| The Branding Roundtable

BRANDING MAGAZINE
SEPTEMBER 2014

brandingmagazine.com

How Branding
Agencies Brand
Themselves
BRANDING MAGAZINE 1 / september 2014
 Chuck Kent David Brbaklic
Writer & Contributing Editor Creative Director
chuck@brandingmagazine.com david@brandingmagazine.com

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BRANDING MAGAZINE
 The Branding
How Branding Agencies Brand Themselves

Roundtable

B
What is a branding agency? There is
no easy, and certainly no agreed upon,
definition – so this edition of The Brand-
ing Roundtable will tackle the ques-
tion by asking a variety of firms from
around the world to define it by sharing

R
how they define and differentiate them-
selves for clients.

#04
| The Branding Roundtable

As the Moderator, I invited eight agencies of all sizes, from Shanghai to London, San
Diego to Johannesburg and beyond, to describe how they brand themselves. Specif-
ically, each was asked to address, in their own choice of format (within approximately
600 words), these basic points:

_The role(s) your firm plays in branding for clients

_The key components to your branding process
_How that process informs and shapes your firm/agency brand
_How your agency brand expresses itself
_How you evaluate the response to and/or success of your own branding efforts

Whether you are on the agency or client side, a branding professional or simply an in-
dustry observer, you should find the varied answers both fascinating and informative.
Read on and learn from:

Brand Union (Global): Veb Anand, Executive Director of Strategy, Americas

HKLM Group (Africa), Sean McCoy, Chief Executive
i.d.e.a. (USA), Jon Bailey, Chief Relationships Officer
Labbrand (China), Vladimir Djurovic, CEO
Lippincott (Global), Heather Stern, Chief Marketing Officer
Liquid Agency (US, EU, LATAM), Alfredo Muccino, Chief Creative Officer
Prophet (Global), Scott Davis, Chief Growth Officer
SGK (Global), Bruce Levinson, VP, Client Engagement

As always, you are invited to comment on this Roundtable in the comment section of
the Branding Magazine article that introduced it.

Chuck Kent
Contributing Editor and Moderator of The Branding Roundtable

BRANDING MAGAZINE 4 / september 2014

| The Branding Roundtable

Brand Union:
‘The Experience of the Brand
is the Brand’

By Veb Anand, Executive Director of Strategy,

Americas

In 2010, amidst the global financial crisis, Brand Union

realised that in order to stay ahead to meet the chang-
ing needs of clients, it needed to protect its leadership
position in the international market. While brand was in-
creasingly becoming part of the boardroom agenda, we
also started to see a traditionally small ‘brand agency’
sector expand exponentially. Ad agencies, media com-
panies, digital shops, HR consultants, research houses
– all were taking the initiative to go upstream and claim
brand-building as a value-adding component of their of-
fers. It was clear that we needed to differentiate our own
to life in holistic, powerful ways. Depending on the part-
credentials and heritage in this progressively crowded
ner’s downstream expertise, the answer was either a 60
and muddled marketplace.
second TV spot, a media plan, a website, a tracking study
or at worst, impenetrable PowerPoint decks that gath-
Brands have always faced pressure to create sharehold- ered dust on people’s desks.
er value. They now also need to navigate carefully in an
omni-channel world where the rules of engagement
As an agency with a rich 35-year history behind us,
change constantly. Their customers interact with them
Brand Union has held certain principles and beliefs as
faster and in new ways with higher expectations of prod-
truths. The first is that, in order to create brand-led busi-
ucts and services, and a demand for authenticity and in-
ness growth, brands must act as a practical organising
tegrity. Transparency is key and loyalty is harder to win.
principle for all business activity. Marketing, operations,
recruitment, employee evaluation, research, M&A must
Through our experience we knew that much of our com- all use brand as a filter. Our founder and Chairman, Ter-
petitive set was mired in ‘theory’; clients were often frus- ry Tyrrell stated that brands must be both compelling
trated by our peers’ inability to implement a brand vision and true; otherwise they end up as ‘posers.’ In our new
or strategy that, while ‘strategically robust’, had little po- world of unprecedented transparency and brand interac-
tential to provide practical direction or help bring brands tion, those brands are quickly found out and fail.

