Learn from these 5 Israeli brand-driven startups how to turn the current crisis into a branding opportunity and win your customers for good.

Now is the time for brand building

Wow, what just happened?!? COVID-19 took all our marketing plans and squashed them into the wall. It’s pretty nasty for most of us now, but let’s look at the bright side — it’s the perfect timing to build your brand, strengthen the connection with your community of users, validate your brand promise and create those brands magic moments you heard of. Yes, I said it. Build your brand — NOW. Show your people you’re a brand. Not only a product.

This is why

1. Selling is great, and brands, as a business unit, should focus on that.
2. But what motivates sales? Needs and emotions — mostly love.
3. I’m arguing that love is stronger than anything, even customers’ needs or code.
4. If you invest in making people love your brand, selling your products will be easier, loyalty will be stronger and word of mouth will be faster
5. Showing love on a daily basis is memorable. Showing love when times are hard is unforgettable. So go and build your brand now.

How you should do it

Think of your startup (if you didn’t do this until now, it’s a good way to start) as a brand — a brand-driven startup. What drives brand-driven startups are sales and a brand mission. You have a mission, core values, DNA — and when they are clear and sharp, there is no question of what you should do, just how to do it. Think of your brand as a human being. What’s its purpose in life? Is it funny, educational, formal, casual?

Let’s look at a few brand-driven, consumer-centric startups, and how they strengthening their brand, even in the toughest times:

1) Maapilim — Discover the power of community

The male grooming and wellness startup is all about slowing down, helping people live a healthier, calmer and better life. To show their commitment to their brand’s promise — Jonathan (Founder) sent an email asking Maapilim’s community for ideas and suggestions, and maybe even their own skills to help the community to feel better and overcome these crazy days. The outcome was great: psychologists, meditation teachers, and artists took over the brand’s IG account to offer their time and knowledge. To top it all off, the team produced a brand new hand sanitizer, Maapilim style 😉

Personal email from founder

Community members participated and contributed from their skills

Richard Jenkins (a creative agency owner), guides a meditation session and Dr. August Leming, shares some words of wisdom.

A new product was produced in no time to support the community needs.

2) HoneyBook — Use your knowledge and expertise

One of my favorite brand-driven startups out there is Honeybook. They’ve built software to support “Solopreneurs” (one-person business) in their daily efforts: from acquiring new clients, managing communication and enabling slick and fast collection and payments. As a brand, its mission is to make the lives of the “Solopreneurs” easier, calmer and more productive — so when COVID19 started, they knew they needed to act fast. Over the past 4 weeks, the company has shifted its focus on social, content and brand teams to do anything possible to support those who maybe were hit harder than all other verticals. Inspired by HoneyBook, here’s an easy how-to:

Show up — with an honest and simple email

It all started with an email sent by Oz (co-founder, CEO) on March 10th, before anyone knew how hard shit was gonna hit the fan:

Create a content hub to and help your community to be updated:

Write practical advice, playbooks and step-by-step guides to the new reality.

Engage with your community thru media and direct channels

Be a part of the conversation, share your brand’s commitment to supporting your community — anywhere, anytime. Check out HoneyBook’s media and webinars:

3) Jolt — build the product your community needs

“Learning experience, designed for the 21st century” is one of Jolt’s basic and main brand statements. Until COVID-19, this brand-driven startup made it a reality and built a new kind of business school, offering people from TLV, London and NY a “Not An MBA” degree learning experience for self-made entrepreneurs, and of course — designed for our times: students meet in small physical spaces to learn together from world-class professionals via live video streaming. So what do you do when students can’t leave their houses and your business’s brand is based entirely on physically showing up and interacting in small groups? Well, Jolt, as an ever-changing brand — part of their brand promise to their customers — transformed their company, in less than a week, into an online business school for the self-made.

Check it out here.

Besides shifting the product online, the team quickly launched new campaigns, with new messaging — “Stay at home, Stay ahead” — and shared some creative Zoom backgrounds with its students:

4) JoyTunes — take your brand statement one big step forward

This great brand-driven startup’s statement is “Anyone can play” and the software they’ve developed around it makes this a reality.

So what can a brand that encourages people to play music do in times like this? 2 super simple things:

1. Pay as much as you want: JoyTunes now enables ANYONE to download and use the app, start learning how to play and set the price, which will be donated to health charities. Israel and Italy are first to have this feature, the rest of the world will get it soon. Check it out

2. Go back to your roots: JoyTunes started as an app for teachers, and only then went full B2C 😉 During COVID-19, they’ve gone back to their roots and are offering all teachers the option to use the app for remote teaching for FREE.

5) Bobile —Put your money where your mouth is

Bobile is a startup that has built an automated loyalty program, designed for local businesses. The trick is that it is totally automated, meaning the business owner doesn’t need to do a thing — just onboard to the platform and Bobile will take it from there, increasing revenues, mostly from existing customers.

When COVID19 started to spread, it was obvious to this startup that its customers, micro SMBs of the real world, would be the first to be hit. So as a brand that’s sole mission is to support business owners, they stopped payments for ALL THEIR CLIENTS for 30 days. That’s right, NO ONE one was charged. For an early-stage startup this is major, and only a company (team and board) that understands its brand’s power, would make such a bold decision.

Let’s summarize

1. This is the time for brand building
2. Any budget is enough
3. Think of your brand promise, and follow it
4. If you don’t have a brand promise — it’s a good time to get one

Love you all, stay safe and healthy

Dan