Branding. Rebranding. Even brand refreshes and brand equity. These words are thrown around a lot in the marketing industry. At Wallace360, we say we make brands. But what does “brand” actually mean? And how does one go about refreshing one, let alone making one?
The important thing to remember is that a brand is a holistic summing up of who you are and what you’re all about:
A brand is far more than just a logo. And re-branding is more than just a logo update and a new look and feel on your creative. It’s exploring what you are on the inside and reflecting that outwardly. A brand is the sum of all parts, how they work together and what that communicates. And all those parts must be considered.
Miriam-Websters defines “brand” as “a class of goods identified by name as the product of a single firm or manufacturer,” “a characteristic or distinctive kind” and even “a public image, reputation, or identity conceived of as something to be marketed or promoted.”
And that’s not to mention the other kind of brand: “a mark made by burning with a hot iron.” In the old days, cattle were branded literally for the purpose of identifying who they belonged to should they wander away from their herd. Brands of today – Nike, Apple, Hershey or even local brands like Bread Craft, Crystal Spring Grocery, Walkabout Outfitters – aren’t all that different. They all use a mark, or a logo, to identify themselves and their products. But beyond just a means of identification, their branding helps convey what the organization or business is all about.
When you see a bottle of hand soap from Walmart’s generic brand Equate you might think “value.” Earbuds from Apple in their sleek white case might signify “top-notch tech.” And a Subaru Forester might make you think “safety.” There is a lot of meaning packed into brands. And not all of it comes from a logo.
What creates this? Well, everything. Take Chick-fil-A for instance. The quick-service restaurant that used to be relegated to mall food courts is now one of the most popular nationwide. Why? It not only built a better chicken sandwich, but a better brand that resonates with those it serves. It’s doing something unique with its core product, but also in how it does things and in what it stands for. It’s closed on Sundays. It runs its drive-thru operation with insane efficiency. Its mascot is not a chicken, but renegade cows. It has mastered customer service and become synonymous with “my pleasure.”
It does what it does with consistency, despite operating under a franchise model, because it’s held together by a strong brand that’s aligned with its values, mission and vision, all backed by its founders, its leaders and its employees. Everyone is onboard.
When building or refreshing a brand, the best place to start is from the inside out. Or in the case of the list of identity considerations above, from the bottom up. The most successful outward displays of branding are always the ones that most consistently and authentically reflect the business or organization at its core. That’s why we at Wallace360 start there.
Our first steps in any branding exercise is to dig deep into the organization. We talk to founders, current leaders, board members, employees, you name it. Sometimes face-to-face, sometimes through surveys. We ask questions like these:
We also look to what outsiders say. When you’re immersed in your organization – “drinking the Kool-Aid” so to speak – it’s sometimes hard to see the forest through the trees so this outside perspective is especially helpful. We also look at how the business operates internally: How it makes decisions, how it communicates with and engages its stakeholders and the practices of its leadership.
Truth lies in action but also in perception, and how employees and “outsiders” view you often speaks volumes. That’s not to say we’re digging for dirt. Quite the contrary. We’re seeking to unearth the truth behind a brand in the missions, vision and values that guide its actions. Often that is where the heart of a brand really lies.
For instance, we recently completed a rebrand for Roanoke Valley Broadband Authority (RVBA). Since its inception, the organization has set to work laying miles of fiber-optic cable across the Valley. At first blush, anyone would tell you that RVBA was all about providing quality internet access. But just like Chick-fil-A’s not just about chicken, RVBA isn’t just about internet access. We dug deeper and found that at its core, RVBA really exists to make the Roanoke Valley a better place to live and do business.
What follows as you build or refresh a brand is just working your way up, letting the core of who you are influence those outward manifestations of your identity from the napkins you use in your restaurant and the ambiance of your store to your messaging, logo and user experience on your website. Brands that want a “refresh” are often eager to save money and jump right into new design and a new logo. This is one of the biggest mistakes you can make.
A brand’s logo and what it looks like all convey something. And it’s key this be rooted in something more substantive than nice-looking design alone. When this substance is identified, it becomes the glue that holds everything together. Everything ladders up and makes sense. How a brand looks, how it sounds, what it does and the purpose behind that are all aligned. When they aren’t, you’ve got a larger problem, but that’s a subject for another article.
When you arrive at the heart of your business, it doesn’t just inform your “branding” and marketing in the traditional sense. It can become an effective filter through which you make major decisions. It will help you ask yourself, is XYZ thing I’m deciding about on target with what my organization seeks to achieve? Is it “on brand”?
Don’t fall victim to instant gratification and the need for a nicer, newer logo. Take time to step back and do some introspection and discovery work first. This ultimately gets you to a better place faster. And just like Chick-fil-A, it all becomes a piece of who you are – your brand.
Probably better known as "Start With Your Why", it's been cited millions of times across boardrooms, classrooms, Zoom calls, articles, pitches, presentations, and more. If you need a refresher or have been living under a rock for the past decade, it's really worth a watch:
Simon breaks down effective messaging into a clear and easy to understand "golden circle" and backs the whole thing up with science, making this the pivotal "ah-ha" moment for millions of entrepreneurs out there. I count myself among that group as well. We all walked away thinking, "Wow, what a great idea!"
When I was in college at the Art Institute of Atlanta studying graphic design (the year before this video came out), I had a professor that taught us how to identify a great idea. The context of the instruction was around knowing when you've created a great logo design, but I've found that it pertains to most great ideas in life.
A great idea makes you say "Why didn't I think of that?"
Great ideas are simple, easy to understand, and often times, obvious. They can seem so simple, in fact, that the excitement and feeling of understanding we walk away with can leave a whole team feeling as if it's all smooth sailing from here.
If you watched the TEDx video above, then you know this whole "Start with your why" thing falls squarely into the good idea category. It's a simple strategy and roadmap to success, right?
