How to Elevate Your Brand to a Future-Proof Status

How to Create a Brand That Lasts: Strategies from a Changemaker        

Welcome, dear readers, to Refining for Success, your gateway to a timeline of innovative and proven strategies, techniques, and insights to elevate your brand to new heights. Whether you're a seasoned leader or a budding entrepreneur, this newsletter is your compass to crafting a lasting legacy that transcends fleeting trends and establishes you as a true force in your industry.        

As the founder of Refining Academy, House of Golde, I've dedicated my life to helping brands, teams, and individuals refine their creative talents, projects, and achieve extraordinary results. This newsletter serves as a platform to share my expertise and insights, empowering you to tune into your full potential and transform your brand into a beacon of innovation and excellence.        

WHAT TO EXPEECT
Each issue we'll tune into a specific aspect of refining your brand, providing you with actionable strategies, practical tips, and inspiring case studies. We'll explore topics ranging from designing a culture of creativity and innovation to leveraging your mindset for enhanced engagement and building a strong brand identity.        

Whether you're seeking to refine your creative process, boost team productivity, or elevate your brand's persona for end user success, Refining for Success will equip you with the techniques and knowledge to achieve your goals. Join me on this journey of refinement and discover the boundless possibilities that await.        

Refining for Success Newsletter - Table of Contents

Part 1: Building Lasting Brands

• Introduction & Founder's Message
• Key Insights from Vogue Business Event
• Actionable Tips for Brand Refinement

Part 2: Design Thinking for Creative Teams

• Proven Techniques from Enterprise Design Thinking
• The Nipsey Hussle Smart Store Example
• Implementing Co-Creation & User-Centricity in Fashion & Marketing

Part 3: "Failing Fast" for Engagement & Success

• A Leader's Strategy for Rapid Learning & Improvement
• Enhancing the "Failing Fast" Approach - A New Perspective
• Leveraging Educational Institutions to Refine your Idea/Project

Part 1:  Branding Insights (Welcome - Vogue Business Event Takeaways)        

In today's rapidly evolving market, it's crucial for brands to strike a balance between innovation, refining and staying true to their core values and heritage.

This challenge was the focus of a recent Vogue Business event, where industry experts discussed strategies for creating a more inclusive and diverse brand image without compromising authenticity.

"It's all about being authentic and not following a trend, but holding authority and presence in the ever-changing market," said Amy Rollinson Insights and Advisory Senior Associate at Vogue Business

"This means understanding your brand's essence and evolving your approach subtly while staying true to your roots."

added Anusha Couttigane , Head of Advisory at Vogue Business

Another panelist emphasized the importance of collaboration with diverse creatives, saying,

"Bringing together different perspectives can challenge assumptions and spark fresh ideas that align with your brand identity."

The event also featured a discussion on the Vogue Business Winter 2023/24 Index, which ranks the top 60 luxury brands based on their performance across a range of factors, including desirability, brand perception, and social media engagement. One panelist mentioned,

"The Index is a valuable tool for brands to understand how they are performing in the marketplace and identify areas for improvement."

To commemorate the event, Vogue Business is offering a 10% discount on membership to its community of fashion professionals. Use the code WINTERINDEX24 at checkout.

Here are some key takeaways from the Vogue Business Winter 2023/24 Index:

• Brands should embrace inclusivity and diversity to connect with a wider audience.
• Brands should strike a balance between innovation and authenticity to remain relevant.
• Brands should collaborate with diverse creatives to generate fresh ideas.
• The Vogue Business Winter 2023/24 Index is a valuable tool for brands to benchmark their performance.

Additional tips for brands:

• Understand your brand's core values and target audience.
• Embrace evolution, not revolution.
• Leverage technology to enhance engagement.
• Emphasize transparency and accountability.
• Embrace experimentation and refinement.

Part 2: Design Thinking for Creative Teams (Proven Techniques)        

Eager to bridge the gap between theory and practice, I applied my newfound knowledge from the Enterprise Design Thinking certification (offered by IBM ) to the world of teams and projects. The result? Three actionable techniques that empower leaders to guide their teams towards success through continuous refinement.

Lets put this into action

Your audiences core values start from a place of empathy

1. Empathy Map??:

An empathy map is a tool for understanding the needs, wants, and feelings of your target audience. It helps you to see the world from their perspective and identify the key problems that they face.

To create an empathy map, gather information from your target audience through interviews, observation, and surveys. Then, organize the information into four quadrants:

• What they say: This quadrant includes quotes from your target audience that reflect their thoughts, feelings, and opinions.
• What they do: This quadrant includes observations of your target audience's behavior.
• What they think: This quadrant includes assumptions about your target audience's beliefs, motivations, and goals.
• What they feel: This quadrant includes statements about your target audience's emotions and experiences.

Once you have completed your empathy map, you can use it to inform your creative decisions. For example, you can use the information to identify pain points that you can address with your product or service, or to develop messaging that resonates with your target audience.

