Does 'Branding' need a new brand strategy?

Whether you’re a mompreneur, or a multinational, brand has never been more relevant, and more misunderstood. 

Branding, let’s face it is as much shield as it is strategic advance.  The word can be a deft and evasive sweep over much of marketing, pr, design, and in between. You want to talk about a product’s positioning? Talk about its brand.  You want to launch a fluff press release just for visibility? Write about brand. The CEO gets caught singing karaoke while bombed on Mai Tais? Spin it around the brand. Seriously? For as much as it is credited with creating business longevity and viability, branding is fast becoming the Heidi and Spencer Pratt of media. It’s no wonder small business owners snort in derision when someone (say, me) starts to address their brand strategy. “Apple has a brand strategy. I don’t need a brand strategy.” Other sound bites: “I have a solid marketing plan. I have a logo. I have a brochure. I don’t need a brand strategy.” Hmm. How’s that working out for you? I never knew differentiation tactics could be so.. well, so conformist.

First, I admit, I’m biased. But as a brand strategist and business consultant, I often get treated as a designer with a god-complex. People often ask me to ‘do a logo’ or ‘some cards’ or (my favourite) ‘make this pretty’ and I always cringe internally. Then they cringe when I launch into my ‘branding is not just applied design’ monologue.  But it’s true. All too commonly small business owners leave brand development to the end of the line, making it more a slapped on façade than something that is infrastructural to their business strategies. So when I start to explain that brand is actually a composite sensory experience of any or all of your market touch-points, I generally get a nice, succinct, ‘huh?’ in response.

It is a shock to the system, I know. You should be developing your brand alongside your key business strategies. Why? Because for each and every business strategy, there is an equal brand strategy. Branding is actually more martial art than it is  slight-of-hand sideshow. Branding is born out of the way you do things. It translates policy, procedure, mandates and principals into a handshake.  Yes. The ‘way’ you do things has its own font. Its own copy style. Its own graphics, colours, and iconography. Its own customer service experience design. When a brand is successful, you do get the bulldozer impact of large corporations. Apple is a fine example. But just because you’re a small business it doesn’t mean you can’t take cues from an extremely successful strategy. I am a firm believer in big strategy for small business. Leading a firm of 3 people is just as important, and it doesn’t mean that you don’t deserve recognition for your consistent, powerful messaging, and positioning. Likewise, it also doesn’t mean that you have to use what has become touted as a strange go-to small business marketing mix: logo, business cards, brochure, website, and if you’re living on the edge: a fridge magnet. Sorry folks, but a fridge magnet does not a brand strategy make.

My advice? Before you go to a designer, think about your brand. Revisit that ‘solid marketing plan’. Think about the way you do things, and more importantly the way you don’t do things. Ask yourself how your visual and experiential identity reaffirms those mandates.  How do you want to be received by your consumer community? Do you really want to set yourself apart with the same tri-fold brochure as your competition? Will Tweeting about your lunch give you the relationship you want with your clientele? Does your 12pt standard MS Calibri font really say that you’re a discerning specialist? Does the light blue and brown combo communicate that you’re a partner at a law office? How about those fridge magnets? Again. How’s that working for you?

On my part, I vow to try being a better brand manager for Branding. In the sea of ‘oh-my-God-Justin-Bieber-has-a-line-of-nail-polish’, ‘Heidi-Montag-has-an-album’ , and ‘Kim-Kardashian-is-a-style-expert’ I will try to be an educational beacon, and I know, so will my colleagues.

Branding is what makes your business tactile. It’s the signage, and wayfinding that gets people to you. It’s the web presence that gets people to experience your culture. It’s the story that got you where you are and the story you are writing (both internally and externally) to get you to where you want to be. It’s what creates calm, smooth, client-side procedures in the face of harrowing business busts. It is what engages the fickle ‘I like it’ sensor in both your employees and end-users, and what affirms a big esoteric ‘Yes. That brand (read ‘that way’) is the way I do things too.’

Flex your brain by checking out some fun tools, and rethink your approach to brand. Check out my free downloads at http://www.spintheidea.com/tools

And yes, for the record, I made them pretty.

Experience Design Fail: Up in the Air, A Case Study.

When you are one small part of a conglomerate, mass merger, or joint venture, how do you move ahead and strengthen your brand? Not like this.

