One of marketings job is to help a company tell their vision story to colleagues and associates. Where is a company going, what is the journey they are on and what is a picture that helps tell that story?
Picking the right metaphor matters. It should connect and pull together many elements of the business but serves as the framework for the future destination and path forward.
Metaphors Matter
The right metaphor connects with a well-defined strategic vision for the company.
Whether you are climbing a mountain or crossing a bridge, the idea is that you want everyone to have one clear visual in their heads. They know what the company is striving for and what it will take to get there.
In 2017, I got to help several clients create visualizations so that they could share with associates, customers, partners and vendors who they are and where they are heading. In the example below, my client Nomaco and I explored lots of ideas (several dozens) but settled on a metaphoric bridge because the company does a lot of work in the construction and building industry. The bridge was ideal for representing the company’s journey.
The TransFOAMation Bridge
We built the bridge on foundational pillars that capture our vision and our values. Each word was very carefully selected to avoid being trite and cliched. We wanted to use language that felt right and conveyed our culture.
The team was very deliberate in describing where we were coming from, the bridge we were traveling to the destination we were heading towards in the future. We had created game-changing products thirty years ago, and those products still served several industries. But the future was in new, imaginative game-changing solutions and that represented the other side of the journey.
We added core employee attributes that we believed were critical to helping have the right people on the bus (or in this case the truck), to get us where we wanted to go. Words like happy and curious aren’t just selected randomly. We found descriptors that articulated the community we wanted to connect.
We also settled on a very simple and crisp description of what the company does. We Make Foam. It was simple, elegant and to the point. Thanks to Lars von Kantzow, the CEO who helped refine a few longer sentences into a succinct and simple phrase. Sometimes a simple declarative sentence is better than some fancy language.
Finally, the bridge metaphor needed a name. Since the company was in the foam manufacturing business and we were going through a transformation, I used my odd and strange pun superpowers to suggest TransFOAMation. Fortunately, everyone liked it and saw it as a unique way to describe who we are and what we do. We even trademarked that phrase.
Bring A Bridge to Life
The Nomaco Transfoamation Bridge will come to life in several iterations. We created an animated video for the company’s website. Newly renovative workspaces and conference room spaces will use elements of the bridge as names. Mousepads, signage and other graphics from the bridge will appear throughout the facility. The animation will also be part of various PowerPoint capabilities presentations used by management and sales. This image is public – not something to be hidden away in a computer’s memory.
Take a look at the animation that was created by the team. I’m proud to have had a hand to bring this metaphoric bridge to life and to help my client visually explain their journey.
If you can’t see the video, here is a link to the page where it lives.
Need help finding your metaphor? I can help. Here is another example that I worked on several years ago for a company in the wine industry. Call me at 919 720 0995 or email me at jeffslater@themarketingsage.com
Graphic Design by Jeff Lawson from Cowan Designs and thanks to Arwen Kettering for the video animation.
Images and Videos courtesy of Nomaco
