A boutique consultancy dedicated to delivering relevant insights that guide clients through complicated decisions and uncover new ways of thinking.
Shari Allison
Principal
Shari has spent the past 20 years helping clients refine the way they look at their marketplace, their customers & their business. Co-founder of Ignite in 2011, Shari focuses on challenging convention, redefining context & delivering clarity to client partners. Although she holds advanced degrees in consumer behaviour, Shari’s expertise extends well beyond research & insights to thought-leadership & true strategic-partnership.
Stephen Tile
Principal
For the past 30 years Steve has been helping some of the biggest brands refine their target, define their messages and build their businesses. He is a consummate strategist who uses an array of research tools to deliver crisp & meaningful insights that inspire and transform.
Ignite is brought to the table when senior level, objective, thought-partners are needed to help provide clarity, focus decision-making & optimize opportunity.
Our business model allows for intimate, hands-on engagements that are flexible & provide meaningful business outcomes.
While Ignite can of course execute basic research, our sweet spot is really those issues that are strategically significant to the organization.
We focus on strategic, high-touch engagements related to…
- Market dynamics
- Brand strategy
- Brand targeting & positioning
- Brand identity
- Innovation
- Concept development
- Concept evaluation/execution
- Communication strategy
- Communication development/evaluation
Specializing in retail, travel, packaged goods, alcohol, technology, financial services & luxury goods segments.
- Ignite employs a creative range of methods to uncover insights…from traditional focus groups & online surveys to inventive interactive, observational & ethnographic approaches.
- Emphasis is on driving insights deep into organizations, either up or down, where they can be actioned — use facilitation & workshopping methods to ensure organizational enculturation.
11 Social Media Branding Tips to Light Up Your Business
“How do you want your customer to be thinking about you? That’s the way to think about your brand”, according to Deluxe brand expert, Terri Shapiro. This statement rings true if you’re looking to reach out to existing and potential customers via social media networks. It’s a great opportunity to highlight the human side of your business, especially if you keep these tips in mind as you build your social media strategy. Read about each of the 11 social media branding tips...
Make a Name for Yourself: 11 Personal Branding Power Tips
You. Me. Michael Hyatt. Popeye. Perhaps we don’t have that much in common. Ah, but we do. Personal brands are we. Our agendas may differ—better job, more clients, book sales, or (your goal here)—but we seek the same things: recognition, respect, influence and success. Read more about personal branding...
The New Yorker Thinks Disruptive Innovation Is a Myth
On the cover of this week’s The New Yorker, an 89-year-old print magazine widely considered among the finest in the industry, is a provocative story by Jill Lepore that takes aim at “the gospel of innovation.” In it, Lepore dissects Clayton Christensen’s theory of “disruptive innovation” and finds a number of flaws that cast doubt on its descriptive and predictive powers. You could pay $6.99 in the United States or $7.99 abroad to buy the magazine and then devote half an hour to reading her story. Or you could read a quick summary here, for free, with a little snarky commentary thrown in as a bonus. Read more about disruptive innovation here....
World Cup Brand Marketing and Ad Spending
The global market opportunity during the World Cup this year is phenomenal to say the least, and when you look at the marketing and stats of advertisers during this sporting event the engagement will be astonishing. Read more about the World Cup brand marketing and ad spending...
Don’t Discount Brand Marketing For Startups
Within seconds of our VC money hitting the bank, we started hearing the same question over and over again: have you hired a head of marketing? This was extremely confusing to me because a) I had a pretty good marketing background as far as 29-year-olds go and b) we had a fabulous head of marketing who had already proven that she could make marketing mountains out of molehills by getting millions of women to flock to our site by a stealthy combo of PR, field marketing, strategic word-of-mouth and general scrappiness. What our investors meant by marketing is what some call consumer marketing, digital marketing, paid marketing, mobile-internet marketing and essentially means spending millions of dollars on search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO) and many other three-lettered acronyms meant to help your startup scale. Everyone, except our actual team, was convinced that the only way Rent the Runway was going to scale was via these tech-savvy marketing strategies, many of which are funded by the VC world. Brand marketing was fine at launch but clearly it couldn’t have legs long-term. The PR would one day stop and traditional marketing was dead — or so they said. Read more about why you should not discount brand marketing for start-ups...
