Brand Positioning
Brands are much more than a logo. A clearly defined, articulated and reinforced brand strategy is an essential determinant of a client’s selection process and provides both your internal and external stakeholders with a clear sense of your firm’s strengths and core values.
Brand studies have shown that firms with a strong brand identity – meaning a clear mission statement, focused messaging and consistent visuals – are less vulnerable to market changes and price fluctuations, attract the best talent, enjoy stronger unity among firm stakeholders, and are afforded a consistent direction for marketing and communications initiatives thereby increasing their efficiency and effectiveness. The strongest brands are known to afford greater client loyalty and often garner premium prices.
Brand Strategy
Brand strategy is a large and complex area of marketing, one that is often misunderstood and undertaken by those without a foundational knowledge of the science that goes into creating brands that last.
At Cubicle Fugitive, our team of brand strategists take your brand from ideation to actualization. We work with you to uncover your points of differentiation and arm you with the messaging and tools to communicate this internally and externally, and help your firm live and deliver upon your brand promise.
With over twenty years of experience working with law firms, professionals, and educators, we drill down to determine a firm’s competitive advantage and unique value proposition more effectively and efficiently than others. It starts by asking better questions and listening intensely to what is said. It’s also just as important that our strategists can read people, behaviours, and cues to understand the unspoken parts of a firm’s culture. We aren’t interested in creating an image for your firm, but unlocking your brand through a deep understanding of you, your markets, and your clients.
We care deeply about getting it right for our clients and we deliver through relentless preparation, meticulous attention to detail, persistence in never settling, and our focus on delivering the most effective and actionable brand strategies and positioning for our clients.
We go beyond and always provide more than a set of brand characteristics and values with little insight into how these apply and where to go next. We provide a clear brand strategy, unique and meaningful positioning, and the tools to go to market to ensure these messages are conveyed.
Brand Research and Insights
Creating your brand starts with a deep dive into your firm: its history, core values, and future goals. During the discovery process, we uncover what drives the firm, what your goals are, what your vision is, what you really offer clients, and what makes your law firm, practice, or educational institution so special.
We start with a comprehensive review of the research, information, and materials you already have. We perform a comprehensive audit of any plans (e.g., strategic plans, internal and external marketing audits, strategy session notes and workshops), prior brand strategy work, internal and external advertising campaigns and communications, proposals, and marketing collateral to ensure we have a fulsome understanding of the key messages that are being put to market so we don’t waste your time asking questions we could have discovered on our own. We also want to make sure that everyone has a baseline understanding of your current brand and position from which to grow.
Once we have a keen understanding of your internal and public-facing brand messaging and value propositions, we recommend interviewing and surveying key stakeholders to discuss and learn about current challenges, opportunities, target markets, and measurable objectives and goals for your firm, history and background, culture and “firm fit”, key clients, markets, and strategies.
As part of our brand research, we also perform an exhaustive competitive audit and engage your clients with interviews or surveys to help identify and articulate a meaningful brand position and value proposition and ensure that the firm is delivering on its brand promise.
Brand Positioning and Differentiation
With regards to all brands, those that are clearly defined, differentiated, and meaningful to their clients are the strongest and most memorable. We work closely with our clients to understand what makes them unique to their clients and stakeholders, both external and internal.
With professional services firms, and especially law firms, people often equate a firm’s brand with its reputation or people would honestly say to describe it. While this is true, we believe much of this reputation can be cultivated, promoted, and earned rather than just attributed or inherited.
In determining what makes your firm unique, we look at the industry, firm, and your competition to evaluate any recommended brand attribute based on the following criteria:
- Is the attribute an individual client benefit or an enduring social goal?
- Is the attribute credible to clients and capable of being sustained?
- Can the attribute motivate clients to choose rather than merely consider?
- Is the attribute distinctive compared to the competition?
- Does the attribute fit with the firm’s direction?
We use these brand attributes and associations to help internally define what sets your firm apart from its competitors. These will be used as guides for the firm’s marketing and advertising decisions, and these words or associations help shape and inform the firm’s brand as well as provide parameters for ongoing marketing decisions.
Value Proposition and Brand Messaging
A brand or positioning strategy communicates a single consistent vision to internal stakeholders and target markets. For clients, a brand simplifies their decision-making process and builds a picture in their mind about what you stand for, what you offer, and, most importantly, what is in it for them (e.g., the solution to their problem). A firm’s brand is the promise to their clients on what they will deliver. It should be true to the culture of the organization and support the long-term strategy of the firm.
We work with law firms and other professional services firms and educators to communicate their vision and story to their clients and stakeholders. With regards to a firm’s value proposition, we consider client/stakeholder value perspectives (what clients or students want), referral considerations (what referrers or ambassadors expect), and employee and talent value proposition (key benefits offered by the firm or school and the ability to attract and develop people to deliver upon what is promised).
We work in partnership with you to devise the strategy and articulate the best means to communicate and position your brand. We use insights from our initial strategy and discovery process to provide you with new headlines, messaging, and content—aligned with your new brand messaging, objectives, and strategy—that can be used for advertising, marketing collateral, and on your website. We refine your current messaging to align it with the direction of the firm, the needs of your clients and constituents, and identify important calls-to-action to drive new interest in your brand.
Brand Awareness and Communications
Once the direction is determined and the firm has agreed on its focus, we develop plans and actions to help a firm improve its competitiveness and boost its reputation in its market. It’s crucial for brands to develop a unique, sustainable, meaningful, and repeatable competitive advantage.
With a keen appreciation of the ever-evolving needs of the marketplace, we help brands stay true to their focus by reimagining and verbalizing how they drive real value for their clients and constituents. This can be executed through the firm’s core collateral and digital assets, exchange of services, and promotion of its brand.
We work with firms to create campaigns directed to current clients, prospective clients, referrers, firm stakeholders, and new recruits. Research shows that the most effective way to link internal and external marketing campaigns is to create external advertising that targets both audiences. This sends the message to both parties that the firm is taking its pledge seriously and also signals transparency in that the same message is going out to both audiences.
We work collaboratively with you to ensure all experiences and interactions with your clients, from intangible brands to content and event initiatives, are strategic, relevant, and effective. Each piece of marketing collateral needs to be developed with the end-user in mind and should reaffirm your new brand messaging. As a full-service design and strategy firm, we can help you with all your brand requirements.