Five minutes with Jolene Delisle
Jolene Delisle, founder and head of creative of brand consultancy, The Working Assembly, speaks to Transform magazine about branding for the boomer generation and how it differs from Millenials.
What are the most important elements to consider when branding for the boomer generation?
When looking at brands tackling the mature adult space, there's a lot of tropes including everything looking and feeling like prescription or medicine. Being in your 50s and 60s today doesn't look like it used to so the brand work we do should respond to that. It should be inspiring and address that life is not ending but really only halfway through.
How do Boomers differ from Millennials and which brands are they most attracted to?
As an agency, we're in this really interesting dichotomy where we are engaged by innovative and progressive founders and companies who are looking to disrupt categories for GenX and then many looking to do the same but for the other end of the spectrum—Boomers. I think both are heavily targeted and so it's important for every brand challenge we address, we always look for the whitespace and try to create something that doesn't look and sound like what is out there. I'm really proud of the range our agency has that we can do something so millennial like Museum of Ice Cream, luxury and retail forward like ORA, and then a new brand for aging adults in the exercise and wellness space like Balanced to a large scale rebrand like MassMutual, a storied 150+-year-old financial institution. We really believe in being chameleons and adapting to address our client's specific brand challenges vs continually making work that just reflects our own personal style, aesthetic, or trends we like.
How did The Working Assembly start? Where do you see the future of your business?
The Working Assembly is a BIPOC and female-founded branding agency working with emerging and evolving brands. We were formally established in 2017, and our inspiration was to challenge the status quo of traditional branding agencies, offering end-to-end brand building that included visual identity but also content and creative communications. We're passionate storytellers and we are excited to help brands cut through and distill complex narratives. We can help companies take a thoughtful next step to a total brand reinvention.