The truth is, you and I weren't given the full map in the TEDx talk and the golden circle is surprisingly absent of what is arguably the most important part. It covers Why, How, and What.
But what about, Who?
It's all about knowing who you serve. It always has been and always will be. Without the Who, you have no Why. And if your Why isn't actually about the Who, then you're probably just selling to yourself.
Let's take a look back at the why-statement used in the Apple example Simon provided in the video:
"Everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo. We believe in thinking differently."
This why-statement is all about who they serve. That's what makes their brand so effective. They understand who they are selling to and tailor their business to reflect that image back to their customers. Everything they do, from their product design, to their in-store experience, to their purchasing process, and beyond, keeps who they serve at the heart of everything they are and do.
Their success is rooted in their universal understanding of this key point right from the get-go and their "Why" flows effortlessly there-after. Alignment and Positioning come at the start of all our work for a reason.
Once you know who you serve and why you serve them, it's important to understand that your why is really meant for you and your team, not necessarily your client or customer. It's meant to inform your messaging, not overtake it. It's your organization's guiding principle and acts as the gravity that pulls your entire organization and your customers together. If you're not living it through and through, that's when you'll see sales drop.
But why?
Ah, the rub—the part most people don't want to admit. Identifying and understanding your "Who" or "Why" or any part of Simon's golden circle is actually a lot harder than it sounds. And articulating it in a way that doesn't sound contrived and vague, and then presenting it to the right people at the right time? That's even harder.
In my personal life, I'm an avid DIYer. I own an old farm house in southwest Virginia that's just a little over 100 years old. It's full of life, character, history and a DIYer's dream come true. But as I've learned the hard way over the years, not everything is actually a DIY project. When it came time to rip out the floors down to the dirt and replace nearly all of the termite damaged joists that support the whole thing, I knew exactly how to do it. I also knew I'd only do more harm than good to this old place I love if I tried to tackle that project on my own.
Your organization is the same way. When it comes to repairing the very foundation and ensuring smooth sailing from there, you call in the professionals. It's why we handle the Creative and Activation for our clients as well.
Good strategy with good implementation leads to success.
Legendary graphic designer and art director Paul Rand once said, “Design is the silent ambassador of your brand.”
A picture is definitely worth a thousand words. Take a moment and think of your favorite brands and the instant thoughts and feelings they evoke. What qualities make them most memorable for you? Colors? Symbol? Attitude?
Corporate branding consists of many components including a positioning statement (in 360 speak, this is known as “that one thing”), tagline, logo, supporting imagery and clear messaging that all work together cohesively to convey the brand’s look, tone and overall personality. Successfully implemented design helps brands achieve recognition and build customer trust and loyalty.
The iconic Nike swoosh, the clever FedEx arrow, Apple’s sophisticated use of the color white, the creativity of Google doodles—these are design standouts that have elevated their respective brands.
The logo is the cornerstone of a company’s identity system, the first visual impression it makes to the world. At first glance a logo may seem deceptively simple—yet a wealth of research, strategy and creativity has been packed into a well-designed mark. It can consist of logotype (where the font is customized, like Visa and Disney), a symbol (abstract or pictorial), or a combination of symbol and type.
Sure, we’re living in a virtual world where anyone can buy a $50 logo from a McLogo site (and that may work just fine for a teenage mowing service), but businesses can’t afford not to invest in their visual identity. Renowned graphic designer and filmmaker Saul Bass stated, “Logos are the graphic extension of the internal realities of a company.” A company’s identity should match and support its mission and goals, and authenticity and quality are key to reaching and keeping customers.
What sets a great logo apart from others? It’s appealing, simple/clear, memorable, timeless, versatile, innovative, and enforces and inspires the overall brand. Color and typography are two über important design elements that help infuse personality into a company’s visual identity and distinguish one brand from others in the marketplace.
Color delivers instant emotional impact to viewers, and color psychology is truly a fascinating topic. Colors wield a powerful and often subliminal influence, and designers choose them deliberately. Red, yellow, and orange are commonly used in the restaurant industry to whet our appetites; blue is extremely popular for businesses from healthcare to banking to technical fields because it conveys trust and dependability. White is often used in cosmetics packaging for its clean, fresh feeling. Green is a go-to choice for environmental and financial businesses. Many companies include a secondary color in their logo and a coordinating color palette in their branding pieces, and these help to further customize their brand. There are cultural variances for color meanings so it’s important to know your intended audience and be aware of differences (for example, yellow in Latin American countries symbolizes mourning and sorrow, as does the color black in Chinese culture).
Typography also helps visually describe and reinforce branding through style. Fonts give different impressions to viewers and are chosen strategically by graphic designers to best express the personality of the brand. Whether your business or product is high tech or hand-crafted, the right font can instantly communicate appropriate brand flavor. Sans serif fonts bring a modern, simple feel, while serif fonts generally have a more traditional, formal feel. Script and handwritten fonts offer a completely different visual vibe.
Design can—quietly or boldly—help your brand connect, inspire, educate, provoke, entertain, persuade, and influence consumers, including potential customers. Brand cultivation is as important for a Fortune 500 company as it is for a grassroots startup. And quality design creates visual cohesion and helps ensure customer recognition, interest and loyalty.
Whether you’re starting a new company, or looking to polish up or completely overhaul your existing logo and branding, investing in your brand’s visual identity is one of the smartest moves you can make.
"When the world is predictable, you need smart people. When the world is unpredictable you need adaptable people."
-Henry Mintzberg
We’ve all experienced unexpected circumstances in business that call for us to adapt. Changing markets, advancing technology, lack of access to resources – just a few examples of opportunities where we are called to change (or adapt) as our environment changes.
