Old Brand, New Tricks

I caught this posting on Marketing Profs, and thought really relevant and well written.  So much so, that I’m going to take the lazy route, and simply repost it here for your reading pleasure.

Good news: You don’t have to lose sight of your brand’s tried-and-true persona to participate in the quest for deeper engagement at the new social sites. Just think of the social-media generation as a silver-dish serving of people who already want to talk to you; you just need to make them feel comfortable doing it. Easier said than done? Not necessarily. Here are a couple of older brands that are getting it right:

Sharpie, well past pushin’ 40, managed to tap into an enthusiastic user culture in a way we’re pretty sure no other pen brand has. Its Sharpie Uncapped gallery enables fans far and wide to express, in vivid (and permanent!) color, how they incorporate the inky wonders into their creative undertakings.

Think about the number of years kids have been using Sharpies to scribble on jeans, decorate casts and prettify their Converse tennies. Now there’s a fun place to show all that off? Score!

Little Debbie, who first made the scene in the 1960s, is using flickr, Twitter, Facebook and blog outreach to promote a cupcake Share-a-Thon this fall. A series of Smart cars demonstrate Little Debbie’s commitment to the eco-cause, and are also outfitted like the cupcakes themselves. Thus far, the aging mark has done a tasty job of reminding fresh generations of its relevance.

Now, not all instances of successful social-media outreach are even intentional. Case in point: When gay couples were finally permitted to wed in Vermont, 31-year-old ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s celebrated by renaming its Chubby Hubby ice cream Hubby Hubby within the state. Thousands of blog posts and twitter updates later, they realized they had a winner.

How’d these old-timers manage to wow a fresh-faced crowd? At ad:tech Chicago this year, reps from Ben & Jerry’s and Sharpie said they felt social media was just in their DNA. That is to say, the key to winning hearts hasn’t changed with time or tech: It’s still about communicating a message in a relatable way.

What are your thoughts on this?  Is social media quickly becoming an integral strategy for these and other brands in the market?  What kind of social media integration have you experienced that you think is a good use of the media?

Simple Tips For Renewable Energy Companies To Build Their Brand.

As we’ve all experienced more in this economy than in any other recently – you can’t make a sale unless the value of your product or service is clearly understood.  This is especially true of the rising “green” sector of our market, as many new and emerging companies struggle to find new prospects and buyers that are willing to spend their precious budget on a new product or service.

We believe that nearly everyone prefers to be considered environmentally conscious.  In this current recession, the costs of “going green” and the confusion about how to actually do it is just enough for most consumers to throw their hands up, and surrender to their comfortable habits. This is just one reason it can be a real challenge for sustainably oriented renewable energy companies to clearly market their value today, and gain enough momentum to launch their product or service line.

Add the perception that their products usually come at a higher cost to what is often a very complex set of industry related language, and you’ve got a formula that turns new consumers away in frustration and fear.

From our experience, many emerging renewable energy companies speak in their “native tongue”, using a high degree of acronyms and technical language without simply communicating their basic values.  If they can’t provide a convincing brand message to their buyers about their economic and personal value, it’s doubtful they’ll make or continue sales.

So what can renewable energy companies do to overcome these initial challenges in perception?  Here are a few tips they might consider…

Get Local

While we’d encourage any renewable energy company to maintain their own corporate online presence through a company website, we’d encourage them to also offer individual landing pages that show their products locations and installation.  Not only will this help with their online search engine rankings, but it provide a local portal for people looking for their products in their own backyard, and helps provide new and existing customers with a sense that the company is a community entity, and not a cold, distant corporation.

Speak Your Customer’s Language

As many renewable energy companies are founded by technical and academic professionals, the language they’re familiar with often becomes the messaging to their public – and this intimidating form of communication can lead new customers to leave their sales process before buying.  To be truly successful, you need to present your information to the public in a user-friendly way that easy for your potential customer to engage and relate to on all levels.

Don’t Just Advertise, Build Conversations

Social media channels provide one of the best platforms for engaging new customers and prospects in an ongoing conversation that can help leverage leads into sales.  Current customers can serve as testimonials, and share their passion about the renewable energy’s product or services to new contacts.  We highly recommend that renewable energy companies use social media in their overall marketing strategy – while giving traditional media its due as an integral part of any campaign.