Referrals are a very common method for generating business, and having said that it’s not uncommon to see collateral stamped with multiple brands as a result. Wholesaling, brokering, joint ventures… these are all recipes for confusing your prospects. How many times have you seen marketing pieces that sound more like movie credits than anything else? Sunshine Corp., presents a product by Green Grass Inc., in partnership with Big Box Corp. Don’t delay, call the Seemingly Totally Unrelated Group for more information, today. Huh?

I ran into this when I booked our family vacation. I called Bellair Travel to book a Sunquest vacation offered by Thomas Cook Canada, which is owned by Jazz. Hmm. I’ll be honest here, branding was not foremost on my mind, but the Cabo sun was. I didn’t really care about the who and the what so long as I was drinking a margarita and hanging by the pool. Then we got to the airport.

Interesting. So, if Air Canada owns Jazz, and Jazz owns Thomas Cook Canada, where in Terminal 3 did they want us to end up? Hold on.. is Thomas Cook the same as Thomas Cook Canada? Luckily we got dropped off by the right entrance, and the Thomas Cook signage was pretty visible. Or so we thought. We queued up and began to relax into the 20 or so minutes that was our wait-time. After about 10 minutes ticked by, a Thomas Cook employee announced: “This line is for all those who are travelling to Germany. If you are travelling to Mexico you should be in that line.” She waved down to the other end of the terminal. I didn’t see where because my eyes were glazing over.

At this point, my husband was fuming pretty loudly about a lack of signage and a waste of time as were a throng of people behind us. We all trudged over to the other Thomas Cook line where the wait time was reset to 25 minutes and none were too happy. But again, brand, shmand. Maragaritas, warm sun, infinity pool, family time.. service providers are lucky that consumers on vacation have this kind of mantra,  otherwise there would be hell to pay. Although it probably explains the free booze on the flight.

Just when I thought the messy experience was through, I had to fill out my entry card to Mexico and got stumped for a few minutes. There was a space that said ‘Airline’ and another to fill out that said ‘Travel Company’. So, under travel company do I write Bellair Travel, or did they mean Sunquest Vacations? And is the airline Thomas Cook? Thomas Cook Canada? Or Jazz? Nuts.

The vacation was amazing. We were met by a Sunquest rep at the airport (so, was I supposed to write Sunquest after all?) and loaded on to our bus. The rest of the week was a pleasant blur of sun, rest, and relaxation.

On our way home an announcement was made that the ‘Thomas Cook flight would be checked in by West Jet’. I wasn’t even going to ask. Of course there was no signage to indicate this, and there was no incidence of the Thomas Cook logo to be found. And then I saw it. To complete my experience and tattoo the indelible brand imprint of Thomas Cook in my mind, here was my final impression:

 

Excuse the blur, but yes. It does say Thomas Cock.

Ouch. Watch your brand placement people! Apparently windows can turn respectable names into evil nicknames and this is really not good when your nod at experience design is more like ordeal design, bolstered by a nice policy and procedures manual.

Now, was my experience bad? No. Not really. The vacation part was a smashing success and I would go again in a heartbeat. But a little planning and experience follow-through on the part of Thomas Cook..Canada? Jazz? Whoever.. A little planning could actually strengthen their brand, not to mention take pressure off of their limited staff. (I don’t think that nice lady was being paid just to walk around and tell people they were in the wrong line. And if she was, a sandwich board would most certainly mean progress.)

I know the airline industry is rife with mergers, and that branding doesn’t seem to float to the top of the list when you yourself probably don’t know who you work for anymore. But rest assured, the consumer mindshare is still being formed. To start, two signs, one saying ‘MEXICO’ and one saying ‘GERMANY’, are not going to rock the boat. And instead of creating a massive disruption which requires more staff/resource allocation to offset, how about having a greeter ask people which Thomas Cook flight they were on? I know. Revolutionary. I’m not even talking about branded signage, or advertising. I’m just talking about a little bit of way-finding.

I’m not ganging up on Thomas Cook here. This happens all the time. Every industry has its Chinese Checker stacked brand venture just waiting to be promoted. But where that potential confusion lies in wait, Experience Design is the answer. If you walk through a process from a client side, and from your internal staff POV, and design around it, you are going to guarantee less bottle-necks, and a general air of happiness. Here’s a simple design that illustrates what I mean. Below is a small map of our experience going from YYZ to Cabo.

