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.
5 Examples Your Brand Can Follow to Build an Online Community
Digital breakthroughs are making it increasingly easy for brands to communicate directly with end users. To encourage two-way communication, many brands are going to social media to talk directly with users. However, if your brand wants to diversify its communication strategy, build a virtual community. Here are five examples of strategies for building a powerful branded community from successful digital communities. Read more about these examples for your brand here....![5 Simple Tips for Brands Using Twitter [INFOGRAPHIC]](http://ignite-lab.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/simple-tips-for-brands-using-Twitter.png)
5 Simple Tips for Brands Using Twitter [INFOGRAPHIC]
The average U.S. brand sends 221 tweets each week, with every message an opportunity to connect, engage with and delight customers, both new and old. But brands that are too self-promotional risk losing touch with their audience – 61 percent of people say that they’d cut social ties with a business that doesn’t provide them with relevant content. For best results, brands should strive to be interactive, answering questions, thanking advocates and supporting media partners. Stay relevant and create smart, tailored content for your audience, educating them about your products and services with guides and tutorials. Keep the promotional messages sparse and valuable, and throw a little personality into the mix – customers want to know there’s a real person behind the machine. Read more simple tips for brands using Twitter...
Driving Corporate Innovation: Design Thinking vs. Customer Development
Startups re not smaller versions of large companies, but interestingly we see that companies are not larger versions of startups. I’ve been spending some time with large companies that are interested in using Lean methods. One of the conundrums is why does innovation take so long to happen in corporations? Previously Hank Chesbrough and I have written about some of the strategic issues that impede innovation inside large corporations here and here. Two methods, Design Thinking and Customer Development provide the tactical day-to-day process of how to turn ideas into products. While they both emphasize getting out of the building and taking to customers, they’re not the same. Here’s why. Read more about corporate innovation...
Brand Safety Tips For ‘Wild West’ Of Multiplatform, Internet-Distributed T/V
MediaPost’s Wayne Friedman quantifies the early shifting of budgets to online video in his recent article on this year’s decline in cable as well as broadcast upfront ad spending. Online video accounts for approximately 7% of the total T/V nut ($5 billion of $70 billion total) and is poised for multiple-digit annual growth. So if television dollars are moving to Internet distribution and portable platforms, how will brand safety be maintained while ads potentially land everywhere and anywhere a viewer can find content? One of the reasons the majority of T/V ad spending still goes to traditional broadcast and cable networks is that they are closed systems where the range of programming environment is finite, and are often organized around neat environment labels (Travel, Food, Women’s). Networks also give planners and buyers more control through direct deals with only known entities within the traditional television space, rather than having to deal with the infinite number of Internet sites out there. These are brand safety issues. Read more about these brand safety tips...
Your Brand Isn’t Boring: 7 Tips For Social Media Success
Betty Francis (née Hofstadt, formerly Draper) said it best on the popular AMC TV series Mad Men: “Only boring people are bored.” While Betty’s parenting skills might be debatable, at best, this quote can apply to more than just childhood playtime. It can apply to your brand’s social media efforts. Sure, the term “boring” is very subjective. It’s all relative to other companies. But don’t get stuck on the fact that your product, service, or industry might be “boring.” Instead, think of it this way: it’s not about B2B, B2C, etc. It’s about H2H – Human to Human. Social media is about people talking to other people. The goals and objectives of your brand’s efforts should be as follows: Establish brand identity and awareness Generate brand buzz = engagement! Gain a loyal group of followers Direct more people to your website Be personable. Read more about these great tips...
5 Tips for Building Your Brand in Your Spare Time
As a business owner, you’ve probably put a lot of time and thought into your brand. You know the purpose of your business and what you hope to accomplish. You understand the mission and values that you’ve put in place going forward, and you’re sure of how you’d like to reach out to your target audience. For many business owners, that’s where the branding efforts stop. It happens for a good reason: daily operations take over and initiatives seen as “more important” become the priorities. However, as any successful business owner will tell you, success is dependent upon how well a brand is built. Your brand is what represents your company to your target market; it helps determine your position in your marketplace or industry. It’s who you are. Not sure where to start or how to fit in branding initiatives with the other responsibilities you’re tasked with on a daily basis? Follow these five steps for building your brand in your spare time. Read more about it...
