U.S. foreign aid is crucial funding for a litany of causes that impact global public health, security, human rights, and many other areas. But it is under threat from the Trump administration, which wants to slash funding for foreign aid as part of a plan to cover a massive increase in defense spending. This is a misguided idea.
The arts are one key to unlock the American dream. Museums did this for me. What does it cost the government to do this for the next generation of Americans?
A Brand Pyramid is the result of sorting through a set of core questions that must be answered succinctly if you are to have the focus and differentiation you will need to thrive in your chosen marketplace.
In addition to the institutional Brand Pyramid, all products can have their own Brand Pyramids, Brand Maps and Competitive Advantage Diagrams. This allows you to market those products with greater efficiency and effectiveness.
Your complete organizational brand value is distilled into 3 pillars, the intersection of which represents your brand value delivered through experience. This helps us assess the means by which your brand promise is fulfilled, and illustrates the rationale for common economic or social transactions that your brand invites.
This diagram maps your brand offer as it relates to consumer needs.
The Marketing Targets Diagram presents a strategic hypotheses that clarifies which of your marketing targets should have marketing resources applied toward them, which of them should be addressed by other means, and which are not likely to yield sufficient return on investment in economic or brand terms.
Organizational alignment allows you to complete the loop from marketing communications and your brand promise all the way through to the lived experience of your consumers.
Why are marketers and advertisers keen to slap the word "jazz" on unrelated things from movies like La La Land to cologne and fruit? Let's examine the use of jazz in marketing.
Donald Trump won the presidential election by doing what we tell our clients to do every day. He rigorously stuck with the Trump brand.
We like clean narratives because they are easy to hold and remember. This goes for history, and for branding. What will history make of our time?
Are interactive features like card-making booths and ambient sounds at art museums "infantilizing prattle" distracting from the art? Or a way to engage audiences who might otherwise be lost?
Does culture eat strategy for lunch? Not really. But will a misaligned culture eat up your strategic efforts? Probably. Does it make sense to pay careful attention to an organization's culture and not just its business strategy? Absolutely!
Are cultural practices impeding your organization's health? Are you mindful of any communication gaps that may exist?
Along with our client, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, we're proud to have won a first prize in the American Alliance of Museums' 2016 Museum Publications Design Competition.
The story behind the campaign is worth telling because it says something about our client as an institution—one situated in a highly competitive museum market without the marketing budget to match its heavy-hitting competitors—and also something about our strategy-first approach.
