Your brand has a job to do. Evviva Brands provides the tools and training to get it done.
In Italian, “evviva” is an exultation, like “hooray.” We think this is how a great brand should make you feel. So our name is a perfect summary for our aspiration.
Office locations: San Francisco, California and Edinburgh, Scotland
Which topics are you most passionate about?
Much of the place brand community focuses on travel, tourism or real estate. We have had the opportunity to work with great travel and tourism brands like Delta Air Lines, Alaska Airlines, Marriott International, Marriott Vacation Club, Renaissance and The Ritz-Carlton, so we understand and enjoy these projects.
But the projects we’re the most excited about are projects that also have a strong emphasis on economic development. When economic development is a project driver, place brand projects do not just enhance but transform the places they brand.
Five hashtags which best describe you?
#ethnography #insight #strategy #identity #curiosity
Who is leading the company?
David Kippen, PhD, Head of Strategy and co-founder
David Kippen is Evviva Brands’ chief strategist. He is an internationally recognized leader in brand strategy and transformation. He has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Times of London, Economic Times of India, and Financial Times. He has lectured on brand, culture and engagement at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Nova Southeastern University’s Huizenga School of Business, and the Conference Board and teaches brand and marketing in San Francisco State University’s Integrated Marketing Program.
David’s approach to brand strategy and culture change is drawn from market research in more than thirty countries over the past eighteen years.
In 2009, David founded Evviva Brands (www.evvivabrands.com) with Dr. Cate Newsom with a simple goal: unlock brand value by making brands better people. Evviva’s specialty is positioning “unsung heroes,” component, ingredient and B2B brands in the technology, energy, and financial services sectors. Equal parts strategy consultancy and creative agency, Evviva uses workforce insight to transform brands from the inside out. Today, David serves as CEO and Chief Strategist of Evviva Brands, Managing Director of Evviva Ltd. (Edinburgh) and CEO of Evviva Games. Prior to Evviva Brands he led global brand strategy for TMP Worldwide.
David has held leadership roles in a variety of professional associations supporting brand, communications and human resources industries. He earned his PhD in Rhetoric at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and was a visiting scholar at the Stanford-UC Berkeley Joint Center for African Studies.
Connect with David on LinkedIn or Twitter
Cate Newsom, PhD, Head of Insight and co-founder
Dr. Cate Newsom is a founder, partner, and Evviva Brands’ head of insight. She has over a dozen years of experience in research and strategy in the field of branding and marketing. Cate has worked with leading multinational corporations and third sector organisations, covering the sectors of aviation, communications, consumer packaged goods, energy, financial services, hospitality, management consulting, and technology.
In addition to her work in branding, Cate’s diverse background includes anthropological documentary film production, extensive field research on five continents, and project management, conducted in the private, public and voluntary sectors.
Cate has a Bachelor’s of Arts degree in film studies from Yale University and a Master of Arts degree from New York University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences / Tisch School of the Arts in cinema studies (with an emphasis on the ethnographic documentary). She also has a second Master of Arts degree in social anthropology from the University of Amsterdam and a PhD in clinical psychology with Utrecht University. Cate also holds a professional certification in project management from UC Berkeley.
Connect with Cate Newsom on LinkedIn
What services do you offer?
We are a full-service brand marketing agency. Our capabilities include brand research, strategy, positioning and expression.
- Research: We offer expert-level service for the full range of qualitative and quantitative research methods including traditional interviews, focus groups, field intercepts and surveys as well as ethnography, remote ethnography, complex survey development and statistical analysis. We have conducted market research (traditional and ethnographic) in multiple languages in more than 35 countries worldwide.
- Strategy: We have had the opportunity to develop brand strategies for brands of every size and stage, from early funding series startups to Amazon. Along the way, we developed tools to organize audiences and messages and help clients manage the customer journey through each stage from acquisition through retention to evangelism.
- Positioning: Our creative team is where logic meets magic. It happens when the project moves from research and strategy to art and copy. From developing names, wordmarks, logos and straplines to scamps and creative concepts, positioning is where we take the brand idea from whiteboard to billboard.
- Expression: We provide complete identity and brand marketing services from name, logo, strapline to marketing strategies and full suites of campaign assets including digital, print and OOH ads, radio, video and interactive (website) creative.
Who have you recently worked with recently?
Evviva has had the opportunity to support a wide range of leading global brands including Alaska Airlines, Amazon, Ameriprise Financial, Bain & Company, Burger King, Chevron, Coca-Cola, City of Antioch, Dell, Delta Air Lines, Disney, Energy Recovery, E.ON, HP, HSBC, General Mills, Intel, Kaiser Permanente, Kentz, KLA, Lam Research, Microsoft, Methanex, Nokia, Smartsheet, Teva, Total, Twilio, T-Mobile and Xilinx.
Your advice to aspiring place brand leaders?
Every project we have completed has reminded us of the importance of gathering ground-up insights and developing a true, active partnership with community stakeholders – residents and leaders. The value of time and effort spent on the ground can’t be overestimated. Neither can the importance of really listening when people talk and digging deeper to understand what’s motivating their comments and concerns.
On a recent project, we had been warned of some local antagonists, but when we encountered them (casually, at drop-in events we had organized), we found ourselves face to face with community stakeholders who really cared about outcomes. What’s more, they had the interest and energy to get involved. We listened carefully, saw the sense in their concerns, found common ground, developed ways to collaborate with them on shared goals, and they ended up being active participants in the projects and champions of the work. Not only did they support the project, they enriched it.
More about Evviva Brands on the company website, or follow the team on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook for updates on latest insights and offers.
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