BRANDING MAGAZINE 5 / september 2014

| The Branding Roundtable

It was this idea of creating brand truth in an increasing-
ly complex customer environment that led us to build
a belief-based positioning around ‘experience’. A re-
sponse to the new ways consumers engage with brands,
it re-affirmed our values and established our creden-
tials in building well-rounded, strong brands. We were
self-aware enough to understand that we didn’t have the
breadth of offer to single-handedly change the entire ex-
perience of the brand, but for decades we’d acted as the
brand guardian ‘hub’ for many of our clients’ agency re-
lationships and were well accustomed to working with
agency partners in order to deliver meaningful and con-
sistent brand experiences. Our employee engagement
offer was also a strong proof point – we’d enabled cultur-
al transformation at several organisations by facilitating
brand-led behaviours that delivered on their promise to
their customers.
Our belief, in short, is that the experience of the brand
is the brand.
Experiences form the basis of all human relationships.
We believe it’s just the same for brands. Successful
brands make a lasting impact as a result of continual
positive moments of interaction. Ensuring that these
moments leave a positive impression is a more complex
task than ever before. It also offers the greatest poten-
tial for building equity and value through brand behavior
and communications.
This belief also guided the development of our new visu-
al identity system. We evolved our logo into a well-engi-
neered simplification of our initials with three elements
representing the participants in the creation of brand
experience – Brand Union, the client and the custom-
er. The new system was more flexible and agile - we
did away with old-fashioned lock-ups, and simplified our
color palette with a dominant and distinctive blue for
greater differentiation. Our new font is a timeless sans
serif used in just two weights, and in photography, we
sought to show the experience that clients have in work-
ing with us. We want to give a human face to our people
by depicting them at ease in a relevant context to convey
professionalism, approachability and creativity.
“Successful brands make a
lasting impact as a result of
continual positive moments of
interaction.”
– Veb Anand, Brand Union

Our belief provided the direction for developing a new

methodology to assess, build and measure brand expe-
riences – the Experience Framework. Comprising four
key elements (Impression, Interaction, Responsiveness
and Resilience), it provides clients with a true and ho-
listic view of their brands’ experience and the insight to
build brand plans that maximise value.

BRANDING MAGAZINE 6 / september 2014

| The Branding Roundtable

HKLM Group:
‘A Challenger Brand’

By Sean McCoy, Chief Executive

HKLM was formed by four individuals who broke away

from a large marketing services multinational nearly 12
years ago – Gary Harwood, Paul Kirsten, Graham Leigh
and Sean McCoy. The business launched as Harwood
Kirsten Leigh McCoy, but this was a short term strategy
as people followed the names and the first letter of each
surname was collapsed into the name HKLM some 18
months later, to inject an energy and identity beyond the
founders and embrace a wider group of people.

HKLM is defined as a strategic brand and communi-
cation design consultancy and had multi-disciplinary
business and creative skills from the onset, ensuring a
robust balance of approach to the formation of the agen-
cy itself, bringing rigour to the strategy of the business
as well as the creative process. This, combined with a
fierce independence and entrepreneurial spirit, would
ultimately shape the development of our own essence as
‘challenging’ and clearly define us as a challenger brand
in our own category. This principle spawned the idea of a
fresh approach to the market and inspired our position-
ing as “New Brand Thinking” with the identity taking on
the acronym, the concept of a ‘thought bubble’ and the
vibrant, energetic and warm orange colour as an expres-
sion of Africa – our roots as an agency and our focus as
an emerging market specialist.
The philosophy we have taken to market is encapsulated
in our proprietary methodology titled BrandAdvantage
which has component tools and methods within it, but
essentially summarises what we believe is key for the
clients we serve – the right balance between strategic
thinking, exceptional creativity and focussed implemen-
tation. This approach has also influenced the building
and formation of the business over the years into what
today represents an integrated agency with specialist
practice areas within, spanning some 11 areas within the
brand and communication design industry. We cover a
multitude of industry segments with notable strengths
in financial services, telecommunications, mining and
resources, utilities, franchising, leisure and hospitality;
and professional services.

