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6 Steps To Laying Out Your Competitive Strategy
Why do so many companies languish and watch as their business turns into a zero profit zone, while others seem to thrive?
When you look at your business, whether it’s a new venture or a company with a long history, can you answer the...
Hardcore Sales Vs. The Relationship Part III: Tips and Techniques For Relationship Selling!
Here we are, at the final chapter so to speak. Today, lets talk more on how you go about utilizing the potential for "Relationship Selling".
You know I've done this myself more times than I can count. When people point out the obvious to me, a...
New Uniforms Could be the Gold Charm for the Golden Arches
New designer uniforms could be the gold charm McDonald’s needs to connect their new hip marketing campaign to their fast-food restaurants. This possible gold charm for the fast-food chain has the ability to let the actual fast-food restaurants...
Signage for Your Business
Outdoor signage compels the consumers to enter your place of
business. Utilizing tasteful designs, color, lightening your
signage will have a direct affect on human emotions. Human
emotion is what compels most of us to react or engage....
The Power of a Self Brand
How to create a winning brand for your most important product - you.
You have permission to publish this article electronically, in print, in your ebook or on your web site, free of charge, as long as the author bylines are included.
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More Than Just a Logo: Creating Your Company's Corporate Identity
A client of mine once called after I had given a presentation to
him about his company's brand. He was calling to say we needed
to change the shade of taupe we had all agreed upon for the
firm's logo.
I was surprised to hear this busy man talking taupe, convinced
he had more important things to attend to. I found it
particularly strange because just that day, he had approved the
color scheme.
As the conversation progressed, he confessed that his wife
didn't like the color. She had experimented with that very shade
of taupe for their living room curtains and hated it. Ignoring
our strong suggestion to the contrary, the color was changed.
What does this 20 year old story have to do with anything? Most
people think of branding as a pretty logo. Instead, branding
embodies the entire customer experience, with the logo merely
acting as the visual mark.
The brand experience should reflect the soul of the company.
More important than whether or not you "really like" everything
about it, your brand should represent your company's "image
attributes."
Image attributes are adjectives and descriptive phrases that
capture the essence of a company and their creative project.
They describe the core values of an organization, the feeling
that a brand should evoke or the essential goals of a Web site.
At the start of a project, I work with my clients to elucidate a
set of brief terms to identify the basic precepts of their
project. These image attributes become a list that we can all
agree on, easy-to-remember reference points that help everyone
on the team, both client and developer, stay on target
throughout the process.
Developing them may be the most important exercise of the
project, because it helps ensure that the final result--the
brand identity or Web site--embodies those descriptors. For
every project, I have many levels of goals, but as long as my
work reflects the image attributes on presentation
day, I have
done my job.
So what do image attributes have to do with my client's wife who
doesn't like taupe? One of the most common mistakes in
purchasing creative services is that clients judge results based
on personal likes and dislikes.
Unlike choosing a curtain color for your living room or buying
artwork for the space over your fireplace, creative choices
related to business have nothing to do with your (or your
spouse's!) personal preferences. They have everything to do with
solving your business problems and improving your customers'
experience.
Many clients think they have to "like" the artwork that creative
services firms produce for them. But what if those clients'
likes and dislikes don't line up with their corporate needs?
What if they aren't qualified to determine what works visually
for their firm? By agreeing on image attributes that will guide
and gauge the outcome of an assignment, we assure ourselves that
the end result achieves the business goals that we set at the
beginning.
Look at brands that work: Coke, Nike, Apple Computer; their
brands on packaging and products, Web sites and brochures, carry
a simple, compelling visual message that elicit very specific
feelings in their audience. Whether or not people like the red
used in the Coke lettering or the simple apple icon used by
Apple Computer, they are compelling and significant icons that
evoke strong recognition and often positive feeling.
That's what a brand is about: embodying the attributes of your
company or product. Everything else is window dressing.
About the author:
Kara Brook is the President and CEO of Brook Group, LTD, a
full-service Web design firm near Washington, DC. More articles
by Brook can be found at www.brookgroup.com/res
ources and www.usabilityandbrandin
g.com.
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