On some level, we know what we must do to adapt at critical times. Sometimes we’re conscious of the changes needed, sometimes we’re not. Sometimes we adapt, and sometimes we don’t. It’s easy to put off thinking about it, especially when it requires some strategic muscle to resolve. Or we create excuses – we don’t have the available resources, or it’s too uncomfortable or overwhelming to even consider. We create distractions. And we don’t adapt.
But universal law teaches us that languishing in the status quo eventually brings more of the discomfort you’re trying to avoid, and often worse. I’ll be 60 next year and have learned that lesson the hard way. I’ve also witnessed it with clients more times than I can count. Which is why I’ve developed such a passion around this idea of adaptability. I guide clients to approaching their decision making through the lens of adaptability with a mind open to the idea that change – however difficult it may be – can open them up to new growth and success.
Very rarely is business predictable, especially in the beginning. Thriving as a business owner for 30 years has required constant adaptability. The same goes for striving for constant relevancy and making sure the business continues to grow. And me with it.
Adaptability is just a way of being when starting a business – there’s only one way to move and that’s forward. You just do what you have to do to make the business work, pay the rent and put food on the table.
My business launched July 1, 1990 and the novelty of being completely on my own gave me a new kind of freedom. But during that first year, I experienced a big shift in the way I did business. Suddenly my world went from producing all my work using rapidiographs, ink and X-Acto blades to sitting in front of a new Apple computer, navigating Pagemaker with a mouse. My love of ink on paper was diminished daily with growing frustrations of learning this new tool. I was eager to adapt, however. My motivation was the promise of being able to design on the fly and set my own type. Talk about freedom.
Did I adapt? Absolutely.
No longer did I toil over tissue paper with my thin markers to draw headlines for comps to show clients, something that I actually found pleasantly meditative. But specifying type to send out to a typesetter for galleys? Not so much. Not all galleys worked perfectly in my layouts. In fact it was rare not to have to make some kind of change. Sometimes it was a typo, or the rag-right looked weird – it was always something… and the ability to manipulate my own type in a layout, in real time on my tiny new 8” screen, was more than motivation for me to learn to love that new $10,000 investment–it was a game-changer–and I moved with determination and speed.
I knew some designers and illustrators who were not so quick to jump on the Mac bandwagon, and the longer they waited, the harder it became for them to stay up-to-date with the ever-changing technology – and continue to thrive in the advertising industry. Some adapted by completely shifting the direction of their professional lives. One became a truck driver. Some took early retirement.
When change is in the air, it’s difficult to know exactly what to do. COVID may be an extreme example, but certainly a timely one. Over the past nine months, many clients adopted a wait-and-see attitude. Now that the initial shock of the pandemic is past, the fear of moving forward seems to be subsiding at least. But what I find very interesting is there’s virtually no shift to their approach and their messaging hasn’t changed. Maintaining the status quo is like not even acknowledging that we are in the middle of a pandemic that’s completely changing the way we live and work. We’ve turned kitchens into offices and classrooms, we’re watching sports with no fans. We’re isolated in our homes, staying out of indoor restaurants, wondering about Christmas and when we can see family, afraid to shop locally for anything other than groceries and duct tape, and put on a mask every time we leave the house.
In light of all these shifts – not to mention the intense (and invisible) health risks within our communities – marketing messages need to change or shift enough to meet this changing environment. Think about it. How is your business maximizing its online presence? How do you demonstrate your ability to meet the changing needs of your customers? How do you reinforce ways your business is responding to the changes we are all experiencing? Responding to the shifts and changes in the market is a clear way for you to demonstrate your relevancy. How are you answering the call? Whether it’s by reinforcing your market position or by providing a service that makes life easier for your customers, the time to adapt is now.
But change can be hard. For Wallace360, these recent changes have particular relevancy for the way we do business and the way we approach client work. By studying every part of our clients’ business, with a 360-degree view, we can see with an outside perspective, what’s more difficult for anyone on the inside to see. It takes vision to see where the real opportunities are hidden and to develop strategic plans that map out the route to get you where you need to go with your business. We provide new ways for you to think about your most worrisome challenges (or maximize your greatest strengths) and work with you to make your business better, more fulfilling and successful. And adaptability is a key principle to the equation for success.
Years ago I remember hiring outside consultants to help us be better at various aspects of the business – better systems, processes, whatever it happened to be. And of course, once the consultants were gone and we each had our role to play, it was up to us to step up and do our part to get with the new program. With all the best intentions, we (I) tried whole-heartedly to embrace the suggested changes, with much anticipation of our resulting reward – better processes, quality control and efficiencies to better serve our clients. But in no time, just like a pulled rubber band snapping back into its rightful place, I’d feel myself moving back to what I knew, what I had always done and where I was the most comfortable. I understood the changes in theory, but something was missing when it came time to put a new system into practice.
“People don’t resist change per se, people resist loss,” says Ronald A. Heifetz in Leadership on the Line. It’s not only changing the business processes that’s the challenge. It’s just as much about the people being asked to make the change, if not even more so. Asking them to step out of their comfort zone and face the loss of their tried and true way of working is only the first step. And then what’s the reward for their hard work?
But in the challenge, comes the reward. During a recent cultural initiative with a client, we witnessed the magic of creating alignment among all levels of an organization. Our process started by asking questions (we want to hear what you think), then listening (we are interested in what you value), and then engaging with everyone from the board to the front-line workers. It seems so basic, but creating alignment around shared values creates dialog, inclusion and inspiration to be a better company.
Efforts like these change your (working) environment, and adaptability is absolutely essential in order to fully realize your desired result whether it’s updating an internal process or repositioning your company in the marketplace. Quite simply, the idea of adaptability should to be at the center of the discussion, or better yet needs to be the thing that leads the discussion before any shift can successfully take place within your business.