Measure Success

Whatever initiatives any renewable energy campaign undertakes, it’s critical that every effort, every channel, every initiative have some form of tracked measurement.  Without a method to know exactly who is responding to your campaign, and why – you’ll not be able to make the needed adjustments to fine tune the campaign for ongoing success.

Those are just some very basic considerations – there are many more.

What has your experience been in trying to work with renewable energy companies recently?  What’s been your impression of their products or services?  We’d like to know about your experience in this sector, so that we can help this emerging economy grow faster for all our benefit.  Please share your insights  with us!

Is Woolworths’ Logo Too Similar To Apple’s?

Most of us already know that Apple is famous for it’s aggressive defense of its brand image (or logo).  If they were willing to sue the Victoria School of Business and Technology for infringement, then certainly Austrailia’s Woolworths could have expected the same.  One key may be that Woolworth’s trademark is blanketed to extend to its entire range of products, including technology and electrical items.

Locally, Woolworths used to be a combination drug/convenience store, with a small counter style restaurant inside.  They served up some of the best milk shakes around, and a wicked ice cream sundae.  Today, the company sells a wide variety of products, including electronics.

A Woolworths spokesman put it this way: ”While we can’t rule anything out, we haven’t got any plans (when it comes to computers and gadgetry) at the moment.”

Looking at the example above, is their logo a stylized apple?  Woolworths say’s “no”.  It’s simply a stylized “W” with an “abstract leaf symbol”.  Some have gone as far to suggest that it’s a stylized consumer with outstretched arms, or even an apple being peeled.

I think you’ve got to admit to the similarities between the two logos, and in fact, Woolworths may be the seller of products that are similar to those of Apple’s.

But what do you think? Are the two logos too similar? Is Apple stepping over its bounds, and being too legally aggressive in protecting its brand image?

We’re interested to learn what you think – so please weigh in and comment.

Building Your Brand’s Image Library Is A Smart Investment

Especially in today’s challenging economy, brand image plays a key role in building both awareness and customer loyalty.  Marketing firms like ours are asked to do more with less budget, and find more creative ways to build brands through multiple channels – especially social media.  But the key to our team’s success often lies beyond budgetary constraints to focus on the core values and relevancy of the brand itself.

How do we help our clients position themselves as a “gotta-have-it” brand?  There’s no single key to success, but one important element is building a library of images that can be used across all channels – including television, print campaigns, direct mail, tradeshows and key social networks.

The right photographs, graphics and illustrations have always been a key feature of any brand’s success.  In today’s economy, however, building a library of images for any brand has often been put aside as an “extra” that isn’t required at this time – and that’s a mistake that doesn’t need to be made.  Here are a few considerations you might think about when building a library of images for your business or product:

1. Make sure the images you choose support your brand’s positioning. If you’re not precisely clear on what the position is in your customer’s thoughts, take the time to find out before you buy or design any images for your campaign.  Once you’ve discovered how your brand is percieved, selecting the right photographs, or better yet – having them shot specificially for your needs, is a wise investment to build a library you can work with throughout the year.

2. Work constantly to build your library of images. Keeping your messaging fresh and interesting is key to staying relevant in this current economy.  Consider incorporating images that convey a bit of humor, hope and humanity.  Connecting with your customer’s sense of struggle to buy your product may just be the thing that motivates them to make the purchase.

3. Target your images to specific markets. Not all images will work for all audiences – and you need to consider what will resonate with every specific target market.  Don’t assume that one campaign will catch the attention of different market segments.

4. Invest in custom imagery – it’s worth it. So many clients assume that custom photography is going to be too expensive. Far from it – great photography can be acquired today at very reasonable prices from a pool of incredibly talented photographers.  And once you’ve secured the rights to your photos with your provider, you can rest assured that your using them won’t require additional licensing fees as with many stock photography sources.  More importantly, you’ll be sure your images are yours alone – and won’t be used by your competitor.

As b-to-b marketers make the case for spending money on custom photography, they should consider the history of the brand. It is important for all companies, large and small alike, to carve out the best imagery for their brand. It’s even more important that well-known brands rich in history, such as AT&T, Nike, or American Express, rely on custom versus stock imagery to create the right connections. These companies simply have more to lose by making a poor decision around photography.

