus group or as preparation for a brainstorm can be very insightful. Split the group in two and have half write an obituary for your brand and half write one for a key competitor. Ask them to read their obituaries out loud and use their comments as fodder for a group discussion.

Ask These Questions

So, what’s in a good obituary?

An Obituary Can Breathe Life Into Your Brand

Sometimes, asking consumers to write an obituary can breathe life into your brand before it becomes a mere epitaph.

Associative Techniques Brand Obituary Fill in the blank Focus groups Obituary Obituary Exercise Projective techniques

11
Jul

Are Snackable Visuals Seductive? You Decide.

Posted by Branding Breakthroughs / Brand Strategy

According to Socially Sorted, Snackable Visual Content describes “images that are digestible, highly shareable and can easily cross social platforms and drive traffic.”

To illustrate the value of snackable visuals, let’s take a fact and illustrate it in three different ways. Then you judge which is most captivating.

Here is our fact:

When you add a visual to a tweet, you can boost retweets by 35%.

OPTION 1:

Adding a photo to your tweet can boost retweets by 35%. (HubSpot)

OPTION 2:

OPTION 3:

Images infographics power of visuals snackable viauls snackable visual content snackable visuals Visuals

10
Jul

Is Brand Strategy Just BS?

Posted by Branding Breakthroughs / Brand, Brand Equity, Brand Personality, brand positioning, Brand Promise, Brand Strategy, Branding, Communications, Marketing, Messaging, single-minded messages

In my work at Branding Breakthroughs, one thing has become abundantly clear … people think they understand Brand Strategy, but they really don’t.

So, just what is Brand Strategy and why does it matter?

What Brand Strategy Is Not

Perhaps it is best to begin by explaining what Brand Strategy is not.

It is not your logo.
It is not your website.
It is not your product.
It is not your brand name.
It is not that fancy newsletter you publish.

What Is Brand Strategy?

“Brand Strategy is what happens before any marketing takes place.”

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Think of it as the frame of your house. The 2x4s that make up the walls, the roof, the ceilings, the floors. These important pieces form the foundation of your house. If you use inferior materials or hastily construct it, your house may not withstand normal wear-and-tear; worse yet, it definitely will not hold strong when the high winds of that unexpected storm hit.

Which Questions Do I Need Answer?

Here are some of the questions you should answer in order to create a compelling Brand Strategy.

So, now perhaps you understand that BS stands for Brand Strategy and that it is a really important building block for your brand.

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