The Blake Project
Approach

Ekornes is the largest furniture manufacturer in Norway and owns the brand names Ekornes and Stressless. The company is best known for Stressless chairs in the U.S. market. Products are manufactured in Norway and marketed globally. While they marketed Stressless branded products in the U.S. and throughout Canada, they embarked on a more focused marketing effort and selected The Blake Project for help. In preparation for this, they wanted to benchmark brand awareness and perceptions, purchase decision making process, barriers to entry and competitive threats.

FootJoy is the number one shoe and glove brand in golf with a 67% marketshare and for more than 60 years, FootJoy has been the leading golf shoe on the PGA tour. FootJoy, together with Titleist and Cobra, are brands sold by the Acushnet Company. Their brand is recognized for having comfortable, exceptionally high quality products and good service. FootJoy is committed to enhancing the golfer's on-course experience through the development of superior golf shoes, gloves, outerwear, socks and accessories. Their products exceed expectations in all weather and playing conditions through advanced technical innovation, performance, and supreme comfort.

FootJoy's management selected The Blake Project to build a more emotional appeal into the FootJoy brand. That is, they wanted to infuse the brand promise with emotional appeal. And they wanted to increase the brand's appeal to younger audiences and women. We helped them do that through qualitative consumer research, a brand positioning workshop and the development of a new tagline and elevator speech. The new aspirational tagline, "FJ: The Mark of a Player" and accompanying brand messaging are designed to reinforce competitive advantages vis-à-vis Nike and Adidas. We also crafted an elevator speech to help employees bring the brand positioning to life.

By focusing on building a strong emotional connection, Footjoy has accelerated brand growth and maintained their dominant position in the marketplace.

The Blake Project helped this startup women's apparel brand for professionals define its go-to-market brand strategy. In this crowded space, Ameliora needed to represent new value to its target customers.

In a brand positioning workshop we leveraged our expertise in brand management and our clients expertise in the apparel category and defined the value this new brand would bring to the world. We explored internal and external forces that could have both positive and negative implications on the trajectory of the brand.

Among our facilitated discussions was the evolving role of women in the workplace. Specifically their increased power, influence and importance as well as their desires to reach the same professional heights as men. TV shows like Shark Tank and successful women entrepreneurs were discussed, the founder of Spanx for example.

This brought us to the market gap between Brooks Brothers and Anne Taylor. A space where success could be nurtured through stylish apparel and meaningful activities associated with Ameliora that can help women succeed and help the brand stand for success.

We helped them understand that Ameliora is in the success business for professional women and success needed to be the underpinning of the brand – well beyond the functional or self-expressive benefits that their products would deliver. This has created an advantage on an emotional level. Our work is now the lens that all decisions are made through and it led to the tagline Limit Less. Achieve More as well as the name Ameliora, also developed by The Blake Project.

With $1.7 Trillion in global client assets, BNY Mellon's Pershing is a leader in providing global financial solutions to advisors, broker-dealers, hedge and '40 Act fund managers. When a competitor targeted them through misleading campaigns they turned to The Blake Project to evaluate the threat and strategize a response. We helped them counter-offer rather than counter-attack, keeping their target audience focused on what's known and proven, rather than simply responding to the agitator.

Southwest Airlines has celebrated over 40 years of consecutive profitability. The Blake Project was selected to conduct a brand audit to determine whether the Southwest brand could be extended via licensing. Using our proprietary methodology, we filtered our universe of categories to derive a qualified list. Once we had our qualified list, we assessed the size of the industry for each category and based upon conservative, moderate and aggressive scenarios, we estimated the sales that could be generated. Knowing the range of sales, we were able to calculate the potential royalties that would be earned across each scenario. From the audit, we determined that the Southwest list of categories was not only significant in market size and projected growth, but would also help Southwest connect with thousands of new consumers helping to extend the brand's presence into a variety of new channels while generating significant operating profit.

LUMINOX is the world's first visible watch in all conditions. The Blake Project was selected to help build the strategic infrastructure necessary for accelerating brand growth. We positioned the brand globally and consulted on creative strategy. The result was 55% growth in 18 months.

Deloitte needed a differentiating advantage for its artificial intelligence capabilities and turned to multiple partners to develop brand strategies with the highest chance for success. The Blake Project helped create and analyze the potential of each including the AI strategy Deloitte employs today.

The Blake Project was selected to lead the first brand strategy effort for the National Parks of New York Harbor, enhancing the identity of this global icon and increasing tourism to the statue and the 22 National Parks in its proximity. Success was measured by the number of visitors which increased 10 fold through our approach and strong working ties with our clients.