5. Once you’ve built your library – keep it organized and secure. Be sure to create back-up copies of all your images, and catalog them in a way that helps you find what your looking for with key search words.

Certainly, every brand is struggling to maintain existing customers while connecting to new prospects.  With a bit of planning, you can build the kind of brand resonance to do both today – and one cost effective way to do that is by building and organizing your digital assets.

What have you done that’s been successful in this area?  What challenges have you faced in building your digital assets that could be a help to others trying to do the same?

RSCVA To Author Revised Reno-Tahoe Campaign Tag Line

In a somewhat uncomfortable turn of events, the RSCVA Board did not approve the proposed “A Little West Of Center” tag line in this morning’s meeting.  Prematurely, yesterday’s post assumed that the stakeholders had been vetted, and the process of approval was nothing more than a formality.  Certainly, the Reno-Gazette Journal made note of the campaign’s pending approval as though the information may have been provided to them by the agency directly.  Not so.

While the strategy and basis of the new brand positioning was already approved, the Board did accept an important part of the proposed new campaign’s tag line: “A Little West of Center”.  However, the year’s worth of research was adopted and accepted – but there were many who simply could not understand or accept the campaign’s slogan.  This is an issue that can be fixed – and quickly.

Mayor Cashell, in a rather shocking turn of events, wagged his finger at the agency’s Marketing Director, admonishing his comment that the region must stop “apologizing” for itself.

What struck me as odd was – how did the campaign get this far without vetting the key stakeholder’s approvals?  Certainly, the Mayor should have been given the time to review the campaign in great detail, and hopefully convinced of the strategy and creative long before a formal, public presentation.

Gaffes aside – the RSCVA and its San Francisco agency, Mortar should be commended for taking such bold steps to reposition our region in the face of 11 years of declining revenues.

Now comes the task of damage control – and stopping what must be a flow of criticism from the public who cannot fully appreciate the year of research and testing that has gone into the proposed new brand positioning campaign.

When they get this settled – we’ll all need to help support the cause.  The RSCVA and Mortar should be applauded for their hard work and creative thinking.  Certainly a tag line for this campaign will be resolved quickly, and we’ll begin the much needed work of promoting Reno as it really is – a fun, engaging, unique destination in the minds of our tourism market.

The Biggest Little City In The World Is “A Little West Of Center”

Photo courtesy of visitrenotahoe.com

For loyal followers of this blog, you are undoubtedly aware of my ongoing rants about the fact that our region has suffered from a lack of a credible brand position for over a decade.  While our team has had the opportunity to execute several campaigns for our region in the past, none seemed as exciting or engaging as what had been abandoned.  (Who could forget the insipid “Reno Reno, Twice As Friendly”?)  Clearly, the city’s claim of “The Biggest Little City In The World” still rings out at the most recognizable brand statement we’ve had, as it was adopted in 1929.

Seven years ago, the Reno Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority placed its bet on a positioning that I personally could never embrace – “America’s Adventure Place”.  At the time, the agency was under entirely different management, and to those who actively adopted the positioning, it may have seemed natural to turn our attention away from the region’s underlying perception to promote the natural beauty and varying types of activities that can be found here.

While we might have wanted to be seen as “America’s Adventure Place” – the claim was not only aspirational, but without partnered funding and a coordinated infrastructure to support it – unattainable.  True, we have many forms of adventure here regionally.  From outdoor recreation to indoor entertainment (and I sense your referencing brothels here), the brand positioning was something we all hoped might change the perception of Reno as a “second rate gambling town” to something a little more honorable and positive.

But as any marketing or advertising professional worth their fees will tell you – you can’t change the perception of a brand with a creative position that isn’t factual.  The public at large, who may have been initially intrigued by the campaign, clearly did not adopt it.  Lake Tahoe (which the RSCVA partially serves) may be thought of in that adventurous light – but certainly not Reno-Sparks.  As much as Lake Tahoe carries a positive image associated with its incredible beauty, it will always be a 45 minute drive from Reno-Sparks.  Tourists from northern California, our main drive-in market, understood this fact.  They’d been to Tahoe without ever visiting Reno-Sparks, and vice versa.  They are, for all intensive purposes, completely different destinations.

