In the late ’90s, I read “The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding” by the daughter-father duo, Laura Ries and Al Ries. It was the first and most formative book I read on branding. Soon after, my title changed to Brand Manager — a first in the nonprofit world.

A few years later, Laura started a blog, which I followed religiously, and I reached out to introduce myself via email. She was generous in her responses and answers to my questions as I sought to hone my skills in the branding discipline. In 2010, I recruited her to speak at the national conference for the organization I worked for, and of course she rocked it and provoked deeper thinking about how we could take our brand to the next level.

I lent more than a dozen copies of the updated version of the book, including one she signed for me, to friends and colleagues. I didn’t get a single one back. That’s ok, except for the one Laura signed for me. WHOEVER HAS IT, I WANT THAT BACK! I still have my original version, which I harken back to regularly.

I’ve read just about everything Al and Laura wrote. And now Laura has a new book coming out, The Strategic Enemy, and I can’t wait to get my hands on it.

There are a lot of people who deserve thanks for influencing my life and career. Laura and her dad definitely did that. Thank you, Laura.

What book most influenced your career?

I’ve seen too many storytelling and production teams arrive on set with a list of questions developed back at the office with little to no engagement with subjects, conversations with those who know and/or work with the subjects, or advance research. And their stories, unsurprisingly, turn out milquetoast and don’t move the needle.

Pre-production research in the form of phone and/or Zoom interviews not only help story producers identify possible story angles, but also help subjects start to think about and refine how they talk about their story, and provide crucial information needed for creative/production teams to support planning and refinement of possible story direction.
With pre-production interviews in-hand, producers can start to round out what they think the best story might be with internet research, conversations with others who can bring additional insight, and a starting set of questions for in-person interviews.

At this point, story producers should have a good sense of the likely story to pursue. But the prime advantage of conducting advance research is that it gives the producers an opportunity to evaluate new information and possible storylines that might arise during on-the-ground interviews against what they thought might be the best story. Pre-planning work gives producers solid criteria for using their professional and emotional judgment to consider serendipity on set and whether to pivot or stick with the original story plan.

Yes, there are a lot more details through this process, but these are the broad brushstrokes that our team has used and built on over the years and that have helped us feel ready to run once we arrive on site, and to move swiftly into post-production once we return with footage, audio, photos, and whatever else we captured.

What does your team see as foundational to your creative and production preparation and success?

“Who are our sherpas?”

This question is the one that sticks with me even six years later, and probably will for eternity. In 2019, I had the opportunity to go through the same weeklong Harvard Graduate School of Education summer institute, “Improving Schools: The Art of Leadership” that our organization sponsored school leaders to attend. During one class, about the doomed Mt. Everest expedition John Krakow wrote about in “Into Thin Air,” the professor shared how the climbers did not lean on those who had the most familiarity with, and the greatest knowledge of, the mountain, and decisions that could have saved everyone: the sherpas.

While lowest on the perceived hierarchy, the sherpas were the experts. They had history and experience as their guide. Yet the climbers, with a combination of hubris, other world success, and greater financial resources, relied on themselves. To their peril.

In any organization, one of the first and most important questions to ask when you’re seeking insight, trying to get out of sticky situations, or avoid crises in the first place, is, “Who are our sherpas, and what can we learn from them?”

While being recruited to a company years ago, a leader there said, “We want to be pioneers and innovators.”

A couple months into the job, that same leader responded to my strategic recommendations with, “Show me 5-7 other companies in our industry who have proven these would work, or find out what they do and we can just do those things better.”

When I launched my own PR, brand marketing, and creative business after that, I created it as a virtual agency of one, with the ability to scale according to each client’s needs, with only senior-level talent for everything from strategy to execution, with no overhead. And I often found myself invited to pitch against the biggest traditional agencies in the market … Because I offered the polar opposite of what they did.

For strong branding and positioning, differentiation is the point. Differentiation guides the strategy. Differentiation makes the difference.

Yes, following is easier, safer, and and sometimes still a path to profitability. But you can’t be a leader in your category by positioning yourself as a follower.

The pandemic created many challenges for some brands and content creators that rely solely or mostly on third parties for their storytelling and production work. This, despite the absolute necessity for organizations to invest in strong owned content and home base properties — websites, e-newsletters, podcasts, text messaging, publications, etc. — for strong long-term branding, positioning, marketing, sales or donations, relationship building, and more.

Paid media’s targeting potential allows for augmenting and amplifying of your stories and messages and for reaching audiences you can’t reach as easily organically, but great brands are not build primarily on advertising anymore, and many organizations don’t have the resources necessary to break through the clutter on the back of paid promotions.

