Impact

Successfully implement blue ocean strategies, creating new market spaces and leaving the competition behind.

Entrepreneurs often refer to it as the "fire in the belly" – a combination of intuition, passion, and belief in their ability to bring something unique to the market. Identifying what the world needs and how to address those gaps with a new venture requires thorough research. This involves studying existing players in the market to identify opportunities and evaluating the unmet consumer demand and market failures. Once a clear vision of the opportunity is established, it becomes crucial to look inward for innovative solutions. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs find themselves stuck in a cycle of following existing categories, resulting in variations of similarity rather than something truly original and exciting.

Too often I see entrepreneurs stuck in category contagion leading to 

Social media has had a significant impact over the past decade. For example, when a trendy café in a popular location gains attention on Instagram, 

similar versions start appearing in cities worldwide.

 This trend has led to a flattening of culture, resulting in fewer unique local expressions and making emerging neighborhoods feel more like shopping malls than vibrant centers of local creativity.

#fff

That helped us define ourselves in a blue ocean manner - trend setting, out in front, creating a new category ourselves.

Focusing too much on what others have done before can confine a brand and its founders.

 This often leads to mediocrity and a lack of originality, resulting in a dull and predictable outcome.

How do you break a category’s mold so that your brand is not boxed in?

 A better way of approaching one’s idea is to ask - “what feels right?” How will our choices, no matter how small, connect back to our core beliefs? By anchoring in a core belief system, we can decide whether an external model, behavior, or campaign by someone we admire might inspire our unique version.

The next step in this process is to think of your audience. Will this idea connect with them? Is the user experience aligned with our brand promises? Can we create moments of surprise and delight? How can we make key brand experiences uniquely ownable to us?

When a business can manifest their values through 

 that resonate with their guests in a profound way, it is gold. Replicating others, believing consumers will notice your version in a sea of sameness, is a sure path to mediocrity.

When developing Tender Greens, we tested various table settings that needed to align with our earth sensitivity and fine dining standards, while also being practical for high volume operations. Instead of settling for common options used in fast casual restaurants, we chose Hepp flatware, steelite plates, and stemless Reidel glasses, aligning our values with our customer promise and setting ourselves apart from the competition.

of defining a brand through its many details, guided by values and customer experience, led us to 

If you are an entrepreneur seeking to create something unique, look inside yourself first, then find inspiration from those around you. Find and fill the gaps in the market in order to differentiate your brand from the field. Then, execute better than anyone else.

#000

AVOID SAMENESS - Break Category Rules with Your Brand

Independent brands in the hospitality and real estate sector help shape the landscape of our towns, cities, and built environment in an evergreen way. 

This creative community builds and shapes the inspiring environments that are a part of our everyday lives. From the cup of coffee we get in the morning, to the places we call home, to the gathering spaces that we create lifelong memories in - we are beyond grateful for your partnership
this year.


Together, here’s where we moved the needle:

Thank you for believing in the power of the creative class and joining along as we leave a shared impact.

"Cohere are an amazing, talented team - thoughtful creative partners, responsive professionals, wise advisors, good citizens, and kind humans." 

2023 Growth + Impact

Crop diversity. Seed genebanks. Preserving our food heritage

 works at the intersection of climate activism and good food preservation, transforming jargon into action that makes a real difference. During NYC Climate Week, Cohere hosted an event at 

 with The Crop Trust and The Bezos Earth Foundation, focused on sparking conversation about how to preserve our planet’s immense biodiversity, while inspiring a more delicious future through diverse and accessible food.

https://www.croptrust.org/

https://www.mindspace.me/l/williamsburg/

“As a chef, the complexity of flavor, texture and nutrition of my food relies on the diversity of ingredients available. Protecting the world’s diversity is key to a delicious future.” - Chef Erik Oberholtzer

As part of NYC Climate Week, Cohere helped our client The Crop Trust host an event with The Bezos Earth Foundation, focused on biodiversity.

