What happens when a brand still holds value — but no longer reflects who you’ve become?
In this episode of The Debrief, Focus Lab CEO Bill Kenney sits down with Nick Donovan, VP of Marketing and Communications at the Technology Association of Iowa (TAI), to explore how his team evolved an almost decade-old brand into a scalable system that better reflects who they are today.
With a background in graphic design and agency life, Nick brings sharp perspective on aligning purpose, messaging, and identity and what it really takes to bring a modern B2B brand to life.
You’ll hear:
- Why slowing down is essential to making smarter, more strategic brand decisions
- Why a deeper look at brand equity led to a more confident, focused refresh
- How to design a scalable system that unifies multiple sub-brands and programs
- How clear messaging enables more confident, consistent brand activation
Whether you’re planning a brand evolution or leading an identity rollout, this episode offers practical insight into what lasting, modern B2B branding really requires.Editor's Note: You’ll notice some of our video dips into lo-fi territory throughout this episode. We had some rendering issues, but thankfully the insights came through in HD.
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TRANSCRIPT:
[Bill Kenney]
Hey everyone. This is Bill Kenney, CEO, and co-founder of Focus Lab, a Global B2B branding agency. I'm back with another episode of The Debrief, a series where I sit down with past Focus 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 are 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 Comms at TAI that stands for the Technology Association of Iowa.
We had the pleasure of partnering with them. That brand is now live, and 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 inside agencies, so 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, uh, 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 gonna love this episode. Enjoy.
[Bill Kenney]
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.
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 damn at Focus Lab. So there, there you go. There's your happy birthday. Kudos. I threw it out. First stop.
[Nick Donovan]
Shout out Mason. She was great to work with. That's great.
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah, she's awesome. So now I've set you up as the man, the, the best person ever, why don't you, for the viewers and listeners, just tell people who you are and what you're doing.
[Nick Donovan]
Absolutely. I'm Nick Donovan. I lead marketing, communications and PR at the Technology Association of Iowa, TAI for short.
We're an industry development group focused on the technology sector and 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, they are members of TAI. In addition, we got members in academia and adjacent, uh, 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.
And that's the model we kind of go from. So that, in a nutshell, is what we do as an organization.
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah. Yeah. And you lead marketing very specifically.
[Nick Donovan]
Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. So I 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, and the value of membership.
And then there's certainly marketing tactics and the campaigns, and then the PR component and bringing that all back to the brand, you know? How we're perceived in the marketplace and in our community.
[Bill Kenney]
Okay. Perfect. Bridge then to the first question. because what you and I are gonna do is we're gonna relive the project.
Surprise, surprise for everybody watching. Not a surprise. We partnered on a project, but how did you know, like what was the catalyst of initiating this most recent branding effort?
[Nick Donovan]
The short answer is just time, you know? The last time that TAI rebranded was 2016.
And that predated my time with the organization. That's nearly a decade of the previous brand. So 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 years, there were some signs of misalignment.
And so our professional development programs, Iowa 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 or guidelines. So, we were kind of making decisions, and building the plane while it was in the air.
[Bill Kenney]
Okay.
[Nick Donovan]
And over time, you know, take different instances of that, it became 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, a simple answer. Straightforward answer. Yeah. Uh, it's been nine years.
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah, yeah. You know that 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. It might be because now they've merged with four other companies, so that's the complexity as a result.
Or they're pivoting and they're moving more enterprise. So that's the catalyst of the change and, but it's still that same statement. The current 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, solopreneur type. Then there's like smaller agencies, there's larger agencies.
Prices are all over the damn place. 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?
[Nick Donovan]
We took a look at a couple different angles, at 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.
We had a lot of integrated full service marketing agencies where, brand and brand strategy might be buried mid website where, you know, it's kind of like an add-on. On an exhaustive list of services. There's nothing against that, you know, 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 your other clients that process was really important.
Obviously 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 oftentimes, which means sometimes a limited budget.
And 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. Um, and we wanted to really focus on brand and brand only.
I've followed your guys' work for quite a while back in my agency days, I spent half my career in agency and in half my career in not-for-profit community space, and I remember back in the day, in the heyday of Dribbble, I was bookmarking Focus Lab’s 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 kudos 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 wanna 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, read your book, which is great, by the way. But there is where I got a lot more clarity on the process and trust built there.
So hopefully that kind of covers it in terms of like, yeah, it's the 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 look, walk and talk like a lot of your clients, but we're adjacent to a lot of those companies that I wouldn't be surprised if 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.
