BRIGADE

During this project, I was the Chief Marketing Officer for Advancement at UMass Amherst. I was responsible for the strategic marketing communication initiative, focused on engaging stakeholders in meaningful interaction. We foster pride, advocacy, and philanthropic contributions from over 270,000 alums and donors worldwide.

Advancement encompasses all alumni engagement, including constituent engagement. We work with all of our campus partners and look collectively across the university to make sure we’re building pride within the campus. An important aspect of the work is making sure we’re unified in our communication with partners, deans, students, and alums.

Historically, UMass Amherst hasn’t always done a great job of building singular pride and engagement. Homecoming was an excellent opportunity to bring together all of our constituents under one event. BRIGADE helped us develop a theme for the event to reinforce the affinity of all aspects of philanthropy on and off campus.

We primarily had a main point of contact, but there were other people involved in the team.

They were recommended to me by a colleague who I have high regard and respect for. She showed me the branding work they did for her area on campus, and after meeting with them, I was truly blown away.

We spent about $100,000 in total.

We worked together from June 2019–May 2020.

We were measuring several metrics, including participation of our board members, deans, faculty, staff, and alumni through event registration. There was a marked increase in donors and dollars, as well as engagement with social media and merchandise sales. In fact, in the one year of our collaboration with BRIGADE, we increased key constituency engagement by tenfold.

They’re a very deadline-driven team, which made them invaluable partners. Also, working with one point of contact made the whole project very easy, seamless, and organized. BRIGADE was very collaborative, communicative, and responsive — on par with larger, well-known agencies across major cities. They exceeded our expectations.

Though they are results-driven, they’re not just doers. They’re great listeners, and they address the business issue well. BRIGADE is kind of like a secret weapon. For me, their unique selling proposition is that there was never any learning curve. They jumped into the project as adaptive and nimble partners, filling in wherever we had gaps. Aside from making us look great, that’s what made them so invaluable.

I can’t think of anything. They were proactive, multi-disciplinary problem solvers. If anything, they could tout their own agency more — though I don’t want them to get too busy.

I’ve recommended them to several of my peers, because BRIGADE really takes the worries off your shoulders. They’re what I would look for from any team.

I am the Brand Lead of a supplements company

We make science-backed herbal supplements.

Online Search

Great culture fit

2-5 Employees

Branding the project: We asked Brigade to craft the entire brand narrative for us from initial strategy to messaging & communication of it.

The reason we chose Brigade is while other agences gave us long timelines, Brigade was incredible about meeting us in the middle with our very tight timeline. The team worked to deliver our brand strategy and packaging design in a matter of weeks – something other agencies were unable to deliver on.

They were prompt on email, always available to hop on a call, and supremely organised in everything they delivered to us.

Virtual Meeting

The TEAM! Kirsten – the founder – promised us on the very first call that we wouldn't be disappointed and we weren't. The team really showed up for us like family and became an extension of our organization very quickly.

NOTHING from us here and I'm glad to say so.

I am the CMO of ConvenientMD

Urgent Care and Primary Care provider

Referral

2-5 Employees

Brigade is very responsive and sticks to their deadlines. They proactively drive all the projects and can adapt when directions change.

They behave as a true partner, seeking to not only understand the project, but our business as a whole so that they can bring forward the best solution.

No. Very much enjoy working with Brigade.

I’m the COO of Dean's Beans Organic Coffee. We’re a 30-year-old organic fair-trade coffee company based in Massachusetts. We do direct trade with coffee farmers worldwide and cooperative community development projects with the coffee farming communities.

We wanted to get a new logo and elevate our one-pound coffee bags and brand design.

BRIGADE provided branding, marketing, and design services. Initially, we gave them extensive information about our coffee, the countries we source from, and our work in the coffee lands. We worked together on the background information so they’d have a solid foundation.

We worked with Kirsten (Executive Creative Director), Liz (Development Manager), and the design team.

We found them through word of mouth in our region and looked at their website and client list. We also researched the websites and brand presence of some of their clients. After interviewing a couple of design and marketing companies, we decided to work with them.

We spent $60,000 on the project.

We worked with them on that project from July 2019–April 2020; it was an extensive nine-month process. Additionally, we started working with them again this summer for another series of projects.

Our customers love the bags; we get a lot of positive feedback from our wholesale and retail customers on the packaging. BRIGADE also won a couple of industry awards for package design.

Project management was excellent. They had a great level of communication about the project; they kept us posted on the progress and timeline. If they made changes or the project's complexity changed, they were clear about the financial impact. We communicated through email, phone calls, and Zoom meetings. Overall, they were strong in their management.

They had a tremendous amount of integrity as a company and team. We consistently felt that we could trust them to deliver extraordinary work. They listened well and were responsive to what they heard. Many designers don’t listen well to clients and just do what they do. However, BRIGADE always came back with a direct response to our wants and needs.

No, I can’t think of any area they could’ve improved.

Be clear about the outcome that you want and communicate it to them. Also, it’s better to have someone as the point person to coordinate the collaboration. For example, their project manager worked directly with me, and then I shared the information with my team so it’d be streamlined and focused.

I’m the COO of a beverage company. We develop sodas, teas, lemonades, and non-alcoholic beers.

We were developing a new line of beverages, and although we’ve been in business for decades, this line was a new venture for us. Therefore, we wanted to create a product image that looked different, so we needed help from an external partner who could take our vision and make it into something real that our customers would love.

BRIGADE has helped us come up with the name, look and feel, colors, and messaging for our new venture. Basically, they’ve taken the DNA and basis of our new brand and translated it into something real.

We’ve worked with Kirsten (Founder & Executive Creative Director), Joe and Robert (Creative Directors), and Liz (Development Manager).

Another company in the industry recommended them.

We’ve spent $47,000.

We started working together in July 2022, and our engagement is ongoing.

Each design option that BRIGADE has delivered has been optimal; their designs are very thoughtful and have great colors. Additionally, they excel at not only designing attractive cans but also understanding the science behind how the consumer’s brain works and the sequencing of how their eye will look at the package.

BRIGADE has performed excellently, and they’ve been on top of deadlines. We had a pretty aggressive deadline initially, but their team was already delivering a product that met our expectations within a couple of days after starting our engagement. We generally communicate via email and phone calls.

Working with other companies has usually been challenging for me because some of them are very good at pitching their services, but the end products turn out to be different from what was originally promised. However, we can tell that BRIGADE acts as an arm of our team, almost as an equity partner, and they care about what we’re trying to accomplish. Their team is very involved and on top of our project, and they deliver quality work as a result, which gives us a lot of comfort and confidence in the whole process.

No. I don’t have any constructive feedback.

Have your feedback and your internal mechanisms for providing feedback ready because BRIGADE takes feedback very seriously. The more nuance you can provide them with regarding what you like and dislike about their deliverables, the better they’ll translate that feedback into something that meets your expectations.