AOL Repositions Itself As Aol.

 

courtesy of MediaMemo

What’s in a brand image (logo) that sets the tone for the brand itself?  Alot.

 

As of December 9th, Time-Warner is splitting the sheets with AOL who returns to becoming a publicly traded corporation.  On May 28, 2009, Time Warner decided to cease operations with AOL, and spin it off as an independent company once Google’s shares cease at the end of the fiscal year.  Time Warner reports that its shareholders will receive one AOL share for every 11 Time Warner shares that they own.

By anyone’s account who has used for followed the AOL brand from it’s popularity early in this decade, the brand has continued to struggle to maintain it’s once dominant market share.  Today, the company has made some bold moves to restructure its operations, hiring former Google executive Tim Armstrong to lead the effort to bolster content and functionality.  Don’t count AOL out just yet.

So how has AOL chosen to make this refreshed direction known to their users and the public?  With a new logo, of course, designed by the creative minds at Wolff Olins.  According to AOL’s corporate release:

“The identity itself is a platform for expression and creativity reflecting the content, products and services which AOL offers.  Some of the world’s best creative artists, including Universal Everything, GHAVA and Dylan Griffin created art and animations for the brand.”

The new brand identity will be fully unveiled on December 10, when AOL common stock begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

But will it be enough to reposition the aging brand in the minds of consumers who may associate it with the speed of dial-up?  Only time will tell.

What do you think about this new position?  Does it help you to think of AOL in a new way?

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.

Bigger Isn’t Always Better – The New Agency Paradigm

As the economy seems to hit hard in our region now, we’ve been seeing a new trend in advertising agency developments – the “virtual agency”. Large to small agencies that once flourished with as few as 5 to as many as 60 staff have all cut back in both size and operations.

With this new moniker comes a kind of subtle embarrassment – as if being a virtual agency is surrender to “real” agency status. These newly reduced agencies are obviously not proud of their new found reductions, and often refer to the non-centralized operations as “an experiment”, or a “temporary downsizing”. The virtual model rips apart the dynamics that traditionally operate at big ad agencies.

Given our technology-assisted ability to effectively manage both projects and clients via non-centralized tools and resources, we SmartBrander’s are a bit perplexed at this subtle perception of status. As a collaborative agency for since our beginnings in 2006, the “virtual” structure has worked perfectly for our teams – and our clients. Granted there have been minor challenges at times, and nothing replaces face-to-face meetings with clients and partners (which we continue to have). But overall, our “virtual” structure was the very reason we formed SmartBrand – and it works.

It’s true that the long hallways or conference rooms full of awards help clients and prospects breath a sigh of relief that their investment in the firm is a sound decision. Those of us with similar awards in boxes don’t have the need or space to display our accolades. Frankly, I find awards to be self-serving, and often subjective and pointless (depending on the type of award). But they do make great doorstops and file dividers in a pinch. I’m not degrading awards, but they often do not measure the effectiveness of the agency’s work – but rather the creativity that is judged by other creatives rather than other client types. We have ample amounts of awards and recognitions among our virtual team to support the “award winning” claim – but find those accolades are best served to our clients than to our prospects.

However, if I had say, ten million dollars to spend on a brand – I’d look first to the large, proven agencies because of their ability to provide the kind of scaled attention to protect that investment. But in these days of tightening budgets, and hesitant economies, those with larger-than-life communications budgets are not investing with the same kind of confidence they did just two years ago.

Is this the time for the virtual agency to become mainstream? If you were to consider working with a virtual agency – what differences would you be willing to accept as part of that relationship, if any?

Sustainable Energy and Communities Summit Hosted In Reno October 16th

One of our innovative collaborations, REA250, is proud to volunteer our efforts to facilitate this important renewable energy discussion.  Tickets are $10, $8 for Nevada Museum of Art members.  Seating is limited.  Tickets can be purchased online in advance at the NMA online ticket office.

About
Regional and national business, education, community, and arts leaders converge at the Nevada Museum of Art for a half-day summit charting Northern Nevada’s course toward developing new vibrant communities growing out of the arts, sustainable energy businesses and economies, workforce education and training initiatives, and the environment in the twenty-first century.

