Build on the brand of employees

In a small business, it is often the case that the employee brand plays an important role in boosting (or sinking) the business brand. This phenomenon is accentuated when the business is a new business just getting off the ground. Just think of the products and services that you’ve tried because a friend of yours works there or the Facebook likes you have given away to support an acquaintance that you professionally admire.

How does this look in practice? In this article I talk about efoxx Hair, a boutique salon in Sherman Oaks, California founded by Eric Fox and Braden Weinstock.

What I find particularly innovative about this salon is how it decided to break from the typical salon model where stylist rent a “chair” in the salon to a more collaborative model that aligns the salon’s and the stylist’s interest. efoxx recognizes that the difference between a good and a great hair stylist is talent and an environment that fosters and polishes that talent. This is a manifestation of the values of the salon, the value for individuality, for artistry, and for talent.

efoxx Hair highlights the work of its stylist’s, referred to as artists on their website. On the digital front, efoxx was aligning its communication strategy with its business strategy and core values. What about their offline communication? efoxx Hair organizes events to showcase their hair and beauty, product, weddings and photo shoots expertise. Of course, at these networking events members of the efoxx team give away business cards. In evaluating the design of their business cards, Eric and Braden realized that the design of this component of their offline communication did not tell the efoxx-artist story as well as they hoped and turned to me for a solution.

After understanding the values of efoxx Hair and how they translate into design constraints it was straight forward to identify the gap in the story that the efoxx business card, at the time, did not meet well: it needed to boost the communication of the artists brand and individuality. To do this, I proposed a two sided business card. One side to showcase the efoxx brand and one to showcase the artist’s brand. However, just using one side to add the contact information of an artists is not enough to convey a sense of individual boldness and talent. To complete the story I added a large single-letter monogram.

The result was a practical design that conforms to the functions of a business card but that feels more personal. The response from the efoxx artists was “we love them”. Although the design turned out to be quite simple, simplicity was not the goal. The goal was to align a piece of communication, the business card, with the story of a business. In the words of a Paul Rand

“Simplicity is not the goal. It is the by-product of a good idea and modest expectations.”