The thought I had about "Brands should collaborate with diverse creatives to generate fresh ideas" brought me to thinking how that could affect the user's journey with this specific collaboration.

Down the rabbit hole of NFTs, branding, and tech strategy with celebrities and influencers, I stumbled upon a fascinating example of customer experience refinement: Nipsey Hussle's 2017 smart store. This AI-powered innovation revolutionized clothing purchases, offering a unique and engaging journey for his customers.

In collaboration with his business partners, including his?brother Samiel Asghedom, Karen Civil and?Steve “Steve-O”?Carless, Hussle?introduced the?Marathon Clothing smartstore as a way to continue giving his most loyal fans new ways to consume exclusive content and cop products.

2. User Journey Map??:

A user journey map is a visual representation of the experiences that your target audience has with your product or service. It helps you to identify areas where the experience is not meeting their expectations and identify opportunities for improvement.

To create a user journey map, follow these steps:

1. ?Identify the key touchpoints: These are the points at which your target audience interacts with your product or service.
2. ?Map out the journey: For each touchpoint, document the actions that your target audience takes, their thoughts and feelings, and any pain points or frustrations that they experience.
3. ?Identify opportunities for improvement: Review the journey map and identify areas where the experience can be improved. You can use this information to make changes to your product, service, or marketing materials.

The possibilities are endless! Inspired by this concept, I brainstormed some ways it could be adapted to the fashion and marketing world, fostering loyal, legacy-minded users.

????Here are a few ideas...

Fashion

• Co-creation: Invite clients and users to participate in the design process by sharing their feedback on sketches, prototypes, and finished products.
• Test drives: Allow clients to try on new clothing items or accessories in a virtual fitting room or in their own homes.
• Feedback loops: Continuously gather feedback from clients and users throughout the development process to ensure that products are meeting their needs.

Marketing

• Customer advisory boards: Establish customer advisory boards to provide feedback on marketing campaigns, product launches, and other initiatives.
• User testing: Conduct user testing sessions to identify areas where marketing campaigns could be improved.
• Social listening: Monitor social media conversations to get real-time feedback on marketing campaigns and products.

By taking clients and users on the development journey, brands can create a more authentic and customer-centric approach to product development and marketing. This can lead to benefits like:

• ?Increased customer loyalty: By involving clients and users in the development process, brands can create a sense of ownership and engagement that leads to stronger customer relationships.
• ?Improved product quality: By getting feedback from clients and users, brands can identify and address potential problems with products early in the development process, which can lead to higher-quality products.
• ?More effective marketing campaigns: By understanding the needs and wants of their target audience, brands can create marketing campaigns that are more likely to resonate with customers and achieve their desired results.

Overall, taking clients and users on the development journey is a smart and strategic move that can help brands build better products, develop more effective marketing campaigns, and create a stronger brand reputation.

Part 3: "Failing Fast" for Engagement & Success        

Passionate about fostering engagement and swift progress, I employ "failing fast" in my House of Golde Mindset Mastery courses.

Continuously refining this approach through YSpace, York University 's Founder's Fundamentals Program, I embody the very principles I advocate; embrace experimentation and refinement.

Here's an example of a strategy I had great success in...

3. Design Sprint (Rapid Prototyping & Testing)??:

A design sprint is a five-day process for rapidly prototyping and testing new ideas. It is a great way to get feedback from your target audience early in the design process and to iterate on your ideas quickly. To run a design sprint, follow these steps:

1. ?Set the goal: Clearly define the problem that you are trying to solve and the target audience that you are trying to reach.
2. ?Gather insights: Conduct research to understand your target audience and their needs.
3. ?Ideation: Brainstorm solutions to the problem.
4. ?Prototyping: Create low-fidelity prototypes of your best ideas.
5. ?Testing: Test your prototypes with your target audience and gather feedback.

??These are just three of the many proven techniques that you can use to apply design thinking to your creative work.

By using these techniques, you can develop more innovative and user-centered solutions that meet the needs of your target audience.

You made it this far!

????♀?I hope you take the time this week to attend a LinkedIn event there is such a vast amount of perspectives all cuddle in one room, or in this case in the palm of your hand.

Be open to how you can shift your mindset and create impact within your teams through engagement and creative thinking.

??As we wrap up this newsletter, I want to leave you with a thought:

?What if every interaction you had with your brand was an opportunity to refine it, to make it even better than it is today?

?What if every connection you made with a customer was an opportunity to learn and grow?

This is the power of refining. It's not just about making your brand better; it's about creating a better experience for everyone who interacts with it.

??So, I challenge you to take this week and focus on refining your brand.

?What can you do to make it more innovative, more authentic, and more customer-centric?

And remember, the journey of refining is never-ending. -There is always room for improvement

.So keep refining, keep learning, and keep growing.

??Together, we can create brands that truly last, and genuine-hearted changemakers that can keep up with the ever-evolving world.??