Emery specializes in brand strategy at inflection points, including rebrands, repositioning, mergers, leadership transitions, rapid growth, and mission evolution. Our work focuses on helping organizations align their identity, narrative, and experience with where they’re going next.

An inflection point is a moment when a brand’s current story no longer matches its future direction. This often happens during growth, disruption, crisis, or reinvention. At these moments, brand strategy isn’t cosmetic—it’s foundational.

Emery works with ambitious SMBs, startups, and mission-driven organizations, including non-profits. Our clients are typically founder-led or leadership-driven teams who see brand as a strategic lever, not just a visual asset.

We work across industries — including technology, personal brands, funded startups, healthcare, social impact, professional services, and consumer brands. Our approach is industry-agnostic but deeply audience-specific.

Emery is both strategic and fast. We don’t start with logos or taglines—we start with truth. Our team works quickly, often through focused, in-person strategy sprints, to clarify positioning, purpose, and narrative before any creative execution. This ensures brand decisions are durable, human, and commercially effective.

Emery offers brand strategy, positioning, messaging, verbal identity, and brand architecture. We also support rebrands, brand transformations, and leadership alignment engagements.

Yes—Emery has an award-winning in-house creative director and designer who can lead logo design and visual identity when it supports the broader strategy. Our work is always strategy-first: we help clients define what their brand stands for before deciding how it looks. When additional execution support is needed, we also partner with trusted creative collaborators to ensure the work is done at the highest level.

Emery’s brand strategy process is built for organizations navigating inflection points—moments of growth, change, or uncertainty when a brand’s current story no longer matches its future direction. These moments often come with confusion, misalignment, or competing priorities. Our process is designed to restore clarity and momentum.

We work through the 3 P’s: Purpose, Personality, and Practices.

Purpose clarifies why the organization exists and the role it plays beyond its products or services. At inflection points, purpose acts as a north star—helping leaders make aligned decisions when the path forward feels unclear.

Personality defines how the brand shows up in the world. We articulate the brand’s character, voice, and behavioral traits so it feels human, consistent, and recognizable, even as the organization evolves.

Practices translate purpose and personality into action. We define the behaviors, principles, and ways of working that ensure the brand is lived internally and experienced externally, not just communicated.

Clients gain clarity, alignment, and confidence. This often results in stronger differentiation, clearer messaging, better internal alignment, and increased relevance with customers and stakeholders... not to mention consistently higher brand valuations. Examples available on request.

Most brand strategy engagements last between 8 and 16 weeks, depending on scope and organizational complexity.

Brand strategy engagements typically range from $25,000 to $100,000, depending on scope, depth, and organizational needs.

Yes, when the leadership team is ready to think strategically about positioning, narrative, and long-term differentiation—not just short-term growth hacks.

Yes. We work with non-profits and social impact organizations — like Paul McCartney's non-profit, for example — that need to articulate their mission clearly, attract funding, and build trust with diverse audiences.

We believe brands are living systems, not static assets. The strongest brands are human, coherent, and culturally aware—and they evolve intentionally as organizations grow.

Brand purpose is not a slogan. We help organizations define a purpose that is authentic, operational, and actionable—one that guides behavior, not just marketing.

Yes, this is where Emery's true value shines brightest. We frequently work with organizations navigating brand confusion, loss of relevance, or strategic misalignment. These moments often become the most powerful opportunities for reinvention.

Our effectiveness comes from decades of being in the trenches behind some of the world's most beloved brands. We employ deep listening, disciplined thinking, and clear articulation. We help leaders see their brand from the outside in—and then build a strategy that works in the real world.

Emery works remotely with clients across the United States and internationally, with clients in the UK as well as Africa.

If you’re facing change, growth, or uncertainty—and believe your brand should be a strategic advantage during this inflection point—Emery is likely a strong fit.

You can reach out through our website to schedule an introductory conversation with our founder, John Emery (https://emery.com/john). We begin every engagement by understanding your inflection point and determining whether we’re the right partner.