There’s a method to our mindfulness.

Almost all organizations have an ethos — their mission, vision, values, and assets — but when translating those things into a brand, they often jump straight to the logo, taglines, and advertising to articulate those things.

And they wonder why no one really knows/cares about them or understands what they do. 

This is what leads to disjointed and irrelevant experiences that come from individual interpretations of the ethos and uninformed alignment to what is truly relevant & powerfully resonant for audiences.

BRAND BUILDING

|

REBRANDING

|

SUBBRANDING

|

EXPERIENCE DESIGN

|

BRAND RESEARCH

|

BRAND GUARDIANSHIP

|

BRAND STRATEGY

|

BRAND IDENTITY

|

BRAND BUILDING | REBRANDING | SUBBRANDING | EXPERIENCE DESIGN | BRAND RESEARCH | BRAND GUARDIANSHIP | BRAND STRATEGY | BRAND IDENTITY |

How we craft relevant & resonant brands.

Salt & Wine Methodology
Salt & Wine Methodology

Whether building a startup brand, doing a major rebrand, or creating a subbrand, our branding method is the same — focused on your Internal Brand Identity, elevated with Experience Design.

Through specialized research, we refine your foundational ethos, and later, we build upon the more familiar brand elements like logos, design systems, and external messaging, but a strong internal brand identity is what forms the basis of how relevant & resonant brands manifest themselves in the world. And it allows us to empower you through Experience Design to take fast ownership of the brand and reduce your reliance on agencies in the long run.

Refine your ethos with Brand Research.

  • If a brand isn’t what you say it is but what others say it is, we better talk to people to help make your brand.

    We do this by conducting specialized brand research with constituents (both internal & external) to understand their current perceptions of the brand (if rebranding/ subbranding) & industry. We do this through a combination of interviews (qualitative) and surveys (quantitative).

    We use multivariate analysis to uncover less obvious but often critical correlations between respondents’ perceptions and perceived actions.

    What we learn shapes the direction of the brand identity and refines your ethos, but it often also provides insights into product/program design.

  • We take your list of competitors and build upon it, not just by doing a competitive analysis, but with an expanded competitive frame of reference. By this, we mean, not only direct competitors but other markets that create a similar audience experience or emotional construct.

    The ultimate goal is to find niche opportunities for positioning and experience design and avoid messaging used by others.

  • Based on our research we define/refine your mission, vision, and values.

    This is where we ask you the hard question, “Are you going to be who your target audience needs you to be, or who you want your audience to need you to be?”

    If we are looking at multiple external audiences, there is also a chance that our findings may indicate that the differences in what is relevant & resonant for each audience and what aligns with the brand’s foundation are greater than anticipated. In these instances, we may recommend crafting distinct brand manifestations (sub-brands) within a larger brand architecture.

Craft your INTERNAL BRAND identity.

  • Our goal is to help you find the words, concepts, and even emotions that can help articulate your brand to your audiences in ways that not only appeals to their sense of purpose and interest but provides them with a sense of meaning, belonging, and identity.

    Beyond that, the Brand Identity becomes a tool that effectively aligns your internal team to the brand, giving them a clear picture of what it means to live it out every day. We want every team member to do more than just understand who your brand is: we want them to engage as passionate partners and exclusive stakeholders who will see your success as theirs.

  • After decades of learning what works and what doesn’t, we know how to clarify what you’ve never been able to express in words before:

    The core Brand Identity consists of the following elements:

    BRAND ESSENCE

    BRAND CHARACTERISTICS

    BRAND PERSONALITY

    EMOTIONAL BENEFIT

    RELATIONAL CONSTRUCT

    BRAND PROMISE

    BRAND POSITION

  • We condense your full Brand Identity into a one-sheet document & checklist that staff, volunteers, or agencies can use when making brand decisions or creating any brand pieces.

    We have found that this single sheet has become the key to successful brand launches because it takes all the memorization out of the branding process and begins, through repetition, to affect each person’s ability to consistently articulate & embody the brand.

    Christ-lead organizations may not have all the resources or the teams to implement complex brands (only the largest corporations do). That’s why we’ve found this simple tool, the brand filter, to be one of the most effective means of keeping everyone on track as you launch and then manage your brand over time.

Externally EXPRESS your Brand Strategy.

  • If the messaging is what you say, your Voice is how you say it, and in today’s crowded market, how you say something can be as or more important than your messaging.