Yes, earned media is an important foundation, and often low-hanging fruit, but with media fragmentation, skeleton teams that are stretched thin, and massive transition, you can’t rely on third parties to carry your message and connect you with your key stakeholders.

And don’t get me started on shared media. Social media channels are important as outposts, but brands that staked their claim on platforms owned by those with a for-profit model are paying the price, because shared channels tricked too many into thinking they existed for the benefit of individuals and brands, and then they morphed into the paid media model.

Our team started building a creative asset management library (we use Canto) seven years ago. When the pandemic hit, we had thousands of photographs, thousands of hours of video, a new podcast, a solid base of newsletter subscribers, and thousands in our text-messaging system. Plus, we had built strong relationships with various stakeholder groups that allowed us to curate content when we needed something.

Before COVID hit, a couple members of our team had become licensed drone pilots, which offered us another way to capture content without having to worry about social distancing considerations. Finally, we used the current zeitgeist as a creative opportunity to juxtapose archived content of crowds in schools with newly shot footage that captured empty hallways, playgrounds, classrooms, and cafeterias from the same schools to showcase what was now missing.

Our efforts over the last seven years allowed us to continue producing new creative despite all of us operating remotely from home and not having access to many spaces available prior. Our productivity never waned — in some respects, we were more effective. We had so much to draw from, so much to recycle and repurpose from our digital asset management system, edited, categorized, and tagged for times like this.

Just like the professional counsel about financial investing … yesterday was the best time for you to invest in your own content — today is the next best time.

After my freshman year of college, I returned from Tucson, Arizona to my hometown of Reston, Virginia, where a buddy of mine helped me get a job at Fritzbe’s, a casual and spirited neighborhood bar and restaurant with outstanding food. The waitstaff were required to commit everything on the menu and how it was cooked and tasted to memory. We were expected to treat guests to an experience and proactively offer suggestions for drinks, appetizers, main courses, and desserts. We cleaned our own tables, and teamed to support each other’s customers.

My first night on the job — half-price burger night — I spilled four drinks on one guy — simultaneously, not separately. When I told my manager, a hulking man named Mike, he said, “It’s ok, this happens to everyone at least once. It sucks right now, but come with me, and I’ll show you how we do this.” I shuffled behind Mike back to the table, where the man was stewing while his wife and daughter tried to calm him.

Mike said, “Sir, I’m very sorry for what just happened. This is Petri’s first night, and he just learned a really valuable lesson, unfortunately at your expense. He feels really terrible about this, and we are going to make this right. There is a dry cleaner in this plaza and we have an account there. You can give them my name and we’ll take care of the cleaning costs. If you prefer to go to your own cleaners, give me their name and I’ll contact them and ensure it is taken care of. Second, your entire meal is on us tonight, and I hope you’ll choose to only eat half of it, because dessert is on us too. Your next meal is on us as well, so Petri will be back with a meal voucher for you and your family. Is there anything else I can do to take care of you, besides refilling your drinks?”

You should have seen the guy’s eyes. He was shocked that we would go to those lengths to do more than what was absolutely necessary to make things better.

That couple came back every Monday for the rest of the summer and specifically requested my table. The guy even joked every week that it would be great if I could spill something on him again.

Mike’s response to me, and his actions in response to my screwup, taught me several valuable lessons in leadership, issues/crisis management, marketing, customer experience, humility, and so many other things that have been directly relevant to me in my career. Almost 30 years later, I’m still reflecting on those lessons, and I’m here to say, “Thank you Mike.”

When I first started building our multimedia marketing and storytelling team, and we were planning our annual alumni leadership conferences, I came up with the themes and ideas for how to bring them to life through content and experiences for the hundreds of attendees. I regularly encouraged the team to take bold creative risks, step into their discomfort, and give voice to their ideas. Then, one year, they did just that.

I had been riffing on a creative theme and felt good about how the script and idea was starting. But I quickly got stuck trying to pivot from framing the struggle and releasing the tension to bringing forth the necessary inspirational crescendo. At the next meeting, the team said they had huddled and come up with a new idea for the creative execution. I was a little taken aback, but also excited they had taken the initiative. They made their pitch, and they could tell from my reaction that I was somewhat skeptical about the proposal. So they asked for a little more time.

They returned a few days later with a draft script and ideas for the visuals. I was impressed, but still not convinced. The team again asked for a little more time.

