Skidmore Studio Logo
Scribble

Branding

News, culture & fun stuff

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) strategies boast higher margins while enabling brands to own their story and customer data; allowing them to small-batch test new products and increase customer reviews.
Direct-to-consumer provides ample opportunities for emerging brands. With more channels and ownability over the process, DTC gives you the opportunity to experiment with your business model as well as product offerings based on consumer insights.
Three Legacy Brand Marketing Pillars And How to Use them for Your CPG Brand As an emerging brand, it’s hard to ignore the saturation of large-scale brand success. With marketing, manufacturing and legacy on their side, big brands have the ability to roll out new flavor SKUs and praiseworthy campaigns without breaking a sweat.
If you’ve found yourself tasked with creating customer profiles for your brand or organization and you don’t know where to start, it’s important to first remember two key things: Customer profiles do help inform product development, messaging, media placements, empathy, customer experience and moreCustomer profiles do not answer your shoppers
Embarking on a rebrand or packaging redesign can be a daunting task. After all, it’s literally your identity we’re talking about here. It doesn’t have to be that intimidating, though. And with some expert help, the benefits are sure to far outweigh any discomfort. Follow these suggestions, and I guarantee
Rebrands are a second chance at a first impression. Rebranding allows companies to evaluate, refine, and organize priorities within their business: what is important to them and why, who their audience actually is, how to engage them, etc. Rebrands should be a reflection of that soul-searching. But change is hard,
As an emerging food or consumer packaged goods (CPG) brand, you might feel like getting that first order from a big retailer like Whole Foods or Walmart means you’ve made it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a huge accomplishment—and one worth celebrating—but it’s just the beginning.   While having the
Originally posted on JGA.com as a guest post by Skidmore Studio President, Drew Patrick. Back in the day, shopping was a simple affair. People went to the store to buy things. Then the internet happened. In order to keep up, traditional brick-and-mortar retailers rushed to create an online experience for
Does speaking internet count as being bilingual? If so, we at Skidmore Studio are skilled translators capable of guiding you and your brand on a journey through this vast territory of garbled, unstable language. The slang, memes, and writing style of the web are incredibly important tools in any modern
There’s a lot to be thankful for this year. We have a new owner. We’ve experienced 200 percent growth in office dog attendance. And every time we step out the front door or take a walk around town, we see how Detroit has gotten a tiny bit more vibrant. One of
Here’s an idea that may be controversial: You should be investing more time and effort (and therefore $$$) into your brand than your marketing. Sure, we’re a little biased (we’re a branding studio, after all), but the data backs it up. “Media in Focus,” a report on the effects of
As one of the most important brand–customer touchpoints, a brand’s packaging needs to stand out from the competition, while also answering how the product solves a customer’s needs. Here at Skidmore, we use the “Stop, Hold, Close” method – a process for getting the most out of that sliver of
Thanks for your interest! Click to view and download the WHITE PAPER "The Grocery Aisle Insurgents" Download
Recently I was asked, “What makes a really good client?” My initial reply was to spout off a series of thoughts I developed over the years working with clients of all shapes and sizes. Statements that were primarily from the studio’s perspective, like...They need to be big thinkers. They need
Menus are everywhere – the cozy chalkboard at your neighborhood café, the oversized menu at the local burger joint, the minimalist menu at your favorite upscale restaurant. Big or small, simple or complex, beautiful or merely functional, menus are arguably the most important touchpoint between a restaurant’s brand and its
Most brands these days are learning how to walk the walk and truly uphold their brand values, but can they talk the talk? In this week’s episode of Branding Bites, Shawn and Kacha share their knowledge on how to better identify, talk to, and connect with your audience. Rather read than watch? Check out the transcript below! // TRANSCRIPT
We all love to root for the underdog. It’s why the Rocky films have grossed over $1.5 billion worldwide. Rocky Balboa, one of the most beloved underdog movie characters of all time, beat Apollo Creed, Mr. T and that huge Russian dude, with a simple philosophy: Don’t play by their
Detroit has been featured in some of the country’s most respected publications and topped lists of America’s hottest food cities. And as Detroiters ourselves, we can confirm: the food is incredible. But there is also much to learn from the brand building efforts of some of Detroit’s most successful restaurants
In this week’s episode of Branding Bites, Shawn and Kacha dive into the world of restaurant apps to discuss which restaurants are delivering a great app experience. And as always, they share their thoughts on everything of note in food, beverage, and branding this week! Click play for their answers
There is a lot of focus on branded video content in the food marketing space right now. Take Chipotle’s School of Guac, Cap’n Crunch’s Earliest Show, and Jack in the Box’s Cravings Hotline for example. In this week’s episode of Branding Bites, Shawn and Kacha discuss branded video content and
