Focus

Agile began as a manifesto and became an industry. When design teams adapt it without dogma, tension turns into flow, scope changes stop derailing, and client collaboration beats paperwork.

The basic elements of highly successful online videos are really just fundamental principles of human interaction, and you can apply to nearly any form of communication (especially marketing). While there's no way to guarantee that anything will "go viral," studying and applying those basic elements…

When people talk about their company’s target audience, you typically hear things like “individuals between the ages of 13 and 25 who enjoy playing video games and have a mobile phone,” or “active consumers between the ages of 25 and 45 who like to hike and rock climb” or “procurement officers at Fo…

Stop casting wider nets and fix the holes. Competitive CEOs chase metrics while customers crave emotion. Talk to people, design sticky experiences, and watch each effort land more loyal customers.

When designing a logo, it’s easy to go overboard. There are so many great elements you can work with (colors, textures, patterns, shapes, borders, typography, gradients, icons, etc.) that it’s tempting to include a little bit of everything to get your point across. In a massively oversaturated media…

Archetypes are based on the idea of universal, reoccurring characters or personifications that represent something fundamental about the ways we identify ourselves and relate to the world around us. A few years ago, we began the process of gathering raw archetypes from as many sources as we could. I…

Once you’ve sorted out your company’s roots (purpose, values, style, etc.), you’ll find yourself faced with the challenge of trying to hold all that information in your head when making a decision. One of the best tools for dealing with this situation is a metaphor: a concept that ties these element…

One of the great dilemmas in marketing is whether to trust your instincts over what the research is showing you. Both the agency (“we know how people think”) and the client (“we know our clients”) have important insights that might not show up clearly in the research, but research can often reveal h…

Business is historically a male-dominated endeavor, so it’s no surprise that the stereotype about what it takes to succeed in business involves traditionally masculine characteristics: aggression, tactical thinking, bravado, ruthlessness, objectivity, ego, pride, sports metaphors, war metaphors, etc…

Over the years, we’ve found that there are three foundational elements to almost any brand: purpose, values, and style. ## BRAND PURPOSE Research cited in _Built to Last_ (by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras) indicates that purpose-driven companies can outperform the general market by a 15 to 1 ratio. T…

Cereal is great. You throw some milk on it, and you’ve got a tasty and relatively nutritious breakfast. Theoretically, cereals–at least the basic, unadorned ones–should be relatively universal. There’s not much about them that predisposes them to any particular demographic or psychographic group. Ap…

Geert Hofstede’s research into national cultures from the 1960s onward has identified five primary dimensions of culture: Individualism, Masculinity, Uncertainty Avoidance, Long-Term Orientation, and Power Distance. This research has proven useful in a variety of contexts, from setting national poli…

Executives tend to be short-term thinkers. Their career has grown through easy-quantifiable successes, and they’re constantly pressured — by other short-term thinking executives — to base their actions around short-term metrics. It’s all about what happened last quarter, or last month, or even last…

Spreadsheets soothe nerves but distort reality. Great brands move hearts before minds. Respect data yet prioritize instinct, meaning, and identity to spark devotion and long term impact numbers can't capture.

Great advertising is exceptional truth-telling. In 1912, Harry McCann and four partners launched the advertising agency that would later become McCann Erickson. Their founding motto was “Truth Well Told,” which beautifully expresses one of the most fundamental (and often misunderstood) principles be…