What makes a modern brand? Learn through this deck on how to apply brand strategies to help you breakthrough in your market!

1. Building a Modern Brand
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2. What does it mean to be a modern brand?
It’s not marketing.
What we’ve discovered is that it’s about being purpose-driven, and using that
purpose to drive innovation. Modern brands are based on listening, being
transparent, and delivering a great experience at every turn.
This hasn’t been a sudden shift, brands that thrive today have identified a core
purpose and execute it in an authentic and continuous way. They take a long view
and seek customer loyalty from the start. Their work begins on the inside by
aligning a culture fueled by that purpose.
Here’s how you build brand in the modern world.
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3. Six steps to becoming a modern brand:
1. Ooze purpose
2. Design for users, not just buyers
3. Relentlessly innovate
4. Listen hard, then take action
5. Be transparent, promote transparency
6. Speak directly, emotionally, and authentically
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4. 1. Ooze purpose

5. If you’re a modern brand, you
profit from a higher purpose. You
know how what you do makes the
world better, easier, and more fun.
Everything you do and say stems
from this purpose.

6. Inspire the world
In a car market that has failed to innovate
meaningfully, Tesla not only redefined performance
vehicles, but made people seriously consider the
power of an electric car. By creating an almost fully
vertically integrated car company redefining the
electric car Tesla has been able to change the way
humans are transported. Its promise to change the
world has led to Tesla becoming one of the only
lasting car companies created in the modern era.
In 2017, Tesla was named the most valuable car
company in America.

7. Do what is right
Whether standing for environmental activism or
promoting fair, safe, and livable work, Patagonia has
always stood for what is right. The company has gone
so far as to ask you not to buy its clothes if you don’t
need them (to create less waste). Everything
Patagonia does and says stems from doing right for
people and the planet.
By living its purpose, Patagonia has become a
beloved brand that has given $89 million dollars in
cash and in-kind donations to environmental
nonprofits.
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8. 2. Design for users, not just buyers

9. Your culture, talent, service,
product, R&D, sales, and marketing
are all crafted to create
experiences and “moments of
truth” that lead to loyalty. Modern
brands are experience-based, not
perception-based.

10. Design the experience
Instagram once was a “brand police” organization,
with strict rules for presenting the brand to buyers. In
2016, the brand made a choice to change its focus to
the customer experience and emotional drivers of that
experience. Instagram went from being a photo
sharing app to being in the business of “strengthening
relationships through shared experiences.”
By growing the meaning of the brand to include
multiple moments and experiences, including photos,
videos, live, and stories, Instagram expanded its
relevance and user base, and warded off Snapchat’s
inroads on market share.
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11. Emphasize connection
Airbnb founder Brian Chesky built the company
because travel was missing personal experiences.
Before the company scaled, Airbnb handcrafted the
perfect user experience based on early customer
wants, pain points, and desires. While competitors
delivered a 5-star experience, Airbnb – based on its
user research – aimed to deliver an 11-star
experience. By focusing so closely on the user, the
company is credited with reimaging travel from the
perspective of a local, not a tourist.
This desire for authentic travel has made Airbnb a $30
billion company.
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12. The secret is in the product
Mattresses. In an uninspired market that was hard to
shop in, Casper looked to create loyalty by redefining
its customer experience. Starting with the product,
Casper engineered more than 108 prototypes to
perfect the mattress. With the product perfected,
Casper then turned to creating clear pricing, a 100-
day trial, free shipping and returns, and even tools for
removing your old mattress.
The result was not only a product that caters to the
vast majority of sleeping positions, body types, and
slumber eccentricities, but a covenant spot on the
2015 Time magazine 25 Best Inventions list.
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13. 3. Relentlessly innovate

14. Your culture doesn’t have space for
brand police. Your brand is a
runway for innovation in every
aspect of your business:
marketing, product, customer
relationships, and talent
recruitment and development.

15. Innovation starts within
Realizing a drop in relevancy, Netflix had to build a
runway for innovation. The trick was an enforced
internal employee culture of flexibility and personal
responsibility. By ensuring and fostering the correct
talent, Netflix has been able to continuously innovate
its purpose and products.
This ultimately landed Netflix into the original content
space and its number of subscribers surged to 117
million in 2017.

16. Stand for something more
After seeing success in cloud-based CRM software,
Salesforce recognized the need to bring more value to
its customers and pave the way for future innovation.
To that end, Salesforce created the Customer
Success Platform, an elevated promise that pushes
Salesforce beyond CRM. By standing for a Customer
Success Platform, rather than a single product,
Salesforce has been able to innovate cloud solutions
for marketing, service, commerce, AI, and more.
This elevated the brand, its innovation roadmap, and
helped Salesforce became the number one CRM in
the world.
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17. Ride or die for purpose
Starting in 2014, CVS Health has been innovating its
services around consumer health. From renaming
itself (formerly CVS Caremark) to quitting selling
cigarettes ($2bn revenue) to using IBM Watson’s AI
system to predict which customers need health
interventions, CVS Health is a brand solely focused
on health. Using its newfound purpose as a platform
for innovation, CVS landed on the Fast Company
2018 World’s Most Innovative Companies list.
Additionally, while competitors such as Walgreens are
closing stores, CVS Health ended 2017 with a 4.1%
revenue increase.
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18. 4. Listen hard, then take action

19. Your culture centers on listening to
the customer, and it’s consistently
embodied and reinforced by
executive leadership.

