Posted by admin on October 28th, 2008 — Posted in Branding
Is your company brand literally saturating your target markets? Is your company literally everywhere and on the lips of your customers, competition and vendors? Does your competitor sales teams compare themselves to you in sales calls? Well having been a Founder of a Franchise Company, we had saturated our target markets and yes our competitors always compared themselves to us and that actually helped us even more.
I call saturating your target market with your brand name; “The Power of Presence” and when you have that you will know it and so will everyone else for 100-miles in all directions. How do you get to such a saturation point, as the marketing experts often call it? They even write books about this stuff.
Well, you get there by carefully leveraging your marketing and advertising, promotion and public relations around a simple message and a consistent theme. Guess what? It does not cost as much as you might think and in fact you might be very surprised just how inexpensive it really is when you have developed the proper plan of attack in the ready room before launch of the mission.
Once you reach this saturation point, the customers and future customers will love you and the competition will despise and hate you? But that means you are doing it all right. You may even find your competitions best employees and team members try to cross over and come work for you. But hey that is a whole other subject. Patience Grasshopper. Consider this in 2006.
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Posted by admin on October 27th, 2008 — Posted in Branding
Are Product Margins Merely Margins of Error?
Packaged goods companies continue to fight for every drop of margin they can
squeeze out of a crowded category. Traditionally, the brand was powered forward
through product innovation, research and development. New advertising campaigns
rolled out when product improvements warranted them.
Preference and margins cannot be found in product enhancements and efficacy
these two improvements are simply the cost of doing business. In today’s crowded
market space your preference and margins stem directly from your brand. In reality
most brand marketers and managers are actually product managers and are hard
pressed to describe their own brand in any terms other than banal category
benefits.
This pit-fall is not to be unexpected. Universities and colleges fail to understand the
intricacies of a brand and thus do not prepare future brand executives accordingly.
Furthermore, it is nearly impossible to mend a brand from the inside out due to the
Herculean task of dispassionate brand evaluation and analysis.
It is important to note that your brand is not the identity of your product. For
example, Pampers is not the brand, it is the name by which consumers know the
brand. Pampers is not about dryness and efficacy as it once was some years ago in
a time when the brand was new and the category was immature and uncrowded.
Those were the days when brand marketers looked for the unique selling
proposition (USP) that identified a differentiating product benefit. “How the product
is different and better” became the marketing mantra and R&D became the means to
an improvement. As a result, the “brand” became product development driven, and
the brand strategy fell out of those attributes.
Inevitably, the market changes over time. The “brand” is now the supermarket or
retailer where the product is sold. The consumer sensibly believes that everything
within the retail category will deliver product performance. There is no mystification
among consumers that all brands of disposable diapers keep their baby dry and
comfortable. Most diapers fit well, stay in place and eventually end up in landfills.
Therefore, when the diaper shopper goes to her local retailer, she believes that
there is little difference between Pampers, Huggies, Luvs or “store brand.”
Sometimes she will choose based on the experience of “right fit” because different
brands of diapers will fit her child better as her loved one grows and changes.
Frequently she will decide based on price or an emotional connection that she
neither examines nor understands. Marketers think she will be influenced by the
latest cartoon character or color scheme because they are still caught in the times of
the stale USP paradigm.
If it is so difficult to justify the margins based on product efficacy, what is left? The
essence of brand, the value the consumer invests in the brand itself, remains potent
regardless of category or product. Brand preference is not an investment in product
benefits but rather an investment in self-description and often hidden precepts.
What consumers buy today, beyond commodity category benefits, is a reflection of
themselves and their lives. When they choose a brand a REAL brand what they
are in fact reinforcing is their identity, who they believe they are at that very
moment in time. This extension of identity is called a brandface and your consumer
shows many.
Due to the ample excavation required to bring the customer’s perceptive personality
to the surface, brand development is more akin to anthropology than marketing. If
the customer sees their reflection within a brand and affirms, “yes, I want to be
that,” you will keep them for life. Any brand that understands that clearly will win
easily in the crowded market place of similar products, similar claims and similar
price points.
Recognizing and evoking the most acute and important brandface with regard to
your brand is a difficult process, but in that germinal seed of self-description you
will find preference, margins and loyalty.
