During a recent new business meeting, we heard a too-often-repeated story. When the relationship started, they were wowed by their current agency. But soon after contracts were signed and work was underway, that original A-team was slowly replaced by the B-team: professionals who lacked the experience and excitement of the original squad.

And now, they’re ready to fire that agency. Good for us. But unfortunate for that other agency, who likely was never aware of their customer service and work shortcomings, much less, how to turn things around.

There are no salespeople at Prismatic (a founding cultural staple of our agency). You will never work through an account executive. New business is quietly earned and retained one client at a time through our rare service model that integrates award-winning creative leaders at the helm of every project journey.

We work hard with the goal of performing as a steadfast, reliable extension of our clients’ teams. In turn, our clients become our virtual sales force, referring Prismatic to others with the success of their own project as the calling card.

When reflecting across more than two decades of our own journey, one thing immediately stands out: our fascinating, connected web of local, regional, and national clients that span numerous industries. When we trace the web, we’re proud that approximately 97% of our clients have been earned through referrals.

There are innumerable talented agencies out there. What separates Prismatic is the journey. Talent is nothing without raving, referral-generating service. And it hinges on a connected relationship journey as well as the zealous pursuit of striving to always get stronger and better at what we do and how we do it.

Historically, referrals or repeat business was our metric for tracking the impact of our service and the client journey. As the competitive environment intensified and our team expanded, we faced the challenge of preserving our inherent customer service culture and realized we needed to step up our game. And in true Prismatic fashion, have fun with it! So we endeavored to elevate our project journey while deploying a more sophisticated approach to tracking and amplifying its impact. Simultaneously, we sought to combat falling into the trap of out of sight, out of mind after a project’s completion and its day-to-day communications have drawn to a close.

Why are we sharing this? Because we believe this has a far-reaching application for nearly all businesses and we hope to inspire you to think about how you can harness the power of clients who have become raving fans and generate sustainable, meaningful success. And we’d love to help curate a custom approach for you.

Our solution? Create a holistic, insights-driven client engagement initiative that intuitively connects with our clients to assess their experience throughout the life of their project (and even beyond). And make it FUN!

How does it work? Our client engagement initiative is multifaceted (the very definition of Prismatic). It involves an organized system of actions backed by a strategic cadence that begins the moment a new relationship sparks. Key moments that trigger our actions include:

• Proposal acceptance: At that earliest moment, we aim to learn why you chose us, gaining perspective into your decision-making process and how we measured up through questions such as:
• • What prompted you to invite Prismatic to submit a proposal for your project?
  • How well did we do in tailoring our proposal to your needs?
  • To what extent did each of the following impact your decision to move forward with Prismatic?
  • At this moment, we also celebrate our new relationship by sending them a package of surprises and delights to express our joy in being their partner on this journey ahead.
• 30 days into a new project or account relationship:
  • How do you feel about the work we’re producing for you?
  • How do you feel about communications and interactions with our team?
  • How do you feel about our responsiveness?
• 60/90 days into a new project or account relationship (if the project lasts longer than 30 days)
  • Same as the 30-day survey above
• After a project is complete or at a mutually determined moment with the account leader:
  • Same questions as the 30-day survey in addition to…
  • How do you feel about the quality of the work we’re producing?
  • How do you feel about the value of the work we’re producing?
  • How do you feel about our interactions?
  • What communication channels do we commonly use with you right now?
  • How do you feel about the channels we use to interact?
  • How do you feel about the frequency of our interactions?
  • How do you feel about the tone of our interactions?
  • How do you feel about our ability to respond to your needs?
  • How do you feel about how quickly we respond to your needs?
  • How well do you feel we understand your organization and the goal of your project?
  • Are there any additional suggestions for improvement that you’d like to share?
  • And is there anything you love about Prismatic?
• Project/account anniversary: This is purely an opportunity for us to share surprises and delights to ignite joy in fun ways. We have a line of merch we’ve created for this express purpose.
• Good news: We love to stalk our clients on social media and in the news and celebrate with them. Just give us an excuse to send some fun your way!