At the next meeting, they said they had a video for me to see. They had taken the script and shot a rough video, using themselves as actors, to show how it could be made real. I was still unsure, but they proved they were committed to and invested in making it work, and they clearly accepted the charge I gave them to step up, step out, and lead. I told them I was 1000% behind them and to let me know what they needed from me to be successful.

Then they absolutely crushed it. That day, I stepped back and followed their lead. I’ll admit, it wasn’t easy to relinquish that role and humble myself. We creatives can dwell in insecurity and fear of insignificance. But that was the tipping point when everything changed, and it was no longer top-down driven.

Sure, I still contribute project and campaign ideas, craft copy, and facilitate team connection and growth. But with my team newly empowered, I shifted to other important roles — more often a follower, thought-partner, editor, cheerleader, resource-provider and roadblock-buster, the person who helps refine ideas, works with team members to help them get unstuck, rather than the driver of things.

Everyone is a leader on our team. Even our interns run point on projects. When someone steps up, the rest of us come alongside them. Our team is stronger, more cohesive, so much more inspired, more productive, and more effective, and our work is so much better because of this approach.

Once you get past your ego it’s actually a great relief to realize that having bigger titles doesn’t mean having all the answers (or pretending to), or even better answers. That’s why you have a team. The faster you learn that, the more impactful leader you’ll be.

The article is great for teams looking to hone their process and comfort level in the creative feedback loop – a critical aspect of maximizing the effectiveness of creative productivity and improving the quality of products and campaigns.

However, some teams need another step before applying this great advice

But what happens if your team does not fully embrace the importance, the necessity, of receiving creative feedback? What happens if they don’t yet realize their voice is essential to contributing to the development of others’ creative work? The execution part of feedback will fall short, create contempt, and drive your team apart instead of bonding them together in a common cause.

So what’s needed? For our team it was a set of shared agreements, core values, or principles that shape our why, how we operate as a team, and our individual roles in that collective.

When I was recruiting for the Raise Your Hand Texas marketing, communications, and creative team, I told candidates the goal was to develop what I called “The Pixar for Public Education” – the best damn narrative storytellers for strengthening and improving public education in all the land. Each team member was inspired by that moniker and put their full heart and soul into reaching that potential.

But it was evident early on that sometimes we approached our efforts in silos, and responded to well-intended criticism and suggestions with defensiveness and protectionism. We treated work as though it were ours, and ours alone. And when you represent a brand, that is never the case.

Pixar was a perfect model for how to address this. They assign one person to serve as the owner of a work product, but make it clear others will participate at various stages of ideation, planning, pre-production, production, and post-production. Those people’s jobs are to evaluate and respond to what is working, what is not, and what can be done about it. Sometimes the creative owner requests very specific feedback. Other times, the team may either share what they think is not working and let the owner figure out ways to address those items, or share what is not working and give the owner a portfolio of options that can solve the issues. Then it is up to the owner to try and find the best path forward.

I realized our team did not yet share this commitment to our roles as individuals and as a team, and how that should play out in everything we do. So I started by offering up a few principles I gleaned from what I knew about Pixar, some from videos and articles, some from Ed Catmull’s Creativity Inc. (a brilliant read for anyone leading or on a creative team), and invited our team to add and edit with the goal of formalizing our value, our values, and our operating code.

The following is what we came up with:

PIXAR FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION

Shared Values and Operating Code

• Our team consists of smart, passionate, creative professionals who care about changing lives through compelling storytelling.
• We are committed to excellence in storytelling, every time. To continual improvement. And to always pushing the boundaries of great storytelling.
• None of us have it all figured out. We are all in this together.
• Our best work results from drawing on the collective talent, knowledge, and experience of the team. And all of our work is a reflection of the entire team’s contributions.
• The trust we have as a team informs how we operate and allows us to be vulnerable and open.
• Sharing unfinished work in progress liberates us to take great risks and try new things.
• Candor is critical in providing actionable feedback that enhances the ultimate product.
• We are not our work. Feedback is intended to create the best possible outcome, not criticize the originator.

The first five bullets were designed to set the foundation for why creative feedback and teamwork is crucial. The next two are very specific to what we believe makes creative work even better: sharing work in progress and candor. And the final bullet is designed to reduce the personal attachment to creative work product. Note: “reduce” does not equal “remove.” Anyone who has led or worked on a creative team knows creative work is always personal. Even those creatives with decades of experience in the marketing realm still see themselves as tortured artists bearing their soul through their work, and sharing work – especially work in progress – is extreme torture. Yet, creatives also can find great relief and comfort when they bring others into their process, lightening the personal burden and finding a path forward together.

