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Root + River

a beliefs-based branding strategic consulting team

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Connecting the Dots from Mission to Brand

December 14, 2020 By Jennifer Lawhead

An Entrepreneurial Journey of Monetizing Your Mission A rare yet not impossible sequence of events: Seeing a need in the world that sparks a personal mission That mission inspires a product The production of that product turns into a business That business becomes a vehicle for not only serving the injustice but also for inviting others into the mission And the cycle goes round ...

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3 Mistakes You Could Be Making When Telling Stories

November 11, 2020 By Jennifer Lawhead

By Jennifer Lawhead Telling stories about your brand is easy. But practicing storytelling in a way that perks up the ears of those you want to reach, encourages dynamic dialogue and subtly reveals something important about your brand in the process? This skill, my friends, is difficult. “I’ve tried telling stories about my brand before, but they’re not having the impact on our audience ...

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Vision is a marriage, not a hookup

January 14, 2020 By Justin Foster

By Emily Soccorsy + Justin Foster You always have to know more about where your brand is going than the marketplace. This is the role of vision for your brand. Vision prevents reactiveness. And reactiveness is the enemy of great branding. Reactiveness as a brand dilutes your ability to be memorable, to have a sustained impact or result and it wastes your time and energy. Without vision, you ...

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How Do I Do Big Marketing With A Small Team?

December 13, 2019 By Emily

As the director of marketing, you are one person. You are one person who acts as the chief mouthpiece, the brilliant broadcaster and the tenacious town crier for your big organization. With limited resources, it’s up to you to manage publicity, message, brand voice, campaigns, digital, visuals, and video, all while vetting new marketing advice and services, newfangled technology and CEOs who ...

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Podcast Appearances

June 20, 2019 By Emily

        Throughout the various podcasts that we’ve been grateful to appear on, it has been such a joy to speak to other experienced leaders who share similar passions as we do. Having the opportunity to help guide visionary leaders convey their message to the world is extremely rewarding, especially when they are ready to let their true self reflect in the ...

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Find the Flow, F (orget) the Formula

April 22, 2019 By Emily

By Emily Soccorsy and Justin Foster The marketing world is over-saturated with formulas. This is because formulas are intended to remove uncertainty. And because uncertainty is the boondoggle of human existence. There’s no way to remove uncertainty, folks. Life is uncertainty. And as part of that: all formulas are flawed. Most formulas only work for some people, some of the time. That’s the ...

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Ungrateful about marketing?

November 19, 2018 By Jackson

Marketing is a little bit like a Rodney Dangerfield quote. It can’t get no respect. Everybody in the business wants great marketing and basically nobody wants to do great marketing. This is fueled by an Industrial Age bias in many leaders that marketing still follows a direct, linear path. That there’s a straight line between Product A and Audience B. Leaders want marketing to be simple. ...

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What is your brand’s MLE (minimum level of excellence)?

October 1, 2018 By Jackson

By Emily Soccorsy and Justin Foster A brand is an organic, living thing. It is both a practice and a discipline. And yet there is also a baseline, or minimum, level of organic environmental excellence to create for your brand to grow and thrive. Without this brand primordial soup, you may inadvertently stunt the growth of your brand and reduce its vibrancy and reach. Most people begin ...

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Small Brands: Storytelling is Yours for the Taking

March 23, 2018 By Jennifer Lawhead

  6 Easy Steps to Creating a Storytelling Flow Storytelling — it’s one of the hottest buzzwords in marketing today. Everyone wants to tell stories, and do it in a way that gets others excited about their brand. Some of the biggest modern-day brands agree, and have employed a storytelling strategy to great success. Starbucks launched its Upstanders campaign, stories of altruistic customers ...

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Who the heck is my target audience?

October 9, 2017 By Emily

Editor’s Note: As we move into the last two seasons of the year, we are answering questions people have repeatedly asked us about branding and marketing. Let’s start with this bit of heresy … there are no target audiences. One reason is practical: traditional demographics have broken audiences into chunks, which have been shattered into even smaller groups. So there’s no singular ...

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Co-Founder @emilyatlarge was recently asked about ...

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Co-Founder @emilyatlarge was recently asked about intentions.“No words came to me,” she writes. “Instead, my heart filled, my mind flooded with emotional visuals, forms and feelings blending seamlessly into one another. (This is how most important ideas begin within me.)”Read more about why she doesn’t do resolutions and her unique process for setting intentions. Link in bio

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In the years I spent as part of a fundamentalist ...

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In the years I spent as part of a fundamentalist church, “Grow where you’re planted” was a common trope. It was typically used as an admonishment to someone’s complaining about their circumstances, writes @fosterthinking.The phrase is an adapted relic of survival. While its roots are in hope, it’s usage in contemporary times encourages hopelessness, he continues.Visit the link in bio to read Justin’s three tips if you’re stuck in a survival situation or mindset.

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For those of you who are new here, welcome! We’d...

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For those of you who are new here, welcome! We’d love to share a little bit about who we are.We are a team of four (from left): Jen, Justin, Emily and Cat. Our mission is to inspire others to go inward. We are the founders of intrinsic branding, the practice of building your brand from the inside out. No cheesy gimmicks or taglines allowed in our work.A few more facts about us: We are defiers. Each of us have stories about going against the status quo, shaking up the stale and trying new things.  We are teachers. Our team loves guiding others, teaching new concepts and freely sharing what we know. Plus, Cat was an actual teacher earlier in her career! We are a silly bunch. Ask Justin about his library of Dad jokes.Drop us a line below to say hi and ask us a question.Photo credit: Jean Laninga
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We believe all great brands are spiritual experiences. Branding is an experience that will change you. It will shift the borders of your thinking and give you a practical framework for how to collectively carry the brand forward.

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