Just because: While we’re digital marketing and social media champions, the fact remains that the lost art form of a personal note or card reigns supreme. So when the spirit moves us, we all have access to our Cheers All Year card line and notecards and use them to send a little sunshine to our clients, partners, and supporters.

Beyond the wins of gaining new client trust and relationships, we’re also sending out surveys when we do not win that project or account. How will we become the best version of ourselves without knowing when we fall short? And for the prospective clients who take the time to complete those surveys, we are supremely grateful because it takes the investment of a few minutes towards someone you’re not even working with to share your feedback.

And for the most important aspect of our client engagement initiative…

Who is powering this initiative? All of us. Every person at Prismatic plays a vital role in empowering this initiative. And that is by design. By having an active role in this, we’re constantly coaching and reinforcing our culture of customer service and the legacy we have as an agency that exists because of our clients and their referrals. The conductor responsible for overseeing its implementation is Cayenne Bennett. As Director of Relationships, she represents two sides of a Prismatic coin: human relationships (A.K.A. Human Resources everywhere else) and client relationships. We planned and contemplated this initiative for three years before we were able to get it off the ground. By having someone dedicated to its deliberate deployment—and whose passion is people—we’ve made it happen.

How is our whole team engaged in powering this? Whether it’s sending a card, packaging up a gift pack, or following clients on social media to help identify good news worth celebrating—it takes all of us. Our entire team has an active role in realizing the potential of this initiative we’ve designed and then reacting to the feedback loop we receive as a result.

How are we using the results we receive from the initiative’s surveys? What’s the point in a project running its full course only to learn that if we had just utilized more phone calls in place of emails, or meetings in place of phone calls, we could have wowed that client? Every time a survey is completed, leadership is notified and Cayenne sets up a meeting with the account contributors to review the feedback – particularly the constructive feedback we receive when it’s not all “thrilled.” We collaborate to identify opportunities for strengthening our processes and work, and new solutions that could make an immediate impact. Using the 30-day pulse survey is magic. It enables us to understand areas where we may need to improve rapidly, to ensure the client’s journey is the best it can be. It is the best line of defense against potential missteps and it enables us to calibrate what we are doing in meaningful ways to the individual we are working with.

Is it worth the energy and investment? Hell yes.

Why? When asked whether customers would recommend Prismatic to others, 100% of our clients responded yes. And you better believe we share that in every one of our new business proposals.

The post No Salespeople. Just Raving Fans. appeared first on PRISMATIC.

Before overseeing all things digital at Prismatic, a much younger version of me worked for a certain vacation destination helmed by a well-known murine mascot. There are so many stories from that chapter of life—some hilarious, others shocking, and sometimes cringe-worthy, including an anecdote involving a grating directive from an on-mic coworker:

All wheelchair guests, please stay to the left.

That memory drives me insane even now!

Why that choice of words causes me to wince today is that he should’ve known better. We had each gone through extensive guest service training for people who might use a wheelchair, who might have a visual impairment or be hard of hearing, or who might have no visible disability at all. They were people with disabilities—not disabled people or wheelchair users—because they were people first, not defined by their physical, motor, or cognitive impairments.

What that teammate should have asked is:

Would all guests using wheelchairs please stay to the left?

That simple rephrasing addresses those guests as human beings first. And it’s with that spirit that you as a business owner should consider your website or app.

What is Web Accessibility?

Is the text on your site’s web pages large enough or are colors of high enough contrast? That content might be hard to read for someone with 20/20 vision, much less for someone who is hard of sight.

For screen reader users, can that software successfully “read” your website’s content? That is technology that enables prospective customers who might have been legally blind since birth to understand the context of your website when they cannot see it at all.

Are “targets” like button elements or hyperlinked text sized appropriately so that they can be easily clicked by someone who struggles with motor disabilities like severe arthritis or palsy?

