TAI’s Strategic Brand Refresh for a Scalable Future | The Debrief with Nick Donovan

Hey, everyone. This is Bill Kenny, CEO and co-founder of Fogus Lab, a global B2B branding agency. I'm back with another episode of the debrief, the series where I sit down with past Fogus Lab partners, and we relive the true project. Not just what shows up in the case study, the pretty images. We sit down and we talk about what were the challenges in the project? What were the things that were unexpected? How did we get through those things? My hope with these interviews is that you get the real insight of projects, whether you're either on the agency side, or you're a marketing leader, a CMO, a founder that's considering going through a rebrand. This is the series for you. In today's episode, I'm sitting down with Nick Donovan. He's the VP of Marketing and COMS at TAI. That stands for the Technology Association of Iowa. We have the pleasure of partnering with them. That brand is now alive. We talk about all the components of that project. Nick is a past designer now in marketing, but obviously has very specific tastes. He's also worked with the inside agencies who he had those expectations as well. So that is a part of the conversation as well as talking about the value of creating an identity system that allows for child brand development. That is something that was very specific as a need in their project and really turned out to be a highlight in the breadth of the identity system. We also spend a lot of time talking about the importance of strategic north stars, the value of messaging, purpose, vision, and mission, and how that actually created the aha moment in their project. You're going to love this episode. Enjoy. All right, rock and roll. Let's get into it. Let's get into it. I did a little kind of fact checking around the office quote unquote, we're fully remote. But I hit up Mason because I know she was really close on the project and I said, Hey, I've not met Nick yet. Like, what's his vibe? Like, what's his energy? Like just so I know going into this and quote, she said, he's one of the best clients I've ever worked with at Focus Lab. So there you go. There's your happy birthday, Kudos. I threw it out first stop. Shout out Mason. She was great to work with. That's great. Yeah, she's awesome. So now I've set you up as the man, the best person ever. Why don't you, for the viewers and listeners, just tell people who you who you are and what you're doing. Absolutely. So I'm Nick Donovan. I lead marketing communications and PR at the Technology Association of Iowa T.A.I. for short. We're an industry development group focused on the technology sector, the growth and the health of it here in the state of Iowa. So statewide organization, we're a member-based organization. So our membership consists of early stage startups through SMBs all the way up to enterprise level companies. So think about some of the largest employers in the state of Iowa, or members of T.A.I. In addition, we got members in academia and adjacent business groups. So it's a really nice cross section of business here in the state of Iowa and understanding that technology kind of is woven into every company and every organization across the state. That's the model we kind of go from. So that in a nutshell is what we do as an organization. Yeah. And you lead marketing, very specifically. Yes. Absolutely. So manage the brand, our perception, our position that we're serving our members, we're serving the ecosystem, certainly strategic communications, how we're articulating our value and the work that we do, the value of membership, and then there's certainly marketing tactics, the campaigns, and then the PR component, bringing that all back to brand. How we're perceived in the work in place in our community. Okay. Perfect bridge then to the first question, because what you and I are going to do is we're going to relive the project. Surprise, surprise for everybody watching, not a surprise. We've partnered on a project, but how did you know, like what was the catalyst of initiating kind of this most recent branding effort? The short answer is just time, you know, in the last time the TAI rebranded was 2016. And that predated my time with the organization, but that, you know, that's nearly a decade about the previous brands. That's a lot of mileage. We've learned a lot along the way. But we certainly have evolved and we've matured as an organization. And in the last couple of years, there was signs of misalignment. Okay. And so our professional development programs, I would tech connect, for example. When we layer on that value for our membership, it's this new program that needs to be positioned, that needs a messaging platform, a visual identity, a sub identity of sorts, and we really had no framework guidelines. So we were kind of making decisions and building the plan while I was in the air. Okay. Over time, you know, take different instances of that. We came a little bit more misaligned. So we reached a point where we understood that the brand no longer reflected who we were as an organization and where we wanted to go. So simple answer, straightforward answer. It's been, it was nine years. