Brands? Say What?

Guess what? Having multiple products does not necessarily mean you have multiple brands.

I know...it's crazy right? Like, completely crazy that just because you have multiple products you Don't have multiple brands.... At least not necessarily.

It's possible of course, to have unique brands for every unique product your company may have, but it's more likely that you have one core brand with multiple products. 

Here are some examples of multiple brands and a single company—but also with MANY different products: 

Mitsubishi—Mining, shipbuilding, telecom, financial services, insurance, electronics, automotive, heavy industries, oil and gas, real estate, foods and beverages, chemicals, steel, aviation and others.

Sony—Consumer Electronics, semiconductors, video games, media/entertainment, computer hardware, telecom equipment.

And about a thousand other companies. Look at Kellogs or Proctor and Gamble or Kimberly Clark sometime. Those are companies that have multiple brands because they have divisions and a ton of unique products for those divisions, each representing unique "brands."

If, for example, you sell twenty different kinds of cars, you still have only one brand and it's wrapped up in the fact that you sell cars. One may be race care and another may be a family car, but it is still just a single brand. Chevrolet, Ford, etc. does not have multiple brands. They have ONE brand, which is represented by the various products that they sell.

Sincerely,
Sean

Brand Fanatic
Creative Guru

Brand Behavior—Knockout!

It's been forever since I've posted out here. No apologies for that. It's just the way my life is. Hopefully you will find something of value in this post about brand behavior.

Well...it's happened. The org. I work for has run into some bad PR. Of course, in my opinion it's not really BAD PR. Just the responses to it that can be bad. It's ALL exposure to the marketplace and it's all about how you respond that determines if it's negative or positive. Only time will tell if the decisions made have been positive or negative.

What's interesting to me about this particular PR burp is that it revolves solely around the topic of Brand Behavior. That is to say, how the members of the organization act AND is that consistent with what people perceive or believe to be how the organization acts. Notice that it moves from how the MEMBERS act to PEOPLE's perception to how the ORG acts. They are not separable.

You see, there is no separation between the organization or business or whatever, and the way it's people act. If I go into a Starbucks and the people are rude and the service is horrible, it WILL impact my viewpoint of Starbucks negatively in all likelihood.

What's interesting in our case, is that we have always said we believe "X" and it's true. However, within the organization there are those who believe that achieving "X" can only be done this way and others who believe that it can only be done another way.

It's a house divided and no one, thus far, has been willing to rectify it by giving clear leadership to the issue and outlining the organizations stance in a clear and concise way. Therefore, there is a division of belief even amongst the membership of the org. and as a result, since members of this org. are supported by external constituents you can also believe that these external constituents have differing viewpoints as well.

Therein is the issue. A portion of the supporters of this org have believed that when we say "X" we mean what THEY themselves think "X" means.

However, what we have said and what we do are in alignment with everything EXCEPT what a portion of our supporters think we are saying. Confused? Well let's just say that perception is reality and a portion of people are unwilling to make an effort to understand anything outside of their perception.

Therefore, if we want to retain them as supporters, we must adhere to their perception or be willing to cut the confusion by clarifying what we believe and taking a few punches.

For us, in this case, it gets even more interesting because SOME of our PR issues have been muddied even further by the fact that we have relationships with many different organizations around the world and some of what they believe and do has been placed on our shoulder simply because we work alongside of them.

It's a fascinating sociology experiment in some ways. If you rub shoulders with people who don't believe what you believe and you play nice with them (and I think you should in most cases), it's possible your mother may see you and assume you are guilty of doing what they do—even if you don't.

All of this is compounded by the fact that we are a religious organization. Politics would probably raise up a similar degree of reaction.

Some questions for your Friday:
—How does your brand behave?
—Can you point to anything that weakens your brand?
—Do you have people who are in your organization that do NOT believe in the same vision your business has?
—What partnerships do you have that weaken your brand?

Don't forget that sometimes it's not based on reality but on the perception of reality.

It's Art

I've been in the field of design for about 18 years now. There’s only one thing that I’ve been doing longer besides the obvious stuff like breathing, eating, sleeping, etc.

In all of those years I’ve dealt with a lot of brands and brand guidelines. As a designer I felt like they were unnecessary and hampered my creative style... I was too cool for guidelines! My art needed to flow randomly creating as it went along, spewing forth creative juices like a spit-take at the comedy club. Those things are restrictive!!

Now, as a Creative Director I not only see the value of brand guidelines, I help to create them (with the use of the audience and what they like in relationship to our corporate values). They are meant to build a consistency of look and feel, to communicate trust and value, and all of the other things a corporation, mission, or want to communicate. The brand guidelines are the rule book for play of any kind of interaction with the marketplace. Follow them or die!

The truth is somewhere in the middle. There has to be a balance. You do have to understand your audience and what will communicate your particular message the best but you also have to understand that the brand guidelines are not a rule book—they are not law—they are guidelines. Not every question can be answered in such a document. On the other side, there are some things that are virtually absolute and should be followed—logo treatments for example, fonts, colors, etc. Whatever components that your place values.

