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

Brandshrink

Meet our BrandShrink, Nancy Lerner. With more than 25 years of experience as our Chief Brand Strategist, Nancy drives strategy and conceptual thinking at Otherwise. She invites you to stretch out on her virtual couch as she leverages her gifts - experience, insight, curious ways of connecting the dots, and the ability to cut right to the heart of the matter - to help you understand and address your brand issues. Bring your own Kleenex and enjoy the catharsis!

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,[...]

Dos and Don’ts of Customer Acquisition

Everyone knows that customers are the heart and soul of a thriving enterprise. What isn’t as apparent, however, is the strategy and process required to find and acquire these customers.[...]

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.[...]