 

Here are a few simple changes mapped from birds-eye view that make everyone’s experience better, from the staff to the travelers.

 

Here’s some food for thought. Wouldn’t it be nice if your vacation started when you got to the airport instead of when you got to the resort? I’m not saying that it would take all the stress out of travel, but it would definitely give some order to the process and smooth over brand confusion created by mergers or just plain weak strategy.

What can I say? Branding still shines at 30,000 ft. 

Outside the Box is still Inside the Idiom

The New GAP logo at left, and the LinkedIn logo at right. Blech.OK Gap. I can hear the pitch. "You guys have been on the defining edge of retail culture and fashion brand management but you're still inside the box with your logo. Take the step outside the box.." It's a sad, sad situation when you start taking Pauly Shore's design advice. At least it's Pauly Shore who's giving the pitch in my head. Sorry Pauly.

I am not sure I get the motivation behind it -because we've seen the Gap flip-flop between it's serif and sans-serif brand incarnations before over the last 20 years - but it looks like for now, the comfortable, classic, 'oh I need jeans and/or khaki's I'll go to the GAP' brand is now the 'oh, I need to rethink my hard-drive configuration' GAP brand. Really, has no one noticed that the Gap's new logo makes it look like it should be launching it's own social media platform?

Also, riddle me this,  why is it so terribly bad to be inside the box? A preppy, conservative, classic, 'everybody wears it' line of timeless basics, practically screams 'inside the box' and when you close that box, the box has the OLD GAP LOGO on it. Ugh. And by the way, putting your wordmark literally 'outside' of the box, is not exactly outside the box. Gack.

Just remember folks, regardless of how you feel about a rebrand, for every bad design or branding decision there's someone to sign-off on it... and then there's someone to fund it. It takes more than 2, generally, and knowing the Gap, it took a huge team, a ton of market testing, and more money than we can imagine.

I'm trying to think rationally about this shift, but the only thing springing to my mind is an astrology article I read recently about Venus going retrograde.. the long and the short of it is that cosmetic overhauls aren't favoured about now, are usually short-lived, require correction, and cost more money than originally anticipated. That's the only rationale I could come up with. And if that's not outside the box, I don't know what is.

ASSUME THE POSITION

I once lived with brothers who had a penchant for long, involved games of Risk. They were gangly identical twins, with long torsos and even longer legs, who possessed the eerie we-used-to-be-the-same-egg familiarity of having the same physical reactions to situations.

One would enter the room and observe the other. After a few minutes he would say to his twin: “Uncross your leg now". The other would comply without looking away from the Risk game and maybe mutter a ‘thank you’ in passing.

I remember the first time I saw this kind of interchange I looked around at my other un-phased roomies for an explanation.

“Oh. Well, he just knew that his leg would fall asleep if he didn’t uncross it right then…They pretty much have the same body..”

Cue Twilight Zone intro.

Many times over the years I have thought back and wondered what it would be like to have that degree of guidance and insight, especially in business. And yes, maybe it’s a teeny bit creepier than having a mentorship set up, but wouldn’t it be great if someone in your exact situation could just tell you when to change something before you suffer the pins and needles of strategic repositioning?

I know that in my last post I wrote about rebranding. And I was going to write about sub-brands this time around. But frankly, I wanted to address positioning instead, as it ties into our rebranding exploration, and it’s a great preface to the sub-brand chapter.

Positioning is essentially where you sit in your consumer’s mind. It’s what makes you different from your competition, big or small. It’s how your end-user sets you apart, and how much mindshare he or she gives you. And while it can be no big deal to contemplate positioning in mid-size or larger businesses that have nicely fleshed out marketing departments, it can be intimidating to the soloist - the CEO/utility player that often the entrepreneur is.

As your proverbial twin, here’s a few things to keep in mind about Positioning.

Change is Inevitable (You)

Before I get into suggestions about positioning statement templates and questions and mission and vision, I’d like to start with a concept that few people seem to mention. Perhaps it’s the incredibly obvious, but it also prevents over-complication and helps to keep your outlook fresh. Here it is: Your business will change. Your product will change. That means your position (in your consumer, community, or market’s mind) will change too.