Chef and Cohere Advisor Erik Oberholtzer capped off the event by cooking up a plant-based meal for the more than 60 scientists, dignitaries, activists, and policy-makers in attendance; the menu focused on lesser known and locally-sourced ingredients - like amaranth, a multitude of bean varieties, freshly harvested figs, and handmade goat yogurt.

NYC Climate Week: Making a Delicious Difference with Crop Trust

Kickstarting community through sharing “haves, needs, and wants”

Our work as a creative agency at the intersection of food, people, and place puts us in rooms with lots of founders, both seasoned and new, who are trying to solve problems and launch new ideas. We hear a similar refrain again and again - “I’ve never come up against this before,” or “I can’t be the only one.” And the magical answer is that they’re not - no problem is new or challenge unique. 

Making music, creating art, and dreaming up new ways of being can be lonely, and opportunities for genuine connection in the midst of the fast-paced making can be few. 

That’s why we founded our Founders Salon Series, holding the first event in November 2022 and with plans for expansion to New York City and Baltimore in 2023.

Being a leader in business, arts, and culture can be a lonely pursuit.

We know from personal experience how entrepreneurs are all too often siloed, almost always accidentally, in seemingly impenetrable bubbles; 

we get bogged down by mundane tasks, falsely-urgent demands, and the generally long days that normally come with creating anything worthwhile. 

Over the years as we (Antoinette, Cohere’s founder, and Erik, 

 co-founder and Cohere advisor), experienced our own entrepreneur journeys and also worked with founders, artists, and makers and heard their similar stories, we began to dream of not just bringing all of us into a room, but facilitating shared problem solving. That dream became a reality with our first Founders Salon event in late 2022, and with more than 75+ people in the room in Philadelphia, we could feel the capacity of every founder there growing.

It's how we form a basis for connection and action among founders.

The curriculum for Founders Salon Series is inspired by proven Google X exercises that ask attendees to write then dialogue with each other about their 

 After people write down their answers to each guiding question and begin sharing with one another, not only do they have moments of genuine connection, but they usually find an overlapping need, helpful expertise, or shared goal. 

This creates immediate impact in the entrepreneur or maker’s network

; we are defined by the people who surround us, and this exercise is a fast way to add five or more of the ideal people to your inner circle. And, as problems are shared and solutions collegially discussed, some of that burden that all founders inherently feel is lifted.


As we expand and grow this Founders Salon Series, we’re thinking not just about the impact we could make individually for entrepreneurs, artists, and makers - but the collective significance for our local economies and cities. 

What if we compiled all of the “haves, needs, and wants” into a sort of guidebook for all those who found, set culture, and make?

 What if we thoughtfully and selectively brought in investors, consultants, and other advisors to be a part of these sessions? And what if the capacity and inspiration of founders in our ecosystem grew into new ideas and businesses? 

We all go further together, and we have a long ways to go - but with many tools for the journey.

Our work as a creative agency at the intersection of food, people, and place puts us in rooms with lots of founders, both seasoned and new, who are trying to solve problems and launch new ideas.

Getting the Founder Out of Their Silo

Never start a creative project without a plan.

By definition, a brand strategy is a plan for the development of a successful brand in order to achieve specific goals. This can be for a short-term product launch or a longer-term yearly marketing effort.

The brand strategy framework can be broken down into how the brand is positioned, where the brand is going, identifying and reaching the target market, developing a web presence, and creating a brand experience.

In broader terms, it can be expressed as the “how” of your branding process. The “what” is your product, and the “why” is the reason the brand exists in the first place. The “how,” or the brand strategy, is the bridge that connects your “why” and your “what” to the consumer market. If you take the time to plan a comprehensive brand strategy, you’ll find that the branding process moves more smoothly and creatively than it otherwise would. 

