Clear insights, hard-nosed strategic thinking and inspired creative direction are necessary to launch your new company, new products and/or new marketing initiatives.

Unlike most consultants, we have decades of hands-on experience actually doing the things we are strategizing, directing or integrating. We understand the processes involved in making things happen. We've developed our expertise the hard way.

For this reason, we are exceptionally good at working with technical teams. We can translate business requirements and goals into clear creative and technical specs. We also help identify opportunities made possible by new technologies.

If you are starting from scratch, updating an existing brand, or entering new markets, you will benefit from an emphasis on coherence. We help align core strategy, branding, product development, marketing and communications into an integrated whole, each element supporting the others, enhancing effectiveness and maximizing your return on investment.

Whether you are a Fortune 1000 company already working with major consultancies, a VC-funded start-up, or a mid-sized company looking to transform your business model or enter new markets, we can help. We have worked closely with IBM, Cap-Gemini/Ernst & Young and McKinsey consultants and former consultants. And, of course, we work solo, offering a flexible menu of high-level, high-value expertise at competitive rates.

CAPABILITIES
The Montibon Company provides Management Consulting and Creative Direction:

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M A N A G E M E N T   C O N S U L T I N G

Corporate Strategy
Identifying market opportunities and implementing innovative strategies to solve problems and achieve mindshare, growth and profitability in today's chaotic and ever-changing world is a challenge. Clarity regarding core competencies, evolving your business model, integrating new tools and technologies and achieving a thorough understanding of one's target market are key.

Developing a robust strategy for achieving every goal, coupled with a supporting set of tactical initiatives organized into an achievable roadmap (with supporting human and technical resources and logistics) forms the basis for an effective strategic approach to business.

Market Positioning
Positioning your company, product line or services in the marketplace is a key factor in increasing the likelihood of success. Identifying your target audience(s), competitive analysis, market analysis, as well as a thorough street-level understanding of your customer's mind-set and the strategies of your competition help guide how your offering is positioned.

Corporate Communications
Internal and external communications can take many forms: annual reports, business plans, live presentations, promotions, webinars, e-newsletters, forums, blogs, tweets and other social media vehicles. It is important that every communication is consistent with, and reinforces the brand.

Customer Experience
Content Management Systems (CMS) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms, if properly integrated, can make direct interaction with your customer much easier. Knowing who you are communicating to, and what their relationship is to you is key. Crafting coherent messaging and building systems to receive, respond to and act on customer communications, concerns, suggestions and insights is both art and science.

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B R A N D   +   I D E N T I T Y

Identity and Brand are two different things: Your identity is how you'd like to be perceived and remembered. Your brand is your reputation in the world: how you actually are percieved by your customers, prospective customers and even by people who are not your customers, including your competitors.

Brand Strategy
A company, product or service chooses to exist or not exist from the get-go. You are creating a "fully formed" entity from scratch. Because creating a business offering from scratch is a conscious choice to make a significant investment in self-creation, it pays to identify and pay attention to those things that will make or break you in the marketplace.

Brands are not built, brands are grown. A brand is not a static thing that is defined and then forgotten. A brand is an ongoing process and must be nurtured with care as it evolves. Having a brand strategy in place guides that process. Strong brands engender more than customer loyalty—they engender a desire to be associated wtih the brand. Harley-Davidson, Chanel, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard University, The Museum of Modern Art and the Venice Biennale are examples of very powerful brands.

Identity Design
The Identity of your company, product or service is based on how you want to present yourself to the world. It is a combination of who you are as well as what you aspire to be. Your identity should be compelling and memorable, as it will become shorthand for how people think of and refer to you. The elements of visual identity (logos, trademarks, colors, etc.) represent the sprit of the enterprise.

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C R E A T I V E   D I R E C T I O N

Design Strategy
Taking an enterprise-wide strategic approach to design can yield tremendous brand benefits. Design strategy is more than just good design—it becomes a driving force that differentiates all facets of a company's identity and marketing. In some cases, it becomes a company's raison d'etre and an integral part of an organization's cultural DNA.

Apple, Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Oakley, Nike, North Face, Magico, Avalon Acoustics, YG Acoustics, Ducati, Confederate Motorcycles, Lotus, Aston-Martin and Lamborghini are all examples of companies driven by a deep emphasis on design strategy.

Product Development
Product Development must be aligned with your brand and market positioning, or it will confuse your customers and result in lost sales, damaging your brand. "Product" includes the "soft elements": interface, graphics and experience design, plus packaging, manuals and more. We can work closely with your team to help assure your product is received, perceived and experienced positively in the marketplace.

Experience Design
The totality of everything listed above form the basis for experience design. But it also includes subtleties like "feel", "heft", "solidity", and "professionalism", in addition to potential deal breakers such as product reliability and customer service. Thinking through and optimizing your customer experience is crucial to repeat business and word-of-mouth.

Marketing Strategy
Reaching your target audience at the right time, in the right way, with the right message, delivered in an authentic voice, consistently, can be a challenge. Developing a clear strategy to accomplish these things is crucial. A good marketing strategy will weave your identity, brand, market positioning and product/offering into a coherent whole, and engage your customers and prospective customers in a compelling interactive relationship.

Innovation + Creativity Training
Developing a sustainable context for creative thinking and innovation within your organization will provide new opportunities and long-lasting value. Making Design a core component of your strategy, identity, brand and market positioning gives you an advantage over your competitors. Addressing the ever-evolving challenges of integrating design and engineering disciplines is today an existential requirement. The Montibon Company provides in-office, retreat and online training to optimize creative thinking and innovation for companies and non-profit organizations.

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T H E   M O N T I B O N   A G E N C Y

A Full Service Marketing, Advertising and Public Relations Agency for Print, Broadcast, Online, Mobile Apps and Social Media

Agency Services
Good marketing strategy is useless without a well-throught through set of tactics to support the strategy... and a clear (and achievable) roadmap to achieve flawless execution. We can oversee the implementation of your marketing strategy, at any level of detail, in any form, including traditional media, online or social media; based any structure, from simple, event-driven promotions to very complex database-driven campaigns.

We analyze the audience, develop the concepts, evaluate the media opportunities and technology requirements, assemble the talent, build the campaigns, then launch, manage, benchmark and optimize the programs. We can even coordinate the legal aspects of a national sweepstakes campaign and the technology integraton required for a database-driven interactive, cross-platform social media campaign.

Agency Services include:

Creative Direction
Art Direction
Production
  - Concepts
  - Copywriting
  - Graphic Design
  - Photography
  - Motion Graphics
  - Collateral
  - Packaging
  - Advertising
  - Promotions
  - Web Design
  - Interface Design
  - Video Production
  - Video Post-Production
Technology
  - CRM + CMS
  - Platform Integration
  - Database Integration
  - SEO, Metrics & Analytics
Ad Placement
  - Print
  - Broadcast
  - Online Direct
  - Online Network
  - Mobile Network

Mailer: Symposium on Annual Report Design for Art Directors & Designers of Orange County (ADDOC)

Art Direction + Design: Roy Montibon.
Woodcuts: Albrecht Durer

Logo: Bechtold Studios
Recognized in the Graphis Design Annual

Creative Direction + Design: Roy Montibon

Illustration: Lassy Software
Recognized in the Communication Arts Illustration Annual

Art Direction + Illustration: Roy Montibon

Photography: Bodie Angel
For a publication on wild-west ghost towns

Photography: Julie Tumblety

Illustration: For a children's book prototype

Ink & gouache illustration: Roy Montibon