They called these lingering practices “workplace zombies.” And the metaphor sticks, because most of the habits holding organizations back don’t show up as obviously wrong. They show up as default behaviors. Legacy assumptions. Unspoken rules. Operational norms that no one remembers choosing, but everyone still follows.

The heart of the conversation was simple: culture isn’t what you say. It’s what your team does, repeatedly. That’s why workplace zombies are so hard to eliminate. They’re often embedded in routines, reinforced by systems, and tolerated over time. Even well-intended cultural initiatives can miss the mark if they focus on language and messaging without addressing the beliefs and behaviors underneath.

Jerry tied this directly to TOKY’s Branding From Within practice, which starts by identifying the values and beliefs shaping the employee experience. When those values are unclear, inconsistent, or misaligned with how work actually happens, the gap doesn’t stay internal. It becomes visible in the way teams communicate, make decisions, and show up for clients. In other words, the employee experience becomes the client experience.

Slaying workplace zombies isn’t about creating a new set of values or launching another initiative. It’s about naming what’s outdated, understanding what keeps it in place, and intentionally building a workplace where behaviors match beliefs. When the internal experience aligns with the external promise, the brand becomes stronger, more consistent, and easier to trust.

Watch the full Amplify 2025 presentation from Jerry Gennaria and Will Percy below, and explore what it might look like to remove what’s no longer serving your team—so you can build a workplace designed for what comes next.

The post Jerry Gennaria and Will Percy on Slaying Workplace Zombies at Amplify 2025 appeared first on TOKY.

But in our experience, the strongest brands aren’t just built on what you say. They’re built on the experience of working with you.

That’s the driving idea behind The Intangible Brand, a new podcast brought to you by TOKY and Cline. Hosted by Carl Winstead, Chief Experience Officer at Cline, and TOKY President, Jerry Gennaria, the show explores the connection between employee experience (EX) and client experience (CX), and the hidden forces that make brands stick.

At TOKY, we work with organizations to clarify and communicate their brand. Increasingly, that work has revealed something important: visual identity and messaging are only part of the equation. What ultimately defines a brand is the experience clients and employees have every day — in meetings, during onboarding, and through the hundreds of small interactions that shape perception over time.

Experience is the brand.

That’s why we’re launching a show focused on uncovering how firms can shape those experiences with more clarity and intention.

Episode 1: Meet the Architect of Experience

To launch the podcast, we turn the spotlight on co-host Carl Winstead — a practicing architect who now leads client experience for an interdisciplinary architecture firm headquartered in Raleigh. His title, Chief Experience Officer, is still rare in AEC, but the role reflects a challenge that nearly every firm faces: how to deliver an experience that aligns with what the brand promises.

There’s an experience our clients are having that isn’t in the portfolio. And that’s what we have to get across. Especially with people who haven’t worked with us before.

Carl Winstead, Cline Design Associates

In this first episode, Carl shares how his background in architecture led him to focus on designing not just spaces, but the broader experience of working with (and within) a firm. He discusses the evolution of client expectations, the connection between internal culture and external brand, and why a well-designed experience creates more engaged teams and better work.

Explore The Show

Each episode of The Intangible Brand features a conversation with a leader thinking differently about brand and experience — across AEC, professional services, healthcare, hospitality, and beyond.

We’ll explore:

• Why internal culture and external perception are inseparable
• How client experience is shaped by more than just “the work”
• What it takes to design experiences that align with brand promise
• How beliefs and values shape behaviors and build long-term brand loyalty

It’s a show designed specifically for marketers, HR professionals, and organization leaders who are working to build brands that people are proud to work for and eager to work with.

We’re proud to share this new series with our community and excited to spark new conversations about the ways that employee experience and customer experience can help build your brand. For more information, visit theintangiblebrand.com. You can watch the latest episodes on YouTube or subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform.

Want to create a more aligned experience for your brand — inside and out? Let’s talk.

The post TOKY Launches New Podcast appeared first on TOKY.

By the numbers: They surveyed 400+ leaders and 1,000+ employees to see where they stand on how much time is wasted on ineffective comms, what topics they want leaders to cover, and what the actual ROI of comms is.

Why it matters: Last year, 77% of leaders thought internal comms were helpful/relevant. Only 46% of employees agreed.

This year, the gap grew:

• 85% of leaders think comms are helpful/relevant
• 45% of employees agree.

Want to make a case to enhance internal communications at your company?

• Find the data points you’ve been looking for in HQ’s new report.

