“Their thinking is refreshingly insightful and their impact on our organization has been nothing short of extraordinary.”
– Brian Gallagher, CEO United Way Worldwide
At Brand Lever, we build more valuable companies by aligning the organization’s brand, business and operating strategies to the unmet needs it can uniquely deliver on. We do this through deep insight, creative thinking and proven strategies adapted from industry specific best practices.
And, while there are many performance benefits that come from our services, the one we hold high above the rest is the ability to make our clients indispensable to their customers, employees and shareholders.
Why are you valuable and relevant in a sector that’s being rapidly reshaped by consumer behaviors, new technology and new market entrants? Brand Lever has deep expertise facilitating enterprise planning and combines that experience with the inventiveness of a creative agency to deliver compelling and actionable plans.
In order to grow, you need to provide your audience with more value than anyone else. The only way to do this is by understanding them better than anyone else. Not only can we identify who your most valuable audiences are, we can also help you understand why they need you.
Values represent the guiding principles we use to navigate life and, ultimately, define who we are. By nature, we either consciously or subconsciously gravitate towards brands that reflect those values because they provide the antidote for what we crave more of in life. Our process for developing values-based brands is proven to drive unprecedented growth.
Your biggest barrier to success might not be external market threats, but internal misalignment between brand, business and operating strategies. Brand Lever can diagnose the root technical and adaptive behavioral causes of strategy misalignment and execute plans to close the gaps between enterprise vision, brand claims, and customer experiences.
Strong brands are built from the inside out by teams that understand the role they play in delivering distinctive customer experiences. Internal brand activation efforts are a critical lever to providing lift for market entry and business growth strategies, and creating measurable increases in employee satisfaction, engagement and advocacy. Specific tools that we offer to support internal brand activation include:
The role of marketing in the most successful enterprises has become the central source of customer-driven business intelligence demand flow. We have extensive experience helping enterprises make strategic investments to grow, build and defend decisions that are based on an assessment of emerging market needs and competitive advantage.
Does your leadership development plan realize a measurable return? Can you point to effective leaders as a source of market advantage? If not, you likely have a gap in performance that will undermine trust and engagement and prevent your organization from keeping pace in highly competitive markets. Our leadership development tools can help you close that gap with the following services:
The insights and answers you seek already exist. You just have to know how to find them. Every project our research team works on is tailored the unique needs of the client in order to illuminate the insights and answers to identity, strategy, innovation, creative and culture.
Many people say we’re obsessed with creating unprecedented growth for our clients. To that we say: Great, you get us.
We know that every company has its vision, its set of values and best practices. So why do some succeed and others not? More importantly, why do a select few soar while most struggle for lift? Brand Lever is a unique cohort of executives, strategists and researchers who have worked with hundreds of companies across a diversified business landscape in search of these answers.
Over the years we’ve identified the patterns that separate the most successful companies from their competition. We’ve analyzed the psychology, strategies and processes of this upper echelon and modeled them into customizable solutions for organizations that aspire to the highest levels of success.
Sustainable scale isn’t just a theory. It’s what materializes in the real world when what you offer becomes indispensable to your customers and prospects. It’s when people begin to crave what your company has to offer. More than anything, we crave the moment when that happens.
Mike contributes ideas and clear guidance to leaders working to build healthy and smart organizations. His work is designed to help companies bust through performance plateaus to create new value for customers and shareholders. He frequently serves as a facilitator for executive and planning sessions, helping to identify and address root cause challenges that slow the transformation of good organizations into sustainably great performers.
Mike spent six years at Navvis & Company as a senior vice president. Previously, he served at Aurora Health Care (WI) as Director of Government Affairs and as Executive Director of Aurora Family Service; at Covenant Healthcare (now Wheaton Franciscan) as Senior Vice President for Network Development, and as the president of a subsidiary corporation of the Wisconsin Medical Society.
Since early in his career, agencies have recognized Kevin’s special talent for leading his clients’ businesses to success. Kevin has been asked to speak on behalf of education systems, conduct brand workshops for college students, and has been a featured presenter at an International Marketing Summit. Since joining Brand+Lever in 2007 he has leveraged his diverse experience by working as an Account Planner, a Connection Planner and an Account Director with clients including Penn Medicine, Couples Resorts, DeVry, Chamberlain College of Nursing, Carrington Colleges and CITGO Lubricants. Education: UW LaCrosse – BA – Advertising.
With over a decade of experience behind her, the one thing Stephanie knows for sure is that the best strategy is a constantly evolving one. She is a continuous source of new insights and opportunities for our clients, guiding Michigan State University, CITGO and Bryant & Stratton College through successful rebranding efforts. Before Brand+Lever, she advised brands such as InStyle, Jack Daniel’s, MasterCard, Nestlé, General Electric and Johnson & Johnson as a senior consultant at Brandtrust in Chicago.
Self-described as a ‘disruptor for the greater good’, Paula unearths clarity, results-driven solutions to complex marketing and business problems. Paula’s tenure of 18 years in the marketing agency business at the likes of Ogilvy, Publicis and Alcone is powerfully coupled with over 14 years across the full-spectrum of healthcare. She is both a thinker and a doer with a practical, buoyant and collaborative approach to serving clients to successful ends.
Question, imagine and search for what’s possible. Envision the big idea and work relentlessly to see it come to life.
Nothing significant comes from small goals. Think big, be passionate, stretch yourself, and find ways to add overwhelming value to everything and everyone you touch.
Champion the tenets of truthfulness, respect, and transparency. Be assertive, but open-minded. Above all, enjoy the work you do. Make it fun for everyone around you.
Hold each other and yourself to the highest standard of excellence and accountability, but take time to celebrate each step of progress.
