Wednesday, September 16, 2009

A Practical Guide to Branding

Define your brand identity—your product's "personality"—before you spend a dime on advertising or marketing

Talk to entrepreneurs about their marketing and communications efforts, and they'll often use the words "branding," "marketing," and "advertising" interchangeably. That reflects the pervasive confusion about the terms, says Gail Guge, managing partner of Wilkin Guge Marketing in Ontario, Calif.. "About 15 years ago, 'branding' became a buzzword in the business vernacular, and people still get the words mixed up all the time," she says.

That confusion is unfortunate, because understanding the concepts and how they mesh is vital to every company's bottom line. Studies show companies that market their products or services without first establishing their brand identities are not likely to achieve return on investment. "If you're spending money to advertise and market without being connected to a brand position, you might as well pile the money up and burn it," Guge says.

Rob Frankel, a branding expert and author in Los Angeles, calls branding the most misunderstood concept in all of marketing, even among professionals. Branding, he says, "is not advertising and it's not marketing or PR. Branding happens before all of those: First you create the brand, then you raise awareness of it."

Your Brand is Your Personality

And while many people think successful branding is only about awareness, it's not, Frankel adds. "Everyone knows about cancer but how many people actually want it? Branding is about getting your prospects to perceive you as the only solution to their problem. Once you're perceived as 'the only,' there's no place else to shop. Which means your customers gladly pay a premium for your brand."

Your product or service is not your company's brand and neither is your logo or your business card. Your brand is the genuine "personality" of your company. "It's what your customers think of you and say about you when they've left your company," says Rodger Roeser, president of Cincinnati-based Eisen Management Group, a public-relations and brand-development firm.

Your brand is what your company stands for and what it is known for. "Look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself what you stand for. Go around the room with your leadership and ask them what the company stands for. Settle on one or two brand pillars and build your brand around them. If you can't define your brand, your customers won't be able to, either. And the risk is that someone else will define it for you—probably your competitors," Roeser says.

The Promise You Make to the World

Steve Cecil, a copywriter and verbal-branding expert with Where Words in San Carlos, Calif., says a brand is a promise and branding is the act of devising the promise your company makes to the world. Marketing, he says, "is the strategy that differentiates your brand promise from all the other brand promises in that increasingly crowded house called "your category."

Think of marketing like a toolbox containing branding, advertising, direct mail, market research, public relations, and other tools. "Marketing represents the combination of methods organizations use to persuade their target audience toward some specified behavior such as sales," says Stephen Rapier, of Glendale (Calif.)-based The Artime Group.

Advertising, Rapier says, can take many forms: print, as in newspaper and magazine ads; outdoor, such as billboards; online Web banners; and broadcast advertising on radio and TV. "Typically, the goal of advertising is to grab attention, create positive perceptions, and prompt response while conveying information consumers will find relevant to their needs," he notes.

Your Brand Is a Lifestyle

A successful marketing strategy uses all—or most—of the tools in the box depending on the job at hand, Cecil says. "Crafting a winning marketing strategy is challenging enough even when you have articulated your brand promise and is probably impossible if you haven't."

If you have not specified your company's brand, don't spend another dime on marketing until you do. While everyone's familiar with megabrands such as Apple (AAPL), Nike (NKE), and Virgin, small companies can also develop potent brands and market them successfully, says Steve Manning, managing director at Igor, a branding and naming firm based in San Francisco.

"A brand creates an image in the mind of the consumer. It says something is different at your firm, something worth more than business as usual. If your firm is a commodity, your customers will choose you solely on the basis of price or getting something for free. If you've got a brand, you're selling a lifestyle and you can sell anything you want," Manning says.

More elements of this Special Report are available in the related items box on the upper right side of this page.

Karen E. Klein is a Los Angeles-based writer who covers entrepreneurship and small-business issues.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Why Your Advertising Isn't Working

This following article is a great tool for getting your advertising/marketing back on track. Take a good look at what you are conveying through your advertising. Is is what you want your company to be known for? Does it represent you well? As we approach a new year, rethink your strategies and goals. Let us help you start this year out strong!

Hope you enjoy this great article. Great article Steve!

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The vast majority of ads don't register with consumers. Here are seven straight-up reasons why your message probably isn't getting through

Recently, an AdweekMedia poll of LinkedIn members posed this question: "Of the ads you see in a typical day, how many engage your attention?" A remarkable two-thirds of respondents said "a small minority of them." Another quarter answered "none of them." Together, that's 91%. Only one in 100 respondents said "most of them."

Ouch. While polls like these have their limitations (we often can't—or won't—tell the truth about our own purchase behavior), I suspect few us would doubt the overall conclusion that a lot of advertising doesn't work very well. Your own advertising may even fall into that category.

If you find yourself nodding your head and wringing your hands right now, keep in mind this simple business axiom: Companies get the advertising they deserve. If your advertising isn't working, it may be you that's the problem.

The good news is that you can take steps to fix it. Certainly the economic environment is playing a significant role in how well (and how quickly) prospects are responding to your advertising, but blaming the recession is ultimately unproductive. After all, you may not like the hand you've been dealt, but your competitors are holding the same cards. It's how you play your hand that counts.

With that in mind, I'd like to suggest seven reasons why your advertising may not be pulling its weight. Use them to evaluate your efforts, but don't rely on your judgment alone. Ask a trusted and objective colleague to give you his or her honest opinion as well.

