Standing out in a crowded market with guest CEO Tom Jones from Yolted

Introduction

Today we make sense of how you can stand out in a crowded market. We have a guest with us today who is the CEO of a company who we proudly have recently delivered the branding and beautiful new website for. We like to think of their new look as innovative, fresh & bold.

Innovation as a necessity: the pain point tackled

Walt Disney once said, “I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing – that it was all started by a mouse.”

With what began as a sketch of a mouse, through constant product and process innovation, Walt Disney became an international media powerhouse encompassing a broad range of businesses.

Today we dive into that process looking at why innovation is so important, how Tom is driving innovation at Yolted and we’ll give our tips on how you can drive innovation in your own business.

Importance of innovation

Why is it important to stand out and be innovative through your branding today?

‘Innovate or die’ is a phrase often used to describe the approach brands must take to stay ahead in an ultra-competitive market characterised by rapidly changing consumer demand

Innovation is not an option, it’s imperative.

• The key to innovation is to move from a culture of reacting to change to a culture of inspiring change and creating new paths to growth
• Innovation doesn’t only relate to new technologies but also relates to promotions, packaging, web design & development, branding.
• A new technological disruptor appears seemingly daily and this highlights the importance of innovative, cutting edge products to consumers,
• Customers like to feel as if they are at the forefront of innovation, utilizing the most high-tech, convenient products available.
• Research has also found that consumers place a high value on the process of innovation.
• However, innovation is no longer the exclusive domain of technology; when asked if a company can be innovative without technology, 66% of survey respondents agreed.
• What this research demonstrates is that novelty is one of the principal drivers of consumer behavior. However, consumers’ approach to newness is becoming increasingly sophisticated. Now, they appreciate that they, the consumer, drives innovation through their preferences and needs.
• Therefore brands must nurture cultures of continuous improvement in order to meet these expectations

Innovation at Yolted

One of the goals when launching Yolted was to stand out from competition. Listen in to hear Tom discuss if they achieved this goal.

Tom also tackles the following:

• What reaction do you have from your audience?
• Why you believe creating a stand out brand is important in todays market and how did you achieve this?
• What reaction did you have from the market to your brand launch?
• What were the most important things you considered when deciding to embark on a branding project for Yolted?
• What advice would you give to anyone looking to build a brand?
• How do you ensure that your brand will grow with the business?

How to implement innovation in your branding

• Starts with truly understanding your ‘why’ so that you can focus on what makes you unique from other companies.
• Focus your innovation on strategic opportunities – identity opportunities and focus attention on solving that problem.
• Be creative with problem solving: have brainstorming sessions and use consumer insights & get creative with solving your problems
• Build, refine & improve your concepts. Use moodboards, fonts, motion to get to your desired output.
• Innovation needs to be constant: keep making incremental innovations
• Take risks. Being innovative in branding and standing out requires taking risks. But as said by Jessica Walsh, co-founder of design agency Sagmeister & Walsh ​​“If no one hates it, no one really loves it.”

The strongest brands and businesses are built upstream through the combined principles of insight, identity, and innovation.

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