Are HTML elements like form fields programmed to be successively “tabbed” from one field to the next by website visitors who cannot use a mouse at all and can only use their tab key?

Does your website’s user experience include fancy animations or GIFs that “play” infinitely or can they be toggled off and on by those whose condition, such as epilepsy, may be aggravated by the animations?

Have you previously addressed any access issues on your website or app following a digital accessibility audit, then publicly professed the results of that audit?

If your answers to any of those questions were “no” or “I’m not sure,” then I’d like to highly encourage you to find definitive answers and quickly correct any areas where your website or app may fall short.

Why is Web Accessibility Important?

You likely know that “WWW” stands for “world wide web.” Your website’s potential visitors are among the 7 billion human beings who call our planet home. Yet according to the World Bank, one billion people live with some kind of disability.

In just the United States, the CDC cites one in four American adults—61 million who live with a disability.

Website accessibility is the right thing to do.

Much like we’ve made room for parking spaces or wider doors for those who use a wheelchair or closed-captioning on TV for people who are deaf, your website must also be user-friendly. It must provide an experience that’s reasonably accommodating to individuals with varying abilities.

Website owners may face legal challenges.

The American Bar Association reports that more than 8,000 web accessibility-related lawsuits were filed or removed between 2017 and 2020 in U.S. federal courts. No website owner should consider themselves immune from legal action if their website does not meet common accessibility standards.

Lastly, many of the best practices related to accessibility, like image alt text (or alt tags or alt attributes), also happen to foster SEO (search engine optimization) principles. The investment you make in website accessibility can also positively impact on how Google and Bing see your website. In making your site accessible, you may also see higher ranking of your site on search engines.
[callout]

Where do you go from here?

Web accessibility can be a complex topic. There are loads of different initialisms, acronyms, and numerical naming conventions—W3C, WCAG, 2.0, 2.1, 3, AA, AAA, and more.

Your most important job is simply running and marketing your company. And that’s why finding a trusted web developer, marketing partner, or accessibility specialist who is up-to-date on all the latest and evolving trends in the field of web accessibility is so critical. Ask this partner these questions:

1. In designing and developing an accessible website or app, on what elements will they specifically focus? (They should mention font sizes, color contrast, form components, and semantic HTML, at a minimum.)
2. What compliance level or accessibility standard will their work achieve? (You should hear them say, “at least version 2.1, level AA.”)
3. What tools will they use to ensure accessibility? (They should be able to name several. Write their answers down and do your own research before hiring.)
4. What recently launched websites or apps have they completed that met or exceeded accessibility standards? (They should readily offer examples, allowing you to research on your own.)

Want to check your existing website?

There are a number of tools you can leverage to improve your website’s accessibility:

1. Google’s Chrome browser offers its free Lighthouse tool (see image above). Right-click on any page and select “Inspect.” In the panel that appears, in the upper right, choose “Lighthouse.” Choose either “desktop” if your website is B2B-focused or “mobile” if B2C, then check “Accessibility.” Click the blue “Analyze page load” button. You’ll receive suggested improvements for that web page, including accessibility concerns.
2. After you’ve addressed any accessibility-related issues, consider adding an accessibility statement to your website. Oftentimes found among sites’ legal pages, think of your accessibility statement as a public profession of your commitment to operating a website that is accessible. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) offers a free tool to develop this accessibility statement.
3. Accessibility “healers” like accessiBe or Userway may also be helpful. These tools allow website visitors with disabilities to toggle different features specific to their needs—increased color contrast, larger text size, etc. But these tools are not Band-Aids; they do not replace the fundamental work of ensuring a site is accessible to begin with. The tools simply add another layer of accommodation for website visitors who need it.

Lastly, lean on digital marketing leaders like myself. Of course, I’m not an attorney and cannot advise you of your website or app passing muster in a court of law, but I and my contemporaries are happy to answer your accessibility-related questions. Allow us to help for your benefit.