So what does that mean?

You have to learn as creatives to take what the business values and find your own creative space within that. It can be done, and more importantly, Should be done. It’s all a matter of building consistency within your marketplace, and consistency is a form of trust building. It may also mean that within your environment you have tighter or looser guidelines. Follow them, find the boundaries, and THEN get really creative by staying within those guidelines and Creating!

If you’re creative this shouldn’t be a problem.

Personal Brands

The talk of a personal brand is relatively old, within the past few years. (I did say "relatively" and what it's relative to depends I suppose...might be relatively new compared to personal marketing and definitely new compared to electricity.)

What is personal brand you ask? For starters, if you can imagine your name as the name of a company or organization, and the reputation that name has amongst it's friends, colleagues, peers, and associates you'd be right on target.

It's something that most of us probably don't think too much about but probably should.

There has been a few iterations of this idea that I'm familiar with over the years. Power dressing or Dress for Success for example, was the idea that the way you dress influences how people perceive you and how they relate to you. That movement if you will, addressed the idea of a visual brand but unfortunately it fell short of a complete brand identity for the individual because you might still open your mouth or pick your nose or forget necessary information. It only looks good and that's important, but it's not everything.

Another brand movement is the idea of going green or being green. Again, it's a great example of a portion of what it takes to create a personal brand identity. Here the emphasis is on what you do—not how you look and again, not what you say. But as they say actions speak louder than words...of course this assumes anybody notices you with your dreadlocks, linen clothes, bamboo socks, refusal to use chemicals, etc. Because now you stink, you look funny, and your hair...well...it's kinda nasty. And of course you still can't say anything or you'll give it all away.

All that said, indirect personal brand movements spawned by the likes of things like Verbal Judo, and How to Win Friends and Influence People all taught us how to be heard effectively. How to get our messaging right, and deliver it in a way that is received by people favorably. These focused on how to speak well but we all know that "words without actions are empty." So again... not quite there.

Finally, social networking arrived. It's taken a while to get it together, but this is a great place to bring it all together. It's not a branding movement per se, it's just a movement, but what's unique about it is that it allows the combination of your visual brand, your messaging, and your actions to all coincide. And guess what? If they don't, people will notice.

I was recently reading in Forbes online that the future of job hunting is going to be directly related to your Reputation online—even potentially more-so than your resume. As it stands, "80% of HR professionals use online reputation information as part of their hiring process, and that 70% had rejected a job candidate due to what they found online." That's not a joke.

So are you ready to take the idea that how you look, what you do, what you say, and what you want to accomplish all MUST jive? You cannot expect to be a photographer if you spend your time writing blogs on branding for example. You cannot expect to be a martial arts business owner if you don't engage your target market AND furthermore, look, act, and BE the part. There is way to much availability to information, videos, photos, and knowledge on the internet to do things half-way. You must focus and grow deep, showing those around you that know your stuff. They will talk about it. You should talk about it to. Get involved in the networks out there around your area of interest.

Caution though... DON'T market yourself or your specialty until you have perfected it. You'll only be teaching others that may have interest, that you're only mediocre.

Once you start to succeed, brag on yourself a bit. You've worked hard. Show it. Get others to show it. Build on it while it's hot.

Alright... go get your brand on.

So you think you need a logo huh?

Well the question is... do you? Every new business idea seems to start with a new flipping logo. Before there's even any real thought given to target audience, roll out strategies, heck... sometimes even before the product is properly conceived.

It's like the first thing that start-ups want...and it should probably be the last.

Sorry... I rant.

There are two different types of brands that I know of: Monolithic and Independent (this is straight out of Heinz's book on brand). I prefer Monolothic and Diverse but whatev.

The idea is, you either have AN organizational identity or you have MANY identities. I work for an organization associated with many other similar organizations. Each of those organizations has a unique, but related brand. They are related because we often talk about our relationships. They are unique because they often stand on their own for what they do and are supposed to accomplish—their ends if you will. (Not bitter ends by the by.)

Sometimes there are a lot of different logos and ways of communicating that are pushed on to those who support the work we are all trying to accomplish because we rely on each other to participate.

It can be very confusing and what's confusing to an audience isn't likely to be retained or supported for very long.

Furthermore, there are many different ways that each organization reaches their audience: newsletters, emails, DM, magazines, websites, social media, etc. Each of those organizations needs to have a strong brand identity in order to be differentiated and to clarify what it is that they participate in. By doing so they can create a more focused constituency. If they don't...well...it just doesn't work.

Imagine getting several pieces of mail, each with a different logo, each with a different message and style of writing, each attempting to get your participation. That's bad enough right? Now imagine if your organization had a new logo for every program or audience touch point it created? It'd be chaos.

In this situation a monolithic brand is the only real solution. You must solidify your brand messaging, art and campaigns in order to reduce the noise. In our case we still have noise... but there's less.