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that statement of this brand no longer reflects who we are. I mean, that has to be 90% of everybody we work with. Regardless of the complexity behind that. Yeah. Right. It might be because now they've merged with four other companies. So that's the complexity as a result or they're pivoting in their movie more enterprise. So that's the catalyst of the change. But it's still that same statement, turn identity in every way, visual, verbal. It just doesn't reflect who we are. So then you had the challenge of figuring out who the hell to partner with, which I love this question personally because it's like, I don't know what it's like on the other side quite honestly. I can presume a lot of things, but I know there's a lot of options. You can go all the way from kind of like more freelancers, solo per newer type, then there's like smaller agencies, there's larger agencies, prices are all over the damn place. Yeah. You don't know who's the right partner for you, if they have capacity, et cetera, et cetera. You start this journey for a partner. How does that start? And how do you try to land that plane? We took a look at a couple different angles, a couple different conversations. And it became clear to me after some of those conversations. It was really important to choose an agency where the service that you provided was just branding. And we had a lot of integrated full service marketing agencies where brand and brand strategy might be buried mid website where it's kind of like an add-on on an exhaustive list of services. There's nothing against that. I came from that background. I worked at a large ish B2B marketing agency fully integrated. But we wanted a little bit more focused approach. And I know by watching a couple of other of these episodes and some of the other clients that process was really important. Yeah. That's a key box to kind of check off there and understanding expectations and the deliverables. And what it would take was really important and that's what attracted me to focus lab. And then if you take a look at the space that we're in, we have limited resources often. So it means sometimes a limited budget. We wanted to be a priority. I've been in situations before where we were the lowest priority on the ladder. And it took days for an email to be returned. It took even longer for a small change to a website. So we wanted to be a priority. And we wanted to really focus in on brand and brand only. I followed you guys' work for quite a while back in my days. I spent half my career in agency and half my career in not-for-profit community space. And I remember back in the day, on the heyday of dribble, I was bookmarking focus labs work. It was inspiring. I'm like, this aesthetic just hits. You know, it resonated. So it started back then. And you've always been on my radar. Even if it was a blip, you know, it's a cutouts to branding and action where multiple years later, when I'm in the seat and I'm in the position to maybe think about a rebrand. I'm like, I want to see what focus lab is up to. So that's when I started to dig into the website a little bit more. Check out a lot of your case studies. Red your book, which is great, by the way. But there is where I got a lot more clarity on the process. Yes. Trust built there. So hopefully that kind of covers in terms of what it's process. It's familiarity with the work that you were doing. But it came down to a brand first brand only agency. But you work with tech companies. And we might not be, we might not look, walk and talk like a lot of your clients, but we're adjacent to a lot of those companies that could, that would be surprised as some of your clients were members of technology association of Iowa. So we needed an aesthetic and an approach that resonated with those audiences as well. Yeah, great. We checked a lot of boxes. Yeah. That's an complicity being brand only. Yes. You know, that that really works for us as a brand kind of position. And how we've really niche down and then to the B2B positioning of that offering more tech centered also works well for us. And man, those dribble years still, they're still sticky. - Yeah, we don't hear it as often, but yeah, I still hear it every now and again. Man, I haven't fallen for 10 years on dribble. Wow. - Are we trying to make waves? We try to be noisy? - No, we try to always just be, show when our work in the right place. Show when our work in the right place is. - Well, I'm glad you've been following us. I'm glad you found us, 'cause like Mason mentioned at the top of the show, it was a highlight partnership. So that's awesome. - Good. - All right, so you're like, I think this is the team. They're great. We are gonna be a priority. I'm glad you said that. I think it's really worth noting for anybody listening. - We have such a structured process. Once projects enter the flow, they are a project. They have a dedicated team and they are a priority. It's not big dog, big clients pulling the attention of the majority and then we're just trying to kind of like fill in the cracks for everybody else. It just doesn't function like that. It's kind of surprising that other agencies can function like that quite honestly. And it does seem that we hear a lot of that fear. Even in our kind of onboarding sales process, it's like who's gonna be on my team? How do I know I'm gonna be a priority? How do I get, you know, this is what they're thinking anyways, the best player on your team. You don't have to worry about that. - Yeah, that was very clear from the top. - Yeah, great, great, great. All right, so let's get into the actual weeds of the project. My first question is because the intent for these questions is to help people that have not been through this process, to understand the dynamics, what to look for when finding an agency. And now this kind of questioning, which is what was the hardest part of the project? Great relationship. These projects are still challenging. - They are. - Yeah, what was hard for you or your team? - Sure. - As most successful organizations or companies like we worked