So I’d like to challenge you to go out and begin building a better, more accessible world starting with your very own website. We’ll be collectively improved for it, including that coworker from so many years ago. I’m hopeful he’d have a greater, more empathetic perspective today.

The post Why Your Web Accessibility Initiative Is More Important Than You May Realize appeared first on PRISMATIC.

20 years ago, Prismatic was born.

In 2002, Prismatic was launched as a branding and graphic design agency. Our first project: a mural inside of the Sandcastle Learning Center. Our second: point of sales displays and packaging for a local Sobik’s Subs franchisee. Our third: textbook cover designs and illustrations for Harcourt School Publishers.

Our team of two labored over a shared 56K dial-up connection. We rocked Zip discs and external hard drives. We jammed to playlists curated via Napster. We ate ramen noodles and PB&Js. We hustled hard. And we had fun.

Today, we’re a dedicated team of 12. Spotify is our music muse. We still hustle hard. And the spirit of fun is the undeniable ingredient in everything we do.

As we enter this year, we’re starting off the first week of 2022 with producing an energy company’s analyst day video, mobilizing the branding and marketing of a new 2,500-acre master planned community, and finalizing the new brand and website for the Florida High Tech Corridor.

Some say the rate of innovation is exponential. Looking back over our origin, the way our industry has evolved, and reflecting upon our current manifestation as a full service, national agency, exponential feels like an understatement.

And though so much has changed over these last two decades, here are the top 20 facets that will continue to propel us forward over the next 20 years of Prismatic, just as they did throughout our first 20 years.

1. Creativity absent strategy is malpractice.
2. “Give back” is not a phrase. It is who we are and how we use our talents for the greater good.
3. Pride is the signature you leave on everything you touch.
4. Never over-promise and under-deliver.
5. Hire based upon an equal ratio of talent, capability, and personality. No one wants to work against a deadline with a talented egomaniac.
6. Teamwork makes the dream work.
7. Take time to celebrate the win. Take time to dissect the loss.
8. Know the difference between an achievable deadline and a miracle. Charge more for miracles.
9. Proper brainstorms are seldom politically correct and always include “AND.”
10. Great coffee, Herman Miller chairs, impromptu team lunches just because, and a good music subscription are worth every penny.
11. Never underestimate the business value of a personal vacation.
12. Game-changing ideas can come from anyone and they rarely fit neatly within office hours.
13. We are not producing widgets. And that is also why we cannot discount our services.
14. Proposals are the most valuable tool in your marketing arsenal. The fact that you have been asked to create one means you have a decent shot at earning the business. Make. It. Count.
15. Reputation is really what we are creating every day, in everything we do, in every success we achieve for our clients, and in every interaction we have with those around us.
16. Successful strategies are based on facts, not guts.
17. Never, ever, ever put a so-so concept in front of a client. Present only the best ones every time.
18. Some of the most monumental and rewarding client relationships start with the smallest of assignments. No matter the size, knock it out of the ballpark.
19. Producing great work is not enough to keep a client. They must also enjoy the journey.
20. We built this company 100% on referrals. Happy, successful clients are the reason we are still here.

Thanks to our families, friends, teammates, partners, vendors, and, of course, our clients for this 20 years of Prismatic. It’s been a rewarding, fun adventure. Cheers to the next 20!

The post 20in22: 20 years of Prismatic appeared first on PRISMATIC.

This is where place branding–or as we call it, place whispering–begins. 

The vital thread running through the fabric of every vibrant place is a strong brand that could not possibly be for anyplace else because it is rooted in authenticity. It’s born from its intrinsic vibe. And its proven through the shared experiences that people will have with that place. 

For 20 years, Prismatic has helped places tap into their souls and define their brands. 

What is place branding?

What is branding? According to the American Marketing Association:

A brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one product, service, or thing as distinct from those of others.

Place branding is more multidimensional in nature, as places are inexplicably linked with history, culture, and their own unique ecosystem of relational products, spaces, organizations and people.

