Build a brand your audience craves and your competitors envy.
We develop irresistible brands via a proven cultural strategy process that has created billions of dollars in shareholder value for companies of all sizes.
If our scars could speak, they’d say we’ve learned the hard way that three things matter when designing for cultural leverage, Meaning, Values and Tensions.
You may think differently. That’s cool. See you at the finish line. Wait, what’s your drink? We’ll have it waiting for you…
Meaning
The past steers the present toward the future.
We decode what really matters, looking beneath accepted convention to gain an understanding of the constructs that shape our society.
Values
Values frame our human experience, allowing us to make sense of the world.
Beliefs and behaviors, present in every culture, are a shared definition that codifies what is acceptable and attractive or not.
Tensions
We identify cultural dynamics, often in the form of tensions created when values are threatened. We leverage these opportunities to create brand experiences that generate mythology and motivate human behavior. It’s easier said than done.
Leveraging Culture
Brands are inherently cultural expressions. Success requires a strategy that works within culture, specifically focused on the Design Targets that create culture.
A CULTURAL BRAND STRATEGY is the connective thread between business strategy, creative expression and brand experience. It provides the permission to participate in culture. It’s a license to help others create mythology and rituals that promote their self-identity.
Design Targeting
Focusing is not limiting, it is liberating.
Design Targets are audiences that represent a disproportionate source of value to your endeavor. They are predisposed to love you and influence others to do the same. We intentionally design brand experiences for them.
Design Targeting yields exponentially higher returns through organization alignment, resource focus and cost avoidance. It’s the antidote to the ‘shotgun' approach. Finding your design target is essential to effective cultural branding. Going deep with ethnography provides the ‘why’ to the ‘what’ your data shows.
What we do
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We help our clients understand the size of their market opportunity and prioritize the audiences that will drive success. We define the most important and motivating aspects for choice and uptake, prioritizing both design and messaging. Then we help them develop the product experiences that fulfill need states.
Primary Research (Qualitative and Quantitative)
Ethnographic Research
White Space Identification, Assessment, and Valuation
Total Addressable Market and Audience Segmentation
Design Targeting - High-value Audience Identification and Persona Development
Product Concept Development and Envisioning
Industrial Design and User Research
Packaging Design and Development
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We develop culturally relevant brand narratives and design brands that naturally represent the products they represent and appeal to the consumers they are meant for.
Vision, Mission, Values Development
Cultural Brand Strategy
Archetypal Character and Narrative Development
Brand and Product Naming
Brand Identity System Design
Brand Origin Story, Tagline, and Creative Writing
Brand Experience Strategy and Design
Communications and Creative Strategy
Strategic Design Services
Audio Branding/Music Program Consulting
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We develop culturally relevant brand narratives and design brands that meaningfully communicate the products they represent and appeal to the audiences they value them.
Advertising Campaign Development
Content Production (Photography and Videography)
Media Planning and Deployment
Full Funnel Media, and Performance Media and Marketing
Strategic Collaborations and Partnerships