speaker-1 (00:00)
we all know garbage in, garbage out. For me, it's gold in, gold out. You really have to be thoughtful about what you're feeding the AI so that you're giving it brilliant, relevant content to, to move forward with.
speaker-0 (00:15)
Welcome back to another episode of content amplified today. I'm joined by Lee Lee. Welcome to the show.
speaker-1 (00:20)
Thank you, Ben. Happy to be here.
speaker-0 (00:22)
Lee, I'm excited. This is going to be a great conversation. It's just going to be a ton of fun and your experience is spot on for this. And I think there's a lot to learn, but before we dive in, let's get to know you. If you don't mind sharing your background, work history, career, all that good stuff, it'd be great for the audience to get to know you.
speaker-1 (00:38)
Sure. Lee Fenner, and I am a New Englander. And the through line really is that I am a writer. And I started as a journalist. I transitioned over to marketing and landed at a couple of agencies, a global branding and multidisciplinary design firm called Fitch, which was just a very special, very special place. And then transitioned to ⁓
Boston-based national ad agency, a marketing firm called Hill Holiday, where I was a strategist and writer and a lead on corporate identity and design projects. we, it was really well known as an ad agency, but they wanted to broaden the capabilities and so focused on brand branding, brand identity development, brand management. So that's what we did there and set up.
broad range of clients, everything from Dunkin' Donuts to tech and biotech, financial services, you name it. really, you have to be adaptable in the agency life. I worked with a lot of people who were just so good at what they did, and I learned a ton there. And then I decided to leverage what I learned at agencies, transitioned to the
nonprofit sector and I lead an in-house team, small but mighty team, very capable, very talented folks. And it's a large nonprofit organization where where we're currently, Action for Boston Community Development. It's 75 programs or so. I really do think of it a lot like a huge corporation with many SBUs and they're they're disparate. You know, it's kind of like GE making blenders and GE making
satellites or jet engines. So it's varied work, it's frenetic work, it's creative work, and the goal for us is to tell stories in a compelling way that will actually have an impact on people and the communities. So we have a bunch of different stakeholders. Of course, we're thinking about donors and philanthropists, but also just really being an important part of the
of the greater Boston community.
speaker-0 (02:44)
I love that. That's amazing. I was saying before we recorded, I'm so jealous of anyone who gets to work in the nonprofit sector to work and doing good day in and day out. I think this is amazing. Lee, your experience hearing all of that, you have seen a lot of brands and a lot of stories being told throughout your career. And that's really where we're going to focus today.
how a deep understanding of brand identity drives consistent and adaptable marketing. when it comes to refreshing a brand identity or defining a brand identity, where do you start? I mean, you've seen a million of them. Where do you start in that process?
speaker-1 (03:23)
Of course, can be a formulaic process, but at its best, it is a really vital process that gets to who you are as an organization. So I think in terms of brand essence and brand promise. regardless of what you are, you're a SaaS, you're a retailer, you really want to understand that your brand should have a soul. It should have that essence, a reason for being, and really understand
why you exist and who you're serving, who your stakeholders are, who your audience is, and of course, what promises are you making. And boiling all that down, I think it involves a lot of active listening and good research and then crystallizing everything into foundations of a brand. Those are mission, vision, values, brand personality, really coming up with attributes.
that feel like, this is who we are in the long term, but we're going to have enough flexibility to express different aspects of our personality and perhaps in different products and services. So consistency with flexibility is also key.
speaker-0 (04:35)
I love that. So when it comes to actual practice, right, you've done the act of listening, you have identified your brand, you did the deep research, you have those values and have written and understood who you are as a brand. When you take that and turn it into marketing in different channels or different places, how does that translate into actual
materialize content or promotions or messaging. How does that work in a consistent way?
speaker-1 (05:07)
Yeah, you know, it does come down to creative interpretation. So I think that, of course, two or three different teams given the same positioning and points of difference and all of the other foundational pieces will likely generate very different look and feel, voice. But they won't be so far afield from one another. There should be something like that is
holding it all together. So you really want coherence. I think of an example. One of my favorite examples is when I was working at Fitch, which was, as I said, it was a global design firm, multidisciplinary design firm, really about brand experience and brand innovation. They, a few years ago, acquired by Landor, which also does fantastic work.
When we were approached by two partners who wanted to start a new company and they were focused on, they had a new technology they were licensing, they were going to make a peripheral, a mouse for gamers. And the technology would make it much, much more precise, much faster than any mouse. So as we were talking to them and really doing some discovery and exploring like, what can this mean? Actually, this can redefine the category. It's that kind of product.
Fitch did the product design and development, by the way, very talented team. Started with research, went to product design and development, and went over to brand communications. And they also needed a name. And so as we talked about, like, all right, what does it take to take out a mouse? Your opponent, it's really going to be focused on gamers, right? And it has become an amazing gaming brand, a subculture, frankly.
