What Else is Changing at the Sponge?

We’ve finally developed a new project page framework to celebrate the awesome brands we’ve worked on. But, it’s not our usual style. So brace yourself.

Thanks to Covid, we’ve spent some time reimagining our process. It’s been a blessing actually. We’ve got so much more clarity, direction and sense of purpose. Can you believe that is possible?

This reimagining has led to a complete rethink of our project page framework to align with our evolved methodology. Because good design is table stakes, but meaning is magnetic! And now we’ve started to publish projects this way.

The difference between the old and the new way is like night and day. It requires some explanation of the scoring framework we have developed. As with a lot in life, context is everything. 🙂

Introducing Our New Methodology

If you haven’t been introduced to it yet, our newly evolved framework is named: ElectroMagnetic Brand

An Electromagnetic Brand is one that effortlessly pulls awesome people to it, both new clients and awesome team members alike. And they stick for good, because they never want to leave.

The methodology is an evolutionary step up from what we have been doing with clients over the years since we became purpose led. The previous iteration of our method was our Impact Brand Storytelling framework (also the title of my book). Naturally there have been some improvements over the years!

The ElectroMagnetic Brand method takes clients through the 5 key elements, assessing where they are at, and helping to strengthen those where we can.

The 5 Elements and How We Score Them

Audience: Know Who You’re Talking To.

The ability to deeply understand each of your audience types and develop clarity on what moves them to action.

Scoring: We factor the client’s use of clear audience types. Focusing on the number of audiences, detail of profiling, depth of knowledge, methods used to define, and use of feedback systems.

Culture: Who You Are As A Brand.

The ability to cultivate a company culture that delivers consistent, exceptional experiences all your audiences rave about.

Scoring: We factor the client’s current culture code including core components like Vision, Purpose, Mission, Tagline, and Values. Also, how they are being used internally and externally.

Impact: A Noble Reason To Be Loved.

The ability to integrate a relevant, positive impact model into your business, giving your audiences more reason to love you.

Scoring: We factor the client’s current positive impact model, including metrics, relevance to offering, integration into the business, and internal and external communication of the impact.

Strategy: Connect All The Dots For All.

The ability to always have the right message, in the right place, at the right time, that moves people deeper with you.

Scoring: We factor the client’s current strategies. We focus on alignment with each audience’s journey, campaigns, objectives, timelines, measurement tools and data driven optimisation.

Evolution: Breathe Life Into Your Brand.

The ability to breathe life into your culture and strategies to capture hearts and minds, and sustain affection long term.

Scoring: We factor the client’s ongoing activation of their brand. It includes living and breathing the company culture, level of brand and collateral execution, and alignment with strategy.

What is a Good Score?

Starting Score

We specialise in rebranding. Clients meet us when there is a need to refresh their brand, rebrand, or jump start their brand strategy. These needs are usually symptoms that there is more going on below the surface. So naturally starting scores are going to be low. But, when can low still be good?

As a starting score 1 can be good, 2 can be great! Anything higher than that is an exception to the norm. Clients are typically stronger in one element than others.

There is a lot to factor into each element (you can see in the section above what we do). Much of what we factor into each element is not common practice for those we work with. Definitely not to the depth we help them get to.

End Score

We are a branding agency, and our designers make our clients look awesome. That doesn’t mean they will score 10 at the end of the project though. In some instances, especially just the design component, it only improves the score by a couple of points. And those points are only in the Evolution element. Again, there is far more to an ElectroMagnetic brand than awesome design!

The end score also is limited by the scope of work that we are engaged to complete with the client. While we would love to work through all the factors in each element, that may not be feasible. This could be due to timing, priorities, or budget.

Score Gap

What remains are the gaps to reach 100%, or 10 out of 10. These can be factors that can only be measured over time, like execution of strategy, or the ritualisation of culture. Those factors cannot be scored at the time. Others are out of scope or deemed unnecessary at that stage of the journey for the brand.

You won’t see a project with a score of 10 across the board! Unlikely to see many 9s either.

Colour Banding

We have used the same colours as we do in our free ElectroMagnetic Brand Scorecard results for consistency’s sake. You can score your brand for free by the way…

Retrofitting and Scope

There are a few things to cover off. We have a boatload of awesome projects that have been sitting in our drive while our evolution has been happening. Many of the brands that we want to celebrate have not been exposed to the full method. That has made retrofitting parts of projects where the method has changed quite challenging.

Additionally, many things contribute to the scope of the project, including priorities, timing, and budget. In this instance we have indicated them as out of scope. Some factors of our method we weren’t aware of at the time.

Take a Look

We have a bunch of projects currently taking shape in this new framework. Our goal is to retrofit all those on our website soon too. Here is the very first brand we have done in this style for you to learn about for StopMaleSuicide

Take a look and let us know what you think.