Shared agreements are a starting point, not a panacea

Did this eliminate all friction in our creative feedback process? Not at all. Asking for feedback can be unnerving. Delivering clear and strategic feedback takes practice. And embracing challenges to your work often is uncomfortable. But contributing to and agreeing to this list of values committed us to being equal stewards in the practice of seeking, delivering, and embracing feedback. It gave everyone permission, and the responsibility, to participate in that process. And it established a foundation for the recommendations in the article above to be successful.

Somehow I missed this 2014 Fast Company article about how Finland’s most well known icon, a crowned lion brandishing a sword, was co-opted by an extreme right-wing white nationalist group, despite me being both a Fast Company subscriber, and a dual American-Finnish citizen.

I only learned of this because I was exploring Finnish iconography for possible tattoo inspiration, like this, and one of my relatives cautioned me that the lion had become synonymous with a small, but vocal white supremacist movement in Finland. Obviously if a company or individual usurped a corporation’s brand identity for nefarious or unauthorized purposes, legal remedies would be in order. But this isn’t that kind of situation.

A little historical background

The crowned lion originally was featured as part of a coat of arms on a monument dating back to 1580 and later was adopted by the newly independent Finland as its national arms in 1917. The image is included in some versions of the Finnish flag.

In 2014, because of skinheads brandishing the lion as a sign of white nationalist pride, Finnish ad agency Bob The Robot decided the country needed to, according to the article, “start from scratch with a new symbol.” That was mistake number one.

The agency, in a move reminiscent of many corporate moves, determined it was too close to the subject and that the strategic thinking and new brand identity pursuit should be outsourced to an “objective” third party. Mistake number two.

To add insult to injury, Bob the Robot approached an agency in Sweden. Mistake number three. The Finns often joke they do not consider themselves in competition with others across the globe, as long as they beat the Swedes.

Swedish designer Henrik Nygren went to work, and in December 2014 introduced a new brand design system he offered to anyone wanting to use it. He introduced three design elements, a vertical line and horizontal line from the cross in the Finnish flag and a heart, all in the Finnish blue. He proposed that these items could be used as standalone icons, or in harmony. Below are three examples. You can find more here.

Why this approach is flawed

1. Cutting and running from the icon firmly rooted in Finland’s independence from Russia, and that reflects the “sisu” (Finnish word encompassing fortitude, grit, force of will, etc.) of the Finnish people would be a travesty. The Finns have a hundred years of equity in the crowned lion and to let it go that easily would be an affront to the Finnish spirit and culture.

2. Instead of releasing claim to the country’s beloved icon (what my friend and branding guru Laura Ries would call a “visual hammer”), Finland should instead work to reinforce what the crowned lion represents – a shared, inclusive, welcoming national pride, in opposition to the discrimination and hatred spewed by white supremacists.

3. The newly proposed identity is disjointed in its various pieces, which have no strength as standalone elements, and don’t build on each other when used together, because they never come together. To break up the Nordic cross is to take away the power of the Finnish flag and what a 19th century poet described as the “blue of our lakes and white snow of our winters.” The heart looks like a kitschy selection from the social media playbook, similar to Twitter or Facebook Likes.

Finland doesn’t need a new brand identity

Finland needs to reclaim its brand identity instead of deconstruct the flag and dilute its meaning. The Finns are known for they shyness, humility, and deference, but they are also a quietly proud people. Brand management is not a passive game and it’s time for the country to approach this situation like they approach their hockey.

To me, this is not a design challenge. Rather, it should be viewed from the lens of a campaign challenge to contextualize and communicate the true meaning of Finland’s defining icon, and that does not require an entirely new design. In fact, it would require much less work than introducing and trying to move Finns to a new look and feel.

By maintaining the same icon, and simply adding an accompanying slogan or rally cry to design treatments, the campaign could achieve the same desired end: to preserve a mainstay of its heritage and infuse new energy and enthusiasm for a legacy look, while using that reframing to make the icon unpopular with the extremist opponent groups so they give up using it.

How would that look in practice?

The following is not meant as a fully thought through concept, just a sample execution of how something like what I proposed would unfold in practice – with both English and Finnish treatments. The following are shirts offered on the CafePress website, which I modified for this blog post’s purposes, with two words added to the English version and one to the Finnish one (the exact versions below are not for sale and are only to showcase my point).

In branding, if you want to create a distinctive positioning, sometimes the best approach is to take the direct opposite approach of your competitor. In this case, the white supremacist groups are clearly about exclusivity and discrimination, so the opposite looks like a pretty attractive option. The Finnish ethos is predicated on equity, or in many cases, equality, and collaboration. They take great pride in the country as a collective, with less focus on the individual. So that’s the direction I went with the following.

