by Randy Mitchell, Creative Director This summer I witnessed true genius take shape. For a few memorable weeks, the world’s greatest rebranding expert set up shop under my own roof. It was a wild, exhilarating and constantly surprising experience. In fact, I’m still trying to find the right words to capture it all, so please bear with me.  Legend in our garden This unexpected story started back in early August. It was a warm, tranquil summer evening and my wife and I were catching up on our yard work. I was watering a parched garden bed when I had the unsettling sensation that someone was silently observing me. I cautiously looked up, and there

by Patrick McAuley, President and Chief Strategy Officer This year’s Super Bowl mirrored every other in one respect – very few B2B brands invested in an ad for the big game. Squarespace was one of only two or three to buy a $5.5 million 30-second spot to reach B2B buyers. Why would this one B2B brand commit such resources to this one tactic? Might the strategy behind the bold move be worth considering for your B2B brand? Let’s take a look at the Squarespace ad, assess its effectiveness, and weigh it against other ways they might have spent their Super Bowl ad budget. In the ad that aired Sunday, actor Keanu Reeves – of

There comes a point in the life of every business when it feels like it’s time for a change. Whether this is because the current brand has been around for a while, the business has new offerings that don’t fit with the old message, or it seems like a shakeup will bring new customers to the door, there are lots of reasons why businesses contemplate rebranding. But rebranding your business isn’t something to be taken lightly—it takes inspiration, planning, strategy and everyone’s consensus. And it’s all critical, because a poorly executed rebranding can be worse than sticking with the old brand. Here at Boomm, we recently went through the rebranding process

What makes you stand out from the crowd? And why should a customer choose you, anyway? If you can’t answer these questions about your business, you won’t be able to convince potential customers that you offer the solution they need. An essential part of B2B brand strategy is determining your points of difference, or the compelling things that make your business unique. You can then use these points of difference as the basis of your marketing strategy, informing everything from your website design to your conversations with prospects. How do you determine what makes you different? Especially if your business is in a large city or a highly competitive industry, you may

Does your B2B brand strategy go beyond words? The look and feel of your website, ads, and product all speak volumes to your customer, and often send a stronger message than your copy or content. In the 1940s, consumer psychologist Louis Cheskin researched unconscious thinking in customers and discovered that for most people, the package and the product are one. He called this “sensation transference”—the idea that on an unconscious level, the visual and other sensory elements of a product or brand become the product, and the mind makes no distinction between the two. If the customer found the label, color, shape, or size of the product appealing, he or

How well do you know your target audience? You may understand the basic demographics of your customer base, but gaining a deeper understanding can take your marketing to the next level. There are many tools that can help grow your understanding of your audience. One of these tools is a buyer persona. A buyer persona is a representation of a member of your target audience. It’s a prototype—it doesn’t represent a specific individual, but it does have characteristics that many individual customers have. The goal is not to replicate one buyer’s identity in complete accuracy. It’s to better understand the motivations and pain points of the average customer in order to