Work has changed forever. Is your brand ready?

Posted on May 18, 2015 by brandaudits

Brand Audits Update x Christine Moody

Fast Company

Forget everything you’ve always know about work. The rules have changed.

Work is increasingly both everywhere and nowhere—more deeply embedded in our lives than ever before, but disappearing as a discrete activity.The old rules of work applied to an economy of factories and offices, a world of “standard,” stable employment with large employers, over careers with more or less predictable trajectories. The new rules belong to another universe—flexible, precarious, and entrepreneurial, less and less tied to specific times, places, and employers.

The top jobs in 10 years might not be what you expect

Fast Company talked to three futurists to find out what the hot jobs of 2025 could be, and their answers may surprise you.

Forbes

The jobs with the brightest future—in photos

If you want to ride a crest of increasing employment over the next 10 years, get into health care, personal care, social assistance, or construction. That’s the advice you can glean from a report issued by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Here are the 10 jobs with the brightest future.

Christine Moody is one of Australia’s leading brand strategists and the founder brand management consultancy, Brand Audits. With more than 30 years’ professional experience, Christine has helped a diverse client base of local and international brands, including Gold Coast City Council, Hilton Hotels, and Wrigleys USA, to develop, protect and achieve brand differentiation.

Becoming ‘Customer-Centric’ is a non-negotiable imperative

Posted on May 18, 2015 by brandaudits

Brand Audits Update x Christine Moody

Entrepreneur

Bringing a ‘Customer-Centric’ focus to life at your company

What I call “customer centricity” begins with creating a business culture where the customer is at the center of everything you do. In today’s highly competitive marketplace, it doesn’t matter how great your products are or how exceptional your financial prowess. As Don Peppers and Martha Rogers wrote in Return on Customer, “Without customers, you don’t have a business. You have a hobby.”

TalkDesk
Top 10 Customer-Centric Companies of 2014
The results are in! Several companies have compiled their list of the top customer service oriented companies of 2014. As a customer-centric company, we decided that this information is key and wanted to take these lists a step further. So we integrated data from lists and articles compiled by Forbes, Temkin, USA Today, Entrepreneur, Zogby Analytics, Bloomberg BusinessWeek and J.D. Power & Associates to provide you with the top customer-centric companies of 2014 as well as their secrets for success.

Amazon

Where it started: Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company

With a mission “to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices,” Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished, and used items in categories such as books; movies; music and games; digital downloads; electronics & computers; home and garden; toys; kids and baby; grocery; apparel; shoes and jewelry; health and beauty; sports and outdoor; and tools, auto and industrial.

Getting organised thanks to kikki.K

Posted on May 16, 2015 by brandaudits

Brand Audits: Update x Christine Moody

kikki.K

An Australian retail success: kikki.K
kikki.K embraces the Swedish design principles of form and function to create seasonal collections of delicious stationery, gorgeous gifts, and organisation solutions. kikki.K was founded by Swedish born Kristina Karlsson in Melbourne, Australia in 2001. Since its inception kikki.K has quickly earned a reputation for its Scandinavian designed stationery and gifts.

Daily Worth

How 5 successful women spend their weekends
Weekends are sacred, especially if your workweek often includes late nights. And they’re not to be taken for granted. But the difference between what you hope to get done (quality family time, everything on your to-do list, getting some blessed shut-eye) and what you actually get done (binge-watching the shows on your DVR) can be a tricky affair.

Forbes

How To Kickstart Your Productivity This Weekend

Could you use your weekend to be more productive, not by cramming it full of work, but in other ways?
Time away from the office is an important aspect of productivity. For a start, that’s when we get to choose for ourselves how we spend our time. Often, however, when it gets to Monday morning we don’t feel refreshed or productive. We feel in need of another weekend before the week has even begun. What should you do at the weekend to help boost your productivity for the following week?

Autocamp: Adventure, vintage, and fun all mixed into one great brand experience

Posted on May 14, 2015 by brandaudits

Brand Audits: Update x Christine Moody

Autocamp
Inspired by the wanderlust and adventure of the great American road trip, Autocamp is an unparalleled boutique Airstream hotel experience.

Whether you’re at the beach or in the heart of downtown, our handcrafted Airstream trailers will charm you with their reverence for the past and luxurious amenities.

McKinsey & Company Acquires Lunar, One Of Silicon Valley’s Oldest Design Firms
The award-winning design consultancy is the latest independent agency to jump into the corporate maw.

Trendwatching.com

The 10 Trends for 2015 forms the trend briefing by Trendwatching. These trends represent the 10 prime innovation opportunities to run with—and profit from—in 2015! Worth a read!

Brand Audits: Afternoon Update

Posted on May 14, 2015 by brandaudits

Harvard Business Review

A simple way to measure how much customers love your brand

How do you measure love? Beyond the supermarket magazine or social media “quiz” that we’ve probably all taken, you really can’t. It’s a feeling. You just know.

Stanford University—d.School

Executives can be d.school students too
We believe everyone is a student of innovation, and our open-enrollment programs are open to applicants from startups, Fortune 500 companies, non-profits and the public sector. In our workshops, executives engage in hands-on, real-world projects to learn the d.school’s human-centered, prototype-driven approach to innovation.

