MATTE Projects’ Post

Customers are drawn to companies that align with their values. Your product, synonymous with high quality, represents an aspirational purchase. In today's dynamic market, aspirational customers seek more than just products; they crave experiences and connections. 🌟✨ Picture a typical customer, a professional valuing brands aligned with her priorities – sustainability, healthy living, well-being, aesthetics, and creating a beautiful living space. 🌿💚 This growing segment of conscious consumers prioritises brands that share these ideals. To capture the attention and loyalty of customers like this, it's vital to craft a brand story that deeply connects with these aspects of their lives. Let's explore the art of creating a brand experience that resonates with shared values and elevates the connection with your audience. 🚀💡 🔗 If you'd like to read more about crafting a brand experience, click on the link in my bio to get access to free resources. #BrandValues #ConsciousConsumers #AspirationalLiving

5x your brand positioning using the before-and-after rules. Crafting a compelling brand positioning strategy is primary for businesses aiming to stand out in today's crowded marketplace. Employing the "Before-After" rules can exponentially elevate your brand's presence, resonate with your target audience, and foster long-term loyalty. Let's go through how this strategy has transformed renowned brands, catapulting them to success. #1: Identify pain points and solutions Before: customers struggled to find reliable transportation options in busy urban areas. After: Uber revolutionizes urban mobility, providing convenient, on-demand transportation at the touch of a button. #2: Highlight transformational experiences Before: Coffee is merely a beverage for caffeine intake. After: Starbucks transforms coffee consumption into a luxurious, experiential journey, offering a third place beyond home and work. #3: Emphasize Emotional Impact Before: Buying shoes was a mundane necessity. After: TOMS Shoes sparks a movement, turning every purchase into a philanthropic act, creating a world where every pair of shoes makes a difference. #4: Focus on customer empowerment Before: Makeup is about covering flaws.  After: Glossier, Inc. empowers customers to embrace their natural beauty, fostering a community where skincare and makeup routines are acts of self-care and self-expression. #5: Offer clear differentiation Before: Hotel accommodations are impersonal and uniform. After: Airbnb disrupts the hospitality industry, offering unique, personalized stays that celebrate local culture and community. By implementing the "Before-After" rules, these brands transcended conventional norms, resonating deeply with consumers and solidifying their positions as industry leaders. Through innovative storytelling, customer-centric approaches, and a relentless focus on transformation, these brands elevated their identities, setting new standards for success.

Why must brands understand emotional drivers of consumers? Answer below... At the end of the day, understanding emotional drivers is about creating deeper, more meaningful connections with your customers. It's about seeing them as human beings with complex needs, desires, and motivations. And it's about crafting a brand experience that meets them on that level. "If you want to, as a brand, have a real relationship, there is something about emotionally connecting with people, at a deeper level, so that you have a more long-lasting, sustainable relationship," Isabelle Landreville said. In a world where authenticity and connection are increasingly rare and precious commodities, the brands that master this will be the ones that not only survive but thrive. Read more about emotional drivers here: https://hubs.li/Q02yBSXH0

A brand is a reflection of our world. Brands aren’t perceived in silo – they’re perceived in relation to the world around them. And if you aren't attuned to this world, you'll start to reflect an outdated one. Because a brand's identity, value, and how it’s perceived are all shaped by the environment, culture, and society it exists in. This means understanding what’s going on in your world is key. This will guide you to where your customers will be in the future. Their mindset, their opinions, their values. For example, in the wake of the pandemic, people are still missing connection. You can see more communal art pieces made by different people coming together. You can see more companies leading the co-working revolution. You can see smaller, intimate festivals starting to emerge. So when it comes to your brand, you need to understand these tensions. What do people care about? What movements are bubbling beneath the surface? What values are emerging? The brands that win are the ones that stay attuned to these influences. The ones that keep adapting. You’ve got to be one step ahead. It’s like when a wave crashes. You either surf it, or you’re swept under. A good surfer is so attuned to the ocean that they are one with it. They know that a wave is fluid. Ever changing and always moving. They know that they can’t control it, but they can use it to guide their course. Keep observing, then keep adapting. 🌊 #brands #brandstrategy #brandculture #culture #brandstrategist #strategy

I often refer to successful brands as Living Brands. But what exactly is a Living Brand? It's the idea that brands are like living organisms, with their own personality, voice, and purpose. It’s about creating an ongoing narrative that extends beyond goods and services. Living brands tell a story that resonates with their consumers on an emotional level. They build a relationship that sustains repeat business over time. Why does this matter? Simply put, emotions drive decisions. If people feel nothing for your brand, they'll choose whoever offers them the lowest price. If people associate positive emotions with your brand, they’ll choose you each time. That's the power of building meaningful connections through living brands. It sounds simple enough. But is it really? #Branding #BrandStrategy #BrandDevelopment #LivingBrands

