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Learn More About Taddy Hall
In an era when everything from technology to the Earthโs climate is rapidly changing, all leaders, especially those in legacy institutions, are realizing they need to transform their product and economic business units to stay relevant.
According to Taddy Hall, an authority on brand-led transformation, innovation, sustainability and growth, to truly change an organization, management must tell new, more powerful stories.
Providing executives with tools for activating their brands to compete and win in an increasingly AI enabled world โ especially as AI and intelligent agents make it easier than ever for consumers to automate their engagements with companies โ Hall empowers organizations to motivate stakeholders to think and act in different ways.
โWhen undergoing a corporate transformation, the narrative is just as important as the strategy,โ explains Hall, a senior partner at global creative agency Lippincott and former principal at The Cambridge Group. โThere’s of course the execution piece, but in some ways even more important is identifying the coherent story we’re going to tell internally and externally that’s going to breathe credibility and consistency into that transformation.โ
With guidance on important change initiatives such as how to bring humanity to the critical process of incorporating AI into a companyโs overall approach, Hall helps leaders create the stories they need to tell to rally both their teams and customers in times of change, driving loyalty and revenue through strong brand connection.
Drawing from fascinating real-world case studies of successful business transitions such as those undertaken by Intuit, Barclays UK, Virgin, SNHU, Chobani and more, Hall vividly illustrates what he calls the โsource codeโ to organizing, exciting and activating all levels of the operational chain.
Primary author of Nielsenโs annual Breakthrough Innovation Report from 2012โ2016, his practical tools help executives articulate their commitments, propositions for change and proof points of results, which infuses authenticity and alignment into both information delivery and strategy.
Storytelling to Secure a Profitable Green Future
As the urgency for sustainable business practices escalates, organizations face the challenge of transforming genuine climate commitments into profitable ventures. By using strategic positioning, Hall explains, leaders can inspire bold action.
โThe key is to integrate innovative sustainability strategies and compelling talking points,โ points out Hall, co-author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller โCompeting Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choiceโ (2016) with Clayton Christensen. โCreating that messaging source code helps enable sustainability transformation in a way that is exciting and accessible to the various stakeholders.โ
Hall arms leaders with practical insights for creating a clear, engaging narrative that brings together stakeholder priorities and future-oriented, sustainable business outcomes. By devising strategies for repositioning their companies at the forefront of industrial decarbonization, Hall reveals how to both promise sustainability and drive economic growth, turning green initiatives into competitive advantages.
Showing organizations how to use the power of storytelling to propel future-first transformation, Hallโs exceptional value to companies lies in helping leaders ensure unique and engaging stories are an ingrained part of long-term business strategy.
โThere’s a real underweighting of the importance of how a message is delivered,โ he concludes. โA compelling story that accompanies an operational change mobilizes people for transformation efforts, helping to create a coherent, innovative future.โ
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Taddy Hall is senior partner at the global creative agency Lippincott where he has coached entrepreneurs in emerging markets, consulted with corporate leaders facing existential growth challenges and advised heads of state to spur market-creating innovation.
Former principal at growth strategy consultancy The Cambridge Group, which is part of The Nielsen Company, from 2012-2016 Hall was the primary author of the annual โU.S. Nielsen Breakthrough Innovation Reportsโ known as the ultimate marketerโs guide to innovating and improving performance in a crowded marketplace. He also headed the companyโs Breakthrough Innovation Project and led its global expansion. Prior to joining Nielsen, he served as chief operating officer at Meteor Solutions and was chief strategy officer for the Advertising Research Foundation.
For 15 years, Hall collaborated with the late Harvard Business School professor and global innovation authority Clayton Christensen, including on โCompeting Against Luckโ (Harper Collins, 2016) and โMarketing Malpractice: The Cause and the Cure.โ His articles on innovation have been included in Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, Ad Age, Huffington Post, Time, Business Insider, Chief Executive and CMO magazine. He also co-authored โThe Online Advertising Playbookโ (Wiley, April 2007).
Especially knowledgeable in and passionate about innovation in emerging markets, Hall partnered with Clayton and Ann Christensen to co-found Innovation Without Bordersโข, which delivers their unique innovation tools and frameworks to senior executives and entrepreneurs in rising regions of the world, including in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Kazakhstan, Peru and the Philippines. Since 1997, Hall also actively advises a network of 1000+ emerging market chief executives to build profitable growth companies through the Endeavor organization. At Harvard University, he worked as an independent researcher with professor, competitive strategy mentor and renowned economist Michael E. Porter to develop and implement strategies for competitive inner-city economies.