Tom Dougherty
CEO, Senior Strategist at Stealing Share, Inc. Tom began his strategic marketing and
branding career in Saudi Arabia working for the internationally acclaimed Saatchi &
Saatchi. His brand manager at the time referred to Tom as a “marketing genius,”
and Tom demonstrated his talents to clients such as Ariel detergent, Pampers and
many other brands throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa. After his time
overseas, Tom returned to the US where he worked for brand
agencies in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC. He continued to prove
himself as a unique and strategic brand builder for global companies. Tom has led
efforts for brands such as Procter & Gamble, Kimberly Clark, Fairmont Hotels,
Coldwell Banker, Homewood Suites (of Hilton), Tetley Tea, Lexus, Sovereign Bank,
and McCormick to name a few.
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Posted by admin on October 27th, 2008 — Posted in Branding
The marking of glass for industrial use has been done for hundreds of years. In the past the methods used have included ink stamp marking, sand blasting, air grit, acid etching, scribing etc.
Industrial applications of glass marking include:
1. Marking of safety information on safety glass used in commercial and residential construction. This includes glass areas around doors and/or entrance and exit locations.
2. Marking of glass for commercial and residential construction to identify the glass or door manufacturer [for product identification and marketing/sales activity]
3. Marking of headlamp or tail light lens in automotive applications for manufactures name, year of manufacture and/or part number. Also used in the manufacture of televisions for marking mirrors and lens.
4. Marking of serial number, product identification, or other manufacturing information for the prevention of theft and validation of warranty claims
5. Marking serial numbers, part numbers, text, or bar codes allowing for parts to be tracked though the production process until final assembly and shipment
The traditional methods of glass marking all involve contact with the surface of the glass product which exposes the product to stress and potential damage. Co2 lasers offer significant advantages for marking glass products. The RF excited sealed beam Co2 laser coupled with a galvo head and software offers the fastest, cleanest, most reliable method for marking and etching glass.
A Co2 laser can laser mark glass with bar codes, especially 2-D or data matrix bar codes, which can easily be coupled with vision systems for reading the data contained in the bar code. The use of bar codes on glass allows for the product to be tracked all the way through the production process until final assembly. This helps assure a continuous uninterrupted supply of product. The laser marked or laser etched bar code can also be used after the sale of the product for identification purposes and validation. This helps to eliminate warranty costs related to counterfeit or unauthorized products.
A Co2 laser marked or laser etched bar code can also be read by vision systems in the manufacturing process to determine the identity of the part. Examples include prescription strength of eye glass lens, or the type of front headlamp lens used in a Honda Civic. This ensures that the part is sorted and used properly throughout the manufacturing process and that the correct number of parts is produced based on anticipated sales for final assembled components.
The advances of Co2 laser marking of glass over traditional methods are extensive. These include:
• No contact with the part as in scribing methods thereby reducing the possibility of breakage to and damage of the part, as well as elimination of the maintenance required for the scribe unit
• No solvents, thinning, or cleaning agents to purchase and keep in stock as in the case of ink marking or ink printing systems, thereby significantly reducing costs of operation and eliminating the need for continuous maintenance associated with these various ink printing technologies
• No pads for ink printing to maintain as they can fall to an angle or become turned sideways causing the printed image on the glass to appear sideways or not square
• No need to stop the glass in place and make sure a secure fit with the rubber mask is formed as in the case of Airgrit marking
• With Co2 laser marking for industrial glass applications the product can be marked on the fly [while moving]. If stopped or ’squared’ for marking, five to eight lines of text plus logo’s can be laser etched in less than 0.5 of a second
• With Co2 laser marking no supplies are necessary and no secondary process exists for cleaning or maintenance
• With Co2 laser marking changes to the mark [different text, different logo, difference shape, etc] can be accomplished with a simple click and drag command of the mouse
Co2 laser marking for glass in industrial applications is the fastest, most effective, least costly method in which to mark the product.