20. Start with the customer
At Amazon’s founding, the “.com” era was riddled with
a consumer hesitation. Websites didn’t have the
consumer trust that they have today. To combat the
trust hurdle, Amazon needed to listen and be as
customer centric as possible. By digitally listening to
customers through pioneering personalization to
customers having a direct line of access to Jeff Bezos
(jeff@amazon.com), Amazon was able to meet and
exceed customers needs. In fact, starting with the
customer is Amazon’s first leadership principal.
This focus on the customer has lead Amazon to being
the second most valuable company in the world.*
*CNBC March 20, 2018

21. Listen, then talk
Hootsuite, a company that lives in a crowded social
media world with many competitive options,
understands the value of listening to its customers.
Hootsuite’s VP of the Customer ensures that
customers are heard through a program called Voice
of the Customer. It primarily aims to understand the
customer journey and surpass the expected customer
experience.
By carefully listening to the customer and
understanding them, Hootsuite has been able to triple
its NPS scores.
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22. 5. Be transparent, promote transparency

23. You’re transparent about how the product
is produced, packaged, shipped, and
displayed. And, when you mess up, you
own it in communications.

24. Shatter opacity
In an industry that prices products way beyond their
value and promotes unsafe working conditions,
Everlane works to bring radical transparency to the
category of consumer clothing. It partners with the
best, most ethical factories around the world, and
sources only quality materials, making all this visible
to consumers. And, it delivers completely transparent
pricing.
This has lead Everlane to being what Fast Company
calls “The Next-Gen Clothing Brand.”

25. Have guiding principals
AI is the technology buzzword of the moment and it
carries a lot of fear. That is why IBM Watson has been
loud about its belief for transparency in AI. For AI to
be successful, people need to trust it, not fear it. To
achieve its goals for the sector, IBM Watson
executives have continually touted the need for
transparency, across multiple forums and press
releases.
Solidified in written transparency policies, IBM Watson
has been a lead AI transparency on purpose, data,
protection, and insights. In turn, IBM Watson is a
leading AI brand.
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26. Own it
Though KFC doesn’t have a history of company-wide
transparency, the company has recently been
transparent about a mess-up. The chicken company
ran out of chicken in the UK. To address the critical
mistake, the brand timely advertised its fault, which
not only landed it back in good graces with customers,
but amassed international praise for a transparent and
perfectly executed PR effort.
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27. 6. Speak directly, emotionally, and authentically

28. You directly, authentically, and
emotionally connect with
customers at every touch point.
More than that, you encourage the
voices of your customers to be
louder than your own.

29. Take words seriously
In a business world full of complicated and
meaningless jargon, Slack cut the mess. By
combining a brilliant business model with leadership
who preach the value of words and tone, Slack has
been able to thrive. The team applies a “This, but not
that” strategy to help the company understand its
tonality and works with the entire organization on
deciding the words it needs to use for its customers.
This business model, combined with an authentic and
thoughtful tone, made Slack the fastest growing
startup ever, earning $1 billion in two years.
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30. Have a heart
Southwest’s guiding value is treating people with
heart. In a commodity market, it has continuously
shone by allowing staff to share their individuality
through fun PA announcements, having no fee flight
changes or bag checks, and having the CEO preach
the importance of having a heart.
The Southwest brand of humanity and heart has
made it a leader in the travel market with a NPS
Score* of 62 in an industry with an average of 47.
*According to NPSBenchmarks.com
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31. How will you build a modern brand?
We’ve developed a way to establish your purpose, then measure how well you’re
delivering on it throughout your organization. So, you’re able to prioritize your efforts
beyond revenue goals and close gaps in your operational ability to deliver on your
brand. Be modern: stop relying on marketing to shape your brand and use brand
purpose to create inspiration for you employees and customers alike.
We’d be happy to continue the conversation.
Please email us at Northbound
Or give us a ring at 206.257.5084
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32. About Northbound
Northbound leads our clients to discover,
demonstrate and move closer to their true North:
purposeful, courageous, creative.
We craft insights, strategies and design for our
clients that deliver clarity and the kind of emotional
resonance that makes a brand stick. We help
clients transcend products and the velocity of
cultural habits by creating meaning, memorability,
and momentum through unforgettable storytelling.
Our client contributions range from Fortune 100 to
early start-up and everything in between.
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About Samantha Temple Neukom
Samantha is Partner and Chief Brand Officer of
Northbound Brand. Sam’s pedigree and agency
experience provides clients a unique depth of vision,
experience, perspective, and process insights.
From East Coast big agency to West Coast boutique,
Sam has honed her craft to a laser focus.
For more than 20 years she has contributed to
businesses such as Starwood Hotels, Bank of the
West, Amazon, P&G, Microsoft, Redfin, Pfizer,
Tylenol, WildTangent, Lenscrafters, Apptio, NetApp,
Thomson Reuters, and Kaiser Permanente.

33. Thank you!