BRANDING MAGAZINE 7 / september 2014

| The Branding Roundtable

Our endeavours as an agency have been to build it from

“A fierce independence
the inside out, ensuring a deep-seated set of values
and culture that permeate the business and capture the and entrepreneurial spirit,
ethos of what we represent. Although seldom perfect, would ultimately shape the
we have worked hard at this and facilitated the exter-
development of our own
nal expression of the brand in the process; through the
magic of our people and culture. We have deployed many
essence as ‘challenging’
of the traditional external brand building dimensions – and clearly define us as a
public relations, differentiated corporate gifts, select
challenger brand in our own
advertising and advertorials, conference speaking, busi-
ness and creative school lecturing, our brochureware
category.”
and corporate collateral and our internal brand activa-
tion. Naturally, the digital and social media tools have
emerged over the years and are playing an increasingly – Sean McCoy, HKLM
critical role.

Mid-way through our journey we re-evaluated our posi-

tioning and took a decision in light of the global economic
challenges and some of the realities faced in the emerg-
ing markets in which we operate; to emphasise the com-
bination of strategy and creativity in the form of ‘Ideas’
and an increased heightening of implementation through
the notion of “Delivered” resulting in the move to “Ideas
Delivered” which still applies today. Very subtle changes
have been made to the primary identity, while consider-
able shifts have been made in the visual language from
time to time.

Our independence has served us well and we have em-

braced many corporate social investment initiatives
across the continent highlighting our philosophy of
branding for good; while we continue to perform well
and deliver across some 40 countries to date; and with
long-standing client relationships as our primary mea-
sure of success. Colouring the world orange is what
drives us each day and our external brand expression
and internal brand mantra remain aligned to that cause.

BRANDING MAGAZINE 8 / september 2014

| The Branding Roundtable

i.d.e.a.
‘We move people, products, and culture.’

An interview with Jon Bailey, Chief Relationships Officer,

by Chuck Kent, Branding Magazine

Striving for a global perspective, this Roundtable de-

pended on email and written communications to gath-
er responses from around the globe. In one instance,
however, I was able to actually sit down and interview an
agency principal: Jon Bailey, Chief Relationships Officer,
at i.d.e.a. in San Diego, California.

– Chuck Kent, Moderator

Chuck Kent: I want to talk to you about how i.d.e.a brands
itself. You’re obviously involved in branding clients. Can
you talk a little about what your process is, and then dis-
cuss how you’ve applied it to yourselves.
the room – and then we were thanked and dismissed. We
believe that all of those nine disciplines working togeth-
er can make a brand much stronger from the outset than
each of them operating in their own separate areas. So
that’s the way we’ve woven together our own brand.

Jon Bailey: We had the luxury of recreating this agency
from the ground up two and a half years ago, and so we
took what we’d learned throughout our entire careers –
and the businesses that we’d begun – and we matched
Fishtank Brand Advertising, seven years in business,
with Bailey Gardiner, 17 years of experience…
We realized that we had nine different expertise areas,
nine disciplines, under one roof. That allows us to really
look at a brand from a 360-degree perspective that other
firms only pretend to do.
CK: So how did you determine that that was meaningful
to clients?
JB: Each of us has worked for large firms before where
they cobbled together relationships when they wanted to
present a 360-degree view of a brand, and it always felt
artificial. To us it felt like we were being trotted in be-
cause they needed a particular capability or mindset in
CK: So you were drawing more on years of discovery rath-
er than a specific discovery module, as within a branding
process for a client perhaps.
JB: It’s really both. We’ve learned a process over the
many years, and all of our different experiences have
amalgamated into the process we use on ourselves. But
it is firmly our belief that an integrated discipline is cru-
cial to doing the branding process properly.
We call it the All-Square Table. It doesn’t mean that we’re
literally sitting at a square table, it means that we’re all
“square” at the table. Nobody’s sitting at the head of
the table… the ideas can come from anywhere and no
one is in charge. Certainly there’s a process and a facil-
itator… but public relations, digital media, social media,
traditional… none of those disciplines is in the lead. The
creative department doesn’t come up with a campaign
strategy that the rest of the departments all then have to
implement. It all is hatched together, from the beginning.

