The Justice Conference is an annual event to promote dialogue around justice related issues such as human trafficking, poverty, HIV/AIDS and human rights, featuring internationally acclaimed speakers, hundreds of humanitarian organizations and dozens of pre-conference workshops. We had the privilege of working with our friends at The Justice Conference again this year—this time in Philadelphia with over 5,000 attending. 

The year's theme was inspired by the phrase taken from The Pledge of Allegiance, "liberty and justice for all", yet of course transposing the two words. It is interesting that The Pledge of Allegiance was originally written in 1892 by a Baptist minister who was also a Christian socialist. This is a combination that would seem completely opposed to one another today!

Our role in the conference included comprehensive brand development and marketing—including everything from identity design, website design, event signage, e-mail marketing, social media, program design, promotional products, etc.—both leading up to the conference and the weekend of the event. We also created the branding for the initial launch of the 2014 conference to be in Los Angeles next year. I admit, I am rather excited about this being a native of California and drawn to warmer temperatures. 

Words cannot begin to express the tragic loss of life in Connecticut.

SiliPint, located in Bend, Oregon, is the world's first maker of silicone pint glasses. The pint glasses are basically indestructible. You can drop them on the ground, or drive over them with a tank and they will not break. 

When they came to us, there were experiencing rapid growth and needing to take their brand to the next level as several competitors began to emerge. They were even written up in The New York Times as one of several companies responsible for revitalizing the economy in Central Oregon due to their association with the craft beer industry. While silicone drinkware had clear functional advantages, they believed they needed to define who they were as a brand in order to stay connected with their growing number of followers and remain ahead of the pack as competitive silicone products threatened their marketshare. 

Through our "BrandStorming Process" of discovery, we learned that their culture was one that believed not only in the functional and environmental advantages of silicone, they were a silly bunch of people who did not take themselves too seriously. This led us to recommending a brand position of "owning silly", expressed through the tagline of "life is better silly". Reinforcing the brand position included a serious of "sillyisms", inspired by well known philosophical quotes, such as, "be the silly you want to see in the world", and "that which does not kill you makes you silly". 

Another challenge was how to refer to themselves as a company separate from their product names. Originally calling themselves "SiliPint", it was confusing as they added additional products such as "SiliShot". We recommended the new parent brand name "SiliHuman", enabling them to differentiate the company from their products, along with reinforcing the brand position of "silly".

Around here we've been kicking around a concept we're calling  "brand vision." It's nothing revolutionary in and of itself, but for many it will be a new angle on branding and a new approach to the branding process. For some of our clients, taking a step back to think about their brand visions has been a real game-changer, and its a concept we're excited to further develop.

The idea is simple — a brand vision is the underlying framework of the brand, the core ideas, beliefs, and character that establish a baseline for everything your company, product or service is and will be.

So, why a brand vision? 

Your brand vision matters because your brand matters. And your brand, whether you like it or not — indeed, whether you give it a second thought or not — will be the deciding factor for potential customers, partners or constituents choosing you over the competition. To shape your brand, you must craft, articulate, and communicate your vision. Whatever your business and whatever sector you operate in, the world today is too complex, too crowded, and too fast-moving for people to rely on anything but brand for the large part of most decisions.

After rolling out a new identity just over a year ago, and subsequently launching an awesome new website, Home Forward came to us wondering how to address the identities for their new (and existing) property developments. We love that they asked the question — partly because we completely nerd out on stuff like brand architecture, but also because it's a crucial conversation that will steer high level communications strategy for the organization and ultimately help shape the way the public understands them.

Branding is as much art as science, so there's more than one way to go on this and have it work. Our recommendation, for reasons of clarity, brand consistency and ease of management (among others) was to treat new developments (below, right) as subordinates to the parent brand, Home Forward (below, left). Often, the temptation here will be to create new or unique identities for specific developments, (especially when riding the high of a successful and exhilarating brand launch!). But listen up, aspiring branders: resist the urge. Now is the time to hold strong, be consistent, and use a carefully crafted brand architecture to reinforce your identity and clarify the relationships between the entities within it.