Lake Tahoe maintains its own destination brand, which has been perceived as an entirely separate than our valley.  We were, for lack of a better term, “adopting” brand equity from our region without communicating the real values we all know exist here in other forms.  “Reno-Tahoe” works for our airport because it serves that region.  But as the core of a campaign to promote tourism, it was obvious we were borrowing on Tahoe’s positive brand association by associating it (and it’s unique benefits) to our city’s image.

And so…for the past 11 years, our tourism economy has been on a steadily downward spiral; with little hope that we could ever achieve the kind of brand recognition Las Vegas has iconically adopted (“What Happens Here, Stays Here”).  In the recent economic downturn, this was a problem none of us could afford as a residents or businesses to continue promoting.

When the RSCVA began to investigate this positioning – a collective sigh of relief (for many of us) was replaced with a gasp and (almost literally) holding of our breath.  We knew instinctively that getting it wrong again could well be the death knell to our rapidly failing casino/gaming based economy.  SmartBrand’s team discussed and debated this frequently, before and after the process began; and did our best to stay hopeful they would uncover a suitable solution.  With the proliferation of Indian gaming across the nation – we were no longer unique in our offering, and certainly not as convenient for those who enjoyed betting against the house.

We knew we were…to put it politely…uniquely odd.  We also knew that the general public had a perception of our region that wasn’t in-line with reality.  We were not, as many might think, the ugly sister to Las Vegas (a mere 480 miles away).  Nor were we so aligned with our own internal operations that we could claim to be “America’s Adventure Place”.  In a word – Reno is “quirky”.

With new RSCVA management came increasing expectations for greater results – yet they were saddled with a brand position that couldn’t be sold with confidence.  And so they embarked nearly a year ago to simply conduct an assessment of that positioning, which we all hoped might result in today’s announcement – the adoption of a campaign that was believable, and hopefully – unique enough to reflect our existing traits and assets.

Our sister city, Sparks Nevada, recently undertook a similar campaign repositioning… but with disasterous results.  Would The RSCVA fall victim to the same rehashed, unbelievable recommendations from the “big city agency”?  Would Reno find a path to the truths behind our region that could be marketable?  I personally didn’t have a great deal of hope – and I’m glad to report…I was wrong.

Although we were not invited to participate in the proposal process, the RSCVA wisely chose a very capable team in Mortar – a San Francisco based brand firm.  Finally – an agency that honestly understands the process of developing brands without preconditions and ego-centric recommendations.  With Mortar’s guidance, the RSCVA embarked on an aggressive effort to discover current perception in the target drive-in marketplace, then address those current perceptions with a strategy to leverage current thinking to a new reality – one based in fact and not catchy creativity.

While more than $111,000 was invested into the marketing study, the results of their research and creative has resulted in today’s annnounced and adopted positioning… “A Little West Of Center”.  The development of this position is just the tip of the budget iceberg, as the campaign is projected to cost  between $4 and $5 million when it is launched early next year.  This is a substantial investment by all the stakeholders in our region, and is certainly one we cannot afford to squander without both public and private support.

Results will not be immediately apparent.  Add that to what could be an expected public outcry that our city’s brand may not be entirely “pretty”, and the road ahead will be a tough one to navigate. Residents will not easily adopt this change, nor will they understand that the campaign need not be the usual lovely golf course and ski resort images of days past.  There may be a great debate ahead about the appropriateness of the imagery and creative direction.  Eventually, I hope they come to see this new effort as a reflection of our region’s true benefits, and not a personal statement about their singular lifestyle here.

And so, here is our chance to promote our region in a believable way.  And that, for me, is long overdue.

What do you think about this new campaign for our region?  Before you answer, try to think like the target drive-in market of northern California – not a resident.  Do you think this will work to benefit our region?

Bing’s Boom

According to Efficient Frontier,  a self-proclaimed worldwide market and technology leader providing search engine marketing (SEM) solutions, the total number of clicks performed by users on Microsoft Bing increased by 45% since the search engine’s June 2009 launch.

Granted, you’d expect a new product to be initially tried given the media blitz Microsoft has spent millions to launch.  But the increase in numbers is impressive.

Comparatively,  Efficient Frontier also notes  that the increase in clickshare for Bing was mostly gained at the fall of Google which reportedly lost 1.4% of its share, while Yahoo! took a smaller hit of 0.63%.