1. It's boring. Yep, boring. Why do we watch TV, listen to the radio, read the newspaper, or go online? Three reasons: information, entertainment, and engagement. Ads that fail to offer at least two of these three benefits flop. Just as nobody reads every story in the newspaper, nobody pays attention to every ad. You have to engage your prospects with something that is interesting or entertaining before they'll give you their valuable time and attention. Creativity has always been the coin of the realm, but in our time-starved culture it's truer than ever.

2. It's boorish. You shouldn't think of your advertising as being about your brand, you should think of it as an extension of your brand. If it's loud, annoying, insulting, offensive, or self-centered, people will think the same of your products or services. Remember the first sentence in the best-selling hardback book in U.S. history, The Purpose Driven Life: "It's not about you." What's true in life is true in advertising; if you focus only on what you can get, you're not going to get much. Instead, focus on giving, and good things will begin to happen.

3. It's safe. The first time I saw a Ford Taurus, I took note, and I suspect you did as well. So did a lot of other people, and the Taurus went on to become the best-selling car in America. If the Taurus had been another in a long line of boxy sedans, it probably would have been just another car. Instead, it turned automotive design conventions upside down and made history. While being different isn't in and of itself a guarantee of success, what you do is a lot more likely to get noticed if it hasn't been done before. And keep in mind that when you do something different, people may not like it—at least initially. Most of us were shocked at our first sight of the Taurus' curved lines, but it went on to have significant influence on automotive design. If you worry too much about offending someone, you're likely to not attract anyone.

4. It's trying to do too much. As the poll results above demonstrated, most people don't engage with most ads. And even when they do, for how long do they pay attention? Thirty seconds? Ten? Five? The best an ad can do is communicate one single, compelling idea, and in the age of the Internet—when people know they can go online to get all the additional information they need—it's crazy to ask an ad to do more than that. Just because you have a lot to say doesn't mean your audience will sit still and pay attention. Do your best to make a simple, singular point. Do it with flair, and given enough exposure (see next point) it might just get through.

5. It hasn't been given time. You can't rush bread out of the oven. You can't hurry a seedling out of the ground. All you can do is prepare the ingredients properly, tend the garden with care, and wait for the loaf to rise and sprouts to appear. The same is true of advertising. If you expect too much too soon (especially on a limited budget) you're sure to be disappointed. Think about your own consumer behavior—how many times do you need to be exposed to a marketing message before you take action? Depending on your prospects' level of interest in the category and frequency of purchase, it could take weeks, months, or even years for your message to sink in.

6. You like it. O.K., this one may sting a bit, but you are not the best judge of your own advertising. You can't be, because you simply know too much about your brand and have too much affection for it to remain objective. Look at Burger King (BKC). Its advertising over the past few years has been quite successful in appealing to the company's core target audience of young men, but many Burger King franchisees could personally do without it. The smart ones recognize that they're not the target and leave it alone. Your advertising is not only not about you, it's not for you. Both points seem counterintuitive, but that's why this stuff isn't for amateurs.

7. It's not an advertising problem. A common mistake many companies make is trying to use advertising to fix another problem. It may be faulty or outdated product design, an uncompetitive cost structure, customer service letdowns, or any number of other things. It's not as if they do so intentionally; it's just that it's a whole lot easier to put on a new coat of paint than it is to fix the foundation that's causing the drywall to crack. No company executes flawlessly, but until you can maintain a solid track record of excellence, spend your money on internal improvements rather than advertising. Paint may mask the problem for a short time, but soon new cracks will begin to appear.

There are, of course, many more reasons why advertising underperforms, from poor media placement to bad strategy to competitive countermoves. But the above missteps are so common—and so commonly misunderstood—that simply putting them out to the curb would go a long way in making advertising better. Not to mention making television much more bearable to watch.

Steve McKee is president of McKee Wallwork Cleveland Advertising, a firm that specializes in helping stalled companies rekindle growth. He is the author of the new book, When Growth Stalls.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Choosing the Correct Font

A graphic designer (new to the field) recently asked me this question:

  • "I'm a self-taught web designer who has also spent time getting up to speed with graphic design methodologies. One problem I'm having is how to determine which typeface is best to use for a given project. I realize that weight, style, etc. are involved, but what should be considered. TIA."

This is my response to him. Hopefully you will find it helpful as well!

Each designer has different ideas on choosing typefaces for a certain project. These are some basics that get me started on a new project.

One thing that helps me is having an easily accessible sample of all my fonts so I can quickly peruse the large number of fonts. Using different and new fonts ensures that I am keeping my designs fresh and new. I use AMP Font Viewer to help with the organization of my fonts.

The font choice(s) should reflect the company/piece that you designing for. A tool company isn't going to want to have a script/flowy font throughout their piece because the company is trying to portray strength and durability. The preferred style of the company should also be considered. If a company prefers a modern/contemporary look, then you aren't going to use an old world Typeface with a lot of fine detailing.

Also, if you are going to use multiple fonts in one layout, a general rule is to use a block type font with a serif type font. If you use two of the same "styles" of font, it actually makes it look more cluttered and hard for the eye to take in.

As point size goes, keep your fonts sizes in factors of each other. If your header is an 18 point, and your small header is a 15 point, then do your paragraph in 12 or 9 (factors of 3). Factors of 2 work nicely also. Don't have fonts that are a point or closer together (like a 10 and 11 point) on the same publication. Our eyes like a larger differentiation.

Those are a few basic guidelines that are hopefully helpful. Your creativity and your eye can help you determine what looks best for the piece that you are working on. Sometimes rules will be broken to make a piece more successful but it always helps to know the basics.