strategy | branding | writing
Who Person, Interior Designer, Sibella Court Description Arguable the most famous interior designer living in Australia. She’s the author of best selling design books including Imaginarium, Gypsy, Etcetera, The Stylist’s Guide to NYC, among others. She’s also founded The Society Inc, where she describes her background — “With Sibella’s degree in History, her spaces &…
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What Food, Chocolate, Bar and Cocoa Description “Once you’ve tasted real chocolate, the other stuff just won’t do. So we made sure everyone could taste the difference.In 2015, we set out to make bean to bar chocolate easily accessible with a craft chocolate subscription service. After some success, we moved into e-commerce and retail to…
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3,000 BC: A Sacred Land over many Centuries Permanent inhabitants first started farming in present-day Taos, New Mexico as early as 3,000 BC. Across the world, Egyptians were building the pyramids and city-states were forming in Mesopotamia. 1540: The Legend of Cibola – The Seven Cities of Gold Europeans first visited the region now known…
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What British interior design company, Neville Johnson and creative agency, iProspect, came together to ask an intriguing question — what would Frida Kahlo’s bedroom look like if she were living in 2020? Description This ingenious PR campaign for Neville Johnson envisions how Kahlo, William Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth I, and Coco Chanel would decorate their bedroom…
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Netflix thinks it knows what movie I’ll want to watch next. Amazon thinks it can guess when I’ll need a refill on dishwasher soap. Wayfair is convinced I need new blue bar stools. Most of these predictions miss the mark. Nevertheless AI is no doubt a fascinating and powerful technology. And if I had to…
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What Designer, home goods Description “Blakeney is the founder and creative director of home décor brand, Jungalow and the author of The New Bohemians book series.” Justina Blakeney – about Why Layered bohemian-style interiors. Her series is on my wishlist of coffee table books.
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What Company, paper goods Description “Proudly based in D.C. Appointed was founded in 2015 by way of a Kickstarter campaign. Suann Song—a graphic designer with a background in public relations and marketing, is the Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Appointed. Suann has always believed a beautiful work environment and the tools you surround yourself…
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What Workout studios, hot yoga Description Yonder is an Atlanta based yoga company with studios in Buckhead, Old 4th Ward, and on the Westside. Class are very hot and challenge balance, strength and mental focus. The name of the studio, Yonder, means ‘a place you can see but have not reached.’ Why In every new…
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What Artist, contemporary Description “Wayne Thiebaud was born in Mesa, Arizona in 1920, and his family soon moved to Los Angeles in 1921. Thiebaud’s characteristic work displays consumer objects such as pies and cakes as they are seen in drug store windows. Thiebaud uses heavy pigment and exaggerated colors to depict his subjects.” Breggruen Gallery…
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Can we talk about character development? I’ve always envied the people who continue to read ‘the classics’ after high school. The art history friend nannying in York that can quote David Copperfield, the art house cinephile you almost dated that can’t get enough of Philip Roth — these are the kinds of ‘bookish’ people I’m talking…
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Influence Find me a person that doesn’t want to be more influential. But influence can take many forms. I recently came across what feels like a landmark HBR article, titled Understanding “People” People. The article speaks to four interpersonal dimensions that give someone persuasive power. One dimension in particular caught my eye: Relational Creativity. Creative…
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I recently stumbled upon an intriguing essay prompt: “What is your personal ‘why’?” It’s an interesting question, and it took a few days of reflection to land an answer, but eventually the right words dawned on me. It’s a perspective, even an obsession, that I’ve carried with me for a while. So here goes. My…
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Trends and I are friends. I am always hunting for niche news publications and newsletters willing to make bold, informed asserts about what’s around the corner. This morning, I finally signed up for Trends.co, a subscription-based extension of the geniusly entertaining and unexpected newsletter, The Hustle. In a particular article, the author detailed category trends…
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From this pandemic two kinds of changes will continue to play out: COVID-19 “bumps” and more enduring behavioral shifts. Many brands are looking to emerging technology and trying to take their best bets. What new habits will stick? What new use cases will be invented from existing technology? It’s anyone’s guess, but here are my…
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This paper explores the evolving dynamics between our healthcare industry and the health & wellness economy. Questions of exploration include: What kind of crossover exists between healthcare and health & wellness marketing and offerings? What challenges and opportunities can agencies expect with healthcare clients? ––– We have a global health crisis on our hands–proving to be the…
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Understanding audiences is an important part of brand strategy. And working on a large financial brand, I’m constantly looking for new ways to map our client’s offerings to specific consumer needs. This isn’t always easy. Sometimes it takes both research and a leap of the imagination to look beyond what a client thinks they’re selling…
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Synchrony Financial is a credit and payment solution provider for consumers and businesses. Projects: Enterprise-level: Business Decision Makers Personas Vertical-specific: Retail, eCommerce, Tech, Auto & Home Audiences Social-specific: Six audiences on Synchrony’s social media channels The Opportunity With each new audience project, Giant Spoon teams helped Synchrony more effectively map messaging and business offerings to…
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The Opportunity Develop a product and communication rollout strategy – leveraging historic sales data, persona insights, and brand framework – to deliver on YETI’s core business goals for the first half of 2020. Inner Workings With answers to where, when and who to sell to, our team developed a tiered product rollout strategy. High sell,…
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The opportunity Dementionalize YETI marketing targets into in-depth personas. Our goal was to identify how each persona reflected an opportunity to focus on different KPIs, push different products, and customize messaging to specific demographics. Inner workings Each persona was defined by the following elements: A snapshot of essential demo and psychographics Core cultural influences impacting…
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Projects Communication Framework + Brand Voice Audience Personas Product Rollout & Capsule Collection Strategy CSR platform and creative initiatives The initial opportunity: Communication Framework + Brand Voice In Spring of 2018, Giant Spoon won the business for YETI. Starting from ground zero, our team forged a deeply collaborative client partnership that brought their leadership team…
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The opportunity Airbnb wanted to parlay the brand’s ‘travel like a local’ mentality from its accommodations offering into a new offering: daily adventures hosted by regional residents. The inner workings The user journey of booking Airbnb’s Experiences needed to feel consistent and connected to the process of searching for the perfect Airbnb overnight stay. Through…
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The opportunity TBWA prides itself on inserting brands into modern culture. To keep up with modern culture, in 2016 a small team in TBWA’s LA office started up Backslash – today, the Backslash ‘experiment’ has rapidly evolved into a stand alone cultural insights studio within the TBWA global network. The inner workings To begin, we built…
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Part 1: The Premise This past January I was planning my birthday only two weeks after the real date, which is pretty good for me. The plan was to enjoy some cocktails with a collection of my closest friends. Pretty typical, except I couldn’t help but see this gathering as an opportunity for good ol’…
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From online to off, we’re crafting new ways to find “our” people. Last year, The Verge proclaimed, “the old promise of the internet — niche communities, human connection … never really lost its appeal, but [in 2017] [the desire for us to realize that promise] came back with a miniature vengeance.” They couldn’t have read…
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JENNIE LEE GRUBER 