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.
20-Point Branding & Strategic Marketing Self-Assessment
Ever wondered how brand savvy your organization is? Whether your marketing was as strong and sophisticated as it should be? Here’s your chance to find out. Take this quiz — 20 simple yes/no questions — and keep track of your answers. There’s a scoring system you can use to grade yourself below. If you are ready to start the strategic marketing self-assessment, click...
Social Media Marketing Blocks Anti-Gay WBC Protest
Last week, Missouri football sensation Michael Sams publicly came out as gay, but what truly made recent news headlines was the social media marketing campaign that fans created in order to support the player, particularly against the inevitable efforts of homophobes. This was not the only case of social media marketing blocking anti-gay protests and attacks. Find out more by reading this...
Seven Tips to Establish Your Brand on Social Media
When branding your website, advertising, newsletter and other marketing collateral, you’re the one in total control. You own the pixels, you own the story — it’s your game and you dictate how it’s played. Social media branding doesn’t work like that. Read more about how it does work and how you can establish your brand right...
8 Ways to Improve Your Communication Right Now
No one is a perfect communicator. Throughout our lives, we all develop little habits and patterns. Some of these habits are helpful, while some create challenges when working with others. We don’t usually intend to cloud our objectives r make others feel like they weren’t heard. In most cases, it’s just these little habits that get in the way of solid teamwork and accountability. Here are 8 simple tips that will solve most communication issues in the...
5 Amazing Ways to Brand Yourself for Job Success
There is no way around it: To land a job today, you have to consider yourself a product to be sold in the marketplace. Successful products require successful branding. There are 5 power-packed branding techniques that, used correctly, are certain to distinguish you as the product of choice. So take a step back, assess your marketing strategy and brand yourself with the points that are raised in this...
Lenovo will juggle two-brand strategy with Motorola
To Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing, Motorola is a “treasure,” and will be treated as such. “It’s our treasure,” Yang said during a conference call with reporters Wednesday. “We plan to not only protect the Motorola brand, but make it stronger.” Following the announcement that Lenovo would pay Google $2.9 billion to buy the unit, Yang shed some light on where he plans to take the Motorola business — at least for the foreseeable future, not too far. Yang said Lenovo would operate both brands where appropriate. In China and emerging markets such as India and Russia, Lenovo will continue to sell its own branded phones. Lenovo will operate the Motorola brand in North America and Latin America, where it has an established footprint. Find out more about their two-brand strategy...
What The State Of The Union Speech Means For Innovation And Entrepreneurship
For all of us concerned about the future of the American economy and the creation of quality jobs in the United States, the President’s State of the Union hit on some important notes. He continues to beat the drum for critical national issues like immigration reform, quality education and fairer international trade. And there were important call’s to restore federal research funding and protect innovators and entrepreneurs from patent trolls. Having served in the Obama Administration, I know that the initiatives launched last night by the President are all trying to create high quality jobs across the United States and across industries. But if these efforts are to succeed at the federal level, we need a narrative that connects the dots better between innovation, entrepreneurship, education and job creation. Find out more about the impact that the State of the Union speech will have on innovation and entrepreneurship...
The Weak Link in Most Content Communication Strategies
I was in the middle of a discussion with a friend about self evaluation, and the discussion veered around how most companies go about designing a corporate website or a brochure. Here’s how the discussion was – We see a corporate brochure or website and the typical discussion which happens is around how it should look and what content it needs to contain. It’s like we’re seeing the trees but missing the forest, we’re missing the main purpose of the website or brochure. Find out more about the weak link of communication strategies...
Visa Elevates Digital Payments with New ‘Everywhere’ Brand Identity
In today’s digital world, consumers can complete transactions in nearly any setting: in a store, restaurant, on the go, and relatively in the middle of nowhere. Thanks to technology, making and accepting payments has never been easier to access, which is the defining principle behind the launch of Visa’s new brand identity. As it prepares to venture to Sochi next month as a major partner of the Winter Olympic Games, Visa has embraced both the past and present in introducing its new tagline, “Everywhere You Want to Be.” The 55-year-old digital payments company also introduced a refreshed logo, all of which will debut in the US in Visa’s Sochi ad campaign. Find out more about this new Visa brand identity...
Your First 5 Minutes With a Client Tells You Everything
Regardless of what you are selling, or to whom you are trying to sell, the first five minutes with a client tells you everything you need to know–if you use those minutes wisely. Read...
Get ready for a shock: The world’s fastest supercar might soon be electric
At full speed, the Rimac Concept One is little more than a cherry red blur, flashing from one corner of the horizon to the other in the blink of an eye. If its projected performance figures prove to be true, this radical electric concept car — the brainchild of an award-winning young Croatian designer — could accelerate faster than all but two of the fastest supercars on earth. Find out more about this supercar...
The future of your brand identity is your website, not your Facebook Page
Two to three years ago, some people were talking about the death of the brand website. The seemingly unstoppable rise of Facebook and the promise of spreading content across the social graph from brand Facebook Pages was an attractive elixir for many marketers. Fast forward to today and we have a very different scenario. The brand website has never been more important. Websites are now being re-invented as the primary social hub for a brand. It is now no longer good enough to push people to a brand Facebook page for the social experience and websites are not just destinations to be found with search engines. We are now entering an era of the social website. Find out more about improving your brand identity through your website...Ignite Lab Inc.
40 Eglinton Ave. East
Suite 703
Toronto, ON
M4P 3A2