Jim Morin writes for Worldwide Laser Service Corporation a company that specializes in T.E.A. Co2 lasers. For more information visit http://www.wlsc.com
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Posted by admin on October 25th, 2008 — Posted in Branding
You can hardly influence the development of your child by selecting whatever name. That is one of the conclusion of Steven Levitt published in the book “Freakonomics.” Most influence is given to a child before it is even born. You can do wrong however - according to an example in the same book of a parent that named a first son “Winner” and the latest born “Loser.” Imagine what happened to both of them…
Whether you agree with Levitt and favor a nature viewpoint or you disagree and you favor a nurture argument, when talking about business there is only one option; The name you choose will — as a cultural element — influence your business.
Recently a Dutch company TPG Post announced the change of their name into TNT Post. The company is the product of a split that took place in 1996 when the Post and communication divisions became separate companies; KPN — the holding company before that time — continued with the telecommunication division. The post division including the recent acquisition of the Australian TNT logistics company continued under the new name TNT Post Group or TPG. And now the company continues under the name: TNT Post.
On the same stock exchange — the AEX — there are more companies with a similar background. To start with the “A”, ABN AMRO is a bank that is the result of a merger of two companies ABN and AMRO that kept their name in the new combination. The name “ING”, which represents a bank-insurer, is a nice name invention of Inter-Nationale Nederlanden Group, where the “Nationale Nederlanden” was and continues to be the insurance part of the group.
Reed Elsevier is another example where two companies have merged and the names of the original entities continue to exist. In this case “Reed” is of British origin, and Elsevier the Dutch counterpart. This is not different for Wolters (and) Kluwer - as the previous mentioned company, also in the information exchange and publishing sector, although these parts are both Dutch.
Numico is a company that also merged with others and that choose to preserve previous company names in the new combination. In this case Nutricia (Nu) merged with the German Milupa (Mi) and the British Cow & Gate (Co). Giving Nu-Mi-co. This example is different in the case that all the three companies continue to exist under the previous labels, Nutricia in the Netherlands, Milupa in Germany and Cow & Gate in the UK.
The image and identity of a company is linked to the name it carries. Companies that grow internationally and become multinationals are better of with an international name than with a local name.
A company name also represents an internal culture. In case of ABN and AMRO, the culture could be expressed as the best of both worlds: ABN and AMRO, or together we are more. For NuMiCo, the cultural direction is less visible; the company name after the merger seems to express a new culture.
Back to TNT Post. In this case the new name inherits most of the Australian name TNT (Thomas Nationwide Transport). A logical choice, because of the international build up brand value of TNT.
For the situation in the Netherlands there is a small compensation; the main company color (Red) will be replaced by orange - a Royal (Dutch) color; TNT Post has given itself a new cultural start offering the best of both worlds.
© 2006 Hans Bool
Hans Bool is the founder of Astor White a traditional management consulting company that offers online management advice. Astor Online solves issues in hours what normally would take days.
You can apply for a free demo account
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Posted by admin on October 23rd, 2008 — Posted in Branding
Imagine you are about to embark on a trip of a lifetime. You’ve received brochures for a luxury resort. The rooms are lavish; the grounds impeccable. Photos of the restaurant’s signature dishes look delectable. You’re sold.
You go to the hotel. The room is musty and a tad dirty. The food is barely passable. Service is brusque and spotty at best. When you complain to management, you’re met with indifference, or worse, silence. You leave disillusioned and disgusted. For all the resort’s slick marketing, they’ve fallen woefully short.
Branding goes well beyond marketing. It will not be successful without ensuring that all aspects of your business reflect and support your intended brand. One of your most valuable assetsyour peoplemust be well-trained in articulating and delivering on your brand. This step is particularly important for service organizations that don’t have concrete products. Their offerings are soft assets like knowledge, experience and people.
When employees don’t deliver the brand, it can be the kiss of death for a business. Don’t believe me? Visit a hotel review web site like TripAdvisor.com. Peruse travelers’ comments and you’ll likely come across more than a few who cite poor customer service for their negative hotel reviews. Conversely, employees who represent the brand flawlessly and consistently can propel a business to stardom.