And this is what we do at Wallace360.
We believe that adaptability is a central idea to just about everything we do. Because when businesses contact us, they are looking for things to change – more sales, more effective marketing programs, better profitability, higher employee retention – and I believe starting with adaptability is a way to drive change with a more open, productive and accommodating spirit. And while I’m not suggesting barriers will magically dissolve without some work, you’ve got to start somewhere, and I believe starting under an umbrella of adaptability fosters open minds and brings our best foot forward.
Change or die. The time to adapt is now.
By now, you’ve probably gone through the process of launching a website or two, either for your own organization or for an employer. The average lifespan of a website is between three to five years, and we’re well into this thing called the digital revolution, so I’m willing to bet you have at least some peripheral experience with this.
It’s also likely those experiences left you feeling less than enthusiastic about the thought of upgrading your site or launching a new one. The expense alone can be enough to make you consider trying to squeeze another year out of what you’ve got, but we all get to the point where we know—deep down—that it’s time. Something about that Comic Sans font just isn’t doing it for you anymore.
What are your next steps?
For most people, they Google the competition and start drawing comparisons. The checklist looks a bit like this:
No doubt, all of those things look great, and you should be aware of what your competition is doing. But is their site actually working for them? How do you know? Should you just copy what they did and call it a day? SquareSpace does have some really generic nice-looking templates.
But the truth is...
Are you scratching your head yet?
Sure, you can go through the motions of implementing the latest and greatest technology, having a blazing-fast site, a sexy design, maybe sprinkle in some testimonials, and even hire a bad-ass photographer to really capture the essence of your organization. But, having personally led the development of hundreds of websites over the years, from .coms to .govs and everything in between, I can say with confidence that the most successful sites always have one thing in common:
A hyper-clear vision of who they are and who they serve.
That sounds simple enough on the surface, but nothing brings to light just how much your organization has lost sight of its original goals (or never had them to begin with) like the process of redesigning a website.
That apprehension I mentioned earlier about a new site isn’t actually rooted in the financials. It comes from the fear of not having a clear vision and a lack of purpose. If you’ve found yourself asking, “What do we put on this thing?” then that’s a big red flag. Your website, after all, is just a digital representation of your business and its processes. When you have a clear vision of who you are and who you serve, then you already have your answer. You’ll also better understand that investing in your site is the same as investing in any other part of your business that makes you money, and the whole website redesign thing suddenly doesn’t seem so daunting, especially with the right team behind you.
But how do you get the kind of clarity that leads to a successful website?
Again with the obvious, but it’s surprising just how little this happens. When was the last time you actually spoke with your customers about their experiences with your organization? Sure, you can send surveys and read online reviews, but nothing beats a face-to-face conversation (or a Zoom call during a global pandemic) to learn more about who you’re serving and how their needs have changed.
Part of our 360 Process is to sit down with our clients’ customers and record/transcribe our conversations with them (with permission, of course). We bring conversational questions designed to learn all about where you’re excelling and uncover hidden opportunities to fill a need you didn’t realize your customers had. Not to sound too click-baity, but the results might surprise you.
How does this translate to your website?
By uncovering what really drives your customers, we remove the guesswork about what actually drives sales. Through those face-to-face conversations, we better understand the kind of language to use when communicating with your customers (often using the exact same words they use when describing their experiences). Content is king, after all. Without the right words, that slick-looking website isn’t going to help you.
This strategic approach positions your site (and your brand) as authentic and human, which can feel particularly refreshing in our current online environment of algorithms and bots.
Coming out of our previous step, where we spoke directly with customers to learn more about their take on your business, the next area to get clear on is your offerings. This can be tricky because you’ve probably been offering the same products and services for a long time, so it’s tempting to skip this part and assume you’ve got it on lockdown, or that simple adjustments to pricing will be enough.
The world is changing, and your offerings and processes need to adapt. This is true with or without crazy years like 2020. You aren’t the same person you were a few years ago, and neither are your customers.
I’m not going to sugarcoat it: this isn’t an easy process, and doing it right can sometimes feel wrong. That’s why introducing a new perspective (like the one Wallace360 brings to the table, *ahem*) can be a reliable way to get beyond your own biases and assumptions. But you can still ask yourself these questions:
Are your offerings meeting your customers’ needs? Do they bring you closer to your own business and personal goals? Checking this against the 80/20 rule can be a great place to start.
How does this help your website?
By getting clear on your offerings and actually offering things that people want, your website becomes significantly more targeted. Not only will more specific product offerings result in higher organic search traffic, by way of better Search Engine Optimization (SEO), but that traffic will be more likely to convert to the kind of sales that actually benefit your business.
Pro tip: Don’t lump all of your product offerings on one page and call it a day. Break each one out into its own page, and be specific about who it’s for and which problems it solves. This trick alone will give you huge bump in your SEO.
Bear with me because this might get a bit… dry. But you don’t want to overlook the data, and I’d be doing you a disservice by skipping over it. If this just isn’t your cup of tea, skip down to the next section. You’re going to need it.
By now, you’ve probably at least heard of the free tracking tool, Google Analytics. It’s a magical tool that lets you track and measure your digital marketing efforts in granular detail. If this isn’t already on your website, you should get that taken care of ASAP. There are alternatives available, but for the sake of this article and getting you some quick data, let’s stick to Google Analytics.
Not sure if your site is running Google Analytics? Send us message and we’ll let you know.
Now, what to do with all this data? It’s not very useful if you don’t know what you’re looking at, but even non-techy folks can find some valuable bits of information here pretty quickly and easily. I recommend starting with the Acquisition Overview section and the Behavior Overview section.
Just from these two quick overviews, we can learn a lot. We can see how much visibility and traffic your current site is getting, where that traffic is coming from, and what information visitors are most interested in. The longer you track user activity, the better picture you’re going to get.
