Nick Routley

Date: March 4, 2015

Name: Small Business Council Success Series – Creating a remarkable brand

Presenters: Mikkel Strojer, Mo Dhaliwal, and Nick Routley

Creating a remarkable brand requires strong commitment from entrepreneurs. In addition, entrepreneurs need to focus on their innovation and awareness to develop their brand identity. The Small Business Council invites Mikkel Strojer, the Director of Marketing and Digital at Vancouver Whitecaps, Mo Dhaliwal, the Director of Strategy from Skyrocket Digital, and Nick Routley, the Creative Director from Visual Capitalist. The panelists will share their insights and experience to help entrepreneurs to build a consistent brand, infographics and market messages. This is a presentation will provide useful tactics for entrepreneurs to enhance their current branding strategies.

The strategy behinds the brand of Vancouver Whitecap

As a Director of Marketing and Digital at Vancouver Whitecaps, Mikkel Strojer has the passion to enhance the current Vancouver Whitecap image. He was named 2013 Major League Soccer Marketing Executive and won over many Marketing awards. In addition, Strojer’s achievements have helped him and Vancouver Whitecaps to capture the more market’s attention.

Strojer mentions Vancouver Whitecaps do all the marketing in-house. When Strojer started his Marketing position in Vancouver Whitecaps, there were many manual paper and information workflows. Many employees do not know the mission statement; therefore, Strojer believes he needs to rebrand the mission, vision and values. The first change is to display the values on the wall for all employees to see.

Strojer believes doing the marketing in-house is a way to save money. Moreover, it secures the branding control and the quality. In Vancouver Whitecaps, there are three channels in the organization that funnel the branding: Senior Manager Marketing, Senior Manager Digital Media, and Know More Guess Less. They are all target at different aspects in the market and they work together as a team.

Strojer emphasizes brand is everything and all pitches reflect on brand. The organization implements project software to organize the progress to allow them to go one step ahead and one step up. The new revolution of branding needs to be appeal to the new generation and that is to create a story that market needs to relate. Strojer suggests entrepreneurs to focus on one consistent story and use actions to reflect on the values. Small projects make small decisions; however, they are all a part of the overall branding. Entrepreneurs need to elevate small projects.

Mo Dhaliwal’s remarkable branding

As a Director of Strategy at Skyrocket Digital, Mo Dhaliwal has passion to create strong and positive experience for clients and communities. Dhaliwal has been recognized as the national recipient of the Arnold Edinborough Award. Moreover, he receives the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee medal for his success in his career.

Dhaliwal believes branding is a spiritual experience from a process. The important aspect from branding is to create loyal sharing with the audience. Dhaliwal illustrates examples, such as Nest that cares for minor details with a strong impact story, Burton that creates enjoyable and memorable personal lifestyle experience, and Apple that demands audience attention and experience from their box design.

Dhaliwal emphasizes Branding comes from craft perception and build equity. Craft perceptions will help entrepreneurs to focus on values, connection and differentiation. Moreover, build equity will help entrepreneurs to focus on longevity, emotion and recall.

The important concept that Dhaliwal wants entrepreneurs to know is the story behind the brand. Entrepreneurs will need to apply AIDA on their brand building. AIDA represents “Attention”, “Interest”, “Desire”, and “Action”.

Dhaliwal also mentions there are 4 stages entrepreneurs need to know where they need to focus their branding strategies.

Stimulus -> Pre-shopping -> Shelf in-store -> Experience

Each level represents the attention from audience. It is important to strategize the branding to capture the truth moments from each level.

In the new generation, AIDA concept has evolved to the next level. Dhaliwal shares the new concept of AISDALove, which is the abbreviation of “Attention”, “Interest”, “Search”, “Desire”, “Action”, “Like”, “Share”, and “Love”. The 5 elements from AISDALove relate to perception, and the last 3 elements relate to emotion. With all combine, it will drive the relationship for the audience.

“A remarkable brand is a valued relationship of extraordinary experience”

The importance of infographic

As a Creative Director at Visual Capitalist, Nick Routley has passion to improve visual communication for companies. Furthermore, Routley is the Emily Carr University graduate and he believes infographic is the next successful tool for branding.

Nick Routley defines data visualization is data or information presented in a visual ways. These are graphs, flow charts and diagram. In fact, infographics is a combination of those visuals elements within a cohort piece.

Traditionally, infographics are not fad. The early example of visual communication is hieroglyphics. However, in the new generation, people are living in a visual era, which means images, graphics, and iconography are the center of attention in visual communication. This forces the society to believe infographics are fad.

Knowledge is power and people want to make informed decisions. More data and information are available everywhere. Entrepreneurs need to make use of the information. In addition, it is important for entrepreneurs to define the right targets and goals for branding.

Routley suggests 3 methods to improve visual communication using brand. The first method is to tell a data-infused story. The second method is to organize a complex process, and the third method is to turn datasets into insight. Infographic is a solution for entrepreneurs to present their visual communication. They can decide their own unique style and write their own structure. Moreover, infographic can contain informed call that helps entrepreneurs to discover audience’s browsing habits.

Routley recommends entrepreneurs to speak with their designers to design the right infographics that align with the current goals and limitation. There are 6 common tips Routley shares that will create an effective infographics

Put extra effort into the header

Avoid too many colors and fonts

Avoid extraneous graphics, icons, etc.

Go beyond the list of statistics

List your sources at the end of the piece

Avoid “gee-whiz” comparisons

Questions and answers

The decision to go in house or outsource to agency depends on the direction and the budget. It also depends on the nature of the work. If it is for production, the panelists suggest entrepreneurs not to outsource. If it is for strategic thinking, agency might be a solution for entrepreneurs. To choose the right agency, the panelists recommend entrepreneurs to figure out if agency wants to sell their product or understand the company.

It is important to get the story straight. Entrepreneurs need to understand what they are good at and what their targets. There are always both sides to the brand, and the panelists suggest entrepreneurs to interact with both sides and focus on the people who will support their brand.