Branding Sparks

Are you Sanitizing your Brand?

October 2, 2012 By Christina Leave a Comment

Seems like I’ve had a few conversations in the last week that are actually the same conversation. It revolves around small business owners and their brands. See, brand is a slippery thing… it strengthens or weakens, grows or shrinks, and evolves with every little thing your business does. For example, when Apple does something dumb (like calling their tablet “iPad”) everyone’s up in arms for a little while. Bloggers make fun of them, their stock drops a bit. They lose brand brownie points with their market. Apple happens to have enough brand brownie points in the bank that it doesn’t hurt them too badly. And then they tend to do something delightful again and all is forgiven. They’ve made the iPad so great that we’ve gotten over the dumb name and there you go.

That’s brand… just like your friend who you love. You love her tons, but then she pisses you off and is awesome and then you love her again. In a small business, you, the owner are the driver of the brand. Which is kinda scary… When I meet some one new I have a moment of “who should I be so this person likes me?” Hopefully, I remember to be nothing other than me and let the person decide based on authenticity rather than some false pretense that I don’t know will work any better. So in business we try even more to be who we think our customers want. We write text for our website that follow MLA’s rules of grammar, we create graphics that don’t offend. We try to be like our competitors and then ask ourselves how we can stand out. It’s all so silly.

Don’t sanitize your brand. Don’t go vanilla because you’re scared people won’t like mocha-fudge-cherry chip. You’re right, there are some people who won’t love mocha-fudge-cherry chip… but you don’t need, or want, everyone in the world to buy from you… unless you’re Wal-Mart. Your balls-out, full-force personality will be polarizing. You’ll have people who don’t like it and people who LOVE it. You won’t have on-the-fencers. You won’t have price-shoppers. You won’t have clients who buy from the next guy they find who is cheaper. That’s the effect of polarizing. You’ll have people who don’t like you and people who love you no matter what you do.

You may be shocked, but I know people who don’t like Apple. And Steve Jobs didn’t care about them… He took care of the small percentage of the world who LOVE Apple. Because those people will buy again and again and again.

So, how are you sanitizing your brand? What would it take for you to fearlessly let your personality come through?

Filed Under: Branding Sparks

Your Brand Precedes You

July 30, 2010 By Christina Leave a Comment

I hear terms like “marketing, ” “PR,” and “branding” in conversations so often, and so interchangeably, that I lose track of what we’re actually talking about. And then even I get confused about the difference among them… and I specialize in branding!

And so I was grateful for this comic from Chris at 9GAG.com for so simply illustrating the difference.

I think of branding as the message, while marketing/pr/advertising are the means of communicating it. Crafting that message using consistent language, graphics, photography, colors and experiences is what I do best. Communicating that message via social media, editorial placement, ad placements, etc is what marketers do best. Without a consistent brand, what are you marketing?

What I like about this comic is the idea that your brand precedes you. It speaks for you. It warms up your audience. It draws out your customer from the rest of the crowd. It starts living in a customer’s mind before they’ve called you, before they’ve tried your product or service.

As long as you’ve built a brand that is authentic, you’ll have no problem meeting the expectations of those who are calling for more information, which in turn reinforces your brand.

In the context of this comic, if you’re branding yourself as a great lover, the only way to meet that expectation is to be one.

Filed Under: Branding Sparks Tagged With: authenticity, branding, marketing, public relations

Branding: A Long Term Relationship

July 14, 2010 By Christina Leave a Comment

You and customers
A long term relationship
What Your Brand is For.

One way I like to think of branding is as a relationship between your business and your customers. So if we take on this model of a relationship, then a brand is about more than a logo. More than a “cool” business card. More than the bells and whistles of a website. A brand done well elicits an emotion… hopefully a positive emotion like loyalty, love, happiness.

It’s easy to see this with a well-established brand like Coca Cola, for example. Over the years, Coke has gotten us to feel warm and fuzzy using cute polar bears, great music, whimsical bubbles, etc. Every commercial, print ad, billboard, bottle and can is somehow about good times, being social and just plain fun. This commercial from 1971, is congruent with the Coca Cola we know today.

Great, so how do you do accomplish this when you’re starting your brand from scratch? Well, the same way you accomplish trust when you meet some one new. The same way you go from a passing glance to falling in love, moving in together, getting married, and staying in love. It happens in every little communication, and interaction. It happens with every choice you make. It happens when you, a business owner, meet some one for the first time. When you hand her your business card. When he visits your website. When she sees your ad in the program for her kids’ high school play.

Certainly your logo and website play a role in your branding, and they do not equal your branding. Branding is about consistency across everything to do with your business. Your graphics, your marketing materials, your language, your customers’ buying experience. If you’re a solo-prenuer, you are a part of your brand too. The way you dress and speak count.

The goal is for all these pieces, and the space between them, to have a consistent message that ellicits positive emotions in the people who you like to work with. That is what a brand is for.

