Today’s situation is very special. The history and life of brands have just been interrupted by this health crisis. We’re already seeing the emergence of a new kind of emotional marketing that promotes the values of “sustainability”.

The time is right to create an even more authentic bond with your customers and friends. The wind is in your favor to showcase your brand culture, and to share your culture with others!

The Wind Rose, a consulting and training firm that supports luxury brands, asked us to introduce ourselves since we work together.

Today, for our first podcast, we’re going to talk to you about our expertise, “how to build a brand strategy in a rapidly changing world.”

Katharina, you’re a former women’s magazine journalist who ran a major editorial department. You’re also the author of the best-selling Coco Chanel book “Style is me”. In addition to your beautiful pen, you’re a profiler who likes to understand customer expectations.

I’m also a former journalist who was in charge of launching new newspapers, including mademoiselle Figaro, and then worked as a branding specialist in an agency. I also have my madeleine de Proust, that of books, and I was a literary critic at Les Echos.

But today, our expertise lies in creating brand strategies to better win over and retain customers. To support you in this complex process, we’re creating a new storytelling style that goes far beyond simple content.

Our first step is to create a brand platform. Think of it as a real creative audit that analyzes your history, your values and your products, to offer you a vision with new ideas and perspectives, to understand and decipher your customers’ expectations and needs, to project your home into the future and become real influencers.

The Brand Platform, also known as the Brand Bible, is a 50 to 100-page document that sets out the guidelines for highlighting your image, your communication tools and your events program, always in line with who you are and what you want to convey.

To do this, we immerse ourselves in your world to define your new direction by creating a unique and exclusive message. This unique message is crucial to the successful development of your brand. We always insist on it. We dive into your archives, analyze your collections and inspirations, observe and read all brand information, and talk to all your staff, from marketing and sales to craftsmen. We also get to know your customer network, to understand their desires, expectations and cultural requirements. We rub our brains with everything that comes along. It could be a book, a film, an exhibition… we listen, we capture the little things of everyday life, attitudes, behaviors, topics of discussion, a headline in a newspaper that might catch our eye, a phrase, a mood… We consult sociologists, influencers and even philosophers. It’s a very nourishing part of our job, it’s our passion: finding the right formula for you.

When we have all this material, we enter the production phase: we establish a real railroad, as in the magazine press, to structure our ideas and create a plan with major chapters. The ideas start to germinate. We’re the guarantors of what people feel. We have to create a real alchemy between the brand and the customers! We’re alchemists!

We try to find the right word, the right hook, we cut, we chisel, we structure. It’s all quite playful. Katharina has a great eye and artistic sense, she chooses the images and creates a layout that could be worthy of a fashion magazine. Form and content are important. Now it’s ready for delivery. It usually takes between one and three months of work, including the back and forth with the client.

But today’s situation is quite special. The history and life of the brands have just been interrupted by this health crisis. Already, we’re seeing a new kind of emotional marketing flourishing everywhere, promoting the values of “sustainability” and the so-called “next world”. It’s true that now the link you’re going to recreate with your customers and friends will inevitably be more authentic, with a warm dialogue that will showcase your brand culture, and your culture in general.

Yes, every company has its own wonderful culture, which makes it a company you want to join, like a private club.

So, naturally, our second step is to offer you a collection of events to promote your brand with all our networks of influencers and press that will mark the year with encounters around the art of living, the arts, fashion and beauty surprises for your discerning clientele. Opportunities to learn and question together, creating a magical bond with your brand. These are also our reflexes as journalists of the prestigious women’s press: to propose new trends, new ideas with a clever mix of light and deep subjects.

Let’s take the example of an iconic French luxury footwear brand, Roger Vivier, which was looking to wake up the “sleeping beauty” and appeal to millennials who – contrary to popular belief – are very keen on meaning, roots and history in their purchasing decisions. The house that used to embody Parisian chic now does so with a new self-confidence: elegant, eccentric in its interpretation of the classics. The new scenario we’ve established for the teams enables all these employees to express their new dialogues, both in-house and on the networks. The House has taken off again.

So, yes, without a doubt, the moment is as singular as it is opportune:

• to humanize your brand
• to be proud of your values
• to establish a dialogue with customers
• to offer experiences
• build local communities
• go behind the scenes
• appeal to Millenials and Generation Z
• be the best ambassador for your culture

So affirm your storytelling, proclaim your unique message, be bold and create the surprise now!

Thank you for reading and see you soon!

Gaëtane and Katharina,
Consultants for The Wind Rose