BRANDING MAGAZINE 9 / september 2014

| The Branding Roundtable

CK: So when you’re doing this process with clients, you CK: So, back to moving people, products and culture…
have them in the room with you? Do your clients resonate with that? Do they get all the
way down the value chain?

JB: Yes, they have a seat at the table. To us it’s not a pro-
cess that can be independent of the client. They have to
be there to “see how the sausage is made.” Their voice
is every bit as important as ours, informing what direc-
tion this is going to take, and what the outcome is.
Out mantra at i.d.e.a. is that “we move people, products
and culture.” So if we move people, we’re motivating
people to take action… to buy a product, attend an event,
engage in a service…. we’re truly motivating people.
JB: It does resonate with them – we think it’s why they
choose us. It is literally boiled into the branding process
we use, and into the implementation process. And to us
it’s critical that all this work we do is measureable. What
impact does it have, not only on their business, but on
the world? So we’re measuring that with them, and we
do that by asking “Did we move people? Did we move
product? And did we move culture?”

“An integrated discipline

[As to that second part] moving products… if we’ve mo-
tivated people correctly then they’re buying something.
is crucial to doing
the branding process
And ultimately there’s the culture part… which is criti- properly.”
cal, as in the conversation we were having earlier about
B-Corps. We’re shifting culture… the way people view a – Jon Bailey, i.d.e.a
brand and the way the brand views its place in the world.

CK: Let’s talk about B-Corps, or benefit corporations,

for a minute, particularly since i.d.e.a. has just become
one. This is a certification that you defined earlier as
“Corporations that can prove, to a very specific criteria,
a dedication to doing business and doing good togeth-
er.” How does that impact how you brand yourselves
and your clients?

JB: It required us to look at ourselves very closely and

live up to the standards we would expect of our brand
partners. So we examined every bit of our business from
top to bottom, to ensure that what we were doing as a
company met the highest standard. So it required us to
focus, not only to be certified as a B-Corp but to make
sure we could “walk the walk,” and teach others to do
the same.

BRANDING MAGAZINE 10 / september 2014

| The Branding Roundtable

Labbrand:
‘Demystifying Branding’

An interview with Vladimir Djurovic, CEO

by Chuck Kent, Branding Magazine

Labbrand, based in Shanghai, chose to address the

points found in the introduction to this month’s Round-
table with a Q&A format rather than an article. Vladimir
Djurovic shares his agency’s perspective:

What is the role your firm plays in branding for clients?

We demystify branding for our clients. Branding is not

a mystery; it’s the actions we take. Thus, we help our
clients understand the market, the culture, and the con-
sumer, in order to define their business and their brand.
We strategically position their brand or product, create a
verbal and visual brand identity, and manage their brand
over time. In one sentence, we demystify branding and
help our clients to transform innovative insights into
brand actions.
What are the key components in your branding process?
Research, strategy, creative.
How does your agency brand express itself?
Labbrand is a China-originated brand consultancy – we
emphasize China-originated as a key point. Recently,
global brand initiatives are originating in China, rather
than only being driven by headquarters in Europe, UK,
or the US. We have witnessed China and other emerging
markets become the starting point for brand innovations
that are then rolled out globally.

How does that process inform and shape your agency

brand?
It’s the way our departments are organized, the way our
projects are designed. It’s the way we think, and it’s all
done in house.
We want to be seen as China myth busters, brand inno-
vators, and cultural experts. We strive for our brand and
culture to be infused in everything we do, from our own
corporate development to client projects, to industry
conferences to publications.