“Finland For All”

And in Finnish: “Suomi Kaikille”

Pronounced: soo-ah-mee kai-kee-leh

“Suomi” is the Finnish word for “Finland.”

I could envision the creation of a series, possibly several versions on a theme – like “Finland United” or “One Finland” or “Finland Together” – to allow for the most flexibility and inclusiveness among those wanting to express different, but related themes that embrace tolerance, openness, kindness, understanding, inclusiveness, and other similar characteristics I have witnessed among the Finnish people.

This type of campaign also unfold through public relations campaigns and could be easily produced on buttons or lapel pins for politicians and business leaders, badges or insignias on sports jerseys, signs, billboards, and public service ads. It could be the basis for community-based events across the country, education programs within schools, and on and on.

Yes, what I’m proposing is just a slight departure from current approaches. But sometimes the best way to solve a big problem is not with a big completely new idea. Sometimes, by simply shifting how you look at a big problem, you can get bigger results with smaller actions, without creating new, bigger problems.

In ditching its history, its legacy, its culture, and its iconography, Finland would be creating a bigger problem. Instead, the Finns should double-down, embrace its sense of self, and reclaim the identity that is rightfully theirs.

And they don’t need Sweden for that. And maybe then I will get my tattoo.

Do you agree? Disagree?

I’d love to hear from you. Make your case for when and why you think a brand should ditch its brand identity if someone co-opts it.

– Craig Davis, chief creative officer, J. Walter Thompson Worldwide

Marketing history is paved with one-way interruptive experiences – also known as outbound marketing:

Outbound marketing is typically attractive in the short-term because it focuses on controllable, spend-driven channels:

• banner ads
• paid search ads
• site, search, and social retargeting
• social media sponsored posts and Tweets
• online video ads
• affiliate marketing
• website sponsorships
• purchased e-mail lists

These tactics provide instant gratification in the short-term because of their ability to deliver quick measurements related to resulting traffic and revenues. While these types of outbound digital efforts represent only about 10 percent of all website traffic across the country, they receive 86 percent of all marketing investment, or $31 billion.

But the traditional sales funnel is no longer valid

Today, consumers are reclaiming control of their digital customer/donor journey. They have the tools to decide what they search for, how they learn about companies, and how they want to engage. They choose more than they are sold.

Today, fewer people follow the awareness, interest, desire, and action model. More and more, the first connection to a cause is made through a friend or through content found online that spoke to them.

This means that companies working to earn their way into the hearts of consumers will be much more successful than those that place a higher importance on buying their way into a relationship.

Enter inbound marketing.

Inbound is all about creating, optimizing, and distributing relevant content across channels, to be found by prospects who then choose to engage with the brand. Inbound marketing, typically defined by unpaid channels, drives around 90 percent percent of website traffic and consists of things such as:

• Organic search
• Social media
• Blogs
• Online forums
• Direct visits
• Referring sites
• Opt-in email and mobile subscriptions
• White papers
• Online articles
• Webinars and online video
• Podcasts
• Q&A content
• Comments

Great content plays a longer-term game, remaining intact and being consumed and shared well after publication. Because of the compounding benefits of digital content and the virality of some content, inbound marketing costs run 62% lower than traditional outbound marketing.

You need to compare inbound and outbound/paid channels to see which is driving higher conversion rates, donations/sales, and long-term donor/customer retention rates. That should pave the way toward how you balance your marketing investments.

Need more justification for getting your organization to rebalance its priorities from chasing short-term sales or donations to increasing inbound investments that create more sustainable support? Here is a collection of marketing stats from Hubspot that should help make your case for you. Avinash Kaushik’s blog post,“Beginner’s guide to web data analysis: Ten steps to love & success,” is another great reference tool.

To build a strong and loyal supporter base, it is no longer enough to focus solely, or even primarily, on creating the fastest paths to conversion. Brands have to optimize their marketing portfolios and transform into content creators, curators, and publishers with online content hubs, using multimedia, social integration, user-generated content, blogs, mobile opt-in, and online earned media channels.

Focus on what’s most important first

While brands are no longer built on the backs of advertising and outbound marketing, those approaches still play an important role. However, they should play a diminishing, and more of a supplementary, role in light of how consumers learn about, interact with, and choose to get involved with brands – and the opportunities brands have to scale their outreach and engagement strategies by evolving into more powerful inbound content marketing entities.