“The $100 million marketing budget for the launch of Bing alongside its new look and feel has obviously has some effect on the number of searches performed on the engine,” said Client Services Director at Efficient Frontier, Jonathan Beeston.

“Microsoft’s new category focused Bing features may have helped them capture more of the seasonal summer travel searching and the additional query volume related to the stock market recovery.”

He added, “Change doesn’t happen overnight but if trends continue, Microhoo might pose a very real threat to Google. The data provides a positive outlook for Bing and hope for real competition amongst the engines.”

So…the initial numbers are out, and Bing is gaining ground on the competition.

Have you had the opportunity to use Bing frequently?  If so…what do you think about this new type of search engine?

Avid’s Smart New Brand

Avid's New Brand Logo

I’ve been a fan of Avid systems since the early 90’s, and have helped them financially navigate the expensive technology curve with a passion like no other video editing company.  But as an image based brand, even their own visual positioning seemed, well… a bit geeky.  Over the years, Avid acquired a host of related companies Avid, Digidesign, M-Audio, Pinnacle Systems and Sibelius - each of which were completely independent of one another, yet each integrally tied to the product line and “master brand”.  In classic form, Avid had become a fractioned brand suite of companies entirely through its own development.

And so it seemed logical for Avid to redefine itself visually to encompass these integral product lines. “It’s not really a rebranding” says Thomas Ordahl, corporate brand strategy director, “because we previously went to market as five different companies, and Avid was just one of them, more a product brand than corporate. It is now all of them, and really a new brand.”

I purchased my first Avid sometime in early 1990 – the Avid Media Composer, whidh was at that time the first digital editing system to replace traditional tape-based systems. Today, “The Avid” is still used today by the a sizeable percentage of the world’s professional film and television editors.

Today’s visual repositioning has resulted in an interesting, clever mark for the suite of companies.  Some might say it’s not an easy mark to read, making the mark less than effective.  But to me, given the company’s history and current product line of video and audio bases system – I think it’s on target.

“Volume up, volume down, play, pause, record and forward, signaling unification of the company’s core audio and video offerings, signaling a unification of the company’s core audio and video offerings.” confirms CEO Gary Greenfield.

What do you think about this new visual identity?  Have you had experience with the Avid product line?  Will this help take this suite of companies into their next phase of operations successfully?

What color is your brand?

Probably no news to you…color matters.  Alot.

According to a University of Loyola, Maryland study, color increases brand recognition by up to 80 percent.

Color is also very influential to  brand identity in a variety of different ways. Consider the unexpected success Heinz EZ Squirt Blastin’ Green ketchup has had in the marketplace in the past few years. More than 10 million bottles were sold in the first seven months following its introduction, with Heinz factories working 24 hours a day, seven days a week to keep up with demand. The result? $23 million in sales attributable to Heinz green ketchup [the highest sales increase in the brand's history]. All because of a simple product color change.  Obviously, the success of this change was culturally based as the product did not sell as well in America as first anticipated.

Consider how Apple brought color into a marketplace where color had not readily deployed before. By introducing the colorful iMacs, Apple was the first to say, “It doesn’t have to be beige or white”. The iMacs reinvigorated a brand that had suffered $1.8 billion of losses in two years. (And now we enjoy a rainbow of colorful iPods.)

There is a great new tool which can help out with color selection called Cymbolism. It’s an interactive survey of color and word associations. Every page loads a new word, for which you have to select a color you feel best represents it. The results are then aggregated and you can see most popular associations either by color or by word.

To help you consider color choices  for your brand Usabilitypost aggregated the results from Cymbolism, and also provided examples of logos that use each color:

courtesy of usabilitypost

So what color do you choose? There are often many considerations, some of which are purely cultural. Here in the Western hemisphere, white is often considered the color of peace or purity, but in some parts of Asia white is the color of death.  The color you choose should be researched with the target market you have in mind to be sure there are not cultural translations you may be overlooking.

Most importantly, the color you choose should really be something you like, not just something you worked out through a “formula”. If you not happy with the color options in your brand image’s logo, then it’s unlikely you’ll be happy to see it every day on your website, business cards or any other application. Consider choosing something that represents your company’s personality, but be sure it’s something you’ll like personally as well.

