Archive for the ‘Brand to the Future!’ Category

Without going into a brief history of Brands and conceptualizing your Brand! There is a difference in design branding and the Marketing of it. Let’s talk about ways that we can merge them to make them work!

I know all of you Reading this are probably smarter than I. However… When sitting down to do all the work for creating a custom brand and marketing strategy there always seems to be a few fights, crying fits and flat out grade three “No NO NO” fits. This being said. I have found after building countless brands in the past few years that the branding Process can be broken down into Three district and important parts. A Tfi-Force of Branding:

• Design (  the image)
• Marketing ( getting attention)
• The Marriage ( Making the Design & Marking Seamless)

Design

Knowing the industry and target market of your project is kind of a no brainier, but tons of people I have met don’t think research is a word let along the most important thing in this known Universe. than once the Mission Statement is clear. go forth and find a design team or designer to get started on:

• The Logo
  • This is the Foundation of your Strong House. tons of time and resources should be put into the task of building a strong and relevant logo. it has to be pretty. it has to reflect the mission statement, it also has to be a badge of awesome to the target market its selling too. These days there are so many different kinds of logos:
    • Iconic/Symbolic: it can be simple like the nike swoosh. or be as complex as an emblem.
      
    • Logotype/Word mark: styled word art
      
    • Combination Marks: its a Icon and a word art doing it together.
      
    • Web 2.0: rounded edges/shiny lots of blue. reflective surface. a huge trend for online biz.
      
    • dynamic logos: a logo that changes often but remains the simple. ie. Google .
• Style Guide
  • Setting the Rules of how to run the Show! this guide becomes your brands bible on choice of design for the future and what will hold the look of colors/fonts/style and objective of the look for the brand. perfect when outsourcing your promo design if your company does not have a in house design team or your team is subjective to high turn over.

Marketing

• Promo Material
  • Printed promo is still the backbone of advertising. business cards/post cards and magazine ads and packaging. is what makes the solid image of your brand. it has to remain tight. this look has to be kept in mind so it translates well to the internet and your web presence. like it or not. some great brands when taken to the web. just blow! or the resources to bring them online is just not there. this is a # 1 mistake. or vice-versa.
• Planned Action
  • “People get it together”. You need to have a plan of the direction and action plan for at lest 6months to a year of what your going to do from promotion and vision with an solid road map to how your going to get there.

The Marriage

• Connections ( status)
  • saying this is so 90’s. NETWORK! you have to. Give your business card to Everyone. Send links to your site on the bottom of every email. get involved in your community, by getting your company involved in volunteering or sponsoring a event for your city or town. be a beacon of hope an always make your self available in the community. this builds a relationship and status to your target market. Worth it’s wait in gold.
• Budget
  • some brands have been started on a cash budget of $0. That is a challange but not impossable where some branding and re-branding has spent millions and the responce has ben catastrophic. you need to know your limits and know that you need to get your bang for your buck while holding it all together. keep in mind that your going to have to spend your money on the main courner stones of a brand:
    • Logo
    • Style guide
    • Website
  • Once you have these three most imporatant things. you can branch out and start building your brand empire. just don’t try and stretch your self to thing and remember that sometime it takes years to build a strong reconizable brand. Money can’t buy your Target Markets respect. so work hard and beleive in your brand share the Joy the wealth and your

Creating harmony and a feeling of unity when building the brand for you or your company is the main objective. when you start having to many cooks in the Kitchen or start making to many changes to promo matireal or don’t even try to build your network! Just give up now. Don’t continue stop. leave the brand at the side of the road.

No I am kidding. you can fix it. trust me. it just will take a tad to rebuild the brand, and to many changes sometime will drive away form market but if you angle the next major change right it can bring a sence of new foundation which can earn a greater level of respect in the industry.