So what would it take to take out a mouse? What eats mice? Snakes. I just thought, a snake can eat a mouse. It's like there's no competition. it was a brand that was really coming together in terms of hardcore features like speed and precision, but also attitude. And there was a little sense of fun. They were totally open to that. thought, well, precision.
sharpness that was really just kind of a really kind of interesting intriguing verbal exercise and where the name razor came from r a z e r is a combination of razor razor sharp r a z o r but also raise as in destroying you're going to destroy your opponent i am a pacifist but i know you know this is how games work so razor is really a combination of those two words and then
when it came to the product they were launching, were two versions of this turbocharged mouse. And going back to like, okay, snakes eat mice. Then I just dived into, I'll tell you where I got it was the Encyclopedia Britannica at the time. We did, I was online, but I'm also like, let me just see if I flip through these pages and the old school analog way and it worked. saw this.
photo of a boomslang, a snake, venomous, deadly, and it was black and this like phosphorescent green and those became the brand colors.
speaker-0 (08:14)
I love that. That's so cool because that's a brand I've used before plenty of times. And as you're telling the story, it makes perfect sense behind the logo, the color scheme and the brand, the identity. I think that's so cool. One thing that I'm loving in this conversation as well, besides the amazing stories, is the flexibility side of things. I think sometimes when we create a brand,
It's difficult to relinquish some of the control and you're preaching this message of flexibility. How do you define in a brand the things that can't change and the areas where you're okay with people taking some creative freedoms? Yeah. Cause obviously there are lines that shouldn't be crossed. How do you manage that?
speaker-1 (08:58)
Yeah, it's such a great question and it has changed a lot in the past couple of decades where it used to be, when you develop a brand identity, a logo, a name, a logo, the color palette, the typography, the photo style, all of those pieces in the toolbox, it was like martial law. You don't mess with this logo, for example.
That did change with user generated content, with fan fiction, with more engagement with your audiences and people who identify with your brands. while I'm a little bit of a purist, think you really have to always go back to, for example, that logo. Now you see, of course, everything's animated. Colors can change. also depends on
the brand, the sector, the budget. If you're a huge global corporation and you've got a billion dollars to spend on marketing, you're going to be able to own a lot of channels and reinforce your message, reinforce your identity, and play more. In other cases, as you're building a brand with a smaller budget, then I think it's really important to just really be focused and disciplined with how you express it.
But there is more, there is room. of course there are the channels demand different things, right? Different formats. If a podcast is audio, you have to think that way and describe something visual. And there are things that you might want to think about how different executive communications are from a social post. So you've got to have that, what's the voice, what's the personality and how do I express it?
you know, from the C-suite versus, you know, maybe having some fun and being looser on social. So it really, I think it has, it calls for very clear guidelines and judicious execution.
speaker-0 (10:47)
I love that. That's amazing. Well, we are almost out of time, Lee. So I'm curious about one final question. This is a hot subject for not just marketers, but anyone who is at all involved in technology or anything at all, artificial intelligence. When it comes to branding and your identity and marketing, how are you using AI in a productive way?
And also maybe not in an overstepping way, but how do you utilize the technology in a meaningful way?
speaker-1 (11:20)
Yeah, I think we're all learning. I know there's wisdom in being cautious. I think that we do need guardrails, of course. I'm finding it, I absolutely am so excited about what you can do with AI and what machine learning means and robotics to come. mean, it's just mind blowing. Our team is using it really as a collaborator right now.
I do, I draw the line. I don't want the AI coming up with the big concepts, the creative ideas, but we're collaborating, certainly research, some strategic direction. Oh yeah, I hadn't thought about that. And some, know, execution of some things, for example, a press release. You know, we did it. We just did a huge basketball benefit at TV Garden called Hoop Dreams, proceeds go to our youth programs. It's a
It's a really fun thing, one important thing, Ben, is, is like,
we all know garbage in, garbage out. For me, it's gold in, gold out. You really have to be thoughtful about what you're feeding the AI so that you're giving it brilliant, relevant content to, to move forward with.
And so, you know, I, was talking to my, colleague who manages public relations.
We had so many things going on that I just said, look, I'm going to feed this some good food about this Hoop Dreams event, and it's going to generate the press release. And that's OK, because what I need you to do is cultivate relationships. know, it really just, I find it to be a phenomenal resource. I won't call it a tool. It is a whole new world.
But I think that there are things where that we can we can generate that are you know, high quality You want to always review it make sure it's on on brand the voice is yours Because I've also had the experience where say I drafted something popped it in. Hey, well are these three? executive Remark groups of remarks are these flowing in is there what's the structure? would you do? What would you say about that? And it said well, would you like me to like?
Rephrase it. I said yeah, give it a shot. Go ahead. Go ahead and It generated stuff that was more vanilla. It was too vanilla, you know, lost it lost the essence it lost some key devices like alliteration and you know metaphor and You know not that's not always the case. I have also been absolutely astonished by how how great some of the output is like
for me, for personal projects. But I think, you know, we're still learning and we're still figuring out how to leverage, how to collaborate and how to maximize it. So I would just say, I'm using it like crazy. We all are using it like crazy, but I think we have to be really careful and mindful and remember, don't lose sight of your brand foundations and, you know, make sure that it aligns with what you're trying to accomplish.
speaker-0 (14:16)
I love that. absolutely. You're focused on the quality of the output and you'll use the available resources to get there, but you can never let the quality suffer. And I love that as well. So that's so cool. Lee, thank you so much for the time today. We love your perspective. The audience I'm sure is going to love this. For anyone who is listening and would like to reach out and connect with you online, how and where can they find you?
speaker-1 (14:39)
LeeFener.com, L-E-E-P-H-E-N-N-E-R. I'd love to hear from you.
speaker-0 (14:45)
Love it. And for anyone listening, we will link to the website in the show notes below. So listen to this episode, scroll down, click on the link and connect with Lee there. Lee, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I really do appreciate the time and insights today.
speaker-1 (14:58)
Thank you so much, Ben. It's been a pleasure.
