MOVE Communications
We are an Ann Arbor marketing firm that specializes in brand development and digital marketing.
MOVE is a boutique style marketing firm in Ann Arbor Michigan. We recognize the need for energy and creativity in brand storytelling. Particularly with online media, there is a high bar for engaging content that captures attention and moves hearts and minds. In the three decades we’ve been around, we’ve seen a lot change including watching the marketing, advertising and branding world transform as the Internet has surpassed television as the world’s advertising powerhouse. That background has kept us on our toes, always on the move for the best way to connect brands with their key audience. It’s a fast and ever-changing world out there, but we can bring you up to speed. Take a look at our work.
Are you ready? It’s time to #MOVEahead.
engaging content that captures attention and moves hearts and minds
Don Hart, President
Thanks for taking a moment to learn a bit more about what makes us tick.
At MOVE Communications, we are passionate about seeing people move ahead in their lives and their work. We support this through our skills as marketing communicators.
We believe that the most powerful way to communicate with an audience is to tell a story. We’re convinced that you can shape the future for good by the stories you tell today.
So we’ve been telling lots of stories. Stories that MOVE people to joy, to determination, to change, to transformation.
Our Big Dream
Our Big Dream is to tell stories that have an influence for good in organizations all around the world. You see, we believe that every vibrant organization has a Big Dream. Something they are passionate about…something that inspires them to come together and achieve great things.
We play our part as communicators in helping our clients realize their Big Dream by helping them become an inspiring brand. We believe they can be inspiring as a firm. And so we start by first communicating that to them, then we help them communicate it to their customers and ultimately to the world at large. As we tell this brand story, it motivates others to join in, builds their culture, and ultimately critical momentum on their path to high performance.
Our Path
Carol and I started this venture in 1984, in the unfinished attic of our home. It was me, a phone and the fiberglass insulation upstairs, and Carol with two of our five kids downstairs. We began as a film and video production company with a core skill of, you guessed it, storytelling. Since then, in response to customer need, we have grown into an Ann Arbor integrated marketing communications firm.
We have diversified our client base and have significant networks in the professional services, food, automotive and senior care industries, as well as other local businesses. Our “customers of fit” are those businesses who know that, to advance brand engagement, build their culture, attract and retain staff and develop loyal customer advocates, they must know their story as a company—why they exist, how they live out that mission and what makes them distinctive—and it must influence the experience, the products and services they offer their audience.
WHY We Are In Business
Simon Sinek asked that question of us first in 2014 through his book, Start with Why. Our answer? MOMENTUM. We help people and organizations #MOVEahead.
When Carol and I began the company, we described our purpose as this:
Through the communication arts
to glorify God, provide for our families,
and enrich the human community.
This still remains our guiding raison d’etre.
We achieve this through marketing and sales communications. We see marketing and related sales communications as a way to build relationships between an organization and its customers. This must be undertaken with integrity, skill and transparency. You are asking your customer to enter into a trust relationship with you and your brand is the context in which this happens. Having an inspiring brand means you can do more for more people.
WE EXIST TO HELP PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONS #MOVEahead BY TELLING THEIR STORY
Why Brand?
A marketing colleague of ours, Marcus Collins, recently described the value of “Brand” in this way. The word “brand” comes from the act of branding cattle. Literally, to burn. You burned your name on something to differentiate it. To differentiate things that are otherwise at parody.
When we think in terms of a business, when we brand it, we not only identify it but we create value. Because an inspiring brand becomes a:
- Memory aid
- Proxy for quality
- Basis for differentiation
- Locus for emotion
- Reason for price premium
So, for a business, investing in building your brand, an inspiring brand, is a smart move.
Our Secret Sauce
What has made this go is our team. Wow, are they awesome. Each one brings so much to the MOVE party. They really bust a move. We’ve been very fortunate over the years to have had so many talented people of character who choose to call themselves MOVIANS. We make it a priority to stay in touch with each other and encourage one another in our calling as Strategic Artists. It’s exciting to see where we all have gone and the interesting and important work that is being done in so many industries and communities around the world by this extended family.
MOVIANS ARE STRATEGIC ARTISTS THAT MOVE HEARTS AND MINDS
Our Values
We believe that our company culture is the foundation for our performance and health as a company. The condition of our relationships is really the key determinant of our potential as a team. So, we work hard to train everyone who joins our team in the MOVE Way, which is guided by our key values:
Servant Leadership
Ethical Interaction
Mindfulness
Diversity
Balance
Creativity
We dig down deep through the challenges, urgencies, fears and frustrations of any given day to make sure these are the bedrock of our mindsets, behaviors and systems. We are then strong and flexible to provide unsurpassed service to our customers, keep our promises, and achieve the work in a timely and resource-responsible fashion so that at the end of the day, our customers succeed, and we are profitable and have some overflow to share.
Your Invitation
So what’s ahead? Good things. Good relationships, good work, good outcomes for the greater good. We know this good will spread as we add more people to our team who believe in our Big Dream—in who we are and where we’re headed. I’m glad you’ve taken a moment to learn a little bit more about MOVE. We have a strong heritage and a vibrant present. But we believe the best is yet to come. We’d be delighted if you joined us—as a client or as part of our team—for an exciting future. Because we know with our knower, we’re better together. Let’s #MOVEahead.
Please be in touch with me if I can be of support.
Thanks,
Don
Don Hart, President
734.973.0100
dhart@movecommunications.com
734.973.0100
dhart@movecommunications.com
LET’S #MOVEahead
