Northbound

It’s not enough for a brand to look good.   It’s not enough for a brand to be different.   It’s distinctive brand assets that create lasting value. From your logo and design system to your voice and tagline, brand assets reflect your brand strategy to resonate with customers, build loyalty, attract (and retain) talent, and so much more.   But how do you know how effective your visual and verbal elements are in building business value? Are they distinct? Are they reflective of your brand strategy?   A Brand Assessment helps you identify where your brand is aligned and where gaps may exist. Download Northbound’s Brand Assessment Whitepaper to learn why distinction matters and use the free Brand Assessment Worksheet to learn how to determine whether your brand is expressing its full potential. #brand #branding #branddesign #brandexpression #brandassessment

We are incredibly proud to announce that Northbound walked away with a fantastic win at the North America Transform 2024 awards! 🥇GOLD WINNER Cisco & Northbound Best naming strategy (naming system)   🏆Congratulations to our talented, hardworking team and our incredible clients at Cisco! 🏆 To learn more check out: https://lnkd.in/g64BC7gY   #TransformAwards #brand #branding #naming #namingstrategy

⭐Northbound at Transform Live!⭐ Great day in NYC spent speaking, listening, learning, and engaging with brand industry peers! Transform awards coming up! Samantha Temple Neukom Eric Jackson Shana Glenzer

We have disconnected corporate leaders. They are disconnected from themselves. Many of them are not connected to why they are in business, and why they are doing what they are doing beyond money. In corporations and marketing and brand functions, we focus a good amount on how we want the customer to feel and connect, but we aren’t as good at naming how we feel, how that drives us, and understanding how to use our own emotions to connect. In fact, we often are told to repress or suppress them. I’m not talking about how to identify and manipulate your customer’s emotions to get an outcome. I’m talking about how to harness your own emotions to connect with your customers (and their emotions) and create the change you want. And, I’m saying it’s not elective – you’re using emotions to drive your decisions in leadership, anyway. That’s how our nervous system is made and works. It’s scientifically impossible to remove emotion. So, you have to examine and USE emotions. Yet, your company culture and brand is the sum total of the emotions you generate. The nervous system of your company – this idea scales like fractals. So your company is ALL about emotions: the emotions you feel, and the emotions you allow others to feel. Brand isn't a logo - it sits at the level of vision and runs as deep as emotions. Are you tapping into the emotion of your company, your leaders, and your employees as diligently as you aim to tap the emotions of your customers? Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Emotion drives all decision-making. It’s true. And it's not just for consumer brands or a specific demographic—emotions are universal. And the most successful brands use creativity to tap into this emotional connection to: 👉 Gain customers 👉 Inspire employees 👉 Spark growth & innovation In our brand work for Oleria, we uncovered a powerful emotional driver. A feeling that not only differentiates their security software brand but also resolves a real customer tension — safety vs. innovation. Learn how to strategically connect customer insights to product truths and how creativity meets strategy in branding. And for more, join us at Transform magazine's Transform Live on Thursday, October 3 in NYC where Northbound Co-founder/CEO Samantha Temple Neukom and Naming Director Eric Jackson will be presenting alongside Oleria Head of Marketing Shana Glenzer the Oleria case study, Where creativity meets courage: Growth hacking a start-up through brand. #brand #branding #transformlive #brandstrategy #brandname #branddistinction #startup

Join us in NYC on October 3 at Transform Live to discuss the future of brand transformation! #brand #branding #brandstrategy #branddesign #visualidentity #brandname

Can brand purpose boost your business's value? Absolutely. Learn how purpose, when put into action through internal culture and training, and through customer experience, is a multiplier of business value. Purpose + follow-through = Brand Integrity See how top brands use purpose to increase value and try Northbound’s Brand Integrity tool to assess how well your purpose is integrated into your business. #brand #branding #brandpurpose #purpose #brandstrategy

Plans to be in NYC on October 3? Come hear Northbound CEO/Co-founder Samantha Temple Neukom; Naming Director, Eric Jackson; and Oleria's Head of Marketing, Shana Glenzer talk about courage in branding at this year's Transform Live conference! #brand #branding #conference #transformlive #transformawards

AI isn't just a buzzword; it's a powerful tool that can elevate brand strategy and creative work, IF you know how to use it! 🏹 In our latest article, we walk you through the specific ways you can use AI in discovery, research, writing, and naming. In these activities and others, AI can help you explore more options faster and get a sense of broad topics quickly. 🔎 But it's not about letting AI take over—it’s about how we, as brand strategists and creatives, shape those insights into brilliant ideas. 💡 Discover dozens of specific and practical ways to integrate AI into your brand work. 👀 #brand #branding #ai #brandstrategy #naming #research #writing #bestpractices

Are you generating positive emotional connections with your customers? Or is your marketing investment eroding value by inviting transactional comparisons? Put your strategy to the test with a simple framework to determine where your spend in brand building shows up to the people that matter most. #brand #branding #brandstrategy #bestpractices #targetaudience