BRANDING MAGAZINE 11 / september 2014

| The Branding Roundtable

Furthermore, we produce a report called Best Brand
Actions, it is not about how strong brands are, but why
they’re strong and how they became strong brands. We
have developed our own methodology and conducted an
extensive study in China that goes beyond publically re-
ported financials. Stay tuned for the results.
We call ourselves Labbrandians and have a strong com-
mitment to internal brand engagement among employ-
ees, giving attention to brand building not only externally
but internally as well.

How do you evaluate the success of your own branding

efforts?

We evaluate our branding efforts and success based on

three key aspects: how our branding efforts helped to
increase Labbrand’s awareness in the industry, how they
helped establish what we stand for, and how they helped
to acquire new business.

Beyond marketing and communications, our brand is

also built everyday through our brand consulting proj-
ects with clients. Our people are our brand ambassa-
dors, building Labbrand among stakeholders every day.
Thus, we actively track retention of clients and collect
feedback/ testimonials.

“We want to be seen as – Vladimir Djurovic, Labbrand

China myth busters, brand

innovators, and cultural
experts.”

BRANDING MAGAZINE 12 / september 2014

| The Branding Roundtable
Lippincott:
“Don’t Just Say Something, Be Something”
by Heather Stern, Chief Marketing Officer
At Lippincott, brand is synonymous with possibility. We
see it as a transformational force, to inspire employees,
motivate customers and drive lasting business results.
For over 70 years, we have helped the world’s best
brands define and express who they are. We gave Co-
ca-Cola its famed red and white swirl, American Express
its blue box and Duracell its copper top. We partnered
with Samsung to help them build a global brand pow-
erhouse, helped Starbucks position their brand beyond
coffee and worked with Wal-Mart to transform their
brand and shopping experience.
Today, the Lippincott approach to building tomorrow’s
best brands is based on the belief that the “rules” have
fundamentally changed. We believe that messaging,
awareness building and lead generation are certainly
important for building a brand, but they are eclipsed by a
new focus. Growth and true differentiation comes from
going beyond yesterday’s approaches:
Going beyond communications, to tell authentic stories
and create inspiring experiences
Going beyond consistency, to build a brand personality
that is authentic and also dynamic
Going beyond customers, focusing heavily on the inter-
nal team to inspire belief in the purpose and enable tan-
gible action to deliver
BRANDING MAGAZINE
This belief set involves activating the brand through equal
parts story and experience, and equal parts creativity and
strategic rigor. It encompasses bringing together diverse
capabilities - in Brand Strategy, Design and Expression,
Experience Innovation and Organizational Engagement.
– in a highly connected way.
Brand strategy: What is the authentic story that moti-
vates customers, inspires employees, and guides the ex-
perience?
Design and expression: What is the immersive design
system that surrounds and emotionally engages your
audiences?
Experience innovation: What are the signature experi-
ences you need to deliver to keep your brand vital?
Organizational engagement: How do you energize the
organization — inspiring belief and enabling action — to
deliver the brand in everyday behavior?
Brand management and activation: What organization-
al approaches and processes are necessary for ongoing
brand results?
13 / september 2014
| The Branding Roundtable

The hallmark of our brand idea – possibility – also means

a higher bar and degree of ambition we set for ourselves.
Our brand is built by seeking out the kinds of exceptional
people who are the right fit, the kinds of clients who are
interested in meaningful change and the kinds of proj-
ects that can have a bigger impact.