The fundamental difference between branding and place branding is that consumer brands are created outside-in. They are inspired by a universal want or need. Consumer brands study the market, identify a need and work to answer that need. Their origin is the consumer.

Successful place brands are created from the inside-out. They are inspired by their authentic assets. Place brands must study themselves. Through this internal discovery, they can identify an audience that seeks the experiences and vibe they possess. Their origin is their cultural, experiential, and physical assets.

Why is place branding important?

As a practice, place branding began to rise and take on new significance with the emergence of post-industrial society among developing nations because places compete with other places for people, resources, and business. As a result, the race to be competitive, attractive, and economically magnetic began. And this belies the promise and potential of place branding.

Prismatic defines place branding as clearly defining a place’s personality, promise, and proposition. Place branding involves the creation of a strategy for activating a place’s identity and managing perceptions to nurture meaningful relationships rooted in authenticity between people and place.

A place’s brand must be authentic, aspirational, and above all, magnetic to attract the right people and businesses to discover it as their muse, playground, kitchen, storefront, and home.

Downtowns, Main Streets, and districts have always been of interest because of the variety of experiences they provide. But visitors’ expectations for their visit have changed. The former motivation was escapism—an escape from their own daily reality to a place with novel experiences and surprises.

Today, rather than escape, most visitors want to travel to experience the reality of authentic local culture.

People want to experience a place “through the lens of a local.”

Place branding is important because when done correctly, we clearly define that expectation – the promise – that visitors, investors, new business ventures, and others can expect from our place.  It requires credibility and reliability from what is presented in the market positioning of the place to what they actually see, hear, feel, and do when they are there. This is authenticity.

Aspiration is important to place branding as every place has dreams and a future that may look different than today.. It is ok to reach but only if that reach is actively championed and acted upon by the place’s stakeholders. If we market aspiration rather than reality, it will cost us authenticity and the trust of those we need to build relationships with – visitors, customers, residents, and business owners.

Why do some place brands fail?

As we’ve just discussed, the main reason place brands fail is that they sacrifice authenticity and over promise with aspiration. Places that do not stay true to themselves – the very definition of authenticity – pay the price and experience place brand failure.

Forbes magazine has reported that 86% of city branding campaigns fail. 

Why do place brands fail? The answer may be multifaceted and include:

• Failing to build consensus around powerful driving ideas and the core vision. Places with a calculated, fully baked  vision galvanize support around a clear, powerful driving idea. An idea so compelling that stakeholders want to be part of its achievement and inspires pride from the inside-out.
• Lack of understanding what is involved in strategy formation by decision makers.
• Shallow approach that runs only skin deep and fails to ever reach the soul of the place. Often place brand strategies look and feel superficial because they take a simplistic view of what the place offers. Research is vitally important. Place brands demand strategies informed by facts, not guts. 
• Not allowing the proper amount of time to do deep, thoughtful work. There are no quick fixes with place branding. You cannot cheat the time needed or process required to bring an authentic place brand to life. Creating brands for places is rarely a short-term task. Typically, it can take between six to twelve months, depending on the size of the place, its mix of challenges and opportunities and the scale of its ambition.
• Failing to adequately fund the strategy and its implementation.
• Lack of local stakeholder engagement to guide and proof-out the place brand strategy and resulting concepts. A project that does not involve stakeholders like business owners and residents misses out on valuable local insights.
• Lack of diligent research and testing.

How can you achieve place branding success?

Places cannot be defined by a single image or logo. This is what makes successful rebranding an exciting challenge. Prismatic’s approach to successful place branding involves # steps which we never deviate from under any circumstances. 

Step 1: Crystalize the goals.
It is vital that a clear set of goals, objectives, and desired outcomes be established at the very start of the project. This forms the north star of place branding work and should be omnipresent and clear to help key stakeholders make effective decisions. 