If you approach this like it’s a given, much like the twins knew that eventually their legs would fall asleep, it keeps your focus on the now, and deflates the sometimes looming mountain of 10 year future planning to something more, well, hike-able at any rate, like a 2-5 year plan.

The second thing to keep in mind, is that your carefully crafted business plan, marketing plan, or any other strategic document you’ve slaved away at to demonstrate corporate tangibility, will and should also change. These are living documents. They are not commandments etched in stone or sad abridged volumes covered in dust. They should be revisited every couple years even if you haven’t changed anything just to see if you’ve naturally gravitated away from what you perceived your business objectives to be.

If you embrace the concept of inevitable change while you are developing your product or business, you also embrace adaptation more readily.  When you center your product or business around a mandate of adaptability, you are instantly more open to integrating change that stems from your market. And that only solidifies your position and mindshare, and generates brand loyalty.

Change is Inevitable (Them)

Your targets will grow up. They will change and learn, and adopt new tendencies. Yes. Another naked simple truth in a world of MBA obfuscations, I know. But once you’ve understood that your business is a variable, it’s time to wrap your mind around the fact that your consumer market is also a variable. Like any tide it will ebb and flow with pop trends and socio-cultural, economic, and technological developments (more on that later). Staying plugged into those aspects of change, and aligning it with your product and brand will keep your position strong.

Positioning is Kinetic

Sometimes there are so many moving parts, that positioning feels more like trying to find the break in the ropes of a game of double-dutch. At any rate, it should be far from developing a static one-liner that you start off analyzing at your weekly marketing meetings.

Now, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t develop that static one-liner. I just don’t think that you should define that as your position. Your position is an active state hinging on tactics, just like your business is considerably more than a binder of policies, a plan, and some transactions. You can distill your whole enterprise into one of those “Our (offering) is the only (category) that (benefit)” positioning statements, but that is just the jumping off point.

The Fixed Elements: Strategic Infrastructure of a Position

There is a certain formulaic approach to harvesting a positioning statement from the seeds of your corporate mission, vision, and values. If you don’t have those yet, don’t worry. As long as you know who you are, what you do, and what makes you stand out, you’re golden.

The first thing that people readily explore when they’re writing this statement is what is Realistic. You will have your own ideas of what is ambitious for your objectives and what is attainable. In the beginning however, try to think locally. Stick with goals that can be mapped in a comfortable geography. (The Tastiest souvlaki in Long Branch.) I believe even Starbucks left ‘world domination’ for Version 4.0 of their statement. Narrowing your position often helps focus it as opposed to a broad position that aims at too much. Maybe you want to cull down from souvlaki to chicken souvlaki.

As well, understand that Differentiation or rather Uniqueness is a huge key to positioning. You can’t have someone else’s position, because well, two things can’t generally occupy the same place at the same time. You can however compete for that space in someone’s head. Hence, hone those differences. This being said you also have to realize that truly original products are only mass-produced in Utopia. Yes, please, do find what you think makes your business unique. But understand that at the end of the day, that doesn’t make yours the only one with those qualities. And nothing is going to stop someone from adapting to your strategy if they see it working for you. See? Change is inevitable.

Believability requires that you have delivered on your claims. I’m not talking about puffery. I’m talking about quantifying an objective, or attributing it with one of those unique differentials, and then having that embraced by your consumer community as fact. Your market should readily believe that your light bulb is the most energy efficient because it lasts 33 years – because it really does last 33 years.

There is a certain notion that once mindshare is obtained, it’s locked in permanently to one specific vector. But just because a connection between company and product can be wired, it doesn’t mean it’s hard-wired through all eternity. Again, though Kleenex might be a household name synonymous with tissue, and Tylenol may now be the go-to for all acetaminophen, there was a time when Shell, the petrol giant was known exclusively for, well, its shells. Truth. During a time when cars finally allowed people to make day trips, Shell started out selling seas-side souvenirs to visitors. They added cans of gas to their inventory when travelers discovered they needed to refuel their new-fangled automobiles. Gradually one boutique concept swallowed the other. So while we have Durability and Sustainability on our position infrastructure list as keys to becoming household names, I would like to leave you thinking that positions can change. And while I believe infrastructure is fixed, I also believe that is a prime example of adaptation and repositioning at its best.

