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We Create Emotional, Distinctive And Connective Advantages.

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At The Blake Project, we believe that brand growth is established through deep emotional connection.

DONALD CALNE, NEUROLOGIST

Reason leads to conclusions.
Emotions lead to action.

While love is an emotion, for brands it must be an action. The same is true for your brand, B2C or B2B.

With that in mind The Blake Project builds emotional advantages by helping our clients better understand how emotions drive customer behavior and making those insights actionable in their marketplace and within their organizations. Our process is uniquely designed to uncover, activate and build emotional connections that move people to action.

The pathway to brand growth begins with the truth.

When a brand is in possession of the truth it has a clear and realistic view of itself based on the perceptions of the people that matter most to its future.

Stakeholder and Customer Interviews, Brand Audits, Brand Equity Measurement, Brand Tracking

Emotional Connection Measurement, Focus Groups

Our researchers will help you hear the private voice that will put you in possession of the truth — good and bad, known and hidden — the insights gained through our approach to brand research will help create the deep meaning your brand must stand for to earn a place in the future.

Talk to us about establishing your Emotional Advantage.

DERRICK DAYE

To be different is to not be the same.
To be unique is to be one of a kind.

Brand Positioning, Brand Story, Brand Identity, Brand Architecture/Portfolio Strategy

We believe that the power of businesses and brands lies in focus. Defining your focus requires an honest assessment of the value you create or wish to create in the world. Our process starts at the core and moves outward, considering what the world would miss if your offering ceased to exist. What competes or conflicts with its reason for being and if that is in alignment with what your customers want you to change in their world. We consider the context in which you must compete. The result is business, brand and growth strategies that will define your unique value and drive all decisions with clarity and confidence.

Growth Strategy, Brand Licensing, Celebrity Endorsement

The pathway to a distinctive advantage begins with knowing what you stand for and stand against.

The Blake Project will help you define each and move your brand from easy to compare to beyond compare.

Talk to us about establishing your Distinctive Advantage.

Expert Witness Testimony

DERRICK DAYE

Leading brands are built
from the inside out.

We believe that a key component to a brand's success lies in forging a connective advantage, that is a rich culture that people feel they belong to and that they actively advocate to others.

Powerful brand cultures be they internal or external are built from the interaction of a range of elements:

A strong sense of purpose, emanating from your mission, vision and values, that helps you build brand equity by enabling your brand to stand for an idea that people want to celebrate every day
Clear storylines that give the brand a unified sense of direction, but that can also be segmented by audience
Experiences that bring people together and enable them to share being part of the community

Mission, Vision, Values, Purpose, Brand Culture, Brand Education and Training

Through this lens we arrive at actionable decisions on building a powerful brand culture you and your people can believe in. We help you define your Employer Value Proposition and implement the internal changes needed to establish a new understanding of your brand that you can use to propel effective change from the inside-out.

Talk to us about establishing your Connective Advantage.

Brand Experience and Brand Story

C-Suite Leadership Coaching

The Blake Project Creates

EMOTIONAL, DISTINCTIVE AND CONNECTIVE ADVANTAGES

Hundreds of diverse brands and businesses have chosen The Blake Project to help change their growth trajectory for a more competitive and valuable future.

good2grow

With $130M in sales Good2Grow is an emerging brand in the children's beverage category. Differentiated by true health properties and a toy-like container, good2grow needed deeper customer insights and a new strategic approach to accelerate brand growth.

The Blake Project was selected to give them clarity and confidence in the strategic direction of their brand.

We conducted a series of 12 expert-moderated depth insight groups, composed of consumers with young children in 4 U.S. markets, to assess the brand's current position and identify ways to grow the brand.

In the depth insight groups we explored:

–Concerns about children's diet and nutrition
–Shopping experiences
–Beverage usage
–Good2Grow purchase factors
–Good2Grow brand personality
–Purchase barriers
–Good2Grow multi-packs
–New product concepts
–Potential Good2Grow brand positioning strategies
In addition to these depth insight groups, we gained insight through a market segmentation study and a brand equity measurement study which we used to make recommendations for strengthening their market position. We also helped the brand leadership team think through the brand purpose and brand licensing strategy.

Deloitte AI

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 they employ today. As a result Deloitte is putting cognitive technology into real-world action with strategic infrastructure that helps them compete in a unique and compelling way.

LexisNexis

Growing organizations often find themselves at a stage in their development in which the number of brands and named products that they are managing has become too difficult or too expensive to manage. This could be due to a series of mergers and acquisitions or just the continuous growth of new products and services over time.

LexisNexis, a leading global brand offering legal and professional solutions was faced with these challenges. The Blake Project was selected to help them think through the logical, strategic and relational structure of their brands. As part of our process we measured the equities of each brand in question using our proprietary research methods.

Our efforts resulted in a clear brand architecture strategy for future mergers, acquisitions, naming and growth.

AMELIORA

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 lead to the tagline Limit Less. Achieve More as well as the name Ameliora, also developed by The Blake Project.

Pershing

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.

Through a strategic session with the senior leadership team 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.

In defining new storylines to thwart this competitive threat we maintained alignment with their brand and changed the conversation being had on their competitor's terms in the marketplace.

The work required our brand strategy and brand storytelling expertise.

Southwest Airlines

Southwest Airlines has celebrated over 40 years of consecutive profitability. As the largest domestic carrier in the United States, Southwest is widely recognized for having the best loyalty program of any airline, garnering top scores from U.S News and Report annual rankings. A major factor in this achievement has been their consistent number one rating in customer service granted by Airline Quality Ratings.

The Blake Project was selected to conduct a brand audit to determine whether the Southwest brand could be extended via licensing. This included first assessing the strength of the brand to evaluate whether it mattered enough to consumers to merit a licensing program. We then generated a universe of potential categories to extend the Southwest brand. The category pool came through a variety of methods including soliciting input from members of the organization, from key suppliers, and from competitor programs.

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.

Statue of Liberty

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.

All Case Studies