Therefore, when it comes to activating our own brand,

we believe we also need to go beyond communications,
consistency and customers. Yes, we express our brand
in the ways one would expect – a dynamic visual sys-
tem, targeted communications, curated events featuring
the best minds in the business, strong industry partner-
ships, advertising, robust employee engagement plans, “Our brand only comes alive
social media, etc. But it is through the experience that
we deliver to clients where our true focus lies. Our brand
when we act as catalysts for
only comes alive when we act as catalysts for outstand- outstanding client work.”
ing client work, and push our clients to the best possible
outcomes. – Heather Stern, Lippincott

Our brand activation is achieved primarily through a fo-

cus on “inside first”, in a similar way that we counsel our
clients. Of primary importance is a team that is both the
best at their individual craft but as importantly the best
at working together. For us, there are two broad skill
sets--strategy and design--with no buffer in between to
organize them and tell them how to work together. As
our CEO Rick Wise has said, “Success comes not with
bringing the suits and creatives together but with mak-
ing sure you hire suits who are a little bit creative and
designers who are energized by business issues.”
Just as our metrics for our clients go beyond the expect-
ed - awareness and consideration, for instance – we look
at different metrics ourselves. Experience power mat-
ters as much or more than story power; we are aiming
first and foremost to advance the experience we deliver
to the clients we serve. In short, we measure our brand
by the strength of the relationships we forge and grow,
internally and externally. For us, that is the true measure
of success.

BRANDING MAGAZINE 14 / september 2014

| The Branding Roundtable
Liquid Agency:
‘Creating brand experiences for
fast companies.’ by Alfredo Muccino, Chief Creative Officer
Not long ago orchards stretched as far as the eye could
see. Today, this magical stretch of land – Silicon Valley –
is considered the world’s epicenter of innovation, and is
fertile ground for new ideas, courageous entrepreneur-
ship, and big success stories.
It is definitely not a coincidence that we started Liquid
Agency here. And Silicon Valley itself has become a very
important part of our own brand.
Our mission is to help fast companies accelerate their
growth, working collaboratively with them to create
brand experiences so compelling that they motivate em-
ployees, delight customers, and inspire devotion. Wheth-
er we’re launching new products, refreshing existing
brands, or fostering cultures of innovation, we leverage
our expertise in strategy, design, and technology to cre-
ate business and brand value.
We believe growing, sustainable brands are built from
the inside out. Of course, we don’t have anything against
a beautiful logo, an interesting visual style, or a clever
advertising campaign. We simply believe that all creative
execution must serve a clearly defined business purpose
– therefore it must be anchored to a clearly articulated
strategy.
By guiding our clients through the process of defining
their purpose and values, we are able to create unique
and meaningful experiences across multiple touch-
points, helping them stay relevant with the audiences
they seek to influence.
BRANDING MAGAZINE
We’ve learned a lot of this from working in Silicon Valley
where we were lucky enough to work side-by-side with
some of the most creative thinkers on the planet. This
amazing experience has shaped who we are, how we
work, and the way that we think about brand building.
Additionally, one of the pre-eminent brand gurus of our
time – Marty Neumeier – joined Liquid as our Director of
Transformation several years ago. Marty is a best-sell-
ing author on the subjects of design, branding, and inno-
vation, and his ideas and insights continue to inform our
approach.
We’ve come to call this milieu Silicon Valley Thinking
(SVT). We like to describe SVT as an attitude combined
with a process, supported by new tools. Essentially, it’s
a commitment to challenging the status quo based on
a belief that nothing new comes out of doing things the
same old way. We are constantly trying to push the limits
of what’s possible, exploring new territories through de-
sign and experimentation. We encourage immersive col-
laboration and co-creation with our clients and partners,
and fully embrace the concept of rapid prototyping as a
way to pressure test ideas.
15 / september 2014
| The Branding Roundtable

Another example of our vibrant culture is Liquid Space,

our experimental gallery program exploring innovation
at the confluence of art, culture, and design. We curate
work and organize exhibits open to the public in col-
laboration with our creative community. We organize
thought-provoking panels and summits bringing togeth-
er experts to share and discuss new ideas about the po-
tential of brands and business to improve how the world
works.