very quickly, very efficiently. And we're a very cyclical calendar. You know, we have certain events and certain programs that run throughout the year. And we often are on to the next thing very quickly. So not so much of a challenge, but like establishing that this project internally and with the partnership with Focus Lab was a priority. We had buy-in from everybody. We had the core team and everything. But it remained a challenge to slow down a little bit. I mean, we're like, if we're doing a brand, you know, a strategy exercise, your phones are away. This is the priority. This is the focus. And other things had to be paused, especially on the marketing end of the house. We had to prioritize some projects. But I think this is more of a natural and necessary change to workflows when you commit to an exercise and engagement like this to really prioritize it. So grateful for my team to committing to that. And I think that was a significant driver in the success of the project. The other challenge we encountered even before and then into the early phases was, was this a full rebrand or was this a refresh? - Ah, yes. - And so, you know, we took a deep look at what was working and what was not working. We found out that there's probably a lot more good than bad, even though the brand was super dated. We had a lot of equity in certain areas that I personally had not previously considered. So, challenging in our own way, questioning myself a little bit in terms of what would be too safe, or would be too conservative. Will the work fall apart quicker if we just broke it all down and reestablished and reinvented ourselves. But it became clear that we were gonna reinforce and redefine ourselves from a strong source of foundation. And I've given a couple of presentations now on the rebrand, we'll call it a refresh. And I talk a lot about building from this foundation and what was working. So, that was a challenge in itself. And then I went to school for graphic design. I've pivoted since my career to marketing communications and the business side of the house. But I think we really pushed each other into uncomfortable territories. Especially some of your designers. I think we really challenged each other. I remember there was one particular meeting. I talked to our marketing coordinator, Brent and Clark, who's incredible after one particular meeting. And I'm like, I didn't really go the way I thought. She's like, well, maybe they're not used to clients talking that deeply about topography and in-curning and in color theory and stuff like that. So, that was a bit of a challenge, but in a really, really good and positive way. - Okay, great. - We embrace and hopefully you felt this and you especially knew it by the end, for sure, that we embrace those conversations, right? The journey is the journey. And I also like that you noted the rebrand versus refresh kind of conundrum. The challenge is knowing and trying to figure out what's the right decision, right? That's the challenge. So, there's a little bit of uncomfortable of like, okay, we're gonna start making some decisions. Or we're gonna go down this path, we're gonna go down that path. But that's really where the slow down that you mentioned before. And the dedication to a project like this, it's like, okay, let's just go on the journey then. Let's ask the questions together. Let's propose solutions. If we figure out maybe we went this way, but maybe we should go that way. Okay, we can do that as well. So, it really is just about that journey. - Yeah, it is the journey and I can add on to that in terms of just staying the course. And if there's a commitment and everybody's bought in and there's a lot of trust with the partnership, which there was, there's gonna be times where it's difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel. And there were certainly points, and we did reach an inflection point. But shortly after that came the aha moment. And I think maybe we'll get into it a little bit later, but it was tying our purpose statement to the visual identity. And it was like this thing where I'm like, oh, that's it, let's go. And then it went out here. So yeah, it's just staying the course and being consistent. - Yeah, the light at the end of the tunnel is a little bit of a booby trap. Because it's like maybe you don't need to see the light at all. You just need to be able to see one foot in front of you. Sometimes in a project like that, that's all you need. That will allow for progress. If it's the, I can't understand the full vision or I don't know if that will work. So I'm uncomfortable. And then that leads to parallelization. That really starts to hurt the project and not just for like the agency, just for the whole motion. So it's one foot in front of the other knowing that you can take a step back if needed. Not every week is chiseled in stone and you can never move backwards. Now we don't want to move too many steps backwards if we don't have to. You have to just take a minute to the journey and just let it take you where it takes you. All right, so that you talked about challenging aspects. What was the most rewarding aspect? I think just overall, we can look internally at the team. It was an awesome team building experience. I come back to our breakneck pace and the rapid pace that we work. We never really slow down in day to day operations and look in the mirror and talk about who we are as an organization. And think deeply about where we've been, who we are today and where we want to go. So that was kind of a galvanizing moment for us over a number of weeks that brought us closer together. So the core messaging certainly was a priority for us. Once we felt really comfortable on that, we move forward. And even in the application phase that we're in right now and applying the brand across our channels and everything that we do, it continues to be a source of strength in our team. And if we continue to build that confidence and that belief with our team, they're quick to take it out into our spaces, into the wild, as I call it. And they're better serving our members and our key stakeholders. So strengthening how the team shits shows up and how we speak and carry the brand out. I continue to see that. I've seen that from day one. And I'm seeing it now come to fruition. And again, it's the journey. It's never ending journey that we can do. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. So there's no perfect time to kind of launch. We picked a strategic time. But really quickly, as we continue to build, we had a big inclusion event last week and seeing a sub-ident, seeing our brand out there and getting the photos back and getting feedback from everybody. Each incremental thing in our cyclical calendar and we see the new brand applied, I can feel some real momentum. Yeah, great. Yeah, that event you're referencing there is that the catalysts? That's the chance. Yeah. Yeah, awesome. I was looking at some of those pictures this morning and kind of by identity and how it works. I'm like, man, they're really cooking now. Yeah. Yeah, that was a cool one. Because that stepped a little bit outside of that primary identity. But it really fits underneath the umbrella of the primary mark and the visual engineering and all the verbal stuff that we're working on. And it's really cool to make decisions and come across different challenges. So we're looking at signage and what does the LED screen look like at the events? And applying the really core principles of the visual identity and verbal as well. It's been really rewarding to apply. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah, I think you all are in a seemingly in a perfect spot of like guard rails, but a lot of flexibility and opportunity. Sometimes brands, and it can be for the right reasons, even projects of our own, right? They can have a pretty tight sandbox. Sure. And after a while, when you try to start spinning out new things, you can get a little bit repetitive, right? So that shelf life starts to feel short. You have to get really creative on how you don't make everything just look the same all the time. Where you all, it's already clear that you're able to go wide right from the gate. You almost have a really super long runway. Yeah. And that was a priority in discussions is emphasizing-- never want a sub identity system. And we kind of borrowed some inspiration from a university kind of model where you get the University of Mark and Seal and the hierarchy underneath you get the colleges departments and student groups buildings. Then underneath that you got sub brands and identities and then over here you get the athletic department the athletic department is kind of like our signature events the more dynamic. There's more vibrancy, but it all fits back underneath the umbrella of that primary identity. So the flexibility and adaptability there was key, but we needed more cohesion. We need more consistency. So I really emphasize that and then the other thing is you know with our limited resources. We have some great partners on the design into the house, the production into the house that we work with. But having a grid system and a design system to be flexible to ensure that consistency. But again to avoid that sameness, yeah, what was a key element as well and that that came in the form of a 12 column grid to help inform digital layouts, print layouts. We do a lot of event stuff. What does a super wide LED board? How does that fit into the grid system? And then overlaying our core kind of visual language, which is a cornerstone, which points right back to our purpose statement was really cool. Yeah, so you want to touch on that for a second, you hinted in a moment, which is like every project has this like their own version of the impasse of like this feels like a critical moment right now. And I don't know if we're there yet, right? Everybody's hungry to be there, even if we're saying like it's okay. It's a journey. You know it'll take time. Some people get there in the first couple of weeks. Sometimes getting their week 10. And nervous as hell, but there is this release, the damn breaks, they never know what will break it. You're like, ah, and everything kind of like settles down a little bit. So you had that when you said what you paired mission and vision to the rest of the system. Absolutely. So we we tackle those core messages first. We was really important for us to define who we were, how we did it, what we did, and then, you know, that North star where we were going. And we really never had a vision statement. We had a piecemeal together mission statement and somewhat of a purpose statement, but it felt more like a marketing tagline and slogan and everything. We really prioritize that and we kind of talked as our core team if we can nail that core messaging, the purpose, the mission and vision that everything else would fall into place. So coming back to the purpose or purpose is to uphold technology as the cornerstone of I was growth. So that was established. And when we went into the visual identity phase, we certainly went. Concepts that pushed us in some very uncomfortable areas and some concepts that were working. And that's where I was talking about like just put one foot in front of the other. We had a break over Christmas. And I was like, I don't