Voicebox West

Honored, humbled and somewhat mystified to see our client Stanley 1913 make the cover of The New Yorker with a product our agency named—three years after an unfathomably successful rebrand and brand launch our shop was enlisted for. When we completed the strategy, identity and rebrand work for Stanley in 2021, we had no idea how big this movement would become and how many big moments for the brand there would be.?For us, seeing the work grace the cover of the New York is a true mark of cultural achievement. #branding

“Invention is a powerful force. Yet it takes more than just an idea to shape the future. It takes originality, imagination and drive. It requires persistence and resilience—the kind where a rare breed pushes forward when others would head home or call it a day. Yet capturing lightning in a bottle is not a fluke; it’s the result of freethinking individuals who shape, mold and build their visions into a more vibrant and creative existence in every aspect of their lives.” The Collab When Stanley 1913 reached out to Voicebox West in 2021 to help re-invent and reimagine their brand, we had no idea how far their star would rise. Yet four stunning years later they have transformed from an iconic outdoorsy brand to a pop culture phenomenon and been recognized as the hottest consumer brand in America. Along the way they earned respect and recognition, A-list celebrity adoption, recognition at Sundance, a parody on SNL, Lions at Cannes and a cover of The New Yorker. The consumer-led groundswell turned hydration tidal wave skyrocketed the brand from $75M to $750M in just four years while accomplishing dramatic reinvention, wider inclusion and massive global expansion. The Case Study As we are reflecting on the top ten collabs or our first five years, it’s hard for us to top the reach and impact of our partnership with Stanley that was sparked with this first comprehensive and transformational brand strategy project. Collaborating with talented and visionary Chief Brand Officer Graham Nearn and longstanding Sr Art Director Dan Colavito, our tiny team moved lightning fast based on instinct and insight. We grasped a pivotal moment in time, deeply understanding a greater shift in societal values to build, shape and create what would become not just a new identity, but a new true north for the brand. We started strategically by creating five personas, adding?depth to value statements and developing a manifesto for the brand. Working fast, we brainstormed their Wild Imagination brand platform then developed an overall narrative for the greater brand vision into a strategic deck that was rolled out to their President, their company and their global business units to acclaim and adoption. Three wild, imaginative years after the rollout, our tiny shop still takes quiet pride in the big thinking and blue-sky vision of this transformative collaboration that we delivered for the Stanley brand. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gg9F84fh #branding #storytelling #strategy #findyourvoice #stanley1913

GreyMatter? AI Shifts the Paradigm of Brainpower Harvesting Voicebox West is excited to announce its rollout of a new AI-driven alternative to trend-first technology that is uniquely based on proprietary Actual Intelligence. Unlike conventional AI, which is a crowd-sourced regression to the mean when it comes to original thinking and strategic differentiation, our new Actual Intelligence-based model delivers more cost-effective results that do not require exposing your brand’s inner self and inner thoughts to the unregulated market of harvesting outdated, stale human intelligence. A forward-thinking fusion of left-actual-brain and right-actual brain that understands concepts such as empathy, truth and character of the human experience, our new GreyMatter? AI will enable a lifelong connection to human consumers, while they still drive our economic growth. #AI #brainpower #originality #newproject