As a result of these efforts we’ve been able to attract

and retain some of the world’s best known brands, from
technology giants like Google, Facebook, Motorola, In-
tel and Microsoft to amazing clients across many other
business sectors. We count Nike, NASDAQ, PlayStation,
LexisNexis, John Deere, and Walmart among our cur-
rent collaborators. And, we continue to join forces with
companies at earlier stages in their growth, like Mynd,
Ficks, Adaptive Insights, Jive, Kareo, and many others.

This year the Silicon Valley Business Journal listed us

as the No. 1 agency in Silicon Valley. We’re not stopping
there! We’re pretty excited about what we’re doing and
where we’re going.

“We like to define SVT (Silicon

Valley Thinking) as an attitude
combined with a process,
supported by new tools.” – Alfredo Muccino, Liquid Agency

BRANDING MAGAZINE 16 / september 2014

| The Branding Roundtable

Prophet:
‘Brand and Growth’

by Scott Davis, Chief Growth Officer,

with Josh Epperson, Prophet Associate

Simply put, Prophet helps companies grow better. We’re

more than a brand and marketing consultancy; we’re an
indispensable ally for companies that count on us to ap-
ply the right combination of insights, strategy, creativity
and imagination to deliver better insights, better brands,
better experiences, better designs and better paths to
growth. That is who we are and that is our brand.

Our focus on connecting the concept of brand and growth
is a critical point of differentiation for us. Prophet formed
in 1992 when we saw an opportunity to evolve the “brand-
ing agency” category to explore brand beyond logos,
packaging and campaigns to its role as a business driver.
Prophet, through the work of our Vice Chairman David
Aaker and others, has literally written the book on the
concept of brand and we continue to bring new thinking
to the space as it evolves due to the influence of digital,
social and changing global market dynamics.
We have built a unique, multidisciplinary team and a set
of growth-enabling capabilities – including brand, de-
sign, digital, innovation, analytics and marketing – that
allows us to approach brand challenges from multiple
perspectives. These capabilities help us unlock a brand’s
power to create the deep emotional connections that en-
gage customers, influence behaviors and shift business
demand.
Our process is inspirational and collaborative. We start
with the client, immersing ourselves in their businesses,
their categories, their customers—current, lost and pro-
spective—and in their employee base, where the great-
est truths often lie. This is how we uncover the needs,
perceptions and motivations that are critical to driving
growth.
We work across traditional boundaries to exploit the full
power of customer motivations and behavior. We focus on
the underlying triggers that cause customers to consid-
er and buy—often looking at brands outside the category
and drawing insights from unexpected sources to open
new doors. Can an insurance company learn something
valuable from an amusement park? Can a manufacturer
of water sports equipment inspire a coffee brand?

BRANDING MAGAZINE 17 / september 2014

| The Branding Roundtable

Our focus on the customer is driven by our core beliefs

that customer insights unlock growth; brands that are
relevant and connect with customers shift demand; ex-
periences that inspire and delight drive brand loyalty;
and that creating organizational alignment and driving
effective execution converts opportunities into wins.

This pragmatic, market-oriented mindset, when blend-

ed with creative ideation, yields smart recommenda-
tions that are executable and produce real results. It is
not about PowerPoint slides; it is about making products
more relevant, shopping experiences more engaging,
marketing more persuasive and brands more meaning-
ful. Ultimately, our goal is to help our clients grow better.

We apply the same values to our internal team constructs

as we do to our clients. Our firm is very open, optimistic
and collaborative, balanced with a pragmatism and deep
understanding of business that grounds everything in a
focus on impact. We create an environment that stimu-
lates imagination and encourages ideas to flow, an envi-
ronment in which our strategists think creatively and our
“It is not about PowerPoint
creatives apply strategic rigor. We operate with a glob-
al perspective and a single global P&L that allows us to
slides; it is about making prod-
identify the right team from across our 9 global offices ucts more relevant, shopping
with the right mix of experience and expertise to best experiences more engaging,
solve our clients’ business challenges.
marketing more persuasive
We measure our success by the tangible impact our work
and brands more meaningful.“
has on our clients’ businesses but also on the positive
impact we have on society. – Scott Davis, Prophet

