We view brand as a clear, believable and easily understood definition of who a company is, what it does, and how people truly benefit – practically and emotionally – from its products or services. Brand is ultimately a promise (or set of promises) to customers, employees and partners. It needs to be simple and well articulated. And if a promise cannot be kept, then it is not a promise.
We begin each assignment with an audit of all branding and marketing components to date that the client has in hand – research, interviews, presentations, design approaches – and mine them for relevant insights, concepts and conclusions. Based on what we learn from these, Anthology Research develops and fields formative research – typically a qualitative study of targeted audiences – focus groups, one-on-ones, intercepts, and, in the tourism sector, one-on-twos as travelers generally travel in pairs. Qualitative study of the client’s employees can be quite useful as well. Often a quantitative study is utilized whereby Anthology’s 30-bay call center goes into action.
Using the results of the brand audit and formative research findings, the brand team condenses its findings into elements and propositions. Initial development of logo and graphic components begins at this juncture as well. Draft work is refined for initial discussion and client feedback, followed by further refinements or redoes. Then, ideally, we head back into the field or into our focus group facility for research with target audiences and client staff to gauge whether the package resonates. Once it does, we move into execution and launch planning.