A small tributary note on the Household Name and Positioning: Another chink in the armor of Durability is the inevitable paradigm shift – the same thing that in a way was responsible for taking Shell from seashell boutique to gas guru. A paradigm shift is not just an abused catch-phrase from mid 90s Management Speak. It can also be applied to certain positions and products becoming almost entirely obsolete. Mindshare flushed completely. Case and point: The Sony Walkman evolving to portable CD player, all but forgotten in the wake of the Ipod. There are those who say that Apple’s durable position is that of its user-friendly computers. I disagree. Regardless of PC or Mac platform wars, the Ipod has been the trump of the Apple brand. Lock and load.

The last thing to keep in mind is Affordability. Or the first. Budget again ties into how realistic your ambition is. It often defines it as a matter of fact. Because money is really the key to executing your position, prepare by sitting down with your marketing plan. Look over your resource allocation. Look at what you’ve allowed for both short and long-term goals and not just the strategy you want to employ, but at the saturation you can achieve, and response you think it will yield. If you have decided to cultivate a realistic position and aim for the Tastiest Souvlaki in Long Branch, you can then focus your advertising and brand recognition in the community on a highly effective personalized level, instead of larger-scale niche marketing that may or may not give you the iconic reputation for which you are hungry.

Jump

If you have sat down and mapped out your thoughts based on this ‘statement infrastructure’ then you will likely have a very good idea of what your product is, who it’s for, and what makes it better or different then what’s out there. But that’s not the end of the positioning exercise.

Now, what you want to do is plug it in.

There are plenty of decent statement templates out there. I like this one: “Our (offering) is the only (category) that (benefit)” which I’ve seen credited to Marty Neumeier. Short, sweet, and out-and-out squashes any complex phraseology. That makes for a great marker.

In my previous post I talk about lining up your business objectives with your communication objectives, and your brand strategy. This positioning statement will fit nicely in there as a parameter or marker for both product testing, and in building the brand that will express it to your target. Whenever you come up with a strategy, a policy, or a mandate; measure it up against your statement. See if it fits. Ask yourself if there is complete synergy between your objectives, your position, and your brand. But most importantly, use it as a marker to identify change: what has changed in your business, in the eyes of your target market; or what needs to change so you can secure, or expand your own unique hold on your community’s mind.

Whether that’s simply uncrossing your legs is your call.

Kat Inokai
Creative Director
SPIN THE IDEA LTD.

Demystifying the 'BAM!' - Brand & Approach

A little about me. I have a background in business consulting, graphic design, and design management.  I work most comfortably in huge multi-disciplinary undertakings that involve multiple vectors - print, digital media, film and video, social media, event and experience design, and of course organizational structure and operations management. Whether it's a finite project or event, or growing with a business that in turn is growing, I create the tools to manage targeted perceptions from clients and prospects to internal staff. From designing corporate semiotics to generating corresponding internal policies, I brand.

Ok. Spill it. What is Brand.

I have never seen brand as something that is smeared into the cracks of an existing infrastructure. Rather, it's shot through the fibres of corporate structure from the bottom on up. For every great business 'EUREKA' that has ever shaped a company, there is an equal and complimentary communications strategy. That communications strategy is an integral part of the business from the word go, and it's the birthplace of brand.

What commonly happens in the beginning is this. Either because of strained resources or due to a hurried need to establish corporate structure and 'get things moving', marketing and brand are left in the dust 'until later'. I've heard this from clients. It's not uncommon. It's only when they've sat down and written 10 drafts of their business plan (focus on mission and product/service plan with an embarrassingly sparse marketing plan) that they feel they can bring attention to the fripperies of design, and getting their message out there.

When they're 'ready' they look at securing a website, and a brochure. Oh, and a logo that they can easily bastardize into low-grade jpegs and apply to MicroSoft templates for letterhead and invoices. And PowerPoints. Because that's really all they 'need'. Hmm. Sound familiar?

But that is not what brand, or marketing a business is all about.

Brand out of 10.

If you think that brand is 'a logo' or an identity, you get a nod, but no marks.

If you think that brands are streamlined corporate subsidiaries targeting specific demographics in the same market (in the spirit of Banana Republic, Gap, and Old Navy superpowers), you get a half mark. Out of 10.