BRANDING MAGAZINE 18 / september 2014

| The Branding Roundtable

SGK:
‘Creating a Brand Ecosystem’

by Bruce Levinson, Vice President, Client Engagement

SGK is entrusted to drive the performance of some of the

world’s most iconic and ambitious brands. Clients hire
us to be architects of desirability through strategic de-
sign and to tell brand stories that are meaningfully dis-
ruptive. We are enablers of profitability through efficient
production and workflow solutions. Simply put, SGK is
in the business of delivering brand performance. So it is
more than an academic question to understand how SGK
applies its approach to branding itself. After all, we can-
not act as trusted advisers to the world’s great brands if
we are not masters of our own equities.
brand in June 2013, it required all of these things, plus
the leap of faith that our new brand would be more suc-
This is not easy work. Like a surgeon attempting to cessful and open more doors than the venerable brand
operate on himself, much could go wrong. Gather to- of 60 years that it would replace. This decision could
gether any war room full of brand gurus and you’ll find be made in confidence simply because we listened. We
they don’t all agree to the best route forward. Opinions heard and understood what our clients were saying; we
and preconceptions abound. A passion for perfection or appreciated what the future would require of us that we
catchy wordsmithing can spawn unhelpful and circular needed to begin to build today.
debates. Somehow, for some reason, when a team of
branding professionals gets together, debilitating chaos
Our clients and prospective clients, it turned out, were
can ensue. The good news is that this can be seriously
consistently focused on driving the performance of their
mitigated by – but of course – practicing what we preach.
brands throughout the marketing supply chain. The
missing piece was to have all the necessary steps and
Successful branding requires a few key ingredients: sub-processes to integrate, to snap together seamlessly,
clear aligned goals; an objective and open team; mean- creating a brand ecosystem that was not just efficient
ingful insight into your target audience, your market, but also created, nurtured and projected the most com-
your competition, and of course your own brand. It also pelling brand propositions possible. And we knew we
takes a willingness to let go. When we launched the SGK could build that.

BRANDING MAGAZINE 19 / september 2014

| The Branding Roundtable

SGK aligned its portfolio of brands to deliver against this

vision: Brandimage as a strategic design consultancy to
create meaningful brands; Anthem as a creative agen-
cy obsessed with a shelf-out approach to stimulating
consumer and shopper behavior; and Schawk which
has produced and protected many of the world’s great
brands with flexibility, consistency and efficiency for over
60 years. The trick was to allow each of these equities to
thrive in its own distinct positioning, yet also contribute
to the SGK umbrella parent brand.

Having the brand positioning articulated on paper and

approved in a boardroom is but one milestone on a long
journey. Educating, and possibly demystifying, our own
employees on each brand was a critical step to driving
change. After all, we could not expect the outside world
– clients, prospects, partners, investors, etc – to embrace
the new brands if our own employees were not them-
selves thoroughly imbued in the meaning and purpose
of each one. So we launched a thoughtful, widespread
campaign, first internally and then externally, to land the
“We cannot act as
newly articulated brands in the market and begin to live
their distinct propositions. trusted advisers to
the world’s great
The work is never finished. New audiences need to be brands if we are
reached. Brands evolve in response to changing mar- not masters of our
kets. In the end, SGK has learned that our own company
is no different from that of our clients. All brands are
own equities”
precious to those who manage them. By taking a me-
thodical approach, keeping an open and objective mind- – Bruce Levinson, SGK
set, and taking active stewardship seriously every day we
give our brands the best chance of success. It’s exactly
the same advice we give our clients.

BRANDING MAGAZINE 20 / september 2014

| The Branding Roundtable

NEXT MONTH
on The Branding Roundtable:

Brand Experience

Moderator: Independent Brand Strategist, Writer &

Chuck Kent Contributing Editor, Branding Magazine

BRANDING MAGAZINE 21 / september 2014

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