Download the Report

For more content like this, signup for our newsletter.

The post Internal Communications Effectiveness Report: Key Insights from Axios HQ appeared first on TOKY.

St. Louis, MO — TOKY, the St. Louis-based firm which has become a premier brand and strategy consultant in the U.S. and around the world, today announced new ownership and management.

Jerry Gennaria, who joined the company in 2019 as Director of Brand Strategy and Research, is the new owner and President, effective August 2022. Company founders Eric and Mary Thoelke, formerly President and Vice President, respectively, remain engaged in new roles as Founders and Advisory Board members. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

New Leadership

TOKY’s new owner, Gennaria, brings more than 25 years of experience in traditional and digital communications and a pragmatic approach to marketing and brand strategy. Prior to joining TOKY, he served as Chief Strategy Officer with Brighton Agency and worked 11 years with Paradowski Creative.

His experience is multi-faceted, including art direction, interactive design, information architecture, user experience research, and marketing strategy. His primary focus areas since joining TOKY have been brand strategy and research.

He is a Lindenwood University graduate, a commissioner with the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis, an adjunct instructor in design research at Maryville University and past president of the Clayton Chamber of Commerce.

Ready for the Next Quarter-Century

“I’m honored by Eric and Mary’s confidence in me to lead the company to new heights,” Jerry Gennaria said. “TOKY will continue anticipating the changing needs of our clients, illustrated by our evolution into a broader consultancy. This progression reflects a long-term trend in our business. Increasingly, client engagements which begin with brand identity quickly reveal the need to address questions of business strategy, global trends, and market challenges. The TOKY team brings deep expertise in each of these areas, so leaning into a broader consultancy makes good sense for us and our clients,” he said.

“TOKY’s understanding and engagement with our clients at both strategic and creative levels enables us to deliver more value by leveraging branding, design, and company culture to maximum effect. This approach supports our focus on each of these as fundamental to a company’s success. Today, the competitions for talent and customers are equally intense. TOKY’s strategic approach enables our clients to win both,” Gennaria said.

Marking 25 Years

Founded in 1997, TOKY quickly built a local client list of familiar St. Louis names: Drury Hotels, HOK Architects, Centene, MiTek, Panera, the Chase Park Plaza, Ronnoco Coffee, Bissinger’s Chocolates, Vicia, Rockwell Brewing, Goshen Coffee Roasters, the 100 On The Park tower on Kingshighway, Eckerts Country Stores, Smokehouse Market, Bailey’s restaurants like Range, Small Batch, Rooster, and the Chocolate Bar, among others.

Gaining a reputation for quality far beyond St. Louis, TOKY has left its mark on some of the most important arts and cultural institutions in the nation, including The National Gallery of Art, the National Geographic Society, and The Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., MIT’s List Museum in Boston, the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa, and the Denver Museum of Science & Nature.

The company’s brand consultancy for architecture, engineering, and construction firms includes more than 70 firms in the U.S., and others in Australia, Germany, the UK, Hong Kong, and Oman.

The company’s work for social justice is also varied. In recent years, TOKY co-developed the “I Vote Because” campaign and worked with the Lincoln Project on powerful advertising that helped tip the scales in swing city elections across the U.S. In 2017, TOKY’s “Ferguson Voices” website launched, focusing on real people whose lives were affected by the murder of Michael Brown.

“In March we celebrated TOKY’s 25th anniversary. We’ve built an outstanding team and made a real difference for clients all over the world. Now, we’re entering an exciting new phase for TOKY,” Eric Thoelke said. “Mary and I have always wanted to craft a company that will endure, will remain a magnet for the best talent in the business, and will continue to embody exceptional quality and brilliant creativity, long after we step back from day-to-day management. With Jerry at the helm, all these goals are secure, and TOKY’s next quarter century is well underway.”

TOKY’s focus on quality and creativity has earned the firm numerous honors. It is one of a handful of St. Louis design firms ever profiled in Communication Arts Magazine, the international standard-bearer of the design profession. TOKY has won the overall “Best in Business” award from St. Louis Small Business Monthly, as well as “Best in Quality” and “Best Marketing Firm” awards. It was one of 14 firms worldwide to take Platinum honors in GRAPHIS Design competition, and one of only nine in the U.S.  TOKY’s work for PhotoSeed won the Webby Award for Best Arts Website. It has earned recognition as one of St. Louis’ “Great Places to Work” by St. Louis Magazine and a “St. Louis Hottest Agency” by ALIVE Magazine.