When we work with our clients to examine their data, we go as far back as we can to identify patterns and external events that resulted in unexpected traffic spikes. Along with measuring numerous other metrics, we also confirm information that we discovered during the previous two steps, where we engaged with real people and made impactful decisions about how best to serve them with your offerings.
Google Analytics is easily the quickest and easiest way to get informative data, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention a few other tools we like to use. When needed, your website might benefit from at least one of the following:
How does all of this inform a better website?
With a clear, data-driven understanding of who your online customers are, where they’re coming from, and how they find and engage with your organization online, you get a clear picture of where to focus your efforts. Whether that’s shifting more budget to social media marketing, adding or removing specific pages from your site, ad retargeting, or all of the above, any decision made will be done with clear intent and reasoning.
A word of caution, though: Data can easily seem like the be-all, end-all decision maker that’s infallible in its guidance. But data can be tricky, and it can be deceptive. Its real strength is found in its ability to connect the dots between our earlier findings. Avoid vanity numbers like “Impressions” and be on the lookout for high traffic or engagements that don’t seem to be doing anything. These feel great, but they’ll steer you in the wrong direction if you’re not careful. Which brings me to my final point.
There’s one more thing successful websites all have in common: They got it done and launched.
This is obviously everyone’s goal, but website projects fall apart all the time before they ever go live. Whether they never got off the ground to begin with, got caught up in boardroom-review hell, or ran out of money, it usually comes back to the same core problem:
Not having a hyper-clear vision of who you are and who you serve.
Our clients avoid these pitfalls by working with us to align the whole organization from the get-go and helping them adapt to their current situation. The unbiased, third-party perspective and experiences we bring to the table are often key to pushing past the inner roadblocks that every organization has, so when it’s time for that new website, moving forward efficiently becomes easier and everyone involved knows what it’s going to accomplish.
The site gets launched—which is ultimately the most important thing.
The beauty of the Web is that nothing is set in stone. Your website should continue to evolve with your goals and customers in mind. By getting strategic about your business as a whole before diving into your redesign, you’ll be positioning your organization—and your website—to adapt to the ever-changing landscape and ensure that your investment continues to pay you dividends, no matter what the future holds.
If there is a lesson to be learned from watching The Grandin Theatre (also known as The Grandin) and its leadership respond to the changing world around it, it is: adapt to succeed.
When COVID-19 first came onto the scene in the spring of 2020, The Grandin Theatre had no choice but to close its doors. While closed, it offered curbside concession sales to satisfy cravings for its delicious buttered popcorn and made virtual movies available for rent on-demand from home. When it became safe to open in a limited capacity over the summer, it screened classic movies like Jaws and Dirty Dancing every Friday night to a theatre capped at just 25% capacity adhering to strict social distancing rules, even selling out a time or two. The theatre also opened up its space to groups of one to 90+ for private rentals and rented space on its classic marquee to the community for proposals to happy birthday wishes.
It’s goal?
Break even so it could continue to serve the community. What would have sent many small theatres under, was met with an adaptive spirit and healthy dose of creativity that allowed the theatre to continue to do what it does best, bring films to movie-goers and keep the community engaged.
While the theatre has now opened up more evenings and even some matinees to screen classic films, it’s also managed to continue some of its community programming, a cornerstone in its role of serving the community and preserving arts and culture in the region.
One example is its Film Lab, a semester-based program that introduces high schoolers to the film industry with hands-on training in film production, lighting, screenwriting, storytelling, acting, sound engineering, and industry acumen. The program restarted again in August to the delight of aspiring filmmakers in the area. The Grandin also partnered with the West End Center, a youth-centered community center providing a safe haven for children in the West End and Mountain View neighborhoods, for the West End Walk this summer for the fifth time. In the West End Walk, expanded to four separate, socially-distanced walks this year, summer campers walked one mile to the Grandin Theatre for a matinee movie.
Although it looks a little bit different, the Grandin Theatre got creative and adapted to the situation at hand, all the while staying true to its values and mission to preserve the historic Grandin Theatre as a cultural and educational resource devoted to film and the cinematic arts.
But COVID-19 is not the first turning point that forced the Grandin to adapt to continue its mission.
As arts and cultural nonprofits struggle to survive in an increasingly complex environment – cuts in local, state, and federal funding programs, competition for donors, donor fatigue, questions of relevancy, ingrained assumptions among staff and boards of directors that shut down enthusiasm for new approaches to old problems – it’s easy to grow weary and more reluctant to open our purses for support, especially when it’s clear there’s a lack of strategic direction to right a sinking ship. But with crisis comes the opportunity to shine light in the dark neglected corners where change is born.
The Grandin found itself in this very crisis a few years ago. With murmurs of closing the doors on one of Roanoke’s most beloved historic landmarks, the local non-profit was desperate for change. Now, more than five years removed from this time of crisis and stronger for it, the Grandin has been able to adapt to the pandemic with relative ease. What brought about such dramatic change? And what can future non-profit and business leaders learn about the remarkable turnaround? Much indeed.
About a year ago, I reached out to Executive Director of The Grandin Theatre, Ian Fortier, then four years into his post, to understand the success and positive buzz he had created for a non-profit that was on the brink of shutting its doors. People I respect not only spoke highly of him, they also seemed incredibly willing to find ways to support his efforts at the Grandin. He’s on to something, I thought.
We stepped out of the way and let the community tell us what they wanted to see.
~ Ian Fortier, Executive director of The Grandin Theatre
At Wallace360, we believe that by embracing new ways of audience building and community engagement, it is possible for organizations, and businesses, to create the connections needed to garner change in the midst of challenging times. With an open mind and focused intention of fostering collaborative relationships in the community, Fortier and his team have expanded the Grandin’s reach far beyond movies and great popcorn. After almost five years, he has worked tirelessly to reposition the theatre as a community center for Roanoke, utilizing the theatre spaces for gatherings and community discussions, art shows, a hangout to share a beer or glass of wine, weddings, a film lab, birthday parties and more. If you have an idea and need space to do it, talk to Ian. Chances are good something positive will come out of it.