Monocle

Persian Plenitude—Tehran

Despite heavy sanctions, a small faction of Iranians retain big purchasing power. Investors are keeping a close watch on this untapped market, looking to cash in on Tehran’s burgeoning retail scene.

Brand Audits: Morning Update

Posted on May 13, 2015 by brandaudits

Luxury Daily

Nordstrom asks Vogue readers to take action with Nike ads

Department store chain Nordstrom is raising awareness for its workout-themed temporary shop with display advertisements on Vogue magazine’s mobile-optimized site.

Entrepreneur

Scents and sensibility: How this historic perfumery is innovating

A whiff of something sweet hangs in the air at Via della Scala in Florence, Italy. It could be the cabbage rose, a flower that grows on the hills of Tuscany; orange blossoms from the trees of Sicily; or perhaps it is the heady smell of success for a company that traces its roots back several centuries.

Design Council

Design for life, not just for manufacture

Dick Elsy, CEO at the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, argues that design is the driving force of the entire manufacturing process from conception to end-of-life processing.

Brand Audits’ Afternoon Update

Posted on May 13, 2015 by brandaudits

Time
How Startups Are Rethinking Delivery (Again)
New companies are eliminating the middle man. Startup founder Gagan Biyani says he gained 20 lb. eating greasy takeout four years ago. The 27-year-old entrepreneur didn’t have the time or energy to prepare healthy meals while running his first company. “I’d frequently just eat what was readily available,” he says. “The food system today has forced people to choose between quality and convenience.”

Entrepreneur

IKEA is opening a Pop-Up Cafe that serves breakfast in bed
Swedish furniture company IKEA is opening a pop-up café in London that serves diners breakfast in bed from May 18 to 20, reports The Wall Street Journal. Customers can book a single or double IKEA bed for a 45-minute period from 7 a.m. until noon and order a traditional Swedish breakfast. From noon until 3 p.m., you can still book the beds, but only for naps. Sleep specialists will be available throughout the day. Breakfast in bed isn’t just for homebodies anymore.

Food52

I don’t cook—but I do eat—and I just love this site. The photography, the styling, the layout, and the language all come together to make this a pleasure to look at and to read. About Food52: “A few years ago, we set out to bring cooks together from all over to exchange recipes and ideas and to support each other in the kitchen. We wanted to create a buzzing place for others who do what we do all day long: talk about food! Together we create cookbooks, take on food projects, help others with our real-time food Q&A—the Food52 Hotline—and support local food producers. Since we started Food52 (we cook 52 weeks a year, get it?), millions of cooks and eaters have found their way to the site.”

BRAND AUDITS’ UPDATE: TODAY’S HEADLINES

Posted on May 12, 2015 by brandaudits

The Business of Fashion (BOF)

Lifestyle brands such as Lululemon are now entering the outdoors clothing and accessories market. For example in March, Lululeman unveiled its ‘Trail Bound Line’ a collection specifically for hiking. The difference this brand and Nike, bring to the market is that the clothes look good and are fashionable on or off the trails—no plaid shirts in site! And why can’t we look great in the great outdoors anyway?
Selling the Great Outdoors: The Billion-Dollar Brand Battle for the Casual Camper

Inc.com

Fashion designer Cynthia Rowley describes how designers have a multitude of tools to get work onto the world stage.
Cynthia Rowley: How Social Media and E-Commerce are making Fashion more fun

Entrepreneur.com

In the article, author Adam Robinson, CEO of Hireology says:

“Most companies say they have core values, but very few of them actually live their core values in these moments of uncertainty. It’s the behaviors that are encouraged—or rewarded—in these moments that tell you what your core values really are, and I find that most companies have a wide gap between what is stated and the actual core value.”

The Key to Rapid Scale? Authentic Core Values

Brand Audits’ Update: Today’s Headlines

Posted on May 12, 2015 by brandaudits

Luxury Daily
From Jimmy Choo’s bull terrier campaign star; London Craft Week; Net-A-Porter’s increasing mobile efforts; to Rolls-Royce introducing its latest bespoke offering; and finally, Swarovski focus on elevating the customer experience across all channels.

Top brand moments from last week.

Fast Company
Favourite list of the year when Fast Company names the 100 Most Creative People in Business. From those inspiring leaders in technology, design, media, music, energy, marketing, science, sports, and more.

The 100 Most Creative People in Business.

Forbes
In first place among the big carriers is Delta Air Lines. Over the past three years, 81.89 percent of its summer flights arrived on time. It’s the only major airline with an arrival record above 80 percent.

The Best and Worst Big Airlines for 2015 Summer Travel.

100 Amazing People!

Posted on May 11, 2015 by brandaudits

Screen Shot 2015-05-12 at 7.43.20 am

Jill Bernstein, editorial director, and Erin Schulte, senior editor from Fast Company announced 2015’s 100 Most Creative People in Business:

“Now in its seventh year, the list highlights the people whose bold and bright ideas are shaping industries all across the business landscape.

“Start with our cover story on actress, producer, and advocate Amy Poehler, and dig deeper to learn about the Arizona professor who helped develop a possible cure for Ebola, or the nipple tattoo artist who helps breast cancer survivors feel whole again. On our site, you’ll find online-only features like photo essays and Bonus Round Q&As that will help you weave creativity into your own work.