I know we're going to get there, but it's really tough to see right now. And we came back and your design team presented this idea of like let's focus in on this cornerstone and this angular elements, this bottom left to upright momentum that you can see in our logo mark. So it all came back to this this block that we have on the left side of our primary mark. And that's the cornerstone. And then we expanded that into a visual language and it just all kind of started to make sense. Like there is a ton of runway here with with the cornstown idea. And so that informed the grid system over laying the cornerstone angular language. And I'm sure there's some mathematics is a lot of symmetry to it. But then we can start to pull out these shapes and to expand the visual language and these shapes to frame up our photography. And our speaker head shots and our digital assets where it all you know is part of storytelling, but it points back to our purpose statement. And when there's a lot ofhesion like that and there's integration that visual is aligned with the verbal and the core messaging. That was that like a hot moment wasn't quite there once we had that meeting that day, but we just went all in on that idea. Yeah, I was like the light bulb that went off. Yeah, to your design team that did an excellent job. Yeah, well, and I'll just throw it back to you. Again, just like staying on the train, you can stay on the train. It does. You don't have to know exactly where you're going to land yet, but like you get to stay on it, you're going to poke you're going to share when you're nervous, you're going to share when something's uncomfortable. Then you get through that you cut through that noise and you start to find a signal and you're like, oh my god, that's it. So you get like this resurgence. The projects are interesting. They have kind of highs and lows all of them. You get this high coming in with uncertainty of like we're really excited for this. We're going to start doing this and we've always wanted to do this. Then you can have a little bit of a low of the, uh, we don't really see the vision yet or we don't love it yet. And then you have this high of the, oh my god, that's it. And then you almost start to get another low sometimes on the back end of that, which is like I had the high and now we're just building, we're just building and building meaning like now and we're in the style guide phase and like we're just in typography. And really what you want to do is just get to the streets with it. Yes, maybe it's not a law. It's like an impatient space. There's a eager anticipation. That's a thing too. I mean, I think that's just such a great sign of if the team is really, really excited about where the visual identity was going really happy with where the verbal was. That's when you're like, let's get this out there, but we're understanding that there's a lot of work that he's been done in between to do it correctly. Yeah, do it purposefully. Yeah, yeah, well said props you in your background. I can tell on the way that you're speaking and even the way you just articulated that when we landed on the cornerstone and kind of opened up the idea to do that. Like you understood that. That's also helpful in the process, which I was even looking at today is like, then that cornerstone shape system animating. And then it's come to life, right? So it actually even has life to it to even though it's a little shape. It's like, you know, me and you as design guys were like, oh, let's go. Yeah, you know, you typically kind of see those things later in application. And 19 put together that little animation as part of that initial concept pitch. And like whoever decided to like include that, like, I don't even want to change much of it. We're going to change some of the images in between. I think there's stock photos. Okay, you know, the first draft of it, but I like that's it. You know, it talks about, you know, the dynamic and vibrant and adaptability and flexibility of the system. And we use that a very similar version of that with our brand launch that animation and we'll build from that. So yeah, when it comes to life, there's motion involved that that equates to value visually and dynamically at our events. And we all ties together very, very cohesively and that's all that was for yeah success. Yes, success. Is there anything that you didn't expect to happen in the project. I was in a vernacular quite honestly, like this doesn't just have to be the who raw the whole time. Was there anything that you're like, oh, that was unexpected. Yeah, that's a tough question. I've been a part of rebrand projects the past with really large teams in my agency days. And I came in with maybe a little bit of expectation. You know, and then also lay around like I'm leading this project. I'm in the seat to lead this and that's really excited. This is like a bucket list career project and milestone for me. And it wasn't anything like I thought it would would be. You know, it's like, well, you know, I mean, this is not apples the apples here. And let's focus on the work that you're doing now. Yeah. And that was someone unexpected in a really, really good way. And that's a testament to the process of your team. Walking through it step by step, phase by phase, deliverable by deliverable. And then we started in November of 24 late November. And so we had some out of office. We had some holidays in there. Yeah. What was unexpected is that when you make a big decision if you sleep on it, you might feel a little bit different about it. But if you take two weeks off, you're going to feel different. You can come all the way around. And so