1 Strategy to Cement Your Brand as a Next Generation Powerhouse
Your website cannot be your only branding asset. A website is table steaks in today’s digital economy. Today’s most successful personal and business brands deliver on this key strategy to win big. The single greatest brand strategy is…share. Give away your expertise to gain attention and trust. Those who hoard their ideas and knowledge will go unnoticed. The longer you cling to your ideas the faster they will become outdated in today’s fast moving market. Especially if your target market is Millennials because they are loyal to your creativity, not your brand. Brands must constantly keep things fresh if they want to net and nurture the next generation consumer. The best way to keep things fresh and to share your expertise is by producing and sharing original content via a blog or podcast (aka content marketing). Consistent content cultivates confidence. Confidence builds in the content creators as they expand and share their knowledge on the subject and confidence builds in the content consumers as they view you as a trusted thought leader. Read more about it...
Use a Brand Council to Help Steer Strategy
David Packard, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, once observed that “Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing people.” A more current corollary might be, “Brand-building is too important to be left to the brand people.” The historical role brands have played – serving as symbols to guarantee a certain level of quality or as images to attract attention – is no longer relevant or useful today. A brand can’t just be a promise; it must be a promise delivered. And brand stewardship can no longer be under the exclusive purview of marketing departments and brand managers. Read more on this topic...
How Can You Support Your Brand With Your SEO Strategy?
Many companies think that SEO is about using keywords to move their website up in the search results list. However, there are other ways, which are often forgotten, to support your brand. The SEO specialists at SEO Junkies can help improve your search engine optimisation using these methods. SEO specialists recommend using a variety of methods to help improve your website’s search rankings. Read more about it...
How To Encourage Your Employees To Be Brand Advocates On Twitter
By now, we all know the importance of having an active social media presence. No matter your industry, the chances of your customers being online are very high; that means you need to be online, too. As PR professionals, we spend a lot of time talking with companies about how to implement and maintain strong social media programs. Unfortunately, one of the biggest challenges we hear (and let’s face it, know first-hand) is lack of time. Most companies understand the need for a steady stream of social content, but simply don’t have the bandwidth to do it. So, what’s a busy company to do? Instead of expecting ownership to fall on the shoulders of a few employees, companies should empower all employees to be advocates on social media. Read more about it...
Innovate or Die: Why Innovation Matters
Innovation is not only for the tech industry — it is central to the success of any business and it must be an integral part of a business strategy. Consumers have many choices these days, and brands and retailers need to stand out from the rest. All industries have to continually innovate, whether its technology or retail. But how? Birchbox, the popular beauty and grooming online retailer, did something out of the box recently. The popular subscription service — which sends consumers a monthly box filled with deluxe beauty products — ; opened its first physical store in New York City. The store mirrors its online counterpart, making the shopping experience seamless. “Our goal with Birchbox has always been to make it easy, efficient and fun for people to discover new brands and products fit for their lifestyle,” said Katia Beauchamp, cofounder of Birchbox. Read more about why innovation matters...
Speculation is Rife Apple Will Overhaul Its Brand Strategy and End Relationship with TBWA
Ad executives salivating over the juicy prospect point to signs that the tech giant is tiring of longtime creative agency TBWA Media Labs after 30 years and is ready to put its entire account up for grabs. What’s more, the industry is buzzing that Apple will look to music maestro Jimmy Iovine, the boss of newly acquired Beats headphones and its sister music-streaming service, to help it regain its marketing mojo. The fashionable Beats brand, which Apple acquired for $3 billion, outmanoeuvred official World Cup sponsor Sony with its “Game Before the Game” ad campaign. So many soccer stars sported Beats that Sony had them banned from the arena. Read more about this brand strategy overhaul...Ignite Lab Inc.
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