If you think that branding is a way of communicating the intangibles of a product or service to an audience (like the tone, or manner, or style of something, for example) you can also give yourself a half mark.

Which (if you accumulated a full mark while reading this) leaves 9 points of the puzzle sadly out of reach.

There is no criticism here: I have found that some people think of my approach as zealous to say the least. My good friend and associate James Basnett of Slatewest Media coined us both 'brand psychos'. This does not mean that I go around neurotically applying logos to random promotional merchandise (like the coveted whistle/flashlight/pen) or that I compulsively think in 'Campaign'. It's more about subscribing to a philosophy that makes brand central to business development from the minutiae on up, inseparable from the foundation blocks of the business mission, processes, or policies.

Here are my 10 points about brand.

1. Brand starts with internal aspects of a business.

Brand is not just about getting your message out there. It's about internalizing your message with policy and procedure, creating a sense of team cohesion, unity, and motivation in your operation. If you've ever stopped to think about how your company does something 'how do we handle client complaints?' or 'what kind of reporting do we send out' then you've intuitively thought about internal branding. Spin The Idea looks at your processes from the inside out, and creates tools and procedures that embody your message, and build your brand. Brand definition will influence how you answer your phones, how your team executes Quality Assurance, the tools and techniques you use to train your staff and sell your products, and how your clients' experiences evolve from administration onward.

2. Branding elements go beyond images.

Yes, there are certain staple components to corporate identities. But this goes beyond your basic logo, fonts and colours. Brand policy is the super glue of corporate semiotics. Policy is the structure behind the creative that ensures consistency and stability when anyone, anywhere encounters your business. Where does the logo appear on stationery, on internal documents, and in advertising? How do your corporate colours translate from print to web? Does your company have an image library for both internal and external use? What are the icons commonly used throughout your client-facing FAQs? Is your corporate identity going to evolve at all over the next 5 years? A good identity design provides more than a simple delivery of an EPS. Spin The Idea not only designs and develops brands for application to any medium, but we strongly believe in creating the process and writing the policies so everyone on your team can use the tools. Brand Manuals are not those dusty binders or dvds kept in the fire safe. They should be centralized knowledge, available and understood by every level in your company.

3. Brand continuity communicates strength, dependability.

This isn't magic. As I said before, policy goes a long way. When you have structure and process to apply to your brand, the result is undeniable. From a business card, to signage, to corporate videos, to your web presence and any client-facing administration tools and then some; your company should be easily recognizable. Every vector should clearly state who you are, it's as simple as that. Whether it's always making everything neon yellow (ouch) or using the same strong typographic treatments throughout your brand, each piece should hold its own, but harmonize with the group. This kind of uniformity makes an impression. It communicates stability, track-record, concrete method and approach, and builds trust. I have seen tons of businesses that have 3/5 marketing tools looking consistent, only to have the last 2 pieces of the puzzle look like they were done either by a receptionist on a deadline, or another designer who decidedly felt there needed to be 'a change'. What that ultimately says to clients is 'we don't really know where this is going.' Spin The Idea works with you from the ground up to figure out exactly what you need. Do you need your brand developed and rolled out to additional communication points? Do you need you brand managed properly and your needs reassessed in terms of marketing tools? Or do you need a creative director to come in and translate your needs to your internal team or to your outsourced designers? If you don't know the answer, we do.

4. Branding is a built-in foundation for scalability.

When you look at a plan how do you rate it? Generally you look at viability. Sustainability. Risk.. At least I hope you do. Brand is no different. So many people think that 'branding' applies only to multi-nationals that need to maintain billion dollar campaigns. Not true. A small firm with a strong brand presence is simply a small firm with a strong, clear voice. Whether your intention is to stay small, but be the best; or go big and populate the market with tons of little sub-brands; it all starts at the beginning with a modular growth strategy. Spin The Idea has seen it happen. I've worked first hand with companies that relished the tidy, behind-the-scenes appeal, only to burst forth with 4 sub-brands of products and services over 2 years. We can handle that. 

