Posts by ‘Malcolm’

Creating a Brand Image. Are People Talking About You? With a Strong Brand Image They Would Be.

Written by Malcolm on March 16th, 2010

When it’s boiled down to basics, a brand is simply your reputation.

“A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.”
Jeff Bezos, Founder, Amazon.com

What are the elements of a strong brand reputation? At SmartImage Media we think they include the following:

  • Brand Name
  • Logo Design
  • Trust & Brand Promise
  • Consistency

Let’s start with the name.  Does it have to mean something? Kodak, McDonald’s, Cheerios, and Apple don’t have built-in meaning, but they’ve been painstakingly built through many years of advertising and exposure. It doesn’t have to mean something, but having a name that means something makes the job of creating a successful brand image much easier. Examples that come to mind are “Jiffy Lube”, “Close-Up” and “Puppy Chow.”  Can you think of other examples?

What about the logo design? What image does it convey and is it consistent with the brand promise? Is it modern or traditional? Are the colors loud or muted? Is the design “clean” or “busy?”  Is it associated with a symbol or does it stand on its own? Does it stand out from the competition? Does it make you look professional? Is it a custom designed brand logo, or does it look like it was designed by your brother-in-law? All of these factors must be considered in developing a strong logo.

With a strong brand, consumers TRUST your brand promise. The corollary is also true – when people TRUST your brand promise, you develop a strong brand.

For example when FedEx promises overnight delivery, how confident are you that it’ll arrive the next day? What about “Joe’s Courier Service?” What’s your trust level with them?

When you buy tainted pet food from China, what happens to their brand promise to produce healthy pets?  What happens to a brand’s reputation when children’s’ toys are found to have lead contamination?

So one of the most critical functions of a strong brand is “Can it consistently deliver on its promise?” Just as in life, a broken promise can take years to mend.

Although your brand promise encompasses many things it starts with the tag line.  This is what you’re promising your brand will do.  For example, at SmartImage Media, we use BROADEN YOUR IMPACT because we’re confident we can deliver on that promise, time after time.

One of the best tag lines ever is Energizer’s “It keeps going and going and going……..” Brian Till and Donna Heckler say that powerful taglines should embody three characteristics. They should be meaningful, motivating and memorable. Energizer certainly meets those criteria.

Small businesses face challenges that are particular to them, the most important usually being tighter cash flow, tougher budgets and lack of access to capital. Limited resources make it critical that your brand is differentiated from its competition.  What makes it different? What makes it better? Why does it offer more value? Is it more convenient? Who does it target? Is it a niche product?

Limited budgets make it imperative that you have a well designed logo that is consistent with your brand promise. Limited budgets also mean that advertising communication cannot rely as much on traditional forms of advertising, but must concentrate more on the new media: websites that reflect your company image, your brand image and your brand promise, websites that include superior graphic design and are SEO optimized, as well as social media marketing such as blogs, Facebook, Twitter etc. that gets you in touch with potentially very large audiences. Vehicle wraps are another way to reach potentially large audiences for a fraction of the cost of traditional media. A caveat on vehicle wraps: many wrap designs are too busy. Effective vehicle wraps must communicate who you are, what you do and how you can be reached in 5 seconds or less, because in effect it’s a “moving billboard” and should get your message and brand image across quickly. So, even though times are tough right now, the good news is that these forms of communication are much more cost effective and can build greater trust and credibility, because you’re being talked about, you’re not doing all the talking.

Consistency is the final element in a strong brand image.  The design and communication elements of your brand should carry through in everything from logo to packaging, from website design to auto wraps and from brochure design to traditional advertising. Consumers are bombarded with thousands of advertising messages and images each day. Don’t dilute your brand image by being inconsistent.

In some cases, businesses are quite well established before they decide that it’s time to look “grown-up”. It’s time for the “brand image to catch up with the business.”

In other cases, the brand image is well thought out and designed right from the start, making it much easier for the “business to catch up with the brand image.”

Either way, it’s really important to incorporate all the elements of a strong brand image summarized below:

  • A brand name that preferably means something
  • A logo design that fits well with your brand name, your target market and your brand promise
  • A tagline that’s meaningful, motivating and memorable
  • A consistent communication strategy that repeats the brand name, brand logo and brand promise across as many media as possible, including website, social media, vehicle wraps, packaging, advertising, signage, brochures and other printed collateral materials.

