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.
Is There Such a Thing as Pre-Innovation?
The word innovation is so popular in fact, if you type “innovation” into the Google search bar, you will see there are 131 million search results. Are you ready for this? If you type “innovation blogs”, 372 million results are available. With all this information readily available, how do marketers figure out where to start? That’s a great question. In my search to help provide answers, I discovered an article called “How to Build a Culture of Innovation by Killing Mediocrity.” Here’s what author Brian Solis had to say: “In a world where the expression of ideas is a commodity but the consideration and implementation of them is a scarce resource, how do we create a more inviting culture that fosters their transformation from concept to manifestation?” Learn more about whether or not pre-innovation exists...
For True Brand Loyalty, Build Contextual Marketing Strategy Into Your Brand (Part 1)
No question about it, brand loyalty is down since the recession. To fight that trend, marketers have been taking the traditional route of using short-term tactics. They’ve lowered prices, instituted or expanded rewards programs, and spent more on advertising. However, those are expensive, and when everyone is using the same tactics, their effectiveness is minimized. Something different is needed: a contextual marketing strategy to build brand loyalty. A contextual marketing strategy harnesses industry and market drivers, as well as external forces of influence (“influencers”). The drivers determine market direction and what it takes to stay competitive; influencers shape the voice of the market. Read more about achieving true brand loyalty and the value of a contextual marketing strategy...
USPS Seeks Help for Brand Strategy
The US Postal Service is soliciting proposals from firms for brand valuation and strategy after reporting a $5 billion net loss after expenses including its retiree benefits obligations for the 2013 fiscal year. The scope of work may expand to include counsel on protecting and enhancing the Postal Service brand and key sub-brands, such as Priority Mail and First-Class Mail. The purpose of the contract is to determine critical attributes of the USPS brand and sub-brands, and quantitatively derived estimates of their brand value, according to the RFP released by the USPS on March 10. Read more about the requested assistance for their brand strategy here. ...
3 Management Mistakes That Crush Innovation
Imagine this situation: Orders are stacking up at your company so quickly that the three people you have in fulfillment are overwhelmed. To remedy this problem you start limiting marketing to reduce demand. Sounds like self-sabotage, right? Naturally this would lead to a loss of market share and soon you’d find yourself out of business. Who would be so stupid? Well, you’d be surprised at how many people within your own organization are making decisions like this on a daily basis. Take Seattle for example. On Monday the Seattle City Council addressed their struggle to regulate the growing number of on-demand transportation options in the city. These new types of businesses do not fit within Seattle’s archaic regulations – for example, which cabs can be flagged off the street, which cabs must be pre-arranged, which cabs can pick up at the airport, (which are NOT the same cabs that can take people TO the airport). Learn more about three management mistakes that crush innovation...
7 Tips For Brand Consistency Across Social Channels
Imagine that you’re relaxing in a movie theatre watching an old classic western movie. On the screen, the hero gallops into the frame. You know he’s the hero immediately – by his branding. He’s riding a beautiful horse, the music is swelling, and he’s wearing a white hat. If he’s typecast, you might see this same actor as a recurring hero consistently, in many pictures of the same genre – perhaps only his character’s name changes. And the villain, of course, wears a black hat. (This is where “white hat” and “black hat” SEO practices get their names.) B-movie stylists and social marketers have some similar needs. What tactics can you use to communicate to an audience, quickly and accurately, the nature of a character/brand? What trustworthy shorthand can you use to set an expectation of your company, so you can get on with the action? Find out more about these 7 tips for brand consistency by reading this...
The Importance of Behavioral Targeting for Video Marketing Campaigns
These days, people are more inclined than ever to ignore your ads. If they don’t already have some sort of adblock software installed, they’ve no doubt become used to the sidebar ads and native “sponsored” posts on the sites they frequent. The key to breaking through banner blindness is delivering relevant content to captive audiences, and behavioral targeting is the way to go. Behavioral targeting, as Silverpop CEO Bill Nussey describes, is delivering “real-time, cross-channel, insanely relevant campaigns to one person at a time automatically driven by analytics of their actions, preferences and profiles.” Read more about the importance of behavioral targeting in brand marketing...
Does Mattel’s Purchase of MEGA Brands Contradict its Strategy?