Filed Under: Branding Sparks Tagged With: branding, coca cola, haiku, logo, love, relationship

But it’s such a nice font…

June 25, 2010 By Christina Leave a Comment

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It’s such a nice font
How ’bout we use Papyrus?
Actually, it’s not.

From a typography standpoint, it’s gimmick-y, poorly kerned, and the letterforms are un-impressive. From a branding standpoint, Papyrus is so overused that it appears in print and online in everything from restaurant menus and homemade tri-fold brochures to travel websites and yoga dvds.

I think that maybe when it first came out, it may have been intended to have a middle-eastern/Egyptian feel to it. But since it’s been a standard font on every Mac and Windows computer since the mid-1980′s, it’s become the go-to typeface for someone who is trying to be creative. And I don’t mean to be harsh – recently Papyrus was used in the movie title and subtitles in Avatar – so I’m poking at professional designers and bootstrapping entrepreneurs equally. If you’d like to see more, check out Papyrus Watch.

And while Papyrus is probably the most recognizably over-used, abused and misused typeface, it’s not alone. Another one to avoid like the plague is Comic Sans. Originally intended for things like cartoon speech bubbles, it’s also now used in everything from medical services to “wet paint” signs. My point with all this is to steer anyone who makes any type decisions ever, away from those default fonts on your computer to the vast array of type available on the internet… much of it for free. Dafont is an excellent source of free fonts. Also try Urban Fonts and Acid Fonts. Always check the fine print if you’re using it commercially.

Images from www.papyruswatch.com and the Flickr Comic Sans Pool

Filed Under: Branding Sparks Tagged With: comic sans, fonts, papyrus, type, typeface, typography

What “Brown” has done for us.

June 21, 2010 By Christina Leave a Comment

I originally had one idea for a blog post about the rebranding UPS in 2003, but after a little Google searching for the old logo, I had a much bigger realization. So, idea A will be saved for another time…

When I think about UPS’s rebranding, it occurs to me as brilliant. I remember it being shiny and new, and loving how they embraced the whole “What can brown do for you?” thing. It came at a time when they were expanding their services from consumer package delivery to a vast range of global transportation solutions for businesses and regular people alike. More on why I think their re-branding was brilliant later… that was idea A. Now, onto what I learned when I Google-d for the old logo…

The reviews and blog posts that came out in 2003, when UPS launched the new brand, were harshly critical. There was an uproar about some one daring to tinker with the genius that was the original logo by Paul Rand. Many designers LOVE Paul Rand, love his work and see him as one of the most brilliant logo designers of his time. And I totally agree. At the time, his UPS branding was indeed brilliant. It spoke of what they did, which was delivering packages, usually tied up with string. And the fact that the branding lasted over 4 decades, during which UPS grew by leaps and bounds, proves that it was stellar. Hence, the criticism about how they went generic with their branding and that it lost all the iconic charm of the original.

Now, here’s the kicker… The web chatter I found that came out after 2008 feels the way I did; that it’s brilliant! The chatter-ers say that the new brand is updated, modern and representative of their wider capabilities. It took 5 years for a lot of people to settle in and get comfortable with the change. And this, finally, is the point of this blog post. Re-branding is often a painful process. For the business owner, it requires letting go of what’s “worked,” what’s become comfortable. And, there might even be a backlash on from the outside world.

So, how do you know if your rebranding is indeed, awful, or if it’s simply ahead of it’s time? Well, first, make sure you know WHY you’re re-branding. Ask yourself these questions:

1- Does your logo stand well with the current trend?

2- Does your logo still show the company’s trait or extended services?

3- Does your logo really stand-out in when put among other competitors’ logo?

4- Does your logo make a good impression when used in electronic mediums?

If the answers are all YES, then by all means, keep your current look. If there are some No’s in there, it might be time to revisit your look. And then, if you do re-brand, ask these questions of your new brand. If the answers are yes, then stand firm and wait for the world to catch up to your vision!

Filed Under: Branding Sparks Tagged With: branding, logo, logo design, paul rand, rebranding

Branding Haiku: What is it?

June 16, 2010 By Christina Leave a Comment

Branding – I want it!
How do I make it happen?
What is it really?

Almost everyone understands the effects of branding done well. We’ve all bought something without really knowing why, or have become loyal to a company for some reason or another. A brand done well almost goes unnoticed, because it just plain works and makes sense. It quietly becomes a household name, a part of your life you might take for granted.

I grew up with brands like Kraft, K-Mart, Schwinn, Atari, and Buick. They were characters in my childhood, as much as my dog or my friend down the street. I interacted with them daily, I depended on them to meet my expectations.

Those have been replaced with Whole Foods, The Gap, Honda, Apple Computer… still, I interact with them daily and depend on them to meet my expectations. The hows and whys of these relationships is what this blog is designed to explore. While I create and build brands for small business, I constantly study how other brands are created and built; what works, what doesn’t, and what blows us away.

Filed Under: Branding Sparks Tagged With: brand, brandings