Brainstorming doesn't work because brainstorming is not a creative process. But understanding how creativity works can help.

How do marketers looking to build a brand and grow their business decide among all of the creative agencies? Shinebox visionary Randy Larson explores this topic and gives 3 reasons to fire an agency that isn't delivering.

Shinebox recently underwent a brand refresh, led by Creative Director Kelsey Steffes! Learn why we chose to refresh vs. rebrand, our process, goals, and challenges.

Nearly every agency you can think of walks into their client’s conference room with a three-headed monster in tow: three options with not much of a choice. It’s time to reject that and expect your agency to get it right, once.

We come across many different forms of brand strategy in the work we do with clients. We’ve seen brand pyramids, brand matrices, brand promises, and brand stories. The result of these brand strategies is a focus on what the brand does for the audience. They may state things like “We provide the…” or “We inspire more….” WE, WE, WE. Most do contain some form of audience insight but fail to tap into a more powerful shared experience.

Disruption, the kind that transforms a business, often comes from things we cannot anticipate. From people we do not know. From social and cultural hot spots that we haven’t yet discovered. Effective discovery identifies these threads and offers brands an open door to differentiation, purpose, big ideas, growth and legacy staying power.

We're noticing a troubling trend. For too many agencies, winning awards appears to be more important than generating results.

We may not be at work together, but we're still working together — building big, beautiful ideas that drive growth. And as always, we're thankful for you: our friends, our colleagues, our clients, our neighbors.

We miss our favorite Minneapolis places as much as you do. So we put together a pack of North Loop Zoom backgrounds so you can put yourself in the heart of Minneapolis for your next Zoom meeting.

We're honored to bring home 5 new pins from AdFed 2019 The Show. We are doubly impressed at all the great work from an ultra-talented creative community. Congrats to everyone who submitted work and to all our peers and winners.