Brand: The Sum of All Its Parts
Despite what many believe, brand isn’t about your logo, tagline and glossy brochure. Instead, a strong brand integrates multiple components, all of them necessary, including customer interactions, employee communications, corporate philosophy and advertising/marketing efforts. Your brand extends to your employees, customers, the media and even the general public as the above story illustrates. If these components don’t consistently reinforce your brand, customers will become dissatisfied. The negative impact of their perception, should they voice their opinions to other potential customers or even the media, could have a ripple effect on your business. This can erode your brand equity and create misperceptions about your company in the market, that in turn could lead prospective customers, employees and investors to pass on your organization.
On the other hand, brand consistency throughout all levels of the organization helps drive an organization to grow and prosper. Strong brands can drive an increase in sales. The company is better suited to attract and retain the best employees. Vendors can see value in your brand and look to establish partnerships with your business, while investors will see the business and your brand equity as a valuable commodity.
Branding Through Your Employees
Your employees are one of the most critical touch points for your customer. Here are several steps to ensure that they are representing your brand in the best light possible.
- Develop a Company Philosophy.
A thoughtfully planned philosophy that guides how your company operates is the first step to reinforcing your brand among your workforce. The prestigious Ritz Carlton Hotel Company is an excellent example. They have created the following five “Gold Standards” for their business operations that reinforce the brand and detail an employee’s role in delivering on this brand:
- A vision to revolutionize hospitality in America by creating a luxury setting for guests and a credo that states the company’s commitment to the genuine care and comfort of its guests.
- A motto that exemplifies the level of service for its guests: We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.
- Three Steps of Service:
- A warm and sincere greeting that uses the guest name, if and when possible
- Anticipation and compliance with guest needs, and
- A fond farewell that uses a guest’s name, if and when possible.
- “20 Basics” that outline the responsibilities and expectations for how the company delivers on its service (including #13Never Lose a Guest).
- The Employee Promise (”At The Ritz-Carlton, our Ladies & Gentlemen are the most important resource in our service commitment to our guests.”).
- Maintain Brand Consistency.
This step is essential to building a strong brand. However, it is often one of the first steps to unravel. You must establish consistency throughout all aspects of your organization. But setting the standards is not enough. You must constantly evaluate your actions. Establish checkpoints for each aspect of the business that interacts with customers and the general public. Ensure that each employee is empowered to identify and address inconsistencies in your brand. Fail to deliver on brand with one customer, and he or she might forget. Fail to do so for another, and he or she might not be so forgiving. It only takes a scant few to dispel the brand you are touting.
- Practice What You Preach.
The best way to lead is by example. If your brand projects your organization as one which supports its employees and then reneges on that promise, your brand (and sales) will suffer. Case in point: Wal-Mart. The company says, “We believe that one of the keys to our success is our people and how we treat them.” However, the retail chain has been the subject of unfair employee wage practice lawsuits. Moreover, though they say they value their target customer (the hard working middle class) their actions aren’t necessarily consistent with the rhetoric.
- Implement Brand Guidelines.
In order to ensure brand consistency, your organization must establish a framework or set of brand guidelines for all to follow. We’re not merely talking about logo or corporate identity guidelines, but actual brand guidelines that communicate the company’s brand positioning statement, key messages, core values, brand attributes, measures of success and processes for handling customer issues or feedback. Federal Express was an early pioneer in this idea. The international shipper utilizes an Internet-based program which outlines the company’s brand guidelines. This detailed approach provides guidance on everything from the graphic standards for use of the company logo to how cultural differences affect brand (particularly important for global companies). Establishing brand guidelines leaves no room for misinterpretation and helps maintain consistency throughout all levels of the organization.
- Understand and Address Cultural Differences.
With advancements in technology, communications and the Internet, we are truly becoming a global economy. Considering cultural differences when building a brand is more important than ever, particularly if your business has international reach. Words and phrases in America might not translate to the same meaning in another country. What customers value and perceive as positive in the United States may be perceived radically different elsewhere. In the past, the United States was the model that all others wanted to emulate. That isn’t necessarily the case today. Therefore, it is incumbent on corporations to ensure that their brands can transcend these cultural differences, if they are to have a greater geographical reach.
Brand extends well beyond your marketing efforts. Your brand is only as good as the people behind it…and the people in front of your customer. Take the time to effectively build a corporate culture that mirrors your brand. Train your employees to represent that brand. Evaluate your consistency in delivering your brand across all aspects of your business. In doing so, you will strengthen your brand equity and position your company for greater success.