Step 2: Identify what makes your place, your place from the inside-out.
This should include the good, bad and the ugly. This discovery cannot be sacrificed. It is what will form the blueprint for your place brand and enable you to define authenticity and balance aspiration.

• This must involve stakeholders and your branding partner will need to experience your place from the inside-out, on the ground with your help.
• Be transparent with your place’s weaknesses, feedback you may commonly hear, and any plans for the future that are actively underway.
• Examine the current brand (assuming one exists) in the form of a brand audit.
• Conduct a digital positioning audit to identify how your place currently appears to a completely digital audience.
• Document experiences and attractions that play a part in your VRIO modeling (which comes later). Defining these core assets are the foundation of success and most often include:
• History and important moments
• Residents
• Geography
• Architecture and design of the built environment
• Parks and public spaces
• Art and expressive experiences
• Quality of life
• Culture
• Main streets and popular neighborhoods

Step 3: Study your competition.
Who are you commonly competing against for visitors, customers, and business investment? Study them. Examine how they are positioning themselves to identify opportunities and gaps that your place may be able to leverage within its own positioning assuming they pass the authenticity filter. Studying the competition must also include brand and digital positioning audits.

Step 4: Identify your tribe.
I’m using “tribe” as shorthand for your target audience. Knowing your target audience is essential and the more you know, the better you can weave their desires into your positioning. A place cannot be the perfect place for everyone. But it can be magic for the right ones. Streamline the specific groups of people that you would like to target and then prioritize them on the basis of importance.

Step 5: Amplify authentic experiences.
Use the VRIO methodology to explore each signature facet of your place – experiences, events, and offerings – and unleash the creative ideas. I’ll explain more in just a bit.

Step 6: Engage.
Part of the brand strategy should explore opportunities to engage the community of people who define the place and who ultimately help determine whether it thrives. People inherently want to be invested. They want to feel a part of things. That yearning is powerful when leveraged as a way of getting the community to help identify, expand upon, chime in, or determine key elements of the place brand journey. Turn the entire project into an opportunity to reach, engage, and inspire others to join and become part of the initiative. Crowdsourcing and upvoting which involve the community and stakeholders in activities designed to inform, refine, and solidify the brand also have a magical side effect: they become a marketing tactic that also promotes the place.

Step 7: Mind the metrics.
Defining success is wildly important. This involves setting clear benchmarking standards and methods for monitoring, measuring, and reporting on key metrics. Commonly these may include:

• The intersection of return on investment and growth over X years is another vital benchmarking opportunity. Branding a place is not like branding and launching an e-commerce driven product. It takes time and a reasonable expectation for realizing ROI is years, not weeks or months.
• Total Net Impressions of the brand in the minds of the consumer. This can be tricky to measure but one of the most valuable insights for place brand campaigns.  

Amplify authentic, branded experiences.

Events and experiences play a pivotal role in defining a place’s cultural competitive advantage. Taking the time to apply the VRIO framework to those same events and experiences has game-changing potential to activate your place’s brand and amplify its magnetism.

To aid us in identifying and marketing a place’s authentic, local experiences and refine organized events—what we consider cultural competitive advantages—to our savvy audience, Prismatic utilizes the VRIO model within our place branding and marketing strategies.

• Value: The local experience must be an experience that is of value to a segment of potential visitors.
• Rare: If other local communities/destinations also offer the experience, then it is not rare and we have parity rather than distinction with those destinations, which does nothing to build visitation.
• Imitate: If the valuable and rare experience is something that another destination can imitate, then we will not be able to support visitation as other destinations imitate our experiences.
• Organized: The cultural experience must be organized to create, communicate, and maximize value by providing information on its availability and how to access it. Without organization, the valuable, rare, experience that cannot be imitated will not be discoverable to our audience.

How does this work? Prismatic is currently developing the place brand and marketing strategy for downtown Clermont who is in the process of also becoming a Main Street District. Downtown Clermont has a stunning lake and lakefront that is largely unactivated most of the time. The lake and our potential to be a family-friendly destination adds value but it is not rare: Tavares and Sanford have the same experiences.