At right, below, you'll see a sketch of our recommendation for the development identity. The type-to-symbol ratio is shifted slightly towards a larger symbol, so as to emphasize the parent-to-child relationship between Home Forward and the development, thus elevating the parent, bringing the child into the fold, and making Home Forward one big, happy family.

We can hardly keep up with our friends at The Justice Conference! (Of course, we do keep up. We have our pride.) After their enormously successful second annual conference held in Portland this past May, they continue to reach higher and farther as they educate, inspire and connect a generation around a shared concern for the vulnerable and oppressed, to say nothing of creating one of the fasting growing, most innovative events like it in the world. Truly moving stuff. 

Us, we do branding. Which is why we were thrilled when they asked us to help out with the branding and marketing for next year's conference! For starters, we designed and launched a new website! (Take a look at some of these big name speakers!) We feel honored for the opportunity to work on this exciting project, which promises to be but a taste of what's to come from the amazing people at The Justice Conference.

We don't typically dabble in the open markets nor glean our research metrics from it. This past summer, however, as we were embarking on a rebranding initiative for Descartes, I wanted to track their stock price throughout the brand and website launch. So I kept an close eye on the ticker through the fall months as the branding rolled out and through the winter months as the website launch grew near. And I have to admit, I got pretty geeked out and excited as I watched the literal value of branding play out in real time and in the market.

Obviously, with a global company as dynamic as Descartes there are a lot of factors in share price besides branding. Still, what I found was super exciting. After a slow, gradual upward climb filled with incremental changes over the course of a few months, the stock price leaped 10% the week after the new site launched! (That's essentially a $54.4 million increase in market cap!) Coincidence? Maybe. But maybe not, too! The stock price has since leveled off, indicating that something has sustainably added 10% to the value of the company. The image below is a screen grab from my Stocks widget in Dashboard. See that dramatic uptick in the beginning of March? That's the week following the site launch! Seems like a pretty solid ROI, no?

Big-time thanks to AdFedCO and Oregon Addys! We had a blast at the awards show this past weekend in Sun River and were grateful and excited to be recognized for our work — and of course, a gigantic thank you to our clients for bringing us in on the action and enabling us to do great work! 

The image above is the (award-winning) website design we did for Jaynemax, maker of incredible, luxurious handbags (photography from the peerless Benjamin Edwards). Also receiving awards were BendBroadband's Local Dog Summer and Dog Years TV spots (special thanks to Brett Borders for lending his copywriting prowess on Dog Years!). As well, we had the honor of recognition for our role in a couple of award-winning radio spots.

Thanks again to everyone that helped make the Addys possible!

Without further adieu, the latest installment of the Local Dog series for BendBroadband! This was another fun one, and although it's still fresh on the airwaves (fiber optics cables?), we're already excited to get going on the next one. With spring on the horizon (maybe not in Bend, but it's springtime somewhere), there's no shortage of warm-weather outdoor adventures from which to choose for next Local Dog spot. The hard part, as any Central Oregonian knows, is choosing just one!

Thanks again to Nate Salciccioli and his production team for the extraordinary filmmaking.

Last weekend, we had the privilege of attending The Justice Conference in Portland, OR, where our esteemed client World Relief was a title sponsor. The conference — which in itself was a total mind bend; so good! — served as a launching pad for World Relief's Stand Together Project, a unique program that pairs donors with a World Relief Hero, a woman equipped and empowered to heal, transform and empower others, who in turn join the cause and pass it on. (Clearly, I've had some practice with the pitch.) It is a powerful program to empower otherwise vulnerable women, reach their villages and, ultimately, change the world.

Below you'll see the video we created to launch the program, and we'll be excited to share more as the program unfolds. We truly believe this kind of advocacy, empowerment, and activism can change the world. And this is just the beginning.

Mega-thanks to Marianne Bach for her film and photo work and especially to Jerod Wanner for the same, in addition to multiple all-night editing sessions. On top of the talent, these are two completely delightful humans. The tear-jerking score in the video is the work of Tony Anderson and the voiceover is the gifted Sharon Irving. Thanks to you all!