Branding

Reason #1:  There’s no attraction. Like any good relationship, a magnetic pull has to exist between consumer and brand.  Yes, the intensity of the pull may vary (you’d be surprised how strongly I feel about Land O’ Lakes butter and Pilot PreciseGrip pens, for crying out loud), but it has to be reciprocal and compelling.  Like it or not, most decisions are emotion-based. While you might evaluate a potential date by his intelligence or self-sacrificing nature and you might rate a friend...

I like *that* one. The punch delivered by a well-designed logo can be staggering, and for a number of reasons. On a purely aesthetic level, the elements of color, proportion, design, and imagery may unite to soothe or stimulate.   These visuals imprint themselves on our brains, calling forth past experiences and memories or establishing new thoughts and associations.  Visceral emotions can become involved (due partly to those memories and associations), possibly attributed, at least in part,...

From our earliest years, boundaries form mental and physical structures guiding our behavior in society.  Boundaries are guideposts of sorts, directing our energies between the accepted and the unacceptable.  Boundaries define your personal playing field and vary in size and shape for every person.  Sometimes you want to be inside the boundaries which form your box (niche, specialty, market, channel, philosophical approach, etc.) while other times you want to be beyond it. Success comes from...

In a world of clutter and competition, successful brands are those which are distinctive and strong, generous and rewarding.  Consistent in every touchpoint of internal and external communications.  Successful brands seek to delight a finite group of target customers deemed to be a perfect match for the brand's offering. The very definition of success means the brand doesn't try to be all things to all people; doing so would dilute its message, claiming a flexible position in an anxious attempt...

There's More To The Story, If You Care To Look. As disorganized as some people are, as seemingly random and unintentional as some of our choices may be, our minds inherently operate mostly linearly. We make quick assessments based on first impressions and related experiences. Another way of putting it is that we're most comfortable sorting the people and pieces of our lives into similar profiles.  And once they've been placed and new (often validating, sometimes self-selected affirmation) bits...

No, I'm not making this up.  This pic has not been PhotoShopped within an inch of it's life. It's the real deal, I promise. That's right, folks.  There's actually a health/beauty aid product called [drumroll, please] "Anti-Monkey Butt Powder." And they just extended the product line to include a Ladies variety, replete with - you guessed it - a female monkey sporting a pink hair ribbon. How do you start to bring this - or any CPG product, let's say - to market?  Let's assume all the requisite...

"A principle isn’t a principle unless it costs you something".—Bob Goldstein, former P&G Vice President of Advertising Today is the first day of the work week and as usual we ended the day with our company meeting.  There's only a small number of us, so we can be efficient with the 45 minutes we've allotted. As usual, each team member spent a few minutes touching on the more complex, urgent, or higher-profile tasks facing them this week. Sometimes they relate those tasks to specific...

I'm not known for my pithy Seth-like posts that pack a punch in two paragraphs. But maybe I can share my point of view while flexing a new set of mini-writing muscles today. While making a quick grocery run last night, a friend ran by an end cap in the beverage section that gave her pause. I'm not a big wine drinker so maybe this isn't news to you as it was to me--but evidently there's a wine on the market named, of all things, Bitch. Now that's different, admit it.  One wine reviewer...

Not long ago, after much research and ideation, I developed a strategic planning process I'm pleased with.  It's a phased, sequenced approach that includes closed-loop feedback integrated into an iterative, evolving process.  Nothing Einstein-ish about it, but then if you've ever read any documentation on blue ocean vs. red ocean strategy, you'll know there are some brilliantly simple imperatives right in front of us which distinguish failure from great success. The part of the methodology that...

This is one of those posts that has been noodling around in my, well, noodle for awhile. The idea struck me one day while driving when I passed a sign jabbed crookedly in the ground at a street corner. You know the type, screen printed on a sheet of thick plastic with prongs on one side to hold it securely in the ground? I typically notice these types of signs (I fret about the poor people dodging traffic to install them) but my sense is that they're often used for commodity service providers...