The outline of an effective brand strategy should include:

We know that it will be a challenge to build a successful brand. If it were easy, then we’d see far fewer branding disasters than we do now. When I talk about challenges, though, I’m talking about smaller, manageable challenges that move your strategy forward. One of your challenges could be hitting deadlines, or even just staying within your budget. The last thing anyone needs is to have his or her progress derailed by an unforeseen obstacle three months into a project (though it inevitably happens).

Branding takes a lot of big picture thinking, and with that, striving to reach big picture goals. But by getting wrapped in ambition, you run the risk of treading water – struggling to track progress as you work toward your goals. Too many times brand strategies are derailed because they’re too focused on the end game and beyond. You absolutely have to designate more pragmatic and tangible goals that can be easily measured. I know your big objective might be to revolutionize the construction of urban housing, but you should probably work on reaching that 50% increase in leasing first.

What good is your product if it’s in the wrong place? You’d be surprised how many businesses fail to identify who their biggest customers will be. Within the target market – the entire landscape of where your brand is competing – lays the target audience. The target audience is a more specific, smaller set of consumers that you want to be able to speak to directly. These are the people you need to identify as they are the people who will become repeat customers and brand ambassadors. If you miss your target audience, you’ve already lost. I like to think about reaching my profile audiences in a manner of a sales funnel, that can be easily understood by all parties involved – from the customer service perspective to the digital marketing team who is targeting these users online.

If you do anything important for your brand this year, redefine your target audiences and illustrate them in a sales funnel for your team to understand.

Develop Useful Copy - Key Messages, Soundbites and Narrative

After you identify your target audience profiles, develop messages that not only illustrate what you do but engage your audience on a level deeper than supply and demand. Your message should speak to consumers in a way that makes them want to contribute to your continued success, not simply buy your brand. Work with your creative team to develop the following:

 – a long-form background of the company, your values, and the focus of this project. You’ll be surprised by the creative material that will become useful later!

 – what do we want to hear internal culture, press and other key audience members say about our brand? We like to pretend we overheard key customers in the establishment and reviews online, what do you want these to say? You’ll be astonished at how a good strategy helps this become very easy.

 – These are the taglines, and key headlines that could be useful for the website or advertising materials? Read through your material so far and pull these out in bold. You’ll need them later for things like Facebook ads and blogs.

If you don’t know where you’re going, and how you’re going to get there, you’ll never arrive at your destination. You have to map out your strategy, set a timeline, and determine milestones and measurable goals to gauge success. Having the whole process laid out ensures that tasks are completed in a timely and efficient manner. I find that a bi-weekly check-in on the strategy immediately leads to productivity and a project timeline that everyone agrees on.

This one is so simple, yet so often forgotten. Branding aside, establishing a division of labor, and purposing time and materials is a basic tenant of running any successful business. Creating a brand strategy is by no means easy, but it doesn’t have to be as hard as many misguided “brand strategists” make it. It comes down to striking a balance between dreaming big and working small. If you lose sight of your passion, the little things feel so much more tedious, and if you forget to do the little things, your ultimate goal slips further and further away from your grasp. Who knows, if you do it right, you might be able to call yourself a brand strategist and mean it.

If you’re interested in getting help building your brand strategy, 

Contact

Most companies fail to have an overarching strategy for their marketing team or year ahead and complain about a lack of short and long-term ROI. That can be rectified by uniting around a shared understanding of what a brand strategy is, and how to use it.

Stories About Impact

Stories about
Impact

AVOID SAMENESS - Break Category Rules with Your Brand

2023 Growth + Impact

NYC Climate Week: Making a Delicious Difference with Crop Trust

Getting the Founder Out of Their Silo

What is Brand Strategy? Creating a Roadmap for Your Year Ahead

Stories About Impact

Stories about ImpactEverything

AVOID SAMENESS - Break Category Rules with Your Brand

2023 Growth + Impact

NYC Climate Week: Making a Delicious Difference with Crop Trust

Getting the Founder Out of Their Silo

What is Brand Strategy? Creating a Roadmap for Your Year Ahead

Stories about
Impact