The Thoelkes noted that these recognitions were all the products of a talented and dedicated team, which remains in place under Gennaria’s leadership.

“Eric and I couldn’t be any more thankful for the TOKY team and what we’ve all built together,” Mary Thoelke said. “The company is well positioned for a leap forward, so the time is right for new leadership. Jerry’s talents and leadership are just what TOKY needs.”

Contact:

Jerry Gennaria

314-534-2000

jerry@toky.com

The post TOKY Announces New Ownership, Opening Second Quarter-Century appeared first on TOKY.

The 8mm films captured a gay pool party in the 1940’s. And it was Geoff Story who discovered them 50 years later, sitting in a shoebox at an estate sale. After first watching them in amazement, 20 more years would pass before Geoff rediscovered the films and began wondering who the men were. Soon enough, he was making a documentary (Gay Home Movie) and it was during the course of his interviews that he met Gene Dawson — also known as Miss Gina.

While Gene wasn’t in any of the original footage, he (Gene’s most frequently used pronoun) had known some of the men who were. A single interview blurred into weekly visits where Gene shared his experiences and quickly became a story within the story. On one of these visits, Geoff asked Gene to sit for what became an award-winning portrait.

In 1954, Gene ventured into public as Miss Gina for the first time, and as a trans woman, experienced continual harassment and physical threats from the police. But along with his struggles, Gene also spoke of the thrills that came with his dual identity.

Knowing illness would prevent him from seeing the documentary before he passed away, Gene asked if Geoff would create a personal film with the material they had collected. It became footage that Gene watched daily, until he was no longer able to.

Gene passed away in September 2020, but his experiences and image live on as a part of LGBTQ history. “I wanted to make portrait,” Geoff says, “that would reflect Gene’s fortitude in his lifelong fight for equality and in the face of a terminal illness. I miss my friend, but Gene would be thrilled to know we’re still talking about him. He’s reaching people through his story.”

Geoff received a Gold Award in the 2021 Graphis Photography Annual for his portrait of Gene. The photo is also featured in Gene’s self-published memoir, Farm Boy, City Girl: From Gene to Miss Gina. You can learn more about Geoff’s documentary-in-progress or help uncover more of the story here.

The post TOKY’s Geoff Story Wins Gold in the 2021 Graphis Photography Annual appeared first on TOKY.

This virtual event is scheduled for April 30, 2021 at 8:30 a.m. Registration is free and open now at creativemornings.com/talks/jerry-gennaria.

CreativeMornings is a free, monthly breakfast lecture series for creative communities with chapters in more than 200 cities. Each month, CreativeMornings chooses a global theme, and speakers are selected by local chapters.

Here’s how CreativeMornings describes the April theme, procrastinate:

The things that we perpetually push to tomorrow’s to-do list can become a mental weight. Even though we know the welcome relief that will wash over us when that thing we’re avoiding is complete, still, we delay, just a little while longer.

Procrastination can be a sort of art form: the art of deferred action. It’s a technique that’s got a bad reputation, one often tinged with shame. But it can also be a way to claim the ways you wish to your time. It harbors creative possibilities, too.

In that game of waiting-waiting-waiting until it’s almost too late but not quite, a coiled spring of potential energy hides, ready to leap into action at a moment’s notice. Narrowing a timeline can be a fruitful creative constraint, an exercise in trusting the unknown. When a window of opportunity shrinks, improvisation and spontaneity might unfurl like a flower in a time-lapse video blooming at super speed, a confetti cannon of petals bursting in full color.

Register at creativemornings.com/talks/jerry-gennaria and learn more about CreativeMornings St. Louis at creativemornings.com/cities/stl.

#CMProcrastinate theme illustration (above) by Elisa Talentino.

The post Jerry Gennaria Talks Procrastination & Creativity with CreativeMornings appeared first on TOKY.

Each year, Communication Arts’ type competition celebrates the best use of typography as the primary visual element in design and advertising, along with new typeface designs, calligraphy, and hand lettering. 

The Typography Annual 11 jury included, from left to right: Valentina Casali (Sunday Büro), Lucho Correa (Lip), Katy Fischer (TOKY), Gloria Kondrup (Hoffmitz Milken Center for Typography), Wael Morcos (Morcos Key), and Milton Un (Carmichael Lynch).

Selections represented 25 countries, including work from Bulgaria, Peru, Uruguay, and Vietnam. Check out the list of 2021 winners in the latest issue of Communication Arts or at commarts.com/competition/2020-typography. 