Laura Pasternak is President of MarketPoint, LLC, a brand management firm that helps businesses improve results by identifying, integrating and managing customer-driven brand equities and strategies. Visit http://www.yourmarketpoint.com or call 1.866.21POINT toll-free to learn more.
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Posted by admin on October 23rd, 2008 — Posted in Branding
In order to help you develop an image, or to enhance your “added value” in a product or service, look for a unique attribute on which to capitalize. The theory says, “You can’t get this special from anyone but me, and not having it will cost you!” Obviously you don’t want to use those exact words, they convey the concept.
There was a survey done by a Spanish newspaper for restaurants. They wanted to determine what was the major factor that caused patrons to frequent any particular restaurant. Two thirds of the respondees said that “they liked to eat where they could find something, a dish or sauce, that they could not create at home.” Unique sells!
Examples:
Be the only hamburger stand in town that has discount coupons for desserts at the grocery store - the grocer will pay for them; it’s “free” advertising.
Be the only sporting goods store that gives away “free” sunglasses with a $20 purchase.
Be the only contractor in town that does triple-pane windows.
Be the only restaurant in town that feeds the high-school football team.
Be the only grocery store in town that sells buffalo steaks (or some other exotic meat).
Be the only bookstore in town with a great selection of books-on-tape.
Be the only realtor in town that knows how to decorate, plant, wallpaper, or do something else in a house.
Be the only car lot in town that gives away defensive driving training with a purchase.
Be the only carpet cleaner that knows all about air filters.
Be the only store that keeps the Dow-Jones index and latest sports scores running on a marquee.
Be the only plumber in town that installs toilet bowl fresheners with every service call. Be the only _____in town that is “authorized” to service a ___________.
“Me too” isn’t enough. Grab a unique product, habit or added value. Get identified with it, and people who do business with you will be more likely to recommend you (by bragging about how smart they are) to others.
Daniel Wadleigh is a nationally published marketing consultant and has programs for start-up and existing businesses including effective web sites, e-mail/database, other non-internet ways to drive them to your website, and low cost ways to get more new customers.
Go to: http://www.more-new-customers.com to get free copy of “Marketing to Men vs. Women- the 8 different responses” and a Free copy of “Market Research- 7 Questions to Ask to Start-up and 7 to Ask to Improve Any Business.”
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Posted by admin on October 20th, 2008 — Posted in Branding
Technology companies often want to emulate Intel’s success in moving from a hidden ingredient inside personal computers to a brand that consumers recognize, value, prefer and pay a premium for. For most, however, that journey represents a task much easier said than done.
On the surface, the Intel Inside campaign looks like a simple stroke of genius. Shell out a few million bucks for some well-placed television commercials, and in no time consumers will be insisting that your customers put your name on the outside of their product, right? If only it were that easy. What most people fail to realize is that the remarkable success of the Intel Inside campaign — or any campaign that seeks to turn a commodity into a recognizable consumer brand — rests on two very important principles.
First, it requires the financial resources to support a lengthy consumer-oriented campaign. You don’t create a brand name overnight. Second, and more important, it requires a dimension of value that end-user consumers actually perceive as important. Without both of these elements, branding campaigns won’t have enough muscle to convince consumers to demand your product above all others.
Let’s address the money issue first. At last count, Intel spends about a $1 billion a year in cooperative advertising with their major customers, such as Dell and HP. Add to that the $1 billion Intel’s customers spend and the total financial outlay to support the Intel Inside brand comes close to $2 billion a year. Or, as we say in the business, serious money.
In general, Intel matches every dollar its customers spend on advertising that mentions the Intel Inside brand. For example, those hundreds of millions of advertising circulars that Dell sends out each year? Intel absorbs about half their cost. In fact, every time you see the Intel Inside logo or hear the Intel Inside sonic brand, you know that Intel paid for about half of the marketing costs. This enormous financial commitment is one reason why the Intel brand stands out from the crowd and why technologists easily point to it as one of their favorite brands.