Now let’s add in the trail that runs through downtown. Downtown Clermont is at the center of the new Coast-to-Coast trail that is under development, and on top of that, downtown currently features the South Lake Trail which is a popular destination for outdoor enthusiasts and cyclists.

Now let’s blend these assets. 

What if we created a B&B Movie night? Whether by Bike or by Boat, people can glide in, anchor or park, and enjoy an outdoor movie night with local concessions. 

There is value to its family-friendly atmosphere and that it is a free event. It becomes rare as there are no other outdoor movie nights like this currently. It is also not easily imitated thanks to the trail that brings people in by bike. It can be organized with promotion occurring through downtown and city-owned communication and marketing channels.

Adding to that, bike tourism is a thing and downtown Clermont can own it in their brand positioning and marketing. 

As bike tourism experts say, bicycling and bike tourism can save small towns that might struggle to attract visitors in other ways. Cyclists move at a slower pace, off the main freeways, through rural destinations, and they stop more frequently to eat and sleep (and go to the local bike shops.) We can develop a micro campaign that promotes downtown Clermont as the place to bring your child when it’s time to learn how to ride a bike thanks to our beautiful, safe, wide trail and neighboring sweet treat businesses for that post-bike reward. We can also transform the act of getting around into an adventure by providing bikes for rent that are instagram-worthy.

VRIO helps you methodically examine, refine, and amplify the experiences and events that activate your place’s brand and help it stand out separate and apart from other places in the market. 

A place cannot be everything to everyone.

You can’t fake it until you make it. Attracting people through a brand and campaign that is not authentic may drive people into your place, but because you made promises that you could not keep through their experience once they were there, they may not return and even worse, they made turn to social media to express their disappointment.

If you want to create the ideal or most appealing “persona” for a place, you have to first confront and understand what it is today. The good, the bad, and the ugly. No place is perfect and that’s ok. 

Identify all of the positives. Identify all of the negatives. Use that to begin to identify the target audience who find value in the intersection of those realities. 

There are magical possibilities even in the current challenges as they may exist. An intelligent and creative brand strategy can help turn those negatives into novel distinctions. 

Place branding is not a logo. Not a tagline. Not light pole banners. Or a clever hashtag. A place brand exists in the mind of the people.

Place branding is place whispering. It is about finding your place’s soul and honoring it.

The post Place Whispering: Every place has a soul. appeared first on PRISMATIC.

We donate services because writing a check is transactional. It’s unemotional. And we’re in it to tangibly help by making deep investments in causes that have lasting effects.

In 2008, we decided to convert what had been random pro bono service donations into a business-driven initiative to organize, amplify, and increase our collective impact. Our Greater Good Initiative (>GOOD) was born. Today, patronage powers our philanthropy by allowing us to donate 20% of our profits to non-profits in the form of in-kind services.

For every dollar we make in profit, 20 cents is donated back out in the form of creative services to a diverse array of causes and organizations.

One example of  >GOOD in action is our continued support and work with the National Birth Equity Collaborative (NBEC). 

In August of 2021, Prismatic launched an updated visual brand and expanded website for this non-profit whose mission is to illuminate and combat the increasing mortality rates among Black mothers and their babies. 

One more reason why Prismatic donates services instead of cutting checks is that when we take on a cause or an organization, we research, learn, understand, and then champion their causes. There is a deeper connection made with the causes we are working to support when we are building and creating together. NBEC is a prime example of this. By working with their team, we know that Black women are dying at 2.5 times the rate of their white counterparts and we can share this information and the purpose of birth equity with others.

We become more than donors.

We become champions of their cause, and the work we produce empowers their reach, enables them to teach others, and generates more champions who want to make this world a better place.

The post “Give back” is not a phrase. It’s a $1.8 Million (and counting) action verb. appeared first on PRISMATIC.