Whats New

Catch up with The Coca-Cola Company, Pfizer and the rest

2011-10-05T23:47:02+00:00

Methodologie’s Annual Review of Corporate Reports is now available for download. (PDF)

Every year we survey the corporate reports of the Fortune 100 as a barometer of current reporting practices. Find out how competitors and peers publish their reports and what kinds of information they include.

This year we saw a continued increase in the number companies who are producing stand-alone corporate social responsibility reports. More companies are also adopting the GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) as their framework for CSR reports.

Download the Methodologie Annual Review of Corporate Reports.

First Steps To Creating a Corporate Sustainability Report

2011-09-16T17:07:08+00:00

Read Dale’s Environmental Leader column on sustainability reporting.

Branding for a Global Health Leader

2011-09-16T17:04:18+00:00

It’s the challenge every successful organization eventually faces: How do you refresh a brand so that it encapsulates new scope and reach, without abandoning core values and confusing longtime stakeholders? That’s the rite of passage we helped GBCHealth navigate on the eve of its tenth anniversary.

Read more about GBCHealths’ thoughts on this effort.

Hello Poster Show at Methodologie

2011-08-29T17:09:33+00:00

The Hello Poster Show is a fundraising exhibition featuring over 20 screen-printed art posters inspired by the themes “lost” and “found.” This year you’ll find a few posters by Methodologie employees. All posters are limited editions and will be available for purchase at the exhibit with proceeds benefitting Wellspring Family Services, a dedicated nonprofit organization that has been helping homeless families and children in Seattle since 1892. Wine and refreshments will be served.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011
5:00 PM to 7:30 PM
Methodologie
View Map

720 Third Ave., 8th floor
Parking in the Pacific Building garage is $5+tax after 3:30 PM
Enter on Columbia St. just before it crosses Third Ave.

RSVP graham.bullis@methodologie.com

Summer in Seattle

2011-07-22T20:27:26+00:00

I read a sad little article in the paper this week entitled “78 Minutes of Summer”. The gist of the article was that so far this summer Seattle has experienced exactly 78 minutes of above 80 degree weather. This came out just as we were preparing to send out a cheery summer-themed M_Dash on our favorite summer activities in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. This year we appear to be victims of Global Cooling.

Being a Seattle native myself I have always maintained that there is no more beautiful spot on earth than Seattle on a hot summer day. Everywhere you turn you see sparkling water and majestic mountains. Seattle is an outdoor enthusiast’s delight. If you swim, boat, skate, fish, hike, run, canoe, kayak, climb, or parasail we’ve got you covered. However this particular summer you may need to do those things in a drizzle and a parka.

On the assumption that our 78 minutes might extend to some days, we polled the Methodologie folks and found a few of the things that generally mean summer in Seattle to us:

Margaritas poolside, beach side, or in some kind of water craft
Being on, about, or in the water
The smell of sunscreen and mosquito repellent
Dining outside morning noon and night
Meteor showers in the middle of the night
Picnics, hammocks, and backyard barbeques
Lincoln Park and the Colman Pool
Waiting for your legs to go numb wading in the sound
Long, long days and beautiful sunsets
Hot blackberries, corn on the cob, herbs from the garden, and Negronis at Sambar

If the current weather pattern holds however, we recommend the Polar Bar—it’s dark, comfy, and has a big roaring fireplace.

Whatever summer means to you, we hope you get to enjoy every minute. And if you’re downtown at 4 pm on any Friday please join us for Happy Hour at Methodologie—it’s not weather dependent.

— Janet, @jd_360

How effective is your brand system?

2011-06-16T15:55:09+00:00

A well managed and maintained brand system leverages the value of its brand, creating additional equity on the balance sheet, maintaining market relevance, and facilitating internal alignment.

According to a professor of finance at New York University’s Stern School of Business, Coca-Cola’s brand is worth some $64.2 billion—about 80% of the company’s total value. The Coca-Cola Company is not an exception: a brand is most large companies’ most valuable financial asset.

However, as companies grow, make acquisitions, and expand into new geographic areas, brand systems can become unwieldy and inconsistent. What began as a clear—and clearly differentiated—system can become a mishmash of unrelated elements, often more tactical than strategic. Once a strong and clear reflection of the company, the brand becomes confusing and ineffective.

A logo is not a brand

Just by looking at their logos, the world’s most recognizable and long-standing brands may seem to stay pretty much the same year after year. But a brand is much more than a logo. Put another way, a logo is just part of a brand. According to one definition, a brand is the emotional and psychological relationship a company has with its customers. It’s an entire system that comprises a company’s logo and identity and reflects the company’s unique personality.

The extent to which a brand accurately captures and conveys a company’s uniqueness often determines market share and financial success. A successful brand also attracts customers and prospective employees by clearly and consistently articulating what a company stands for, what it offers and to whom, and how it is different and better.

It all begins with strategy

Whether you’re creating a new company or refreshing an existing brand, it’s critical to build from a solid strategic foundation. A clearly articulated brand platform based on primary research—mission, promise, values, positioning, personality, architecture, and messaging—captures what is true and authentic about your company, as well as what matters to your customers. It also provides a solid base to build the rest of your brand assets upon. These assets include a visual brand system, a corporate voice, and consistent messaging.