On the end-user benefit side, the key word here is “perception.” In this case, Intel has successfully convinced enough consumers that a computer with the Intel chip inside is the fastest available and therefore can handle any application they can throw at it. As a result, consumers perceive real value in the Intel brand, which is why the vast majority of PCs rolling of the assembly lines carry that well-known sticker on the outside: Intel Inside.
Likewise, any commodity product or ingredient technology that hopes to develop a powerful consumer brand must similarly convince the buying public that their product is so superior that consumers won’t accept anything less. And that’s exactly what a little-known company called SanDisk is trying to accomplish.
Will SanDisk Be the Next Intel?
A leading provider of flash memory — the tiny wafers that store digital music, photos and videos — SanDisk is one of the primary beneficiaries of the soaring demand for cell phones, digital music players, digital cameras and game consoles. Over the past three years, revenues for the Sunnyvale (CA)-based firm have surged an average of 70 percent a year. This year, they’re tracking an increase of 19 percent, for a total of $2.1 billion in sales. Not surprisingly, SanDisk’s stock has shot up 40 percent over the past 12 months.
Despite these glowing numbers, SanDisk faces a huge challenge. For the most part, memory is a commodity business, and prices can be harshly cyclical. Pricing wars frequently erupt overnight, and prices can take a nosedive almost as fast. During the summer of 2004, for example, flash memory prices plunged precipitously, causing SanDisk’s stock to drop 40 percent in four days.
To avoid ongoing pricing hiccups, SanDisk is striving to develop a strong brand that consumers will recognize and value. At the most basic level, this means convincing consumers to ask for a “SanDisk one-gigabyte card” for their digital camera rather than just any one-gigabyte card. Just as Intel has convinced personal computer buyers to insist on Intel as the “chip of choice.”
From where I sit, it seems like SanDisk has the first part of the consumer technology branding formula right. They’re spending millions on a worldwide advertising campaign that targets retail stores, magazines and even prime-time TV shows like The Simpsons and Survivor. In terms of sheer dollars, SanDisk isn’t shelling out as much hard cash as Intel, but it probably doesn’t have to. If fact, most companies don’t need to spend nearly that much. They just have to commit enough financial resources to garner the attention of consumers.
SanDisk also seems to have the second part of the formula well underway by working hard to distinguish itself through technology that delivers real consumer benefits. Last year alone, SanDisk increased R&D spending by a hefty 48 percent to $125 million. The result has been a string of innovations — waterproof memory cards, titanium cards, and secure memory cards with embedded fingerprint readers — that have captured the attention of consumers because they offer compelling value.
SanDisk is also working with wireless carriers to help protect consumers from fraud and identity theft. When faced with a lost or stolen cell phone, consumers can contact the carrier to remotely disable the card and keep sensitive personal data safe. SanDisk has even successfully offered new products in the gadget business. Last August, for example, the company introduced an MP3 player that quickly raced to first place in the category, only to be knocked off by Apple when it introduced the iPod Shuffle.
Does SanDisk have what it takes to make the leap from anonymous commodity provider to a recognized consumer brand like Intel? Only time will tell. In the meantime, I plan to follow them closely to see how their branding campaign continues to unfold and, more important, how the market responds. As someone who lives and breathes technology branding, I believe we can all learn a great deal from SanDisk’s ongoing branding efforts.
Get your free whitepaper: The 10 Biggest Technology Marketing Mistakes… and How to Avoid Them
Rod Whitson serves Townsend as President and Chief Brand Strategist. Townsend is expert at helping organizations with innovative products and services develop differentiated, compelling value propositions. Townsend is the largest integrated marketing agency in Southern California. Rod has personally led recent branding engagements with Intel, BAE Systems, Merck, DowPharma, Marsh & McLennan, and the University of California system. He has also worked with a host of successful and not so successful early stage technology and life sciences companies. Since Townsend’s founding in 1993, it has helped clients create market valuation in excess of $80 billion.
Visit Rod’s blog, Branding the Complex
© 2006 Rod Whitson - All Rights Reserved Worldwide
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Posted by admin on October 18th, 2008 — Posted in Branding
Companies have learnt that they must try to sell those products, which people really want else they could suffer losses. As a result, many companies are making great efforts to adapt themselves to changing customer requirements.