Why
As the nation begins to recover from the current economic downturn, the only precedent for which is the Great Depression, Northern Nevada is poised to lead the way to recovery in a New Economy based on clean, sustainable, and renewable energy; strong, effective businesses that create good jobs and foster long term economic prosperity; and rich environments in the arts, education, and the outdoors.

Why the Nevada Museum of Art
As a catalyst for innovation, education, and economic development, the Nevada Museum of Art plays a powerful role in creating a vibrant community fabric by initiating and convening dialogue around important civic issues such as sustainable energy.

Format
Four panels—one each on art, environment, business, and workforce training and education—followed by a keynote address delivered by Chevron Energy Solutions CEO Jim Davis, address how art, business, education, and environment each serve as catalysts for stimulating a new paradigm in Northern Nevada’s culture and economy.

Keynote Address
Jim Davis, CEO of Chevron Energy Solutions (CES), will present a keynote address about the prospects for expanding and sustaining renewable energy programs in Nevada. Chevron Energy Solutions (CES) is one of the world’s leading energy efficiency and renewable energy services companies and the largest developer of solar power solutions for education facilities in North America.

Joan Myers: Western Power
Photographer Joan Myers recognizes that as consumers we often take the source of our power supply for granted, paying little attention to how energy is generated and distributed. In her series of panoramic photographs, Western Power, Myers makes visible a range of power plants—fueled by uranium, oil, gas, coal, water, solar, wind, and geothermal energy—throughout the Western United States. The photographs in this exhibition are a part of the Nevada Museum of Art’s Carol Franc Buck Altered Landscape photography collection.

EXHIBITION DETAILS Joan Myers: Western Power features six platinum palladium photographic prints in the Museum’s Prim Theater Gallery. The exhibition is organized by Ann M. Wolfe, and accompanies the Nevada Museum of Art Sustainable Energy and Communities Summit organized
by Colin M. Robertson on Friday, October 16, 2009. Joan Myers, Solar Troughs, Kramer Junction, 1999/2002, platinum palladium print with watercolor Collection of Nevada Museum of Art, The Altered Landscape, Carol Franc Buck Collection

Panel 1: Art and Architecture

Moderator: Colin Robertson, Curator of Education, Nevada Museum of Art

Objectives: a) to launch the Summit and one of its central ideas—that vibrant communities are created through networks connecting the arts, education, and business; b) to express the ways in which art and architecture, and the modes of artistic practice artists and architects use every day, catalyze cultural and therefore environmental change; c) to address the ways in which art can precipitate dialogue about renewable, sustainable energy
Panelists: Heather Lineberry, Interim Director, Arizona State University Art Museum; Don Clark, AIA, Cathexes Architecture; Christine Fey, City of Reno Arts and Culture Manager; Dr. Howard Rosenberg, Chair, University of Nevada Department of Art

Panel 2: Community and Environment

Moderator: Colin Robertson, Curator of Education, Nevada Museum of Art Objectives: a) to illustrate how the physical environment of
Nevada functions as a kind of catalyst for technological innovation in renewable energy production, making Nevada the environment for building new communities and economies based on clean energy; b) to present the ways in which Reno, specifically, and Nevada, in general, are utilizing the physical environment, institutional and intellectual resources, and organizational and community leaders to effect lasting change in the socio-economic and cultural fabric of the region through sustainable energy evolution; and c) to demonstrate that Nevada’s business and educational environments can foster long-term economic prosperity and the conditions necessary for strong, vibrant communities and environmental sustainability

Panelists: Philip Satre, Chairman of the Board of Directors, NV Energy; Jason Geddes, City of Reno Environmental Services Administrator; Dr. Steve Wells, President, Desert Research Institute; Stacy Crowley, AIA, LEED, Kiley Ranch Communities