Hall started his career in venture capital/private equity with Advent International, both in the U.S. and Latin America, and has managed five venture-backed businesses. Hall holds a bachelorโs degree from Yale University and an MBA from Harvard University.
Taddy Hall is available to advise your organization via virtual and in-person consulting meetings, interactive workshops and customized keynotes through the exclusive representation of Stern Speakers & Advisors, a division of Stern Strategy Groupยฎ.
Leveraging Powerful Brand Connections: How to Compete and Win in an AI-Enabled World
AI and intelligent agents that have the power to simplify and enhance our lives have become more accessible and easier to use than ever. How can organizations drive loyalty and revenue through strong brand connection in a time when many customer interactions, especially those in already low engagement categories like cable services or homeowners’ insurance, can be easily automated? According to innovation, marketing and growth expert Taddy Hall, a strong brand can act as insurance against AI driven disruption. In this revealing presentation, he illustrates why trying to create increased engagement in fundamentally low engagement categories is a flawed mission. Hall explains that it’s brand connection, not engagement, that provides the key to customer preference and loyalty. Audiences will leave with new tools for activating their brands to compete and win in an increasingly AI enabled world.
How to Secure a Profitable Green Future: Sustainability at Scale
As the urgency for sustainable business practices escalates, organizations face the challenge of transforming genuine climate commitments into profitable ventures. The secret to inspiring bold action is strategic storytelling, says Taddy Hall, a renowned expert on brand-led transformation. By integrating innovative sustainability strategies with compelling internal and external narratives, Hall helps leaders devise strategies for repositioning their companies at the forefront of industrial decarbonization. This enlightening session offers practical insights into creating a coherent, engaging story that aligns stakeholder priorities with future-oriented, sustainable business outcomes. Audiences will learn how to articulate and implement dynamic business models that not only promise sustainability but also drive economic growth, turning green initiatives into competitive advantages.
The Customer of the Future: Adaptation Strategies for Tomorrow's Market
The landscape of customer engagement is rapidly changing, influenced by technological advancements like generative AI that reshape daily interactions and expectations. According to Taddy Hall, an authority on brand-led transformation, innovation, sustainability and business growth, there are six transformative shifts that redefine how businesses should approach their markets. From the integration of AI in everyday life to the evolving norms of consumer behavior, Hall provides a roadmap for businesses to adapt and thrive. This compelling presentation offers strategic insights into aligning brand strategies with the future needs of customers, giving leaders the ability to ensure relevance and resilience in a fast-evolving marketplace.
Why Do Customers Hire (or Fire) Your Offering? Understand Their Needs to Future-Proof Your Services
Smart leaders know they must think beyond tech advancements to really fulfill their customersโ aspirations. ย Success in the isn’t just about digitizing existing products or adding new features, ย says Taddy Hall, a strategist specializing in creating memorable customer experiences, it’s about enabling desired progress in customersโ personal or professional lives. Drawing from extensive field research, including case studies from innovative disruptors like Monzo, Chewy, SNHU, Peloton, and Virgin Money, Hall provides actionable guidance on how leaders can nail the evolving expectations of their customers. Attendees will leave with a deeper understanding of how to craft services that will create new meaning in customersโ lives, accelerating customer acquisition and boosting retention.
Reimagining Growth, Brands and Customer Experience in the Digital Age
While 80% of senior executives believe they deliver exceptional experiences, only 8% of customers agree. According to Taddy Hall, senior partner at global creative agency Lippincott, to stay on top, businesses must widen their innovation focus beyond product attributes to include the magic brought by great customer experiences. In this fascinating presentation, Hall demonstrates how to leverage brands as the business assets they are to deliver experiences that are both better and branded. He will guide audiences through a shift in perspective that drives operational efficiency by directing investments towards those dimensions of customer experience that offer the greatest return and enduring advantage.
The Power of Storytelling: How to Build Winning, Enduring Brands
Brand identity shapes consumer decisions, but how does an organization begin to understand what that identity should be? The power of storytelling plays a critical role in building enduring brands, says Taddy Hall, senior partner at global creative agency Lippincott and strategic storytelling expert. Unveiling how brands can become deeply connected to their consumers by enabling meaningful progress through compelling narratives, Hall emphasizes the importance of integrating humanity into corporate strategy. He teaches audiences how to enhance, rather than replace human connection, especially as companies increasingly implement AI tools. Attendees will learn how to transform their brands into beloved icons by embedding authentic stories that resonate deeply with target audiences, driving customer commitment and innovation.ย Great innovators are inevitably great storytellers.