Visual brand system. Imagine the difference between a brand supported by random stock photography and one using proprietary imagery. One fades into the background and makes the company using it look like others in its industry—and often in other industries. On the other hand, a fresh approach that uses creative design in new and unexpected ways helps you stand out from the clutter. Strong design is far more effective at getting you noticed.

Corporate voice. Voice is one of the most powerful and under-utilized tools a company can use to separate itself from the crowd. An effective corporate voice uses language that clearly conveys the company’s values or personality. Apple, for example, simply “sounds” different from Microsoft. Identifying your company’s unique voice and keeping it consistent across all collateral, advertising, websites, and promotional materials combines with your visual brand system to communicate your unique personality. Clearly, this distinctive voice is far more memorable and effective than generic marketing and business language. As you review competitors, notice that they often say the same things—and end up sounding exactly the same. Finding and using your voice can be a huge factor in differentiation.

Consistent messaging. While your voice should remain consistent, your messaging should be targeted to the unique needs of each key audience and customer segment. Creating a messaging matrix of top-level messages—points that stay consistent and are important to communicate to everyone—supported by targeted messages refined by audience is immensely valuable. Thinking this through and keeping it consistent across all of your communications will underscore your position and offerings, contributing to a stronger and more consistent brand experience.

It’s time to revisit your brand system if:

You’ve grown rapidly, especially by acquisition.
You look and sound like your competitors.
You’re going through an ownership transition or have new leadership.
You’re merging with another company.
You’re moving into new markets or adding significant new offerings.
Employees are not aligned and seem unclear about mission, vision, and focus.
Your sales force is struggling to articulate your value proposition.
Your website and collateral look dated, or are unfocused.
Your competition is gaining on you, or you are losing market share.
Your people have begun to “do their own thing.”

Is it time to review your brand system?

If it’s been a number of years since you’ve taken a good look at your brand system, it’s a good idea to take the time to review it. That’s especially important if your company has experienced new growth, acquisitions, or geographic expansion.

Your brand is one of your company’s most valuable assets. Maintaining it is an investment in your company’s future.

— Janet, @jd_360

Evolution of Corporate Reporting

2011-05-25T22:31:00+00:00

As CSR moves from boardroom conversation to implementation, clear reporting and accurate measurement is now an integral part of most CSR initiatives. Transparent, data-driven communications weren’t always the norm, but it’s increasingly becoming an expectation from investors and consumers.” Read more of Janet’s thoughts on the Evolution of Corporate Reporting on Environmental Leader.

The Web As We Know It Is Dead

2011-05-03T15:24:20+00:00

[Interactive Program Manager Jen Largent shares her ultimate takeaway after attending SXSW and An Event Apart last month.]

Last month, I attended two well-respected (and fun!) interactive industry conferences, SXSW and An Event Apart. Each event put its own spin on things, from maximizing the ROI on your KPIs to plotting your next social media blitzkrieg, and offered up dire—often alcohol-fueled—user privacy predictions. In the end, the ultimate takeaway was clear:

The web as we know it is dead.

We’re in the midst of a major paradigm shift. Our old, familiar, comfortable concept of the web is OVER. Up until now, those of us in the business of creating web experiences have done so under the influence of several relatively safe assumptions about the user. For example, we have assumed they:

Are in a stationary location (probably indoors).
View the web on a desktop or laptop computer.
Have a generous amount of screen real estate.
Have a dedicated power supply and network connection.

Now contrast these thoughts to some truly startling statistics *:

In Q4 of 2010, smartphone sales surpassed PC sales.
Mobile phones are predicted to overtake PCs as the most common way people access the web by 2013—two short years away.
The average smartphone user visits up to 24 websites a day. We’re not talking about apps, but actual websites accessed via mobile browsers.

It kind of blows our assumptions out of the water, doesn’t it? Accessing the web is no longer a discrete event or a strictly controlled interaction. It is now becoming seamlessly interwoven with our daily lives, wherever and whenever we choose to use it.

This is the new reality. So what now?

First, accept it. It’s happening, and it’s happening fast. Change is required.

Second, stop building sites for your internal audiences—your business peers and coworkers, internal stakeholders, and bosses, all snuggly enshrined behind the same corporate IT firewall with all the same versions of all the same software.

Third, take a hard look at site metrics and industry data to assess who your end users really are, where they are, and how they are accessing and using your content. Let the data speak for itself, and then let that drive your interactive strategy.

Now that you know your audience the next question becomes, what do you want to share with them? This is content, and content is king. Let’s assume you have a finely crafted message. It’s deep. It’s profound. It says everything you want to say about who you are and why you are thoroughly awesome. Wouldn’t it be nice to know that it’s reaching all its possible viewers?

There are several related approaches to do this. One of the best, most fundamental approaches is to make yourself a cake. Yeah, you heard me: A cake.