Panel 3: Business and Sustainable Energy Business Incubators
Moderator: Jill Derby or Susan Clark Objectives: a) to demonstrate how Nevada is using safe havens, business incubators and accelerators to create the conditions for innovation and competition essential to stimulating new economic drivers in industries cultivating opportunities in renewable and sustainable energy sectors; b) to address the ways in which business and institutions of higher education are working together to precipitate a surge of businesses and future business leaders committed to lasting energy sustainability, independence, and efficiency

Panelists: Dr. Thomas Harris, University of Nevada, Reno; Fred Sibayan, CEO, Vortex IP; Amy Berry, Manager of Corporate Communications, Mariah Power; James Croce, President/CEO, Nevada Institute for Renewable Energy Commercialization

Panel 4: Education and Workforce Training
Moderator: Susan Clark
Objectives: a) to demonstrate that education and workforce training in new technologies is essential to creating the conditions that will yield successful businesses in an economy revolving around renewable and sustainable energy; b) to illustrate that Nevada’s institutions of higher education are ready to begin training and education programs in collaboration with labor organizations to prepare  workforces for new job opportunities in sustainable energyrelated industries, and supporting the successes of businesses in a new energy economic paradigm

Panelists: Dr. Ted Plaggemeyer, Dean of Math, Science, Technology & Engineering, Truckee Meadows Community College; Danny Thompson, Executive Secretary/Treasurer, Nevada State AFL-CIO; Larry Mosley, Director, Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation

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?

Getting SEO Results With Social Media

~Written by guest blogger, Mike Van Houten of JM Studio ~

As social media continues to implant itself as a permanent communication tool in tens of millions of lives, it provides the opportunity for more eyeballs to reach your brand. It also raises many questions regarding how much time to devote to each media platform, which ones are more important than others, and whenever I have a discussion with a client or fellow “geek” who’s interested in the topic, the debate of SEO vs. Social Media eventually ensues.

Which is more important? How should you split up your time reaching out to people online? The answer is simple…in a true multi-faceted marketing campaign; search engine optimization and social media cannot be separated. It’s a setup for failure or at the very best, a mediocre return on the time invested, if you perform one or the other but not both. Here is why:

Let’s use SmartBrand as an example (because it’s a neutral topic), a company that uses social media to the extreme. First we’ll look at social media in terms of branding results in Google.

Take a look at the search results below for the search ‘smartbrand’:

While the top result is SmartBrand’s main web site, which should be the case, 5 other results are directly from social media sites like Ning, Flikr, Twitter, You Tube, and the like.

So in essence, utilizing social media IS search engine optimization, if carried out properly, and if you optimize each of your social media platforms as one cohesive marketing campaign that utilizes the same keywords and varying optimized descriptions (such as in YouTube video descriptions, or Flikr gallery descriptions and photo captions), you’ll ultimately create a funnel effect, not only exposing your brand, but driving traffic to one source.

You might be surprised that people actually follow the link in your Twitter profile to your primary web presence, or click a link in someone’s YouTube profile. It’s a double exposure win-win situation – if optimized correctly it’s exposure on the front page of Google from multiple social media platforms for your target keywords, as well as exposure in each of the media platforms themselves.

It wasn’t always this way. Any reputable SEO’er who is obsessed with the topic will tell you that updates to Google only within the past year started giving more weight to links and keywords embedded in social media sites. Particularly with the “Vince” update. Google didn’t pay much attention to YouTube videos, nor embedded YouTube videos in its primary web search results until it acquired YouTube.

A video’s ‘page’ in YouTube can carry page rank, if people link to it as a valuable resource.
 Getting each platform as valuable resource.

What kind of success or failures have you had with your SEO attempts through social media?

______________________________

Mike Van Houten is the owner and interactive media designer of JM Studio.
JM Studio designs sites with a user-centered approach with a philosophy that places the person, your web visitor, at the center of your web experience.  Mike is also the author of northern Nevada’s #1 blog about development in and around downtown Reno: Downtownmakeover.com

Smart, Savvy Social Media Tips From Alice Heiman

Our good friend and affiliate, Alice Heiman, has kindly offered to allow us to re-post some of her smart, savvy sales tips here on SmartBrand’s blog to help our readers maximize their marketing investment.  After all – a great marketing strategy must ultimately result in increased sales, and it takes a synchronized effort from both marketing and sales to make that happen for any business today.