    We start with refining your Brand Voice by providing you with a set of synonyms and antonyms for each voice characteristic so that everyone working on the brand will be clear on what each one means.

    We create a series of brand FAQs that answer the questions, “Who are you?”, “What do you do?”, “Why should I care?”, etc., and infuse these with your Brand Voice to give you a clear picture of how your tone concretely manifests itself.

    We then take the brand FAQs to develop a brand manifesto. The goal is to have a story-like verbal example you can use so that people not only know who you are but get an emotive sense of the power and compulsion of your new brand.

  • This is the most familiar part of a new brand identity. Normally, the creation, or re-articulation, of a brand requires the development or refresh of a logo, brand mark, and/or symbol. We always recommend doing this (even if just a visual refresh) to better create a key external marker that will implant a noticeable change in the marketplace.

    Your new brand may also require the development of a new name — depending on the outcome of the research and brand strategy.

    In addition to core logomark development, we develop a branded look & feel that addresses the design system, philosophy, color, typography, imagery, illustration, motion/film, and iconography.

  • With the intensely fast pace of modern-day marketing, full-brand style guides often become outdated by the time they are finished.

    Our approach instead creates a fluid toolkit that allows for the consistent application of the core brand conveyors and allows for the brand to grow and adapt over time. Think of this more as a quickstart guide/tutorial than a repository. It’s the Ten Commandments more than the full Torah.

    Within this toolkit, we will provide lists of “dos and don’ts” as well as annotated samples to guide further execution of the brand.

    Our approach to branding is all about internal empowerment. Therefore our toolkit is designed to grow over time, and it is designed to empower YOUR team to grow it. A healthy toolkit should be growing verbally, visually, and experientially.

Design BRAND Loyalty thrOugh Experience.

  • This is, in many ways, the most exciting and important part of the branding process. Here is where all the internal elements captured in the Brand Identity and summarized in the Brand Filter get translated into actual experiences.

    This is where we start showing up with Relevance & Resonance in the marketplace. This is where we work to increase brand engagement and deepen brand loyalty. This is where the brand transforms your culture. This is where the brand captures and owns mindshare in the market.

    The Brand Experience Roadmap examines your primary touch points with constituents, the nature of those touch points, and the perceptions of constituents.

    We then look at how to use each touch point as an on-ramp to a longer-term relationship with the brand.

    We cover both in-person and online touch points from sales presentations, orientations, program engagements, websites/apps, email, events, gift boxes, wearables, and others. We work together to prioritize which are the most essential now and which you can build out later.

  • We coach you through how to launch the new brand, first internally among your staff, stakeholders, and key volunteers to infuse your culture, and then externally to create experiences.

    Factors we work through are:

    • Building and managing a set of internal brand champions.

    • Introducing new team members to the brand over time.

    • Ensuring the adoption of the new brand

    • Involving key stakeholders (partners, even early adopter members, influencers, media, etc.) in the launch

    • Managing the launch

    • Communication approaches to managing the brand post-launch

  • When we do brand training, we use a training of trainers model so that each team member can train others as the brand and staff grow.

    Since getting your team all on the same page with the brand is so crucial, we provide hands-on training first for your “brand champions” (around six to ten employees of all different levels in the organization that serves as your frontline troops for guiding people in their areas on how to use and live out the brand) and then your whole staff.

    This training is one of the most important steps you can take to build ownership and consistency with the new brand.

Go beyond your Brand Launch.

  • Our approach is simple. This is your brand and you need to own it. We’re here to hold you upright until you can pedal on your own.

    Don’t worry, we don’t set it and forget it. We provide additional consulting to you as needed over time on brand-related issues or expanded brand strategy needs.

    Our goal is to be there for you and assist you when questions inevitably arise about how to use the brand in certain situations.

  • Our greatest benefit to you is being an outsider. We can maintain an objective perspective that can help protect the integrity of your identity by pointing out issues you may be too close to see.

  • We can provide all sorts of additional services as a part of our highly-integrated Brand Collective:

    • Digital & Direct Mail Marketing with our parent company Masterworks.

    • Digital Ad Network with our sister company Infinite Media.

    • Product & Service Development with our sister company Sublimity.

    • Website & Video development with our network of vetted partner agencies.

Ready to bring a relevant & resonant brand to life?

You bring the salt, we’ll pour the wine.