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah. Great. So we checked a lot of boxes. Yeah. Specificity being brand only. That that really works for us as a brand kind of position and how we've really niched down. And then to the B2B positioning of that, offering more tech centered also works well for us.
And man, those Dribbble 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've been following you for 10 years on Dribbble. Wow. We try to make waves. We try to be noisy. We try to always just be showing our work in the right places, showing our work in the right places. Well, I'm glad you've been following us. I'm glad you found us, because like Mason mentioned at the top of the show, it was a highlight partnership, so that's awesome.
[Nick Donovan]
Good, good.
[Bill Kenney]
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 that'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 priority.
It's not the big dog, big clients pulling the attention of the majority, and then we're just trying to kind of 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.
[Nick Donovan]
Right.
[Bill Kenney]
And it does seem that we hear a lot of that. Fear even in our kind of onboarding sales processes. 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.
[Nick Donovan]
Yeah. That was very clear from the top.
[Bill Kenney]
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 line of questioning, which is, what was the hardest part of the project? Great relationship. These projects are still challenging. They are. So what was, yeah, what was hard for you or your team?
[Nick Donovan]
Sure. As most successful organizations or companies, we work very quickly, very efficiently, and we have a very cyclical calendar. You know, we have certain events and certain programs that run throughout the year and we often are onto 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, 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 in engagement like this to really prioritize it. So grateful for my team for 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 this a full rebrand or was this a refresh?
[Bill Kenney]
Ah, yes, yes.
[Nick Donovan]
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 are we being too safe? Are we being 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 presentations now on the rebrand, or I'll call it a refresh. 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, Breton Clark, who's incredible after one particular meeting.
And I'm like, that didn't really go the way I thought. She's like, well maybe they're not used to clients talking that deeply about typography and kerning and color theory and stuff like that. So that was a bit of a challenge, but in a really, really good and positive way.
[Bill Kenney]
Okay, great. We embrace and hopefully you felt this, and you especially knew it by the end for sure ,that we embrace those conversations.
[Nick Donovan]
Mm-hmm.
[Bill Kenney]
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 like, okay, we're gonna start making some decisions. Are we gonna go down this path? Are we gonna go down that path? But that's really where the slowdown 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. Right. So it really is just about that journey.
[Nick Donovan]
Yeah, it is the journey and I can add onto that in terms of just staying the course and, you know, if there's a commitment and everybody's bought in and there's a lot of trust with the partnership, which there was, you know, 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. Ah, and it was like this thing where I'm like, oh, that's it.
Let's go. And then we went from there. So, yeah it’s just staying the course and being consistent.
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah. The light at the end of the tunnel is a little bit of a booby trap, right? 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.
[Nick Donovan]
Mm-hmm.
[Bill Kenney]
That really starts to hurt the project and not, not just for the agency, for the whole motion, right? So it's one foot in front of the other, knowing that you can take a step back if needed. Right. Not every week is chiseled in stone. And you can never move backwards.
Now we don't wanna move too many steps backwards, right? If we don't have to. Just stay committed 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?
[Nick Donovan]
I think just overall, you know, we can look internally at the team. It was an awesome team building experience. I come back to how our breakneck pace and the rapid pace that we work, we never really slowed 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 wanna 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, we moved 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 strengthening our team.
And if we continue to build that confidence and that belief with our team, they're equipped 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 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 a never ending journey that we can take.
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah.
[Nick Donovan]
Yeah, so there's no perfect time to, to kind of launch. We picked a strategic time, but really quickly as we continue to build, you know, we had a big inclusion event last week and seeing the sub-identity, 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.
[Bill Kenney]
Great. Uh, that, that event you're referencing there, is that the Catalyst?
[Nick Donovan]
That's the Catalyst.
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah. Awesome. I was looking at some of those pictures this morning, and kind of the sub-identity and how it works, and I'm like, man they're really cooking now.
[Nick Donovan]
Yeah. Yeah. That was, that was a cool one because that stepped a little bit outside of that primary identity, but it yes, certainly fits underneath the umbrella of the primary mark and the visual identity and all the verbal stuff that we're working on. And it is really cool to, you know, make decisions and come across different challenges.
We're looking at signage and what does the LED screen look like at the events? You know, applying the really core principles of the visual identity and, and verbal as well. It's been really rewarding to apply it.
[Bill Kenney]
Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I think you all are in a, seemingly, in a perfect spot of like, guardrails, but a lot of flexibility and opportunity.
