From Vision to Reality: How Rysing Tide Helped Ground Reinvent Itself

David Rochkind, founder of Ground, faced a defining moment in his company’s evolution. Ground had established itself as a successful, marketing-led video production agency, but David had a vision for something more. He had recently created StoryHeat, a cutting-edge research platform that allowed Ground to pivot into a first-of-its-kind, mission-first, research-backed, impact-driven storytelling studio. Ground now offered more than just great video content—the agency offered a tool for real-world change. But with this new powerful vision came some critical questions and challenges. David turned to Rysing Tide to help him navigate the path from vision to reality.

Some of the critical questions and challenges were:

How should Ground organize its offerings? This new vision was tangled up with the work that was currently funding the business.
How to position the research tool? - Should it be its own entity or an integrated part of Ground’s offering?
How to explain the value proposition? - How could he explain the value of combining the research tool with Ground’s high-quality video production?
How to update the new Ground brand? - How to rebuild the brand and define its vision, mission, values, brand voice attributes, etc.?
How to define customer personas? - Who would be the ideal clients for this new direction, and how would he reach them?
How to communicate the tool’s unique benefits? - How could he communicate that the tool uniquely creates maximum measurable impact, saves time, and cost efficiencies for clients?

These questions and more needed answers before Ground could fully evolve, and that's when David reached out to Rysing Tide to help.

The Rysing Tide Process: An Integrated Approach

At Rysing Tide, we believe that unlocking a company’s full growth potential requires a unified approach that integrates both business and brand strategy. Our proprietary Rysing Tide Strategy Waterfall ensures that every decision—whether it relates to business objectives or brand messaging—works in harmony to shape a prosperous future.

The situation with David and Ground was a perfect fit for our process. He hadn’t just changed his company’s offerings; he rebuilt its purpose. David had a powerful vision, and our job was to help organize that vision into a strategy that powerfully aligned Ground’s brand and messaging to sell that vision. Together, we worked through each stage of our strategy framework.

1. Topline Business Strategy

We started by helping David clarify the big questions:

How do we ensure the pivot will succeed? We dove deep into David’s market knowledge, analyzed competitive positioning, and assessed the long-term viability of his idea to build confidence that the first-of-its-kind studio could be successful.
How would Ground organize its offerings, including its new research tool? A huge part of Ground’s value is its services, but this new software offered a standalone tool. After thorough analysis, we agreed that the research tool would be most effective as an integrated part of Ground’s storytelling process. However, there was also a path to a standalone product offering in the mid-term.

2. Brand Strategy Alignment

Once the business model was clear, we moved into the brand strategy. Using the insights from David’s business goals, we focused on aligning the Ground brand and its messaging with its mission-first purpose. This involved:

Positioning the research tool as a key differentiator. StoryHeat allows GROUND to offer best-in-class storytelling research, allowing clients to both de-risk their entire video production process from day one and maximize their impact and ROI. No other agency can compete with that.
Updating the Ground brand. We crafted messaging that clearly communicated Ground’s shift from being a traditional video agency to a research-backed storytelling studio. The new brand identity reflected this, from its visual elements to how Ground communicated with clients.

3. Delivering the Strategy Playbook

Our process culminated in the creation of a comprehensive business and brand strategy playbook, a tool that would guide Ground’s team as they executed this new direction. This playbook captured elements such as the business strategy, company identity framework, customer personas, and brand messaging.

Conclusion: The Power of Integration

Rysing Tide’s integrated business and brand strategy approach was key to unlocking the potential of David’s vision. By taking a holistic approach, we helped David overcome his challenges in positioning Ground as a groundbreaker in mission-driven, impact-focused storytelling.

Through our proprietary Strategy Waterfall, we ensured that every element of Ground was aligned, from the big-picture business goals to the minute details of brand messaging. The result? Today, Ground’s clients understand the unique value of combining impactful video production with preemptive research, and the company is thriving.

Ground: GLAAD Case Study

For those interested in the type of work Ground is doing, a great example is their award-winning work with GLAAD on their incredible Here We Are campaign. Here We Are is a national storytelling campaign launched on June 1, 2024, joining an ongoing campaign to build a country where transgender people can be their authentic selves and express their identity openly and free from fear.

If you’d like to contact Ground for more information about their services, email them here.