O T H E R S I D E | The Blog of Otherwise Incorporated, Chicago

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Creating a brilliant brand narrative…in four easy steps (or, what keeps founders up at night)

I will admit that the very notion of “brand building” is daunting. It carries with it the heavy expectation that the outcome must be grand and game-changing. Which, by inference,[...]

Otherwise Incorporated_Branding for Startups

Brand early and learn to love the process (because it isn’t going away any time soon).

Launching a new company is one of the most demanding and challenging undertakings imaginable, requiring passion, focus, speed and enormous reservoirs of energy and courage. And more often than not,[...]

What Martin Creed Knows

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect this afternoon when I plopped into my seat in the MCA auditorium to watch and listen to Martin Creed. A fantastically talented artist[...]

Bo Muller-More_Kale_Corporate Responsibility

Leveraging the Power of Collective Outrage: Using the Tools of Social Media to Stand Up for the Little Guy

The recent troubles of Bo Muller-Moore, the folk artist from Vermont who silk screens t-shirts with the slogan “EAT MORE KALE,” are a reminder of just how gratifying it can[...]

Is “reciprocity marketing” the ultimate therapy for brands?

The other day I was in the locker room at my health club when one of the masseuses from the club’s spa approached. She is someone I’ve had treatments with[...]

If you don’t love coffee, don’t bother to open a café.

After months of buildout and “Opening Soon” signage, a new café opened around the corner. It’s situated in a fabulous location in my bustling, hip neighborhood, and I waited impatiently[...]

Mind the (marketing) gap.

While I have been out in the world of start-ups and early-stage companies of late, I have been struck again and again by the lack of attention to branding and[...]

Popcorn as metaphor.

For the holidays this year, we sent our clients a simple gift: popcorn. Not the fancy overpopped variety housed in a ridiculously-large tin, but a 2-pound bag of small unpopped[...]

Just because you have a website doesn’t mean you have a brand.

Last week I had a conversation with a colleague–the CEO of a technology startup recently funded by vcs–that sounded eerily like other conversations I’ve had recently with other successful entrepreneurs.[...]