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.
4 Simple Ways To Get Started On Your Branding Strategy
Good branding is essential for every business, no matter how big or small. Your branding strategy tells your customers exactly what they can expect from products and services, how your company differs from its competitors, and how they perceive your company overall. You can develop your brand image through many aspects of your business starting with your website, but expanding all areas of your digital and non-digital presence including social media platforms and print materials. These quick tips will help you get started on setting the groundwork for a great branding strategy whatever your business. Read more about it...
Remember When Every Brand’s Video Strategy Was to Go Viral?
When YouTube first gained popularity around 2006, it seemed like the dawn of a new creative age in advertising. Every brand flocked to YouTube, and everyone wanted to “go viral.” YouTube seemed like a magical place where the age-old distinctions between advertising and content disappeared. Evian could captivate hundreds of millions of viewers with rollerskating babies. Ray Ban could stealthily seed an ad that would cement its cool factor with a new generation. In this new world, all your brand needed was the right creative agency and you would never have to buy video ads — people would watch and share your content far and wide. Read more about it...
Is Your Corporate Language Hurting Your Brand?
Corporate content is everywhere nowadays. Whether it’s website copy, blog posts, tweets or emails, digital communications represent your company to the online world, and are an important component of its branding strategy. But if your corporate language is too unclear, it may be doing your brand more harm than good. Read more about your corporate language...
Is Your Customer Service Strategy Hurting Your Brand?
The world of customer service has experienced drastic change over the past decade. While your employees on the frontline – your customer service representatives – continue to handle hundreds of customer calls a day, they’re dealing with an array of increasingly complex issues. This is because when given the option, customers would rather handle the easy stuff themselves via self-service. They leave the more complex issues – the things they feel they can’t fix on their own – to customer service. Read more about if your customer service strategy is hurting your brand...
Brand Strategy 101
What do Apple, Coke, HP, Oreo, McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, P&G, Starbucks, and Nike having common? They’re alliconic brands. These great brands stand out from competitors and are household words across much of the planet. What do you need to build a great brand strategy? But, how did they become great brands? Will they always be great brands? Read more about Brand Strategy 101...
Adidas Turns Around Its Global Brand Strategy
Adidas AG (ADDYY), the German sportswear brand, is revamping its brand strategy. The company will make separate brand teams for each of its sporting categories to achieve greater focus on specific sports, which is expected to stimulate growth in its declining segments like golf. This is a huge transition from its previous marketing strategy that allocated the responsibility of managing all sporting categories to a single global marketing team. The new framework will have a general manager allocated to each sport, allowing each manager to explore new avenues of sports marketing in their individual segments. The strategic changes will be fueled by increasing the marketing expenditure from 12% to 13% in the coming months. Read more about Adidas and their new global brand strategy...
Why Is Innovation So Hard?
What business today does not want to be more innovative? In business parlance, “innovation” has reached a glorified position—like “customer centricity,” it is deemed to be a strategic necessity. But it is hard to define. It means different things to different people. Innovation exists along a continuum, from material improvements to existing products or processes all the way to the rare disruptive innovation. For our purposes, let’s define it as a “big new” for your business or a “big different” in how you operate your business. Read more about it...
Is Government Good Or Bad For Innovation?
A debate worth having I know. I know. How could I even suggest government could be remotely helpful when it comes to innovation? Just consider the most frustrating experience you’ve had with government. If you are like most entrepreneurs, you have quite a list from which to choose. Let me give you my current “favorite” one. My chief of staff mailed letters to each and every one of our employees telling them what we intended to do with the ~$48.00 premium reimbursement/surplus in our health care plan. Read more about it...
6 Ways to Manage Your Personal Brand in 5 Minutes Per Day
be stressful or time consuming. The trick to managing your personal brand is making priorities for your brand and sticking to them. If you want to manage your personal brand without it consuming your day, here are six things you can do that take five minutes per day: 1. Build your networking lists. Create a spreadsheet in Excel or Google Docs. Within this spreadsheet, start collecting names and contact information of people in your industry and networks. This will help you create a database of people you can reach out to when you need career advice. Read more about it...
How To Create Better Content For Your Personal Brand
A common misconception shared by job seekers is that personal branding is “all about me.” The reality: your personal brand is about showing your network how you can help them with your skills and expertise. Your offering as a professional is the reason why people connect and engage in conversations with you. If you’ve spent time blogging, building an online portfolio, or networking on social media, here are some ways to create better content for your personal brand: 1. Write better content for your blog. For job seekers who blog, content is key for success. Invest time in writing quality content your readers will value. This will build more credibility for you as a professional as well as your blog. Read more about it...
How I Lead: Building Trust and Communication Between Teams
Ken Sosne is director of regional grant operations at the Health and Human Services Department’s Administration for Children and Families. He has more than 20 years of service as a budget analyst, grants officer, administrative officer and resource manager at agencies including the Federal Public Defender’s Office and Immigration and Border Protection. Read more about it...
Why Communication Fails and How to Fix It: The Perception Gap
Sometimes merely focusing on communicating with your team isn’t enough. Why? Because the intention you set forth is often misunderstood by your audience. The gap between what you mean to communicate and what is actually communicated is known as the Perception Gap. What is a Perception Gap? Simply put, a perception gap occurs when the intention you set forth and communicate is misunderstood by your audience — bosses, peers, subordinates, clients, partners, and even friends. Unfortunately, it happens all the time. Read more about it...Ignite Lab Inc.
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