Nestlé Seeks to Revitalize Nescafé Brand
Nestlé SA NESN.VX -0.14% wants to brew up interest in one of its oldest brands—Nescafé instant coffee. Sales growth of the venerable brand has slowed in Europe as more consumers buy pod coffee machines—including Nestlé’s own Nespresso line—that make fresh espressos with comparable convenience to preparing instant coffee. In North America, a new generation of coffee drinkers raised on Starbucks Corp. SBUX +0.31% cafes views instant coffee as fusty. Putting pep in Nescafé sales is a priority for Nestlé, which missed an important revenue target in its most recent fiscal year. The brand is Nestlé’s single largest and anchors the Swiss food giant’s powdered-and-liquid beverage category, which generated sales of $22.8 billion in 2013. Analysts estimate Nescafé generates as much as $13.5 billion, or 59% of the category’s revenue, and about a fifth of Nestlé’s operating profit of 14.05 billion Swiss francs ($15.61 billion). Read more about how Nestle seeks to revitalize Nescafe brand...
3 Classic Recipes in Case Your Brand Ever Gets Grilled
Yes, it’s true. The Paula Deen Network is launching in September. The celebrity cook, whose career was nearly burnt, is cooking up something new – and digital. Paula Deen Ventures, a new company formed to cook up a comeback for Deen, announced June 11 the creation of the Paula Deen Network. A paid, subscription-based network that will be accessible to anyone that owns a computer, smartphone or tablet. The network will feature daily programming in an unscripted format with new recipes, cooking demos and other entertainment for foodies. Learn the 3 classic recipes in case your brand gets grilled (such as what happened to Paula Deen)...
Web Development Tips That Drive Brand Engagement
The web has evolved, and establishing a brand online has changed with it. Design trends and web development techniques are in the midst of a profound renaissance. And this period of change and progress is directly related to the world’s smartphone and tablet obsession. With an expanding variety of device types and mobile operating systems (OS), web teams are being forced to adapt content, visual aesthetics, and user interface features. Not to mention the millions of apps on the market consuming hours of people’s time every day. Brands hoping to reach customers must provide high-end web experiences. Not only does a website have to communicate a brand’s mission, culture, and attitude in a consistent fashion, but the technical aspects incorporated into a site serve to further exemplify a brand’s commitment to excellence. Read more about these web development tips...
Is Your Television The Future of Healthcare Innovation?
After all the angst generated by the Affordable Care Act, and all the punditry, noise, and debate that accompanied its rollout, you might conclude that there are no practical solutions to our healthcare challenges. But, of course, there are new answers and solutions and new, creative approaches to solving healthcare problems. You just have to look at innovative, private sector enterprises. And if you do, you might find one of the more innovative answers to eldercare right there in your old-fashioned television set. Just ask Kian Saneii, CEO of Independa. Read more about whether or not your television is the future of healthcare innovation...
How Nationwide Improved Brand Scores While Cutting Agency Fees
What happens when you make a certified public accountant the chief marketing officer? With Exec VP-CMO Matthew Jauchius at the helm, the collaboration between marketing and procurement at Nationwide Insurance has led to a trim in agency fees of 7% each of the past three years. It’s also resulted in the company’s “Join the Nation” campaign — aimed at “the head and the heart,” Mr. Jauchius said –which increased unaided brand awareness 28%. Read more about how Nationwide improved their brand scores...
5 Steps to Branding Like a Kardashian
If you know me at all, you know I’m a proud Kardashian fan. But even if you don’t like them, you have to admit that the Kardashian name is the pinnacle of branding. A masterpiece, if you will. When you hear Kardashian, something very distinct and powerful comes to your mind: fashion, extravagance, family, drama, Kimye, North West, maybe even trashiness. Regardless of what it is, it’s specific and memorable. Genius? Even I would hesitate to go that far. But it is a perfect example of what we should all be doing whether you’re branding yourself or your business. Let’s get right to it. Here are 5 things that the Kardashians do very well, and what you can do to mimic the success of the Kardashian brand. Read all five of the steps to branding like a Kardashian...
What’s in a Name? A Branding Expert Explains.
The best brand names become a part of consumers’ vocabularies and synonymous with the items they represent, like Kleenex has with tissues. “A name is a moniker that a company is going to wear probably the longest of anything we develop,” says Sasha Stack, a partner at the Boston offices of brand-strategy and design firm Lippincott. So why do names like Sprite and Verizon work so well? We asked Stack to guide us through the naming process using some of her favorite projects, as well as the brand names she most admires. Read more about the value of a name for branding...Ignite Lab Inc.
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