Sometimes brands, and it can be for the right reasons, and even projects of our own, right? They can have a pretty tight sandbox.
[Nick Donovan]
Sure.
[Bill Kenney]
And after a while when you try to start spinning out new things, it can get a little bit repetitive. Right? Yeah. Like, so that shelf life starts to feel short and you have to get really creative on how you don't make everything just look the same all the time.
[Nick Donovan]
Absolutely.
[Bill Kenney]
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.
[Nick Donovan]
Yeah. And that was a priority in discussions. Emphasizing, number one, a sub-identity system. And we kind of borrowed some inspiration from a university kind of model where you got the university mark and seal and then the hierarchy underneath.
You got the colleges, departments, and student groups and buildings. Then underneath that you’ve got sub-brands and identities, and then over here you get the athletic department. The athletic department is kind of like our signature events. More dynamic, there's more vibrancy, but it all fits back underneath the umbrella of that primary identity.
The flexibility and adaptability there was key, but we needed more cohesion, we needed 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 end of the house, the production end of 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.
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah.
[Nick Donovan]
What was a key element as well, and 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.
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah. So you want to touch on that for a second? You hinted at an aha moment, which is like, every project has this, like their own version of the impasse of, this feels like a critical moment right now.
And I don't know if we're there yet, right? And 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 weeks, sometimes getting there in week 10. Yeah. And they're nervous as hell.
But then there is this release, the damn breaks, and you never know what will break it. And 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?
[Nick Donovan]
Yeah, absolutely. So we tackled those core messages first.
It was really important for us to, 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 mission statement. It's somewhat of a purpose statement, but it felt more like a marketing tagline and slogan and everything.
So we really prioritize that and we 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, our purpose is to uphold technology as the cornerstone of Iowa's growth.
So that was established and when we went into the visual identity phase, we certainly went from concepts that pushed us in some very uncomfortable areas and some concepts that were working. And that's where I was talking about, just put one foot in front of the other. We had a break over Christmas and I was like, I know we're gonna get there, but it's really tough to see right now.
Yeah. And we came back and your design team presented this idea of like, let's focus on this cornerstone. And this angular element, this bottom left to upright momentum that you can see in our logo mark. So it all came back to 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. I'm like, there is a ton of runway here with the cornerstone idea. And so, that informed the grid system overlaying the cornerstone, angular language.
And I'm sure there's some mathematics, there's 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 headshot and our digital assets. Where it all is part of storytelling, but it points back to our purpose statement.
And when there's cohesion like that and there's integration that the visual is aligned with the verbal and the core messaging. That was that, like, aha moment. It wasn't quite there once we had that meeting that day, but we just went all in on that idea on that. That was like the light bulb that went off.
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah. Awesome.
[Nick Donovan]
So kudos to your design team. They did an excellent job.
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah. Well, I'll just throw it back to you. Kudos to you for, again, just like staying on the train. You gotta stay on the train. You don't have to know exactly where you're gonna land yet, but you gotta stay on it. You gotta poke, you gotta share when you're nervous, you gotta 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.
[Nick Donovan]
That's it.
[Bill Kenney]
And you get like this resurgence. Yeah. Right. 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 gonna start doing this, and we've always wanted to do this.
[Nick Donovan]
Mm-hmm.
[Bill Kenney]
Then you can have a little bit of a lull of the uh oh, 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 lull 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 we're in the style guide phase and like we're purchasing typography. And really what you wanna do is just get to the streets with it.
[Nick Donovan]
Yes.
[Bill Kenney]
Maybe it's not a low, it's like an impatience phase
[Nick Donovan]
There's some eager anticipation, and that’s the thing, too. 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 understanding that there's a lot of work that needs to be done in between to do it correctly. Yeah. And to do it purposefully.
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well said. Um, props to you in your background. I can tell in the way that you're speaking and even the way you just articulated that when we landed on the cornerstone and it kind of opened up the idea to do this, like you understood that. That's also helpful in the process. Which I was even looking at today, is like that cornerstone shape system animating.
Yes, it can come to life, right? So it actually even has life to it too, even though it's a simple shape. It's like, you know, me and you as design guys, we're like, oh, let's go. This is it. Yeah.
[Nick Donovan]
And you typically kind of see those things later in application, and your design team put together that little animation as part of that initial concept pitch and like whoever decided to like include that.
Like, I don't, I don't even wanna change much of it. We're gonna change some of the images in between. I think there were some stock photos in the first draft of it, but I'm like, that's it. You know, and it talks about, you know, how dynamic and vibrant and the adaptability and flexibility of the system.