“The audible crack of glaciers calving, a mountainside of mica reflecting like a mirror, peaks towering to an unimaginable scale. Airy heart-pumping ascents on via ferrata routes, immediate heli access to wander amongst subalpine wildflowers or the meditative refresh of watching granite pillars tower over vast Canadian icefields. Remote, untamed wilderness as far as the eye can see. Imagine your guests, relaxing into wilderness luxury while surrounded by peaceful solitude—and sharing it all with an instant community of likeminded souls. This is summer at CMH - a place that shapes, inspires and transforms.” The Collab Five years in at Voicebox West, it was tough to pick just one project from our work with CMH to make the top ten collab list. Yet shaping and framing their summer wilderness lodge offering and creating a digital tool for complicated B2B and DTC audiences was the one that reached the top ten pinnacle. Orchestrated remotely via Zoom and Basecamp—due to the onset of a global pandemic—we drove the B2B project forward with their talented internal team, working closely with Marketing Director Julia LoVecchio, Sales Manager Sam Hogg, Editor Alison Jones and Art Director Liam Kerr to create an exceptional tool that helped redefine their brand to the travel industry trade just as the global adventure market became exceptionally more challenging and competitive. The Case Study In phase one of the Summer Sales Guide, we collaborated with the internal summer sales and creative teams, immersing ourselves in their brand strategy then conducted more than 30 in-depth interviews from CMH team members harvesting content that would allow us to build out an entire brand storytelling framework focused on the travel trade. We crafted in-depth lodge overviews, compelling content about their experiences and helped shape a new strategic direction that emphasized distinction between offerings and competitors. For phase two of the Digital Sales Guide project, our shop took the CD and PM reins, orchestrating an all-hands, intensive four-week project by facilitating internal strategy sessions, fast-tracking a content development epic and driving a full website build project to completion. In total, we crafted more than 20,000 words of content during a six-month-deep immersion for the brand. The project flowed into a follow-up DTC content project that reframed how they communicated their offering, their uniqueness and their lodges. Looking back, the biggest highlight was penning new positioning statements for each of their lodges that captured their essence, differentiation and true Canadian wildness in a powerful, connective way. #branding #brandstorytelling #strategy #DTC #B2B #findyourvoice #outdooragency

As June hits, we’re asking our clients, contacts and colleagues to check inward for a progress report on their big projects list. Have you hit the halfway mark on your biggest priorities? Do you feel confident these projects will move faster in summer??Are your timelines feeling adrift? If not, what is holding you back? Is it vision, clarity or bandwidth—or maybe an abundance of budgeting caution? Is there more risk in missing the moment than waiting for next year? If the crux is one of the first three, Voicebox West can help get your big ideas, brand projects and turn-the-tide campaigns back on schedule with strategic thinking, dedicated bandwidth and outside creative horsepower. Otherwise, the view might be exactly the same next year. We ask, in the comments, what are you waiting for? #branding #vision #objectives #messaging #brandstrategy #projectmanagement P: Jason Hummel

WHAT’S IN A NAME? "Stio? is a brand built on character. Identified by our true understanding of mountain culture and our distinct lens on product design, the brand is far from conventional when set against the outdoor industry landscape. For over a decade, Stio’s creative product names have reflected the cultural connection of the brand through ties to the nature that inspires us, the valley and state we call home, and the specific language of our mountain, river and trail-based communities. When a name resonates with our customers—as many of our best ones do—it creates not only a distinct perspective but also a deeper connection to who we are as a brand. From our iconic Hometown Down to the Rivet, Icefloe and Objective, these product names take on a life and meaning of their own, even migrating into franchise territory that elevates their aura and appeal. When we get it right, these names help shape and define our brand’s identity." -The Intro ??? The Collab When Stio's Brand Manager approached our shop, Voicebox West, with the tall task of creating a naming convention playbook from scratch, we knew it would take both maximum creative horsepower and our long historical understanding of the brand. We’d been responsible for a three years succession of product naming, product launch, product copy and fabric naming projects—as well as capturing their brand essence and building their Brand Bible—but this somehow seemed a way, way bigger ask. Encapsulating our thinking and their internal process into one foundational playbook was a big objective but a climb we enthusiastically tackled in partnership with key members of their internal team. The Case Study We immediately enlisted our best strategic thinkers and dug deep to understand Stio’s naming landscape and uncover key themes currently represented in their product collections. In close collaboration, our small shop team led discovery sessions with Stio’s exceptionally passionate brand team and analyzed every aspect of their current process and outputs. The result was a 64-page naming bible with the guardrails and creative structure to drive the internal naming process, ensure names reinforce the Stio brand, and standardize the process for evaluating future collections and hierarchies. The comprehensive playbook outlined the attributes of a good Stio name, logical taxonomies, thematic naming buckets with contextual stories, word-by-word naming conventions, consistency rules, a product catalog, and a workflow aligned with Stio’s annual product launches. It is the ultimate multi-tool to wrangle what was fast becoming a chaotic exercise for the extremely high-growth brand. The months-long project was presented to great acclaim from the stakeholder team, including Stio’s founder and CEO, who lauded it as an invaluable tool for maintaining the culture, creativity and distinction of Stio’s mountain-town infused names for a decade to come. #branding #outdooragency #mountainlife #naming