Here’s Alice’s insightful tips on social media for your business:

To be successful using social media to promote your business take the following steps:

1.      Take a look at your current plan and review the ways you are currently reaching your target market.  Ask yourself, what’s working and what’s not.

2.      Think about your ideal customer, what social media are they using?  Look at the demographics of the users of LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and the others and see if it matches.  Ask your current customers what social media they use.

3.      Think about your image and the messaging you want to use to communicate on social media.

4.      Make an editorial calendar for what you will post.  Good content is the key.  Push out content on a regular basis and then in between you can promote your events or specials.

5.      Determine who is going to be responsible for posting.  It needs to be done consistently.

6.      Review and evaluate the results of what you have executed.  Make changes to your strategy based on this information.

They key to successfully promoting yourself or a business with social media is to have a plan that integrates with your overall sales and marketing strategy and enhances that in some way.  Know what your goals are and measure the results.

Utilizing social media properly is a lot of work and in many companies becomes a full time job.  There are many companies you can outsource to and I recommend that if you can afford it.  Just make sure they develop a plan in conjunction with your current sales and marketing plan.

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?

Your Opinion Matters More Than Any Media

(Click to Expand)

I love marketing related statistics.  That may qualify me as a fully fledged marketing geek – but I don’t care.  Statistics provide me with an overview of any particular topic – even though we can spend countless hours debating the quality of data, how it was derived, or the real meaning of the results.

It would follow then that I’m a fan of Digital Stats – a blog that provides me with the kind of data in an easy form to read.  Kudos to Dan Calladine for his work.

Here’s a great example of how statistics can demonstrate a snapshot of reality.  In this case, you’ll see proof of what we all know at heart – consumer opinions shape brands just as much (if not more so) than all the work developed to present those brands to consumers.  In fact, a case could be made from these data points that consumer opinions are infinitely more important than any brand campaign.   Illustrating the fact that brands really do reside in the minds of consumers.

“Recommendations from personal acquaintances or opinions posted by consumers online are the most trusted forms of advertising, according to the latest Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey of over 25,000 Internet consumers from 50 countries.
Ninety percent or consumers surveyed noted that they trust recommendations from people they know, while 70 percent trusted consumer opinions posted online.”
Source: Nielsen Online Global Consumer Survey, cited in their blog,

What does this kind of data mean for your marketing efforts?  How will social media play into your brand campaign – knowing that consumers are engaging in conversations about your brand and all its attributes?  How do you best share your opinion about your favorite and hated brands today?

A Tool To Help Measure Social Media

We all have questions about the ROI for social media campaigns.  Are we really being heard by the right people?  I ran across an article by CMG Partners, co-authored by Warren Katz, Laura Papero and J. Mark Carr titled “Improving Product Launches – Stop Seeking The Silver Bullet“.

Like them, I share thc common brand steward questions they do -  “where are people talking about us?”, “how big of a bang am I getting on this program?”.  More importantly  – how do we really know when it’s worth the investment?

Trendrr is an exacting tool to help monitor web presence and social media impact.  From the examples created on their site, you can see how it’s deployed to measure terms, companies, conversations – even brands on the web.  Creating your own data sets is a bit daunting, but once you’ve taken a bit of time to explore how you can configure the system – it’s fairly easy and intuitive.

Better yet, you can dive a bit deeper into terms and concepts that may be a bit too complex for Google Trends.

Don’t get me wrong – brand equity can’t be diluted into simple data.  I can’t agree with Trendrr’s positioning that through their tool set, you can “understand your brand’s full online and social media presence”.   There are so many additional factors that simple response can’t measure – the quality of mentions and response, their tone (both intended and implied) – and even more importantly – the market share for any particular measurement.  But Trendrr is one tool that can help you quantify data for those that are selling direct response – or at lease the viral aspects of one.

And so, you can spend countless hours assessing and measuring a brand’s position and reputation online – and simple (free!) tools like Trenderr can be a very way to get started.

Think you’ll use Trendrr?  If so – how?  And if not – why?