Ironbound Consulting Group - Blog

Brand Growth from Fun Co-Branding

4/15/2022

Image: John Deere Busch Light

Corporate Challenge: Adding joy to a brand.

Ironbound Strategy: Co-Branding can create value for customers, employees, and society, especially when it is centered on fun.

Ironbound Action: Illinois based John Deere co-branded with AB-In Bev in spectacular fashion. In order to create value for society, John Deere is donating all profits from the sale of beer cans emblazoned with their tractors to farmers in need. As a valued visual brand, the green and gold cans appear celebratory, bringing pride to fans, customers and employees. Creating a fun co-branding strategy can generate insurmountable value when it brings joy to stakeholders.

* In the last 5 Years, John Deere’s stock has risen from $122 to $436 with a current 1% dividend yield ($134B Market Cap).

** In the last 5 Years, AB InBev’s stock has slipped from $116 to $58 with a current 2% dividend yield ($118B Market Cap).

Brand Growth from Mentoring the Next Generation

3/11/2022

Image: Apple Store

Corporate Challenge: Getting future customers to choose your brand.

Ironbound Strategy: Mentoring is a phenomenal way to create value for customers, employees, and society.

Ironbound Action: California based Apple is creating value for society by providing free mentorship programs around the world. The company is paying digital artists, photographers, musicians, DJ’s, and designers to teach underserved youths at Apple locations. Apple’s Creative Studios initiatives have 12-week immersive courses that teach youths how to leverage Apple’s platform and bring their hidden talents and creativity to the entire world. Mentoring is an excellent way of creating value for society. It also generates pride for employees, that their dedication at work helps make the world a better place.

* Apple’s annual revenue increased from $260.2 Billion in 2019, to $274.5 Billion in 2020, to $365.8 Billion in 2021.

Brand Growth from Helping Startups

2/11/2022

Image: Honeywell Sustainability Report

Corporate Challenge: Growing new market spaces by co-branding with startups

Ironbound Strategy: Align your brand with startups that create value for their customers, employees, and society.

Ironbound Action: North Carolina based Honeywell entered the building manufacturing marketspace by partnering with Nexii, an eco-friendly, near zero-waste, building panel startup. A year ago Nexii built Starbucks’s most eco-friendly store in just 6 days, using sustainably derived concrete panels that assembled on-site like a puzzle. Honeywell quickly moved to make a partnership with Nexii, to build their small and medium sized buildings, and help reduce Honeywell’s climate change impact. Honeywell hopes to convince clients who use Honeywell efficiency products to convert their buildings using Nexii technology as well. When a brand is committed to helping the environment, more of an impact can be made by teaming up with other brands on the same mission.

* Half of Honeywell’s R&D investment is directed towards positive social and environmental outcomes. In the last FY, Honeywell’s expenditure on R&D was $1.3 Billion.

** Last FY, Honeywell posted $34.4B in sales, with $5.6B net income.

*** Honeywell’s building solutions sales have flatlined around $2.3B after it spun-off its nearly $4B Homes and Global Distribution segment in 2018/2019.

Attracting Customers with Abundant Diversity

1/28/2022

Image: The North Face

Corporate Challenge: Making a brand unquestionably cool.

Ironbound Strategy: Celebrating diversity is a phenomenal way of creating value for customers, employees, and society.

Ironbound Action: California based The North Face has been sponsoring extreme expeditions since 1968. The brand is committed to furthering technology and innovation for athletes who sport in extreme environments, but the brand also wants to be a successful lifestyle brand. Over the last decade the company chose to sponsor diverse athletes to represent their brand and test futuristic equipment. Each diversity segment reached has helped The North Face re-position itself from a niche outdoor apparel brand to a successful lifestyle brand. The more diversity a company embraces, the more it succeeds at shattering goals.

* This blog article was inspired by extreme alpinist and one-legged climber, Vasu Sojitra, a North Face brand ambassador who summits peaks with the help of crutches, then skis down on one ski.

** The North Face sold itself to VF in 2000 for $25M. Last FY The North Face had revenues in excess of $360M.

*** The outdoor apparel market is $12B, while the lifestyle apparel market is $185B.

How to Join an ETF

12/10/2021

Image: John Deere Autonomous Tractor

Corporate Challenge: Increasing market-cap by getting into an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF).

Ironbound Strategy: Creating Extraordinary value for customers, employees, and society. makes your brand noticeable to disruptive ETF’s.

Ironbound Action: Illinois based John Deere has been making autonomous farming equipment for over 20 years. When the company decided to create more value for society by trying to develop autonomous mining vehicles, the idea of sending John Deere equipment into space for space exploration sparked interest. ARK’s space exploration ETF, ARKX, immediately adopted John Deere into their fund. ETF managers are always looking for companies to invest in. Creating value for stakeholders makes a brand get noticed by investors faster and more successfully.

