Empathy in Action

Full-Service Brand Consulting & Creative Services

With this full-service, fully customized offering, we make the Empathy in Action process turnkey for your organization. You’ll quickly have a full brand Positioning Platform and Marketing Plan that’s execution-ready. Whether you need a new visual identity, a website redesign, new sales materials, email campaigns, social media assets, we can help.

  • Empathy in marketing doesn’t just happen. It requires leaders to get intentional and even systematic about it. That’s where Empathy in Action comes in:

    • Curiosity: We invite many voices to the table — both internal and external to your organization. We ask questions that help us understand the goals, needs, and values of your business and of the people you wish to serve.

    • Clarity: We look for alignment and differences between the many perspectives we gather. This helps to sharpen our focus so we can make decisions from a place of clear understanding.

    • Connection: We use everything we learn to design experiences and craft stories that form meaningful connections at every touchpoint with your brand, product, or campaign.

    This process is informed by the empathy triad developed by psychologists Daniel Goleman and Paul Ekman which includes emotional empathy, cognitive empathy, and action-based, or compassionate empathy.

Our team starts by conducting empathetic interviews with the people you serve — your internal employees, customers, donors, prospects, partners, and anyone that engages in some way with your brand. We synthesize these conversations to craft a brand that is as strategic and creative as it is human and authentic. Our creative partners can bring your brand positioning forward into the elements needed for your business. Or, we are happy to work with your agency or internal team to bring your empathetic brand to life!

Since 2016, we have applied this approach for dozens of clients from a wide range of business stages and sectors: environment, education, technology, manufacturing, financial services, cultural organizations, creative services, and more. What they all have in common is a desire to touch lives, bring people one step closer to their mission, and create excellent business outcomes.

WHAT YOU’LL GET

Our team will provide the following deliverables, working in close collaboration with your team every step of the way.

  • A clearly defined intention and focused set of goals for your marketing and communications work.

  • An Interview Summary Report that synthesizes the conversations with internal stakeholders and external audiences.

    • Anonymized observations and insights from the interviews

    • Verbatim quotes and data as evidence

  • A Positioning Platform that serves as the guide for your organization’s communications.

    • Interview Observations

    • Persona Descriptions

    • Goal Overlap Study

    • Positioning Statement

    • Messaging Pillars

    • Creative Direction

  • A Strategic Marketing Plan to support the rollout of your new positioning.

    • Strategic Objectives and Goals

    • Performance Metrics

    • Goal-aligned Strategies for New and Current Communication Channels

    • Tactical Plan with Timeline, Roles, and Budget

    • Design Services

    • Activation Support

    • At the start, we will work with you to develop a specific project success statement that acts as the north star of your project.

    • Work is conducted in three phases: Curiosity, Clarity, and Connection

    • The length of each phase is based on the scope of your project and is determined by the following factors: the scale and complexity of your objectives, the number of internal stakeholders, the number of target audience groups, and the number of interviews.

    • We create a full project plan at the start of your project so that each phase is well-defined for timing and resources involved.

    • We will have touchpoint meetings throughout the project to share progress and discuss feedback.

interested in working together?

If you’re curious about bringing more empathy to your brand, your communications, and your organization…