When the dot com bubble burst a number of companies suffered heavy losses. Their problems were further compounded with the attack on the Twin Towers. In such a scenario when the very basis of people’s life was affected the market almost died out.
Everywhere the hunt was to look for products that could survive in such hard times. Consumers didn’t have much choice, first they were held back by a slow economy and then by the prospect of a nation on the brink of war and chaos. The mood was to save rather than spend on new and frivolous things. This caused a slump in consumer spending and had the sellers worried.
The need of the hour was to look for new products that could meet the customer requirements and survive the test of time.
New Products
The search for new changed products spread all over and centred on “Service”. People mostly agreed that they were now moving away from products, what they really wanted was service providers who would take care of all their requirements, allowing them to simply relax when someone else did all their tasks.
People wanted benefits but didn’t want to take any pains for it. They wanted a service, which would take care of the things that they were required to do themselves, earlier. This idea is gaining popularity among the higher income groups as opposed to the masses. These higher income consumers are ready to pay the price of enjoying such premium service.
Think how many times you have bought a product simply because of the results that it offered. Wouldn’t it have been better if you could just buy the result rather than the product itself.
Of course such services that we are talking about are expensive. However, there are buyers for every kind of service. There are buyers who in view of the results that they want are ready to pay the price.
The condition is simply that if you are charging premium rates then your service should do what it promises and much more. Over a period of time you will gain popularity and trust of the people as a service provider who would deliver the best results. Soon you would have the right kind of customers contacting you for the services you are providing, irrespective of costs.
Your aim should be to attract more and more customers by word of mouth publicity. People should feel that though the service is expensive but it is worth every penny that they spend on it. If you keep doing good work soon you would have people referring to you as the best.
Placing your Business
It is very important for business to centre on their target customers. Many mistakenly feel that if they have inexpensive products then they have a better chance to succeed, as more and more people would be attracted to it. These businesses realise that in order to register a profit with low prices they would have to make large sales.
But, as they find out with time, this business plan does not necessarily spell success. On the other hand, if you give quality service, and charge a little more than an inexpensive service and your target customer is the affluent class then you have better chances of success. Here instead of generating large sales volume you can succeed with limited sales and customers, because you have charged a little higher price.
This theory is a little tough for the businesses to digest but they understand over time, that it works in many cases. Once they see the rewards for themselves, they no longer need to be prodded.
In fact, they are ready to reap the benefits of being in demand among the rich and famous while making great profits in the bargain.
This article was written by Craig Dawber of smarket-associates.com
Need advice and guidance with your online
business check out the resources found in this website.
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Posted by admin on October 16th, 2008 — Posted in Branding
A waste paper basket is surrounded by a smattering of scrunched up balls of paper. A hush falls over the studio as the creative director takes aim at the miniature basket ball hoop hanging delicately over the bin. He aims and fires from a distance of 2 metres. After the whooping and high fives have finally died down, the studio resumes back to some normality. A junior designer rummages through the bin to locate the winning paper ball as it did, coincidentally, have his latest logo creation on it that was waiting for a critique from the creative director - hmmmmm.
The excitement, tension and ulcer inducing stress of putting that latent entrepreneurial flair into practice can bring with it decisions that were never really considered at the time of inception. One such area is the translation of the essence of your business into an identifiable brand.
So many of us have left this crucial decision to the so called “experts”, the designers and think tanks that can turn seed capital into nothing more than a grain of sand. You alone know your business better than anybody. You are the one that spent night and day turning the dream into a reality. You are the one that will raise and nurture your business to the level of Bransonesque proportions. The way that other businesses and consumers relate to your business through your brand is crucial and you need to control this process from start to finish. But how, I hear you ask. The following is a guide to the basics, the rest will call for your insight into your business, once all of this is in place your ready to have your logo crafted by a skilled designer, but on your terms.
What does branding do for your business?
*It should capture the essence of your business ideology and model.
*Well thought out branding will increase your company’s profile and visibility through easy recognition.
*Your brand will become synonymous with your customers’ experience and will eventually be translated across your target market.
The ultimate goal for any business is to create brand equity that can result in greater margins from revenue, greater customer loyalty and increased volume.