Like it's just, and we use a very similar version of that with our brand launch, that animation and we're continuing to build from that. So, yeah, when it comes to life, and there's motion involved, that equates to value visually and dynamically at our events, but it all ties together very, very cohesively. And that's all I was looking for.
[Bill Kenney]
Success. Yes. Success. Is there anything that you didn't expect to happen in the project? Positive or negative, quite honestly. Like, this doesn't just have to be the hoorah the whole time. Was there anything that you're like, oh, that was unexpected?
[Nick Donovan]
Yeah, that's a tough question. I've been a part of rebrand projects in 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 layer on like, I'm leading this project, I'm in the seat to lead this.
And that was really exciting. This is like a bucket list, career project, and milestone for me. And it wasn't anything like I thought it would be, you know, it's like, well, you dummy this is not apples to apples here, you know, and let's just focus on the work that you're doing now.
That was somewhat unexpected in a really, really good way. And that’s a testament to the process of your team. And walking through it step by step, phase by phase, and deliverable by deliverable. And then we started in November of 24, late November.
And so we had some out of office time. We had some holidays in there. 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 gonna feel different.
[Bill Kenney]
You come all the way back around. Yeah.
[Nick Donovan]
Yeah and so there were certain elements of where we're at in that phase of the project that, I wasn't feeling, it wasn't resonating. I came back, I'm like, you know what? There's something here we can build from, and I think we borrowed a couple things and built it into that cornerstone.
But 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 or whatever.
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah. All right, cool. Yeah. What, for the people that are unaware, what Nick's referencing is we close at Focus Lab for the last two weeks of the year.
It's like for the people that start their project in that time period you're talking about, you start to get that initial lift off and it's like, oh, we're on break. It's like. Huh. Okay. but yeah, sometimes it works out in the favor of our clients.
Extra time to sit with maybe a really critical deliverable can sometimes be quite positive, right? These ideas, we say it all the time. We've started a new presentation that I don't even think you've got, which is called the round one design. Basically like this expectation presentation that Natalie, our Creative 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?
[Nick Donovan]
It is.
[Bill Kenney]
Because nobody really wants to hear that, right? You're like, I'm paying a lot of money and I wanna 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. So yeah. Cool. Cool. Thanks for sharing that.
[Nick Donovan]
And that's fair. Yeah, absolutely.
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah. But we gotta make sure that you're happy with it and that it works and that you do have a version of love for it when we're done. Right. All right. Final question. I love that you mentioned this as a bucket list. Item.
If 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?
[Nick Donovan]
I thought about this quite a bit and I came back to, you know, a simple idea and its clarity. You know, to seek clarity, real, authentic clarity with your brand from day one. It should be clear who you are, what you do, how you do it, and where you're going. So start with clarity and keep coming back to it.
Especially in the process of the rebrand and talking about, putting one front in front of the other, it's like, let's come back to clarity and seek clarity. And it's not always easy, so I believe that if your brand isn't clear, it's not gonna connect and 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?
[Bill Kenney]
All right. You can cheat. You're the first person to cheat, by the way, Nick, on your, it's your birthday.
[Nick Donovan]
It's my birthday. Gimme two takeaways.
So I talk about consistency so much internally here at the Technology Association of Iowa, 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, like 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. You know, showing up and prioritizing the exercises and the conversations and the feedback loop and the deliverables and really dissecting it and, 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 in 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. It can be challenging, but I believe consistency over time equals credibility, belief, and, and trust. And that's so critical in the work that we do, um, 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.
[Bill Kenney]
Appreciate that, Nick. Yeah. Okay, so everybody take that to heart, right? Which is this idea of knowing what the hell you're doing and why you're doing it. Whether that means you come in with your own strategic brief and 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 the damn thing in the first place.
[Nick Donovan]
Mm-hmm. Absolutely.
[Bill Kenney]
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.
[Nick Donovan]
Embrace it.
[Bill Kenney]
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 when my team is just so thrilled with the people that we're working with. So we're doing good work with good people, and is my team happy and fulfilled as well. And you checked my boxes, sir. There you go. You checked my boxes.
[Nick Donovan]
Love it. It's not about business, it's about people. Yeah. Yes. Yes sir. I really appreciate it.
[Bill Kenney]
Alright, man. I'll see you out there on the internet.
[Nick Donovan]
Alright. Appreciate the time. Alright.
[Bill Kenney]
Yeah, man. Ciao.
