Nebraska web firm “elevating” quality of brand management

The benefits of a powerful brand are obvious. When an unexpected sneeze coats your hands with mucus, chances are you don’t ask someone to hand you a “facial tissue.” You probably ask for a Kleenex. Likewise, a child with a scraped knee will be far more inclined to request a Band-Aid on the wound, rather than an “adhesive strip.” But brand potency isn’t just important for multinational corporations and massive industrial conglomerates. Small businesses especially benefit from excellent branding, and that’s why Jake Stutzman is around.

“Everything you do plays into your brand, from how you answer the phone to how people experience your web site,” said Stutzman, founder of elevate, a firm that specializes in all aspects of web presence, from development and design to graphics and branding. “Branding is your brick and mortar: When people walk in your door, how do they feel? If business owners and entrepreneurs aren’t looking closely at their brand, they’re not just shooting themselves in the foot… they’re cutting off both feet.”

But while branding is key to the services elevate provides, it’s by no means the company’s only trick. Ultimately, elevate is about evolution, adaptation.

“Really, our passion is technology and interface design; not just web, but mobile devices, and who knows where things are going to go with iPads and tablets,” Stutzman said. “We’re just trying to stay up on all that. That’s what elevate is.”

Stutzman started elevate in 2004, as a way to focus his full service advertising chops in new directions. Since then, the company’s juggled an impressive parade of clients. Although based out of Hastings, Nebraska, elevate’s customer list shows big names such as ESPN and Caterpillar wedged in among an array of small local businesses. While elevate’s “bread and butter” remains national and international clients, Stutzman said he’ll jump at the chance to work with a passionate local entrepreneur.

“I love getting a call from an entrepreneur who has an idea and says, ‘I want to build this web application or this business from the ground floor.’ I love coming in at the point,” Stutzman said. “Working for big corporations is great and the money is decent, but the process isn’t as engaging — there’s a lot of fussing with procedures that hinders the creative process. I really love to work with small business where that red tape isn’t there.”

And ultimately, their generally receptive ideology is what benefits small businesses most. There was a time when web applications and web sites were mutually exclusive concepts; today, the sundry media platforms available to businesses are slowly merging, to the point where it’s difficult to have one without the other. And if a company is looking to restructure its image, it needs to utilize the full range of online tools at its disposal.

“When we have a company that’s looking for help with branding, they may just say, ‘We need a logo.’ Well, yeah… you need a logo, but you need so much more than that,” Stutzman said. “What we do is essential in the life of a business.”