THE ULTIMATE BRAND: OUR SUPPORTING BELIEFS

Twenty-six ideas we believe in that drive our thinking and help keep us focused on creating real change in a client’s business

1. Nothing happens until something is sold.

2. Powerful creative is based on strategy.

3. Strategy is based on analysis.

4. Strategy and analysis then form the foundation upon which experience and instincts can be applied to create superb and effective materials.

5. Powerful creative is not based only on the creative skills of designers and writers.

6. That which can be measured should be measured. And,that which is measured improves.

7. Growth is the only measure of a company’s transformation.

8. Creative is the cornerstone that determines whether marketing materials produce results or are tossed in the trash.

9. Ultimately, all product and price advantages become neutralized through the forces of competition.

10. Design thus becomes the chief tool of differentiation.

11. Differentiation is the key to brand success.

12. What is design?

Fifteen years ago companies competed on price, today it’s quality, tomorrow it’s design.

—Chris Lorenz,
Management Editor, Financial Times.

In a world of largely saturated markets and many alternatives, astonishing the customer through superior design is the path to exceptional growth and products.

—Robert Heller,
Founding Editor, Management Today.

13. Seven important things to own:

  • a color
  • a word
  • a copy tone
  • a typeface
  • an attitude
  • a design look and feel
  • an exact position in a constituent’s mind

14. What makes a brand powerful is the emotional commitment of its customers.

15. When you make the right comparison you get “plus” awareness and “plus” results. Whereas, when you make the wrong comparison you get “minus” awareness and “minus” results.

16. Exceptional and differentiating ideas are the only currency of the successful challenger brand.

17. Sales breakthroughs are the result of marketing strategies.

18. We believe in establishing the “Gestalt”—the essence of a brand.

19. We believe every product has a “tableau vivant”—a backdrop to life that it can be set against.

20. Every company has a unique selling proposition that must be defined.

21. The category isn’t. A customer compares your brand against every other brand—not just the brands in some imaginary category. A company’s brand must compete against 1,200,000 USA trademarks when the average person’s vocabulary is only 60,000 words.

22. We believe in creating a perfect “refraction” for a brand by creating such a focused message that the brand is burned into the mind of constituents.

23. You cannot get to a better place by walking the same path.

24. To create anything fine takes time.

25. The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.

26. The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decisions, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.

—Goethe