Last month, we gathered brand and marketing leaders from the worlds of hospitality, retail, luxury, tech, property and professional services to get under the skin of our report 'Human Connection: The Beating Heart of Resilient Brands' and address vital questions about the ways we construct relationships with consumers. Across sectors, it was clear from everyone in the room that human connection is an integral part of their brands, and something that has to be preserved and nurtured at all costs. It's the differentiator for any company, and the thing that elevates them in the eyes of the people who matter most: the customers they exist to serve. When it comes to making any changes to the ways that customers interact with the brand, to products and services, or to the integration of tech into the brand experience, the key is thinking 'human first'. That human-centric approach is what ensures that a decision is taken with customers and their needs at the forefront of thinking, and letting that be the guide. A human-centric approach doesn’t simply mean more people at every step of the journey; rather, it’s the underpinning of thought behind the moves a company makes. Thank you so much to Katie Brinsmead-Stockham, Claudia Mahoney, Daniel Rose, Carlo Scaglia, Asad Hamir, Melanie Parkinson, Cloudia Charalambos, Catherine Bowman, Tom Rowntree, Paul Porter, Sophie Howse and John Rockel for being part of it and providing such fascinating insights from your fields, and to Peter Cross for facilitating the day. The learnings have been really invaluable and it was incredibly heartening to see just how much human connection is firmly in brand builders' minds right across industries. #brandbuilding #humanconnection #brandconsultancy #brandexperience #creativeagency #pioneeringspirit #pioneeringconnection

It is a delight, but no surprise to see Johnnie Walker bring a funky cultural collaboration concept to their recent Blue Label Umami release with Master Chef Kei Kobayashi. Combining culinary art and distilling for a flavourful stimulation of market interest and sales, attracting both the Asian and local market's attention and achieving cross-market brand impact! Introducing cultural collaboration into your products can be a great way to re-engage with your customers and broaden your customer spectrum efficiently locally and globally, creating new purchase reasons and an international outlook. International cultural appetite is everywhere now; introducing a foreign culture to your product and brand doesn't mean you need to export, but it opens up a possibility for that as you grow your foreign audience base and, most importantly, drives strong interest among the modern customers with a multicultural influence today in your local market. Multicultural buying power is worth over $5 trillion and has been the driver of market growth for a decade. (P&G) Is your brand ready to embrace this? _________ ✣ Hi, I am Thorranze, a designer, brand strategist and founder of Time Machine + Folks. I create brands and designs that are culturally iconic and internationally impactful. I am passionate about helping businesses engage with multicultural customers today, driving cross-market impact with sensitive intelligence of culture (CQ), great storytelling, unconventional design and alternative brand expression that will capture attention. ✵ Follow me for insight and tricks on how your brands can have the mojo to roam among cultures and broaden your customer spectrum locally and internationally.

When In Rome... Thought...well...apparently a lot of people and every brand under the sun. The below screenshot of just a small assortment of the brands chiming in makes me think perhaps the wheels are indeed off. This is not cultural relevance. This is not being a part of the conversation. It's a check the box if we don't show up we're the only ones who didn't show up and what will happen if we don't show up kind of tactic that wreaks of same same conformity and fear of well, I don't know, fear of being considered not culturally dialed in? 😱 Jumping on the brandwagon* is not how to be relevant, interesting, clever, or part of culture. It is however a fast track to blending in with every other brand who felt they needed to play the game.  Take a beat. Does this moment actually mean anything to your consumer? Is it in any way a part of what your brand is about? Brands want to be fun and pithy and exude personality, but when you look at the below, doesn't it seem like they're all...exactly the same? 🤔 In a world where trends fade fast, and there's a new meme a minute, pause and consider if the cost of not showing up outweighs the diminished return of showing up all the time, even when and especially when, it doesn't make any sense. *The brandwagon: this term is one of my own pun-loving imagination, it is not real, please use responsibly.

Chatted to Vogue Business about jumping on and tapping into micro-trend culture. Something all brands wish for - having that “viral moment” - and to insert itself into popular culture - but inherently lack the ability to organize itself to be able to respond quickly (see: layers and layers of internal approvals). Knowing your brands cultural roots, building a team you trust and developing a process to support quick execution is key. https://lnkd.in/ebn5fDpJ

It's time to embrace the era of Living brands. We're fervent believers in crafting living brands: In our perspective, every brand is either digital or on the path to becoming digital. To stay consistently relevant, you require a system that's dynamic, anticipatory, and capable of seamlessly adapting to your every move. The best CMOs grasp this truth: The era of static brands and rigid brand books is behind us . A brand should be in a perpetual state of evolution and scalability, mirroring the shifts in your market, environment, and organizational dynamics. It's the age of embracing more living brands.