If you do all this well, you will undoubtedly “broaden your impact.”

Posted in Branding/Identity | 5 Comments »

Persistence pays when it comes to your brand.

Written by Malcolm on February 15th, 2010

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away I was a naïve 23 year old Assistant Brand Manager for a large multi-national company. One day I had a brainwave, or at least so I thought. My brand was a dehydrated packaged soup in multiple flavors and every winter a special promotion was developed to capitalize on the seasonal spike in sales.

My idea was to design and build a mock fireplace around our soup display stand that would be featured at aisle ends in supermarkets and would convey the concept of winter warmth over a hot bowl of soup.

I presented the idea to my brand manager, who loved it. We approached our Product Group Manager – he loved it. I thought,

“Great! Our Marketing Director’s bound to love it too!”  Wrong!  He said the concept was OK, but it was impractical and would cost far too much.

Even though I was young and inexperienced, I knew that relevant brand promotions boost sales and enhance brand image, so I persisted. I approached a local printer with the idea and to my delight costs came in at about one tenth of our Marketing Director’s estimate.  Not only that, but the printer offered to build us a mock-up too.

When the completed mock-up was presented, our Marketing Director was a little annoyed that I’d pursued the idea despite his earlier disapproval. However, when he learned how little it would cost, he agreed to let the promotion proceed.

The next hurdle was getting the sales force excited about the idea.  Traditionally, sales people think that marketing people are full of hare-brained schemes designed to make their lives more difficult and this fireplace idea was no exception.  For a start, they would have to transport these contraptions to the supermarkets in their rather small sales vehicles.  Admittedly, I hadn’t thought of that, but luckily the fireplace fit with inches to spare!

Our sales of packaged soup soared that winter and the following year our sales force was demanding we bring back “that wonderful fireplace promotion.”

When it comes to relevant brand promotions, never give up on a good idea.  Persistence pays!

Posted in Marketing | 1 Comment »

Business Nugget #2: “Identifying your Business Mission and Vision: What’s the Difference and What’s More Important?”

Written by Malcolm on February 2nd, 2010

I recently asked my son Tim this question and he responded “Do I have to choose?” I said “If you had to, which would you choose?” He correctly chose Vision.  That’s because your Vision identifies where you want to go, doing what you do.  Your Mission on the other hand, describes “what you exist to do”. For example, you may exist to produce the best tasting chocolates in the world, but unless you identify where you want to go making chocolates, you may get so busy that you get overwhelmed and burned out.

Choosing where you want to go puts everything you do in the context of a “big picture” – your Vision.  It identifies the “why” you’re doing what you’re doing.

A friend of mine recently asked for my advice.  She was so successful in providing a computer-related service that she was becoming overwhelmed and wanted to know what she should do. I suggested that she re-examine her Vision, which she did and concluded that even though she loved her work, her family was more important to her.  Therefore, instead of accepting an unlimited number of clients, she would retain only the ones she had, do an excellent job for them and take on only a limited number of well selected new clients – a wise choice for my friend because it made her happier and more effective.

The importance of choosing your Vision is much like Lewis Carroll’s Alice (in Wonderland) who encountered a Cheshire Cat at a fork in the path.

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” asked Alice.
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where……” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Business Nugget #1: Be True to Your Values

Written by Malcolm on January 21st, 2010

In tough economic times it’s tempting to take whatever business comes your way, even if it means compromising your values. If "EXCELLENCE" is one of your business values, don’t succumb to the temptation to drastically reduce your price or quality just to get the job. The compromise will hurt you in the long term – either your quality will suffer or you’ll reduce the price so much that you’ll make very little profit. It’s not a good recipe for long-term growth.

Recently a customer asked one of our sister companies us to do a wrap job in which they supplied the artwork. The design was mediocre, so I suggested that I would pay for a professional design. They agreed that if they liked the design, they’d pay and if not, we would pay. I said “You’ve got a deal!” They loved our design and our sister company has since wrapped over a dozen vehicles for them.  In fact, the customer says they get more inquiries from their wrapped vehicles than any other form of advertising and promotion they’re doing.

Standing firm on “excellence” led to a great design for our customer, even at the risk of having to pay more, not less.  This led to more business for our customer and a need for more vehicles. Naturally they wanted these extra vehicles wrapped too, so it came full circle.  Who knows what might have happened had we accepted the mediocre design to start with?

Posted in Marketing | No Comments »