The Growth Of Green Marketing

First, I’d like to thank Nevada EcoNet and REA250 for the opportunity to contribute an article to the special section of the Reno News & Review that was published today here in the Reno-Tahoe region.  It’s really an honor to be considered worthy of this opportunity, and I hope my perspectives helped paint a good picture of our community and “green” brand marketing.

And so, here’s the article in it’s entirety:

Today’s consumers are increasingly socially conscious, with a growing concern to know if companies honestly treat employees fairly while doing their part to protect and save the environment. Brand values like social responsibility, benefit to the community, and “being green” are at the top of more shopping lists than ever. Not unsurprisingly, enthusiasts of technology are leading the way.

The recently published Forrester study titled Making The Case For Environmentally And Socially Responsible Consumer Products, a survey of over 5,400 U.S. adults were asked about their purchasing habits between April and May of 2008. Amazingly, 65% of those polled consumers confirmed they were “concerned about the environment or global warming.” This trend is up nearly 23% from a November 2007 study, which found that 53% percent of consumers were concerned about sustainability. In short order, business has been quick to leverage this social trending with products and marketing offers – some more successfully than others.

Today’s “green marketing” offers a unique set of challenges; the least of which is a prevalent lack of standards for identifying what it actually means to be a “green” product or company. In combination with the increase in consumer awareness, marketers are seeing a growing demand for eco-labeling, “green” advertising and the overall importance of reporting on sustainability and renewable energy oriented products and projects. This obviously has created a glut of misguided opportunities to nearly everything to be positioned as being “green”, from a minor packaging change to actual services and products that truly reduce energy and waste.

As so many new and old companies jump on the “do good” bandwagon, factions of green marketing have arisen — cause marketing, cause-related marketing, cause branding, conscious marketing, social good marketing and many other new ways of positioning brands within this growing market sector.

What binds this growing set of terms is simple: establishing your marketing efforts in a way that’s truly responsible. Often this can be misunderstood to mean aligning tactics with a cause, but it is certainly not limited to that description. It may also mean the responsible use of funds, reducing unnecessary print marketing materials, or not deploying a controversial ad that might benefit the company financially. Taking this effort a bit further might be easiest to simply call it “Ethical Marketing”.

This trending presents a unique challenge to green marketers like ourselves as products and messages become much more common, often resulting in great confusion in the marketplace. “Consumers do not really understand a lot about these issues, and there’s a lot of confusion out there,” says Jacquelyn Ottman (founder of J. Ottman Consulting and author of Green Marketing: Opportunity for Innovation.) Advantageous marketers can take advantage of this confusion by intentionally making false or exaggerated claims to being “green” – what we now know as “green washing”.

Mintel Reports completed a recent study noting that approximately 12% of consumers in the U.S. can be identified as “True Greens” – individuals who seek-out and regularly purchase so-called “green products”. With them, 68% can be thought of as “Light Greens” – those who buy green on occasion. “What chief marketing officers are always looking for is touch points with consumers, and this is just a big, big, big touch point that’s not being served,” says Mintel Research Director David Lockwood. “All the corporate executives that we talk to are extremely convinced that being able to make some sort of strong case about the environment is going to work down to their bottom line.

Given the obvious social and economic demand, how can companies honestly take advantage of today’s consciousness toward sustainability, renewable energy and ecology? I believe you have to do three things: Be Genuine, Educate Customers, and Offer Participation.

Being genuine simply means that you are doing what you claim in your green marketing campaign – and ensuring your business policies are consistent with your claim. Both of these elements must be met to establish valid credentials that allow the green campaign to succeed.

Educating customers is not simply letting the public know what you’re doing to protect the environment, but more importantly, letting them know why it matters. If education is not reason oriented for your target market, you’ll encounter a general “so what” response that will dash bottom-line results from the campaign.

Providing your customers with the opportunity to participate enables you to personalize your green initiatives — often by enabling the customer to take part in truly positive environmental action.

The lesson here is obvious and simple: you have to “walk the talk” and actually implement green policies and act in environmentally friendly ways for green marketing to work. If you do, you’ll create a powerful selling point with those who are environmentally and socially conscious and want to act to make the world a better place — a market that’s growing exponentially today.

“Green marketing” isn’t merely a catchphrase; it’s a marketing strategy that can help you get more customers and make more money. As in any marketing effort — the challenge is doing it right the first time.