Fortier found himself in the right place at the right time to maximize both his vision and the Grandin’s potential. In addition to having all the classic attributes of a successful leader of a non-profit organization – passion, belief, and a lot of faith – he also happens to have keen intuition, common sense, and many years of working in different roles within NPOs. He takes his role of ED very seriously, as if all his previous work experience led him to this new responsibility of managing one of the most unique assets in the city of Roanoke.
When Fortier began his work as Executive Director it was obvious that things needed to be fixed, the challenge lay in where to begin. According to him, the theatre operations were underperforming, and the foundation programs were dormant. Not to mention, many members of the community felt disconnected from what was meant to be a community theatre.
The first step to bring change was to honestly diagnose the problems. “In the beginning it was just about asking straightforward questions and getting answers about where the dysfunction was and what the community’s perspective of the dysfunction was,” he said.
Notice how he approached this question: he was relentlessly committed to learning the Grandin Theatre’s perception among the community. He had a crystal-clear understanding of who the Grandin’s audience was – the community in which it is placed – and a firm commitment to know this audience through and through.
“You have to proactively go seek the people who you want to connect with,” he said “And then on top of that you have to give them a really honest, trustworthy reason [to engage].”
In business and organizational management alike, it is paramount for leaders to identify their audience and know that their success lies in the level of value their product or service brings to their audience. Fortier has provided great insight into the way to improve this value: deeply engage with your audience to identify the things that matter most.
As he put it, “If you’re a community theatre you get out of the way and let the community tell you what they want you to do with that theatre.”
After Fortier executed the difficult task of honestly diagnosing the theatre’s dysfunction, he found that the biggest problems came from a failure in operations. Movies weren’t starting on time, advertisement slides weren’t showing up on the screen, and the staff didn’t have a framework to determine whether venue requests were feasible.
He found that these failures were obstacles to engagement. He knew the theatre had to regain the trust of the community, so he set in motion a series of sweeping changes that established systems for consistently meeting the expectations of visitors to the theatre.
These changes resulted in a consistent, quality product – something that was absolutely necessary to gain the trust of the community. “We had some great movies, and we got a lot of people coming through the doors, and we generated a lot of money, and we ended up with a very big hurrah and bang,” said Fortier. “The product was saved, and the quality and consistency of it became the bedrock for us to go out and [make our appeal to the community].”
As with the first step of asking straightforward questions to their target audience, this second step – implementing standard business practices to maintain a consistent product – was fueled by a dedicated effort to better serve the community audience. The Grandin Theatre was seeking meaningful engagement with the community and Fortier knew the dysfunctions were clear obstacles to their engagement. He brought meaningful change to his organization by prioritizing community engagement and stopping anything that would get in the way of it.
Perhaps the most important change that came under Fortier’s leadership was a change in the way he spoke about it. “When you look at the Grandin as simply a movie theatre, you box yourself in and you create a very low ceiling for what you’re capable of doing,” he said. “So we started writing down other verbs to describe us. I literally changed my email signature – at the bottom I started writing, ‘More than just a movie theatre!’”
The Grandin is uniquely positioned as the oldest arts and cultural organization in the Roanoke Valley. It can’t be just a movie theatre. Fortier sees the Grandin as a cultural icon, a historic landmark, an economic driver, a community and cultural anchor, and a cultural community center. He has infused this message both in his conversations and in the Grandin Theatre programming.
As a cultural community center, he knows the Grandin is part of a larger system within the community. He has gone about his rebuild of the Grandin Theatre with cultural humility, aware that there is always more to learn from new and different people in the community and confident that more authentic connection will change the community for the better.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Grandin would regularly host community conversations immediately after a showing of a relevant film. These conversations allow members of the community a chance to hear from special guests and each other about important topics. The events have centered around topics such as racial injustice, religious persecution, environmental dangers, and the local opioid crisis.
For these events, it was not the inspiring film that takes the lead role and drives the impact of the event – though they certainly have an impact in and of themselves. It was the conversation that followed that spawned meaningful experiences of inspiration and transformation. “I want people coming here to have hard conversations about real issues that affect us in our world,” Fortier said.
He went on to describe his belief in the power of these kinds of experiences: “People always talk about the nonprofit world, especially in the arts and cultural world … that it's about the experience. We want to frame an opportunity for when people come and they spend their money, they're going to have an experience. … It’s not really about having an experience; it's about setting up an experience to be positively transformative to have inspiration. Because inspiration is where the transformative experience happens. That's when somebody leaves the building and goes, ‘The experience I just had was so good that I now see life in a different way or relationships in a different way or myself in a different way.’"
This effort has brought about a rich assortment of experiences for the Roanoke community, and it has successfully built a wider and more engaged audience. The lesson for cultural community centers is simple: if you want to build your audience and increase the impact of the arts, adapt to the needs of your community and create experiences for them by letting meaningful events spring out of authentic engagement, like the African American Film Festival in 2019 that sprung from a showing of Selma to an African American sorority.
Why was this engagement so effective at building and reaching a new audience? Because Fortier and his team approached this community connection with a cultural humility that carried behind it a willingness to learn. Listen to his approach: “One of the biggest problems that we have with building bridges between different segments of our population is that most people come from their perspective instead of reaching out and finding out what the perspective is with the group that you’re trying to build your bridge.”
As Fortier reflected on one of the most moving events at the Grandin he said, “The film is one thing, but creating a place where strangers can gather to create social discourse is the most important thing that we do.”