Mattel (NASDAQ: MAT ) acquiring another toy business might sound about as exciting as clean-up time. But shelling out $460 million in cash for Canada’s MEGA Brands is no mismatch. By acquiring MEGA, Mattel gains a foothold in what’s proven thus far to be an elusive construction-play market for the toy giant. At the heart of Mattel’s acquisition is its entry into the toy construction segment dominated by No. 1 Lego, whose sales in 2013 jumped 10% to $4.6 billion, and No. 2 MEGA Brands, with annual sales eclipsing $400 million. Mattel has primarily been watching from the sidelines, with not even a 1% share. And while tablets and game consoles may have changed the rules, kids still play with traditional toys. Read more about whether Mattel has contradicted their brand strategy...
The 4 People You Need on Your Innovation Team
Innovation doesn’t just happen — it’s created. With the right methodologies and cast of characters, any organization can achieve breakthroughs in work and culture. So says Leon Segal, an innovation psychologist and the founder of San Francisco-based consultancy Innovationship LLC. “Innovation always has to answer someone’s need,” Segal said this week while in Chicago for the International Symposium on Health Care, where he taught an innovation-focused workshop. Segal said companies must foster the right team dynamics in order to facilitate creative and productive thinking. When building teams, Segal recommends choosing people who are good at listening, enthusiastic about collaborating and willing to reflect objectively on their and others’ progress. Reflection is particularly important since it gives people an opportunity to assess whether current methods are working and what can be done better. Read more about the four people you need on your innovation team...
6 Tips On Driving Innovation – Even If You Think Your Boss Will Say No
Matt Kingdon is the co-founder and co-chairman of “What If,” the company he set up with Dave Allan in 1992 to partner clients who were enthusiastic about innovation but stuck on how to make it happen. Today ?What If! has offices in three continents and works with businesses in all sectors – including big names such as Google, PepsiCo, Pfizer and Virgin – and Kingdon’s passion for innovation is stronger than ever. Speaking to him, you get the strong sense that he won’t take “no” for an answer – and all his key themes are backed up with strong, practical strategies that address those times when “no” is what you’re hearing. His book The Science of Serendipity: How to Unlock the Promise of Innovation in Large Organisations, focuses on the specific problems that innovators face in large businesses and is guaranteed to fire up anyone with good ideas who’s seeking ways to implement them. Readers might also be interested to learn that serendipity doesn’t mean exactly what they might have thought it did … Find out more about what he has to say about driving innovation...
Weekly Innovation: Paper Notebooks That Become Digital Files
Each week, we highlight an innovation you might not have heard of yet. This week’s innovation is a twist on something invented thousands of years ago: paper. The Mod app organizes each handwritten notebook you digitize. Or you can store your notebooks in Evernote or Dropbox. Mod Notebooks The St. Louis-based team of Marshall Haas and Jon Wheatley are selling classic, quality-made hardbound notebooks. But there’s more. After you finish taking notes in their Mod Notebook, you mail it to the company using a prepaid envelope found in the notebook’s back pocket. All of the pages in the notebook then get scanned, digitized and uploaded to a Mod app and — if you wish — your Evernote, Dropbox or OneNote accounts. Find out more about these revolutionary paper notebooks...
The Secret to Effective Communication: Keep It Short
In today’s tech-saturated world, people receive a constant flood of information from emails, social media and news websites. When you share an important story or idea with someone, you’re likely competing with hundreds of other pieces of information he or she is trying to process. So what’s the secret to making an impact? Author and speaker Joe McCormack says it’s brevity. Find out more about how brevity is a secret to effective communication...
Start Your Own Business in 6 Weeks
Where will you be six weeks from now? Believe it or not, you could have your own small business up and running before the end of April. That’s right. If you’ve ever dreamed of being your own boss, now’s the time to take the chance, because the Six-Week Start-Up campaign is about to launch — the first-ever campaign on social media to help would-be entrepreneurs get their businesses off the ground. Starting today, follow along as I team up with America’s Small Business Development Center Network to bring you some of the tools, information and advice necessary to get you going in the right direction. Anyone who hopes to start, run or grow a business will get daily guidance, downloadable free worksheets and links to free resources — all through Twitter and Facebook. Find out more about how to start your own business...Ignite Lab Inc.
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