Reflecting on the experience, Katy says that she “Loved seeing the diversity of work — not only in medium and approach, but also in origin of the work. It was inspiring to see work outside of the United States.” Asked about the trends she observed in the judging process, Katy noted that “Design trends spread like wildfire these days. Dribbble, Behance, etc. give our community a hyper-instant reference of style. If style is used to express new, different or something reminiscent of another, then it gets boring real fast.”

Congrats to this year’s winners! While you’re here, check out team TOKY’s past CA Typography honors:

• 2017: Shift, Test Kitchen & Take Out
• 2016: SWT Living Design
• 2015: Le Chat Putain Identity, Mound City Brochures
• 2014: Woody Guthrie Center Identity
• 2012: Core of Discovery Identity
• 2011: Miles Davis Jazz Festival Identity

The post Katy Fischer Joins Judging Panel for CA’s Typography Annual 11 appeared first on TOKY.

Team TOKY was tasked with branding the new CBD-infused line from renowned chocolatier Maureen Moore of Saddleback Chocolates. Earlier this week, we were thrilled to see KIZMET packaging featured on the Graphis blog.

From the article:
“As artisanal chocolate with unique flavors and infused with CBD, KIZMET revolutionizes the ordinary chocolate bar. This packaging cleverly utilizes old-school candy stripes to show this chocolate doesn’t forget what it is, but the tiny gold marijuana leaf at the top of the box with the slogan ‘Chocolate Meets CBD’ modernizes the delicacy.”

Cheers to Graphis for the feature, and congrats to our clients at KIZMET! Shop the full line of CBD chocolates at kizmetcbd.com/shop.

The post KIZMET Chocolates Packaging Featured on Graphis appeared first on TOKY.

Now, think about how you decide which one to patronize? Is it price? The side of the street? Maybe you’re loyal to one brand because they stock your favorite beverage. Whatever the reason, how hard would it be for you to switch to the other station? Probably not too hard. The prices are almost always the same. The snacks are similar. The gasoline powers your car no matter which brand you choose.

Now, think about your own business. In the era of smartphones, Google, Facebook, and other media, we have a nearly infinite supply of options for almost every need. Your business is one of those options, so how do you stand out from the crowd? No — stop and think — how are you truly different from your competitors in a way that is meaningful to customers? Now, do your customers and prospects agree with you? What will it take for them to switch to your competition? Will they pay a price premium to work with you?

Many people think a brand is the visual expression of your business — your logo, colors, signs, or advertising. You may be more experienced and realize that your brand is the sum total of what your customers believe about you. But have you really considered what that means and how defensible it is? This past year has caused many of us to revisit business relationships and truly evaluate how important they are. You may have even changed or eliminated suppliers due to cost. You may have lost or gained business for the same reason.

Think about the relationships you consider vital to your business and for which there is no acceptable substitute. Does your business fall into that category for your customers? When a prospect asks why they should choose your business, what do you say? Quality? Customer service? Low price? Convenient location? Superior performance? If so, how do you quantify that and is your superiority truly different in the minds of your customers?

It’s easy to believe your own marketing materials — after all, that’s how you sell yourself. But it doesn’t help if you are busy differentiating from your competitors based on something your customers don’t truly value. It’s hard to be objective about what makes you different. And it’s exceptionally difficult to make the hard decisions necessary to be really different.

This year, take a step back and evaluate how you position your business. Ask your customers why they chose you and what it would take for them to leave. Get an objective outside opinion. Don’t be afraid to make the hard decisions.

The post How Truly Different Are You? appeared first on TOKY.

For now, the menu of pizzas, pastas, salads, and cocktails will be available for carryout, dining room, or courtyard dining. And speaking of the courtyard, the name, Edera (Italian for ivy), was inspired by the iconic ivy-covered walls surrounding the restaurant’s outdoor dining space. Much like the food, the Edera brand strikes a balance between upscale and approachable, combining traditional Italian typography with modern stencil lettering. The playful “E” takes many shapes, from the noodle wrapped around a fork to the namesake ivy and the twist atop a refreshing cocktail.

Check out the full Edera menu at ederastl.com. And for more of TOKY’s hospitality branding, scroll through our work for Vicia, Firecracker Pizza & Beer, and Hot Box Cookies.

The post TOKY-Branded Edera Italian Eatery Now Open in the CWE appeared first on TOKY.