You should not rely on a logo design based purely on aesthetics. It’s key ingredients should not only revolve around visual identity, but should include simplicity, memorability and identify with your customer experience.
Once the above ideas start to make sense to you, the hunt for a good designer will be on. A designer should be willing to work with you to bring your ideas to life. You should try and give the designer as much insight into the essence of your business by addressing questions such as:
Who are our customers?
What level of service are we offering?
How is our industry perceived?
What are our strengths?
Why are we unique?
There is no point in settling on a logo that you are unhappy with, but so many people do.
The relatively short time spent on your company’s identity, if spent wisely, will result in a winning design that your company will be able to use for years to come.
Michael Luther is part of the design team at Ahika Design. His role is customer facing and involves bringing the best out of each client’s logo design. Ahika specialise in designing Logos, brochures, stationery and websites at affordable prices.
Ahika is a London based design studio, but serves customers all over the world, from start-ups to corporate rebranding.
For further details please visit http://www.ahika-design.co.uk
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Posted by admin on October 16th, 2008 — Posted in Branding
Brands are important aspects of any business, but unlike money or bricks, mortar and paperclips, a brand is an intangible aspect of business. It lives in people’s heads and is defined by all of that person’s contacts with a company. Improving a brand is, therefore, one of the best marketing tools available because it involves your whole company and in the end, creates happier customers, more loyalty and higher marketshare.
Hiring a branding company that specializes in brand image is best equipped to improve your brand with proven research and consulting services. Any successful effort to do these things must be built on a solid foundation. That foundation is your brand. Any kind of strategy without a solid brand under it, like a house, might work for a while, but in the long term, will crash to the ground. That’s not what you or we want. Quite simply, a brand is the essence of what your company is and what your company appears to be to the outside world…your brand identity and ultimately your brand image. And if it’s not solid and consistent, a branding company we’ll help you get it there.
The Brand Analysis process includes:
Brand Audit (internal and external)
Constituency Audits and Benchmarking
Competitive Analysis
Target Market Research
Positioning Assessment
Brand Valuation/Benchmarking
Brand Analysis
Constituency Analysis
Brand Strategy
Brand Architecture (blue print)
Brand Nomenclature & Covenants
Naming Research, Testing and Strategy
Employee Mindset Shift
Brand Communications
Core Messaging/Value Proposition
Communications Strategy & Planning
Communications Standards
Web strategy and development
Corporate Communications / Investor Relations
Constituency Communications:
* Recruitment
* Human Resources
* Investors & Analysts
* Industry Experts and Peers
* Corporate Staff
* Clients
* Customers
* Partners
* Media
Brand Roll-out
Brand Books/Style Guide & Manuals
Advertising Design & Implementation
Logo Design & Identity Design
Packaging Design
Collateral /Signage Design
Consider hiring a branding company offering complete marketing solutions with a proven approach who’s offerings include strategy planning, creative services, target market research, collateral creation along with graphic design and production and placing services for all types of media, web design and interactive.
Hiring a Brand Identity Team:
Consider a balanced group of innovative and results-driven professionals who have developed some of the world’s leading brands and managed and evolved them as needed through the good times and bad times. They’ll understand the challenges their clients face and are uniquely equipped to meet them with the best possible strategies. They’re a close-knit group with both the creative and strategic leadership and know-how to make your branding, advertising and marketing efforts more successful than you thought possible.
Scott White is President of Brand Identity Guru a leading Corporate Branding and Branding Research firm in Boston, MA.
Brand Identity Guru specializes in creating corporate and product brands that increase sales, market share, customer loyalty, and brand valuation.
This Article may be freely copied as long as it is not modified and this resource box accompanies the article, together with working hyperlinks.
Over the course of his 15-year branding career, Scott White has worked in a wide variety of industries: high-tech, manufacturing, computer hardware and software, telecommunications, banking, restaurants, fashion, healthcare, Internet, retail, and service businesses, as well as numerous non-profit organizations.
Brand Identity Guru clients include: Sun Life Financial, Coca Cola, HP, Sun, Nordstrom, American Federal Mortgage, Franklin Sports and many others, including numerous emerging growth companies.
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