The commitment to community engagement has brought about an evolving transformation to the historic landmark of Grandin Village. First, it has ushered in a new and diverse audience, expanding the reach of the Grandin and providing a place for crucial community connection. Such an audience-centered approach to non-profit and business management alike allows organizations to know those they serve and serve them better.
Second, this community engagement has colored the Roanoke community with a place for significant experiences. It isn’t “just a movie theatre.” It is a place that is hugely relevant to the community because it provides vibrancy. With a cultural community center like the Grandin Theatre, this community is enriched with more transformed lives, more inspired people, and a more meaningful connection.
And third, the Grandin continues to inspire in its adaptation to the COVID-19 pandemic, never losing sight of its mission to engage the community and be a source of meaningful entertainment and engagement.
The old brick of the Grandin Theatre establishes its story as one with a long and significant past, but the bustle inside the walls promises an uncommon and eloquent future for the Roanoke community. The real show of the Grandin Theatre can’t be watched on the movie screen, it’s only seen inside the hearts and minds of the people who make up the Roanoke community.
Crisper air, falling leaves, pumpkin spice everything… fall means a lot of things. But to many marketers, fall means planning season.
We’re jumping into the planning process for many clients, filling our minds with what we can do to take their marketing and their business to the next level with refreshed budgets and a year full of learnings at our backs.
It’s easy to get caught up in the inertia of it all and dive into recommending tactics and budgets based on what was done the year prior and new ideas for the year ahead. Solid as these ideas may be, developing a plan without focus can unwittingly turn your efforts into marketing for marketing’s sake. To avoid this trap and develop a strategic plan that’s going to move the needle in the right way, it’s important to take a step back and ask:
What are we actually trying to achieve?
Starting with business goals and then setting corresponding communications objectives and strategies are critical steps that should never be skipped, no matter how well-versed you are in your business or your client’s or how many learnings are propelling you forward. It will help you focus your plan and serve as a year-round litmus test through which you can run new ideas to ensure you stay focused on reaching the objectives that will have the most impact on the business.
Objectives are there for a reason. Merriam-Webster defines “objective” as “something toward which effort is directed.” And marketing plans need objectives. With a litany of tactical choices from digital conversation campaigns to influencer engagement to traditional TV ads, you need a guiding light to help you select and direct your efforts. Sounds simple, and a lot of the time it is, but when you skip over this critical piece and jump headfirst into tactics, a few things happen:
Ultimately, missing the communications objective(s) is missing opportunities to hone and be more impactful with your efforts.
When planning, the first place to start is with the business goal. Whatever the business or brand is attempting to do – whether it’s enter a new market or grow sales among consumers in an existing market – it’s important to know. As marketers, this is often set by others in the business so this step may be as easy as just making sure you find out what it is.
The business goal is the basis for your communications objectives and the starting point for your marketing plan. It’s also the lens through which work and marketing results may be evaluated by leadership or a client. Once you know what the business goals are, you can set to work to arrive at your communications objective that will support the goal or goals, whether directly or indirectly.
There’s a myth out there that the communications objective is just trying to help reach the business goal through marketing. If the business goal is to drive product sales, the communications goal is to raise awareness of that product and get people to buy them. This is an overly simplified way of looking at it.
To get the most out of your marketing plan, it helps to set communications objectives that are more nuanced and rooted in insights about your target audience(s) and, ideally, things that are measurable. Hand in hand with the communications objective is your strategy. This is the overall approach you will take with your marketing to achieve your objective.
To arrive at these things, think about questions like:
Communications objectives and strategy takes you past a place of just marketing to drive awareness or product sales. They help define what you as a marketer need to do to help a brand and business reach its goals. And when you make them measurable and build in the mechanisms (and budgets) for actually measuring results against objectives in your plan, even better.
Take for example an animal shelter. If its business goal is to increase its operating budget for the upcoming year, then one of the communications goals may be to engage new donors for first-time giving. To do this, the communications strategy may be to reach existing animal lovers who may naturally align with the cause but may not have considered giving before in a campaign focused on the impact of adoption on person and pet to spur widespread giving. All of this is the backbone to the plan, the strategic thought that helps inform the tactics and approach selected. Only then come the tactics, which in this case might include an easy-to-use online donation portal with built-in social sharing functionality, a digital video series and set of TV ads that features stories of adoption that drive people to the online donation portal.
Whatever you call it, don’t forget to take time to step back and explore what it is you’re trying to accomplish with marketing and how you will get there. Resist the urge to rinse and repeat existing tactics for a new year. Will you ultimately move forward with much of what you’ve done in the past? Maybe you will, and that’s okay. However, the exercise of pausing to explore why and how you select your tactics and how you execute them is a valuable one that could yield unexpected insights that strengthen your execution and your results.
You may have print and TV ads running every year, but by examining your objectives and strategy, which may shift year-to-year, you can arrive at insights that lead you to more compelling creative and better results. Determining the communications objectives and strategy can be a dedicated piece of the strategic planning process informed by research and analytics, or in other cases it can be as simple as carving out time in a meeting to discuss them. Whatever form it takes, just make sure not to leave these critical pieces behind.
In January of 1984 Apple aired one of history’s most iconic ads in the third quarter of the Super Bowl. In the 1984-inspired TV commercial, a woman is seen running from police through a crowd of mind-controlled men before hurling a sledgehammer into a large screen showing “Big Brother” propaganda. After the hammer explodes the screen, a narrator says, “On January 24, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984.”
This ad jumpstarted Apple’s quest to define its brand as “the warrior for the cause – a cool, rebellious, and heroic company that was the only thing standing in the way of the big evil corporation’s plan for world domination and mind control,” as Walter Isaacson put it in Steve Jobs. In the subsequent years, Apple successfully created a powerful lifestyle brand with loyal followers united in the cause against big corporations who identified as creative and innovative rebels.