On the other hand, a company as diverse as Mitsubishi needs Diverse or independent branding. Largely because in reality, they are broken up into unique divisions, each with a unique end and a unique product. Imagine if they all used the same brand? You may be confused about it because the context of the product or solution would constantly be shifting. Mistubishi cars is a different animal from it's steel so having a different look could be work.

So ask yourself, "does what I want a logo for, sufficiently require one?" Or "is their another solution that may build my brand by strengthening what I already do?"

It isn't a red-headed stepchild...

So you have a brand already, but it's in need of updating right? I mean what's old is, well... old. Perhaps it doesn't feel like it's really a relevant brand any more, perhaps it simply doesn't seem to have moved in the directions you feel it should...

This doesn't always happen from neglect—though that's probably the most likely reason. It doesn't have to be a red-headed step-child issue....


From the Urban Dictionary:

With red hair being rare, a child born to non red headed parents was often assumed to be the child of an affair. Thus was treated badly, usually in the form of beatings.

No, sometimes a brand will get "old" because the culture around it will change. Or sometimes the ambassadors of a brand want it to change....

Of the two, the only thing that should dictate your brand changing is the relevance to the culture it interacts with. Personal preference isn't always relevant. HELLO?? Did you actually hear that? What you prefer may not matter to the larger culture that the brand lives in!

That said, it usually happens that personal preference will begin to change as the culture has significantly changed around a brand, thereby causing pressure on the individuals maintaining the brand to update.

Sometimes that pressure is blatant but sometimes the pressure is subtle and takes place as a by-product of cultural shift.

So how does a company or organization or individual shift their brand?  Let's take the topic of diversity. It's not new but it's not old either... It may be that your business has yet to really deal with this topic.

For those of you who have yet to deal with this, I will try to put some ideas out here for you to start thinking about. I'm sure it's not exhaustive enough and I'm sure you're own situation will have some hurdles that I can't know BUT ignoring it won't help. It's NOT a red-headed stepchild.

Okay, here we go....

You want a corporate culture that is diverse. On the surface that seems easy enough. So you start committees and meetings and work at your policies to make the environment ready for "diversity."
 

POW!  

You're ready right?

Not exactly.

The reality is, that unless your staff reflects diversity you aren't diverse. Sure, but you have to create the environment to get the staff right? Yes, but it's not all that simple...

First, you must prepare the culture of your business/org/company. To prepare the culture, you must begin a marketing campaign internally that shifts your brand. Let's say that your an all white, predominately male business. Having discussions at the leadership level are important but moving those discussions into the realm of the "common folk" in a progressive manner is necessary.

Additionally, only employing or recruiting positions within your corporate structure that don't reflect diversity at leadership levels is not being diverse. Let's call it for what it isn't—it's not diversity.

Likewise, appointing someone to a leadership level simply because they are female or from another race, and not based on their actual training and skills will be immediately seen as a token hire. A lie.

You must be willing to change at every level, for the right reasons, and make progressive attempts to do so from within, marketing to yourselves and employing divserity at every level.

I feel pretty confident in saying that by the time you are ACTUALLY diverse, talking about diversity won't be a topic. It will just be.

It's a bit of a catch-22 to be sure but it can and must be done. Brands change. Brands should. They need to be consistent in their message and when changing the need to shift subtley. Don't do the Gap thing....

Look be talkin' 'bout brand

Pidgin is a form of language that is typically made up of two majority languages for purposes of trade. At least that's how the dictionary defines it.

pidg·in
n.

A simplified form of speech that is usually a mixture of two or more languages, has a rudimentary grammar and vocabulary, is used for communication between groups speaking different languages, and is not spoken as a first or native language. Also called contact language.

For fun I decided to look up the definition of brand. There are many, and a few that relate contextually. I've listed some of them for reference.

brand

n.

1. (Business / Marketing) a particular product or a characteristic that serves to identify a particular product

2. (Business / Marketing) a trade name or trademark

4. an identifying mark made, usually by burning, on the skin of animals or (formerly) slaves or criminals, esp as a proof of ownership

Okay.... maybe not number four.

So in essence brand is "wat we goin say to be represen" and pidgin is a cross language boundary bridge primarily for purposes of trade.

In essence your CORPORATE brand needs to COMMUNICATE to the AUDIENCE. Brand then is a form of pidgin marketing. We need to communicate the ideas of our corporate/organizational culture and it's value into a language that the audience can understand, that's honest and shows the value. If we do this well enough, our pidgin communication will grow.

How do we do that? First, you have to understand the language and forms of communication that your audience like. Do they like video, texting, emails, print media, sound bytes, etc. Then you need to understand what forms of communication your capable of delivering. Then pick the common ground to formulate your brand communication platforms.

This can include all aspects of visual brand such as fonts, logos, colors. Additionally, all forms of written brand such as voice, topic, and style. And, depending on your language of communication it could include other sensorty aspects of the brand such as sound, touch, smell, and taste.

How well we communicate on every level or "brand language" will ultimately determine how well our communication is received and how well the trade language of pidgin becomes established.