Mobile First, or, as I like to think of it: Layer cake

If websites were cakes, we would all like ours to be a multi-tiered confection with rich filling and intricate icing. But if you can’t have that, a simple, well-made sheet cake is still pretty darn good!

How do you ensure cake for everyone? Simple. Start with the bottom layer and work your way up. Focus on your most crucial content and functionality, stripped of all extraneous embellishments for your mobile users—that’s layer one. Then add on successive layers of rich content and interactivity for tablet and desktop users. Now you’ve got a tasty experience for everyone!

But wait! There’s more!

Thanks to our handy friend the media query tag, we have other options beyond Mobile First and graceful degradation as well. You can now deliver content that is specifically customized to the user’s device. Whole layouts can shift and flow, images can be specifically sized, all based on how they are being viewed. This is called Responsive Design, the new darling of the dev world. Additionally, emerging technologies like JQuery and CSS3 allow us to introduce motion to our sites without losing audiences on devices that don’t support Flash. And hey, did you know mobile even offers up cool features a desktop could never match? Geo location, anyone?

So, while there may be some growth pains inherent in challenging our assumptions and adjusting our methods, there are amazing payoffs too: The kick in the pants we all need to bring a new emphasis to relevant content, an abundance of cool tools to get that message out to all our users, and—most importantly—the kind of loyalty that comes from users who truly know you’ve carefully thought about them and considered their needs.

—Jen, @JenLa13

* Many thanks to two amazing speakers in particular, Bruce Lawson from Opera and Luke Wroblewski of A List Apart, Ideation + Design, an all-around inspiring guy. Their presentations provided many of the statistics cited above.

What’s in a name? A lot.

2011-03-28T17:09:53+00:00

In business, names are a big deal. Few would disagree. Changing an established name or introducing a new one to the market is a complex strategic undertaking and an important investment.

We’ve all come across poorly named products and organizations. Often the name is just too long and defaults to a meaningless acronym. Sometimes it’s too generic, forgettable, unpronounceable, or hard to spell. Sometimes it’s trying to tell too big a story—an unreasonable expectation that few names can live up to.

In today’s URL-driven world, great names are increasingly hard to come by, and arriving at the right name takes both science and art. Strategic criteria cover the science of what you need the name to do from a brand perspective; functional criteria are the basic qualities that all strong names require.

Next, move on to the art of naming—determining the types of names to explore and doing the creative brainstorming to generate viable candidates. Names come in a wide variety of categories, and it helps to narrow the field to the most appropriate types. A few categories to consider:

Geographic names (American Airlines, New York University) tap the cachet of a region.

Evocative names (Jaguar, Sunkist, or Yahoo!) tie to emotions and associations people hold.

Descriptive names (U-Haul, Budget Rent-a-Car) convey the promise and purpose of the business.

Fabricated names (Microsoft, Accenture, and Firefox) create a new idea out of words or word parts we’re already familiar with.

Meaningless names (Kodak, Exxon) stake out new territory that can be filled with meaning over time.

Regardless of the name’s category, the real work begins when you start looking at functional criteria. Less exciting to our inner poets, functional criteria are what make a name sink or swim. A few that shouldn’t be overlooked:

Is it easy to hear? This is called speech stream visibility. If you have to ask someone to repeat a name over and over before you understand it, that name has poor speech stream visibility. Try saying a name five times fast. If you stumble, it has poor speech stream visibility.

Is it easy to read? Some words jump off the page at you, like Yahoo! This is known as notational visibility. Names that don’t have it make you squint and sound out the syllables to yourself, like XLR8R. Cute for a license plate, but it takes the brain a few moments to translate the visual pun into verbal meaning.

Is it easy to spell? A great example is Amazon. Even if you’d never heard of the river, this one would be hard to mess up. Familiar words are easy to spell, like Old Navy, but so are neologisms and compound names like Microsoft.

Is it distinctive? If it doesn’t stand out, it’s not doing its job. UGG boots aren’t likely to be confused with Hush Puppies. But a name like Creative Systems? Not only is it not creative, it’s so generic that it passes through the mind like a lukewarm breeze. Pick a name with some personality or doom your company to be the John Doe of the business world. (Ironically, John Deere works very well.)

Is it likely to become dated? Watch out for jargon and trendy words—names that were once the epitome of up-to-date can make a company sound out of touch a few years down the road. Take heed, Apple: don’t get too attached to your iProducts. Ditto Tublr and Flickr. Those missing e’s look distinctive now, but this formula could eventually go the way of -sters, like Friendster and Jobster.

The underlying message here is that there is a practical way to develop a strategic and functional name for a business, product, or service. A solid naming process will save a lot of time, sidestep emotional decision-making, and, most importantly, help find a name that gets the job done well. This isn’t your firstborn we’re talking about here: it’s a communication tool. Remember that, and you’re well on your way to finding a great business name.

The GRI—It’s Here to Stay

2011-03-22T18:52:54+00:00

Read Janet DeDonato’s thoughts on how the Global Reporting Initiative’s Reporting Framework is a necessary element for every company’s corporate social responsibility report over at Triple Pundit.