* ARKX began trading on March 30, 2021, at $20.50 per share.

Becoming a Patriotic Brand

11/5/2021

Image: The Home Depot

Corporate Challenge: Promoting patriotism while creating stakeholder value.

Ironbound Strategy: Using a brand to enhance the lives of veterans is a great way to create value for customers, employees, and society.

Ironbound Action: Georgia based The Home Depot has renovated over 48,000 veteran homes, as part of an initiative to grow their brand among veterans. In the highly competitive home improvement market space, The Home Depot attracts veterans by offering 10% discounts (to 18.5M veterans, 7% of the US Population), while donating heavily to veterans causes. Creating value for veterans is a phenomenal way to grow pride among employees, attract new customers, and enhance patriotism in society.

* The Home Depot Foundation is expected to donate $500M to veterans causes by 2025, half of that amount is expected to be donated between 2018 and 2025.

** Home Depot has been known to hand out $5,000 at a time to registered non-profits in Community Impact Grants.

*** Veterans are more likely to have a bank account, take on debt, and purchase a house versus non-veterans in the same consumer category.

Brands Capitalizing on Memes

10/8/2021

Image: The Home Depot 12 Foot Skeleton

Corporate Challenge: Optimizing meme exposure.

Ironbound Strategy: Celebrating customer memes is a unique and contemporary way to create value for customers, employees, and society.

Ironbound Action: Georgia based The Home Depot created a 12 foot tall plastic skeleton for Halloween last year. Customers transported and posed them in laughable ways, which took the meme world by storm. For 2021, Home Depot created new versions of the #12ftSkeleton and promoted the original in an employee vest to poke some fun at themselves. Making instagrammable moments is great way to create value for your brand. Investing in memes that poke fun at your brand can elevate a brand’s status and draw in lifetime customers.

* The Home Depot sold out of all 12 foot Skeletons last year. Despite producing more of these Meme Giants, The Home Depot is expecting to sell out of them again this year, and began taking Halloween pre-orders in July.

** Reported revenues for The Home Depot increased from $110B in 2019 to $135B in 2020

Making Your Brand Carbon Neutral

9/3/2021

Image: Amgen Inc.

Corporate Challenge: Differentiating your brand to become relevant.

Ironbound Strategy: Creating value for customers, employees, and society is the fastest way to differentiate your brand.

Ironbound Action: California based Amgen announced its plan to be carbon neutral by 2027. Since 2007, it has already reduced carbon emissions by 33%. Younger consumers admire brands that are carbon neutral. Brands can quickly become relevant when they chart their path towards carbon neutrality, and share their progress. The media is quick to report it, providing free advertising, which gives brands an added lift.

* By 2027, Amgen plans to reduce water usage by a further 40% and waste by 75%.

** From 2007 to 2021, Amgen successfully reduced water consumption by 30%, and waste by 28%. New technologies will help Amgen accelerate their planet stewardship to reach their 2027 goals.

Brand Growth from STEM Education

8/6/2021

Image: Amgen Inc.

Corporate Challenge: Inspiring the next generation of employees and customers.

Ironbound Strategy: Creating value for underprivileged youths will engage your customers and employees, while creating phenomenal value for society.

Ironbound Action: California based Amgen has been involved in teaching biochemistry at underfunded high schools for over 30 years. Some of their students now work at Amgen. In 2017 Amgen put their curriculum online, reaching 900,000 students in 4 years. The company is now partnered with Harvard and EdX to bring laboratory based learning to the world. Creating Value for customers and employees generates sales; creating value for future customers and future employees generates sales for decades.

* Over 80% of high school students are not proficient in STEM. The rate at which American high school students pursued STEM stalled last decade, but is now growing with the help of corporate philanthropy.

** The current market size for STEM philanthropy is unquestionably massive. Any company can tap into this resource for future employees or future customers, and skyrocket their brand value in the coming decades.

Brand Growth from Guaranteeing Employment

7/2/2021

Image: The Home Depot

Corporate Challenge: Strategies to solve female underemployment.

Ironbound Strategy: Use the brand’s core values to help generate new stakeholder values for customers, employees, and society.

Ironbound Action: Georgia based The Home Depot discovered that over 30% of military spouses have college degrees but are underemployed because of frequent relocation. Since 78% of The Home Depot stores are within 20 miles of a military base, the home improvement retailer created a program to guarantee employment to all spouses after an active-duty relocation. Creating value for military spouses emboldens employees, builds pride for customers, and enriches society.

* With over 30% of new hires identifying as women, The Home Depot created the “Orange Women’s Network” to promote professional growth among female associates.

** The Home Depot employs over 400,000 associates in 2,300 stores, 35,000 of their associates are veterans. In 2021, The Home Depot was recognized as one of the top Military Employers for their 19th year in a row.

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