In this episode of Branding Bites, our strategy director, Kacha Azema, and our design director, Shawn McConnell, got together to talk about what's happening in restaurant marketing this week. Tune in for their responses to questions including: How successful were Frontier Lager's recent #findflavour Instagram ads? (at 0:13) How can
Last year the National Parks System attracted 305,000,000 people. That’s more visitors than Disney theme parks, the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NASCAR combined. And this year is looking even better. You have to admit - for a government agency to pull these kind of numbers, it’s pretty impressive. How does
Just a few days ago, I was crowned a winner of the Labatt Undomesticated Games. If you know anything about the event, you probably want to hear my team’s strategies for dominating the oversized slingshot. But that’s a secret I’ll never tell. Instead I want to share my thoughts on
As a writer and a millennial – and one who specializes in millennial-focused copywriting, no less – I am painfully aware of the challenges faced by brands writing for this audience. We hate advertising1, use fast-moving language steeped in internet and pop-culture allusions, and –­ due to infamous amounts of
If you want to reach millennials, there’s a pretty compelling argument that podcasts are a place you want your brand to be. Thirty-five percent of millennials listen to at least one podcast a week,1 and 63 percent have bought something they heard advertised on a podcast.2 With these kind of stats,
If you believe what you hear, the celebrity spokesperson is dead. Talk is rampant in blogs and at conferences that the savvy millennial consumer doesn’t respond to paid endorsement. They say that customers want to hear from other customers, that UGC is the silver bullet. And while peer-to-peer marketing is
Let’s say you’ve got a billion-dollar brand that produces magic at every turn. Your innovative approach is second to none, and people of all ages tremble with excitement at the mere mention of your name. But somehow you’re not seeing the kind of results you want to see. Maybe there
Last Thursday, while at lunch, my phone blew up. Texts and emails and media alerts all pinged at the same time as a friend and colleague rested his hand on my shoulder. That was the moment I found out that my idol was gone and the world had lost an
When Lewis & Clark ventured into the American west, the leaders of their day believed they would find opportunity in a wild and untamed continent. Today, marketers are exploring a different kind of uncharted territory, looking to apps like Yik Yak for the opportunity to connect with the millennial audience.
Nestled deep in the idyllic Belgian countryside of West Flanders lies one of the most sought-after brands in the world. A brand whose product demand far outstrips the supply, and one whose marketing budget has hovered steadily around $0 for the last 175 years. Despite the remote location and total
As consumer behaviors change and evolve so do those of brands and marketers. No longer do we live in a world of one-way promotional messaging, but one where consumers have the power to interact, change, and mold a brand. In our 60-second guide to millennials, we note that 62% of
Welcome back from another holiday break. What better way to kick off the new year than by legitimizing your holiday binge-watching? Let’s take a closer look at a few classic films and see how you can use some of the most memorable scenes to your advantage. Home Alone “This is
There’s one source of unquestioned authority on anything related to internet search: Google. So it’s worth paying attention when Google CEO Sundar Pichai drops some new insight, as he did in their last quarterly earnings call just over a month ago. Pichai announced that for the first time ever, there
One of the most common questions we hear about connecting with millennials is how to do it without alienating other audiences. We say: alienate them. You can’t target any audience when you aren’t focused. Trying to connect with millennials while catering to other audiences is like playing darts while wearing
We’ve all been there. A client or team member mentions making a viral video and we all slouch down and cringe. Not because the idea of making great video content is scary, but because the goal of creating something that will go viral is a risky one that is out
There is no question: Taylor Swift knows what she’s doing. As an entertainer, a performer, and – most importantly – as a marketer, Swift is killing it. In only a few years, she has become one of the most beloved and buzzed about musicians in the country. With 50.5 million
Six months ago I shared with you a manifesto of sorts, my personal credo to "Dare Mighty Things." This statement is based on a quote from Teddy Roosevelt and it is a daily reminder for me to be willing to risk much, even if it means failing more often. A
In-store marketing can be the baptismal waters for immersion into your brand. Done wrong, it’ll be completely invisible – or even worse, an absolute annoyance. Done right, it’ll lead your customer to do exactly what you want. So how can you do in-store marketing the right way? Here are a
As the CMO of a top entertainment brand you’ve got a sharp eye on your metrics. Above all, I bet you’re tracking sales numbers carefully. Sales are important, sure, but they look backward instead of forward. By focusing only on sales, you’re missing an opportunity to drive numbers instead of
The digital world moves quickly. Every day there’s a new trend or term popping up that requires us to determine its relevancy and figure out if and how it applies to our work. These terms change frequently, so we don’t expect our clients to know every current buzzword and be