Strategy
…to grow and evolve your brand with a creative strategy.
Creative strategy is where all projects start their journey. It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about the brand itself, or a product or service your brand offers. Consider the latter as extensions of your brand. Having a creative strategy can and will help you define what you need to do, how you will do it, why it matters, and perhaps most importantly — who it needs to resonate with most to evolve, succeed, and grow. The difference when you work with me is that you get a collaborative partner that can break down this entire process and help you get through it, together. My creative strategies can and will help you identify areas of opportunity, friction, caution, and more. Your business is powered by your customers, so let’s make their experiences with your brand a truly memorable one.
Here are a few examples of the brand tools and processes I’ve used as well as the outcomes I’ve experienced when working with clients over the years:
PROJECT: Service Blueprinting
CLIENT: Emerge Interactive
AGENCY: Emerge Interactive
ROLE: Creative Director, Creative Strategist
Emerge Interactive had never before performed a service blueprint exercise and was inspired to try it after attending a UX Design conference where it was mentioned as a useful tool. Subsequently I took the lead on understanding what the exercise entailed and put the agency I was working for at the time through the paces itself to understand not only how to conduct it but to be able to use the artifacts produced to illustrate clear value to clients coming into the physical office space. In time this became an essential tool for helping customers understand how to better align business operations and logistics with the lifecycle of their customers. You can find the full article I wrote for CEO Jonathon Hensley here.
Emerge Interactive had performed many customer journey mapping exercises in the past for clients, but not “empathy mapping”. What existed at the time for empathy mapping was more open-ended instead of specifically product and service oriented, so I put my own twist on it as seen above. The most immediate value derived from this exercise is being “put into the shoes of the customer”. When conducted with project teams, this workshop provides incredibly valuable insight and understanding around key variables that affect a customer throughout their day-to-day experiences and where those intersect with the digital products a business or organization is providing. All it requires is an hour of time and a few project stakeholders. Let’s work together and I can help you and your team go through this exercise.
PROJECT: Empathy Mapping
CLIENT: Emerge Interactive
AGENCY: Emerge Interactive
ROLE: Creative Director, Creative Strategist
PROJECT: Brand Guidelines
CLIENT: Once Again Nut Butter
AGENCY: Koopman Ostbo
ROLE: Creative Director, Art Director, Writer
Once Again Nut Butter challenged Koopman Ostbo with refreshing their brand to draw in new audiences while keeping their current existing audiences satiated. Following a gathering and analysis of consumer market research data through Nielsen, Once Again Nut Butter was well informed on how to move ahead smartly via a comprehensive creative strategy. This strategy led to the subsequent execution of this "brand platform” that brought together a new position & mission statement, brand story, voice & tone and look & feel to provide a source of truth for the brand.
Elite Pacific Properties, a real estate company based in Hawaii, engaged Koopman Ostbo to discover the essence of what makes the brand so special to internal and external audiences in a desire to elevate the brand experience for their clients and customers alike. I flew from Oahu to The Big Island, Maui and Kauai to interview and gather insights from a vast array of Elite’s audiences, and formulated this creative strategy to reveal a new direction for the brand.
PROJECT: Interview Insights
CLIENT: Elite Pacific Properties
AGENCY: Koopman Ostbo
ROLE: Creative Director, Art Director, Writer