5. Brand strategy opens doors for targeted returns.

The beauty of branding stems mostly from positioning. If you have one company that offers 3 distinct services that appeal to 3 different targeted demographics, you have yourself a marketing mess. Let's use construction as an example as I've seen lots of this while sourcing contractors for my new house. OK. Service 1 is high-end marble and natural stone custom tiling. Service 2 is an around the clock plumbing service. Service 3 is an affordable student-based landscaping program. Hmm. One targets relatively high net worth households, while the second targets mid-earning shift workers, and the 3rd smaller income families. What to do? Even a small company can learn from those big, infamous, brands like Banana, Gap, and Old Navy. There is no shame in creating a parent brand (your company) and sub-brands that are comprised of your service packages. Doing this makes 100% of your sub-brand focused on your target, instead of 1/3rd of it struggling not to get lost. As well, a modular approach means you can jettison a service package with little or no impact to your parent brand if things aren't working out the way you wanted them too. Spin The Idea doesn't just stop at design auditing for needs assessment, we look at your business model and processes.

6. Brand can ensure Openness and Transparency, and build trust during all kinds of times.

If things aren't going the way you intended, everything is not lost. In fact, you've been given an opportunity to get even closer to your audience. So much of the 'preservation of corporate image' used to revolve around an impermeable defence where campaigns kept going strong and clients were kept in the dark no matter what happened. That doesn't wash anymore. People expect a certain amount of disclosure to ease their minds, to ensure quality or reassure their integrity. And sometimes things go wrong. Like the economy. Or a missed launch date. Or an abrupt about-face in the product roll-out. This is life. Sometimes as strong as our risk strategies are and however much contingency we've built into things, the shit hits the fan. Creating a brand that is centred around the relationships you have with your clients is very different than building that impregnable visual defence that says 'nothing to see here, everything is fine..move along now'. By integrating a touch of 'humanity' into your business process and into your brand, say, with mandates of Openness and Transparency, and progressive reporting, you can change the way people percieve you for the better. Your clients become part of your process. They are participants. They are alongside you in your trials and tribulations, and victors when you experience success. Spin The Idea has worked to develop corporate blogs, social media strategies, and client communications for just this purpose.

7. Brand policy creates solid infrastructure for partnerships, and joint ventures.

About now you are probably wondering if I am or ever was talking about a logo or anything graphic. Only 3 points left. You can make it.

Brand continuity, brand presence, and policy, all point to solid structure and stability among other things. If you have ever looked into doing a joint venture, a dealer contract, or even a sponsorship strategy with another company or non-profit, you have probably experienced the miserable headache of 'how to co-brand', or the migraine of 'how many instances of my logo does this get me?' We thought of that too. This should ideally be a part of your Brand Manual. However, if you don't have a brand manual, (not to mention one that we've done for you) and you need some help creating brand policies that nail these negotiations into place, Spin The Idea has done co-branding for dealer environments, joint ventures and partnerships, and of course for charity and sponsorship campaigns.

8. Brand can always be measured. Always.

Short and sweet? Do not dismiss the empirical. Whether it's complex brand equity analysis or campaign-based metrics, your efforts can be measured. Every strategy that we create is centred around success-measures and metric analysis. Numbers speak volumes. Period.

9. Brand strategy is risk management.

Let's go from our construction company to a financial firm. The company has 4 successful funds and wants to start a 5th. Luckily, they have a strong brand strategy in place. They have a parent brand and seperate brands for each fund, with each offering carrying a themed variance. Each fund has seperate web presences. Each fund is also written up on the parent site for association. Because this arms-length distance has been maintained, adding a 5th fund to the mix is easy. And so is removing it without any major disruption to the parent brand. Spin The Idea's modular brand strategy and design treats business as a whole, and always keeps risk management at the forefront.

10. You are your business. Ergo, you are your brand.

You have an idea. It's amazing. You madly scribble it down and quickly graduate to typing passionately with sweaty fingers to your legal counsel about incorporation. You won't stop until your succeed. Everyone on your team is a chip off the old block, and you all share a vision - your vision. In 5 years, you'll be selling your idea to global retailers, and they'll be just as ignited by your enthusiasm. Does your brand say all that? It should. Spin The Idea looks at the big picture. We analyze graphics, language and semantics, client-facing content, and most of all what your brand says about you.. and what it could be saying. Don't compromise.

Next time:

Marketing tips for those ready to break the mould: MicroSoft cookie-cutter death, and PowerPoint torture. (Avoid both and win...)