Steve Jobs led Apple to think different and change the world. He infused his advertising with a sense of purpose that went far beyond making money, and he cultivated a legendary loyalty to Apple products unseen in the history of American industry.
As leaders of businesses and organizations seek to market their products and services today, can they draw people to become loyal followers of their brand by communicating their purpose like Apple has? How can you infuse your purpose into your marketing in a way that captivates such an audience?
This might sound like a tall task – after all we are talking about imitating the world’s largest publicly traded company – but effectively infusing your reason-for-being into your marketing is something you can do. It is a practice that can massively impact your effectiveness in building your brand, and you don’t have to be Steve Jobs to pull it off. In fact, there is a common pattern found among those who effectively imbue their purpose into their advertising.
The pattern consists of a few crucial steps, but it all boils down to this: publicize your purpose and broadcast your beliefs. You must find a way to make it clear to your customer why you are doing what you do. The approach explained below cover the most effective ways this has been done in the past, but creative thinking will no doubt allow us all to find more ways to do this.
It doesn’t take a genius to see that the only way to successfully communicate your purpose is to first know what your purpose is. You must identify your why – the purpose, cause, or beliefs that give you the reason for doing what you do.
This can be a difficult task for many, but a good way to get the juices flowing is to frame the question around the customers you serve. At the core of every successful business offering is customer empathy. Companies must have an intimate connection with the feelings and needs of their customers, so their product or service can adequately serve them. If you can nail down the ways in which you serve your customers, your purpose often flows right out of that.
There’s no need to force yourself into a single reason for doing what you do. More often than not, companies operate under a set of core beliefs and objectives that drive everything they do. Be specific and concise, but if you are truly driven by more than a single objective, expand your purpose to include a cluster of aspirations.
Once you identify your purpose, articulate it in a concise statement of purpose and belief. This is the core of who you are, and it can propel your marketing forward in a way that allows you to reach your customers in a deeper way.
Once you identify and articulate your purpose, you won’t want to just forget about it. Most likely, you’ll be motivated to do more and do it better. Lean into this motivation and let your reason-for-being pump life into everything you do. This is the next crucial step to effectively infusing your purpose into your marketing: embody your beliefs.
From the leadership in your company, to each employee up and down your organization, to the very product or service you provide, your company should embody your beliefs. Find ways to infuse your purpose into the culture of your people and design your products and services around the most effective ways to advance your cause.
Why is it so important to embody your beliefs? Because consumers are savvy enough to sniff out phony advertising built upon inauthentic claims. If you are going to successfully market your services by articulating your purpose, you must let that purpose flow through everything you do. Your organization should be known for its purpose, and that comes through in more than just your marketing.
Think about all the ways your company will benefit from a clear purpose. It will inspire your people to work in the best interest of the whole, not just the individual. If you lack a clear set of values and beliefs, the culture of your workplace can turn into an every-man-for-himself environment with no collective buy-in. Your purpose can become a rallying cry around which all your employees unite and you in turn will develop better products or services.
The previous two ideas – identifying your purpose and embodying your beliefs – are internally focused and still don’t mention how your marketing can communicate your purpose externally. This is because your internal activities are so foundational to your external communication; they are the crucial first steps. If you neglect to identify and embody your reason-for-being, your marketing is likely to fall flat. However, if you do this, you can then begin to put words to your purpose.
The most basic way to communicate your purpose is to be as clear and concise as you can be. You need your audience to hear how you are motivated and you will attract a customer that is, in turn, motivated to identify themselves with your brand.
Find a good copywriter who can help you say it well. If appropriate, compose a mantra that is easily remembered and often repeated. Or, tactfully weave your purpose into all your advertising copy. Bottom line: do whatever it takes to get the message across to your audience.
When your advertising copy clearly expresses your purpose, you will begin to connect your brand to an audience that identifies with it, too. Your marketing will transform into the promotion of a greater purpose instead of merely the promotion of a product. The way to create loyalty with customers is not to merely sell to anyone who wants what you offer, but rather to sell to those who believe what you believe. When you do this, your audience will see your product as more valuable than your competitors’ and be willing to pay more for it.
What you don’t want is for people to hear about your company and your product but carry no sense of loyalty to you because they don’t identify themselves with you, they only want something from you. When your advertising is imbued with your reason-for-being, your audience will see themselves as with you, standing beside you as an ally in the battle for the cause.
Nike has championed the cause of superior athletic performance by providing athletic gear to the best athletes in the world. They spend billions of dollars a year giving away their gear to the top college athletic programs and many of the best pro athletes in the world. Why do they do this? Because these are the heroes of athletic performance who embody their purpose, allowing the watching world to associate their brand with athletic excellence.
In the same way, any company can elevate heroes to embody their purpose. This can happen through celebrity endorsements or through the creation of fictional stories with “heroic” characters. Flo from Progressive Insurance is the hero of low-cost insurance; the Energizer Bunny is the hero of reliable, long-lasting electric power; and the girl who threw the hammer in the Apple commercial mentioned above is the hero of the individual, rebel spirit. Elevate a hero for your cause and you will soon be identified with the cause.
In 1914, an English explorer by the name of Ernest Shackleton set out on a ship with a crew of 27 people to explore the Antarctic and cross the continent on the southernmost tip of the earth. It was a dangerous journey, but he had a crew ready to confront the peril. How did he recruit such a crew? He ran an ad in the London newspaper The Times that read: “Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.”
Shackleton attracted a crew that believed in what he believed in so much that they found such a voyage enticing. If you are looking for loyalty and commitment from your customers, don’t merely champion your product, champion your greater purpose. Embody your reason-for-being and lead the way in the cause and you just might find yourself with a crew that’s willing to cross the Antarctic with you.