Learning to Look: How to Spot the Opportunity Hidden in Full View
Industry pioneers achieve scale and expand profit margins by optimizing a limited set of performance features.ย Fast followers tend to conform โ adapting to the established basis of competition and seeking to differentiate on a few dimensions, or simply price, to gain footing and grow share.ย Over time, virtually every industry โ from quick-serve restaurants to financial services and computer software โ converge on a few benefit drivers.ย But customers use much, much broader criteria to evaluate options, make tradeoffs, and achieve progress.ย Ultimately, many firms accept โcommoditizationโ as a natural part of the business cycle, but such constraints are largely self-imposed.ย Boundaries exist because we believe they exist, but as Marcel Proust astutely observed, โthe real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new sights but in having new eyes.โย In this captivating session that can lead to real breakthroughs, Taddy Hall, a renowned branding and strategy expert, as well as senior partner at global creative agency Lippincott, guides audiences on an inspiring journey of discovery — sharing the research and providing the tools to enable audiences to see spectacular opportunities that theyโve unwittingly โhiddenโ from themselves.ย Using case studies across diverse industries, Hall brings theory to life and enables audiences to apply practical tools to achieve breakthroughs in their own businesses and lives.
The New Growth Engine for Innovation
Most companies think about and go about innovation and growth in the wrong wayโrelying on current business models to make incremental improvements to existing products. But what got you here wonโt get you much further, says Taddy Hall. Looking for white space in the market is no longer enough; he explains why and discusses how to build future-proofed capabilities, separate from the legacy profit models that created todayโs success. Hall points to real-world companies doing it right (and wrong) and presents his proven innovation-based growth engine methodology for amassing new resources, establishing new processes and using different governance systems.
5 Questions Growth-Oriented CEOs Need to Answer
Too many leaders answer the basic questions โ such as โWhat business are we in?โ โ incorrectly, errors that prove costly in terms of lost opportunity and wasted investment. The accelerating pace of change only raises the stakes of getting the answers right. According to Taddy Hall, getting theย right answers to five key questionsย can make the difference between growth and stagnation in an era of accelerating change. The secret, he says, is to unleash โmarket-creating innovations.โย From decades of research and client work as a consultant, Hall reveals that most companies excel atย sustainingย innovation โ incremental improvements to existing offerings โ as well asย efficiencyย innovation โ taking cost out of the current business model.ย However, growth and enduring advantage accrue to the leaders who master the mindset and activate the toolset of market-creating innovations.
Breakthrough Leadership: How Senior Leaders Enable โ and Unwittingly Impede โ Innovation
Leadership is a tricky topic, and one all too easily wrapped in platitudes and empty slogans. Yet, in our study of successful innovation initiatives, we find that the role of senior leadership is powerfully present in virtually every instance, says Taddy Hall. In fact, the only exceptions were cases in which a manager made a career-jeopardizing decision to flout the established incentives, process protocols, and direct instructions of superiors. Innovation shouldย notย require acts of heroism or genius. There are specific activities that must be rigorously managed โ not simply proclaimed and delegated โ from the C-suite. Hall helps chief executives who desire consistently successful innovation outcomes understand why mastering and performing these non-transferable duties is essential for sustained profitable growth.
Navigate with Confidence: Innovation in Emerging Markets
Managers in emerging markets enjoy the riches of innovatorโs gold: non-consumers. While firms in mature markets are often forced to wage trench warfare over zero sum contests, innovators in emerging markets find many more greenfield opportunities to create industries where only inadequate or nonexistent options existed previously. Success, however, requires the ability to see what is not there, says Taddy Hall. Managers trained to measure consumption will find their data sets and analytical tools unhelpful to the market-creatorโs challenge. Having lived in emerging markets for several years and advised executives for more than two decades, Hall blends rich personal experience with robust theory โ most notably Jobs to be Done and disruption โ to enable leaders to navigate uncharted terrain with confidence. A master implementer of innovation strategies, he offers his audiences not only the right toolset but also the mindset needed to innovate in todayโs most challenging environments.