there were certain elements of where we're adding that phase of the project that I wasn't feeling. It wasn't resonating. I came back and like, you know what? There's something there's something here we can build from it. And we, I think we borrowed a couple of things and built it into that cornerstone. So that was a little unexpected too, because if I didn't like something going into a break, I probably wouldn't like it when I came back a week and a half later, whatever. Yeah. So yeah. All right. Cool. Yeah. For the people that are unaware of what next prophecy is, we close that focus lab for the last two weeks of the year. It's like for the people that start their project and that time period you're talking about, you start to get that initial lift off. And it's like, oh, we're on break. Let's say, uh, okay. But yeah, sometimes it works out in the favor of our clients extra time to sit with maybe a really critical deliverable. Kids sometimes be quite positive, right? These ideas, we say it all the time. And we started a new presentation that I don't even think you got, which is called the round one design, basically like this expectation presentation that Natalie created director gives. And it, and part of that she does talk about that like some of these ideas need to grow on you actually. It is okay if you do not love them at first, they kind of have to grow on you. That's a tough pitch, right? Because it is. Nobody really wants to hear that, right? You're like a paying a lot of money and I want to love it. And I know y'all do great work. So like, let's shoot for, I'm gonna love it. It's like, yeah, you might not though. - Right. - So yeah, cool. - Let's do that. - And that's fair. - Yeah, absolutely. - But we're gonna make sure that you're happy with it and that it works and that you do have a version of luck for it when we're done, right? All right, final question. I love that you mentioned this is a bucket list item. There was somebody else that was entering their bucket list rebrand project and you had to give them one thing to consider, to not do, et cetera. What would that one thing be? - I thought about this quite a bit and I came back to a simple idea and it's clarity. To seek clarity, real authentic clarity with your brand from day one. I should be clear who you are, what you do, how you do it and where you're going. So starting with clarity and keep coming back to it, especially in the process of the rebrand and talking about putting one front and front of the other, it's like let's come back to clarity and seeking clarity. It's not always easy. So I believe that if your brand isn't clear, it's not gonna connect. Connection is so critical. Connection and trust with our brand. So it was really important for us to keep it clear, honest and to continue to sharpen that over time. Can I do two? Please, all right, you can see, you're the first person to feed by the way. Come on, you're birth. It's your birth date. - It's my birth date. - Give me two. - No, take away, it's just good. So I talk about consistency so much internally here the Technology Association. My team knows this is one of my favorite words. So it's consistency. Another simple idea, but it's really, really hard to maintain and sustain with anything in life. Let alone a brand with complexity and layers to it. So consistency from day one, I talked about that from the top is showing up and prioritizing the exercises and the conversations and the feedback loop and the deliverables and really dissecting it and coming back with thoughtful, purposeful feedback, consistency there. And then throughout the entire process and the journey. So when we start to apply it across our channels and we're making decisions, being consistent afterwards too and how we show up. And really building from this excellent foundation that was built with the brand. Again, not a very easy thing to do, can be challenging, but I believe consistency over time equals credibility, belief and trust. And that's so critical in the work that we do. Especially if all the ingredients are done right. And that certainly was the case with working with your talented team. So I really appreciate that. - Appreciate that, Nick. Yeah, okay. So if everybody take that to heart, right? Which is this idea of know what the hell you're doing and why you're doing it. Whether that means you come in with your own strategic brief or your own set of pain points and just keep referring back to those. Don't get lost in the, oh, this looks cool or what if we did this and before you know it, you forget why you have started damn thing in the first place. - Absolutely. - And just show up consistently throughout the project. Everything else will largely take care of itself at that point, right? Like we've said multiple times. The journey is then just the journey. You go on it. - Yeah, embrace it. - Yeah. - All right, awesome, sir. Awesome, awesome, awesome. It was great to chat with you. I'm so happy for you all. Again, I see the work coming out. We're just proud to have supported you. I know the team loved working with you for me as an agency owner. That gives me fulfillment. - Sure. - When my team is just so thrilled with the people that we're working with. Are we doing good work with good people and is my team happy and fulfilled as well? - Yeah. - You checked my boxes, sir. There you go. You checked my boxes. - Love it. It's not about business about people. - Yeah, yeah. - You know what I'm saying, sir? - They're out here, so I really appreciate it. - Yeah. - All right, man. I'll see you out there on the internet. - All right. Appreciate it. - All right. - Yeah, man. - Ciao. (upbeat music)