I am sick and tired of marketing geeks touting the beauty of branding, brand building and just spouting branding in any context, especially when the term is used with "internet" or "web" or "digital!" You can’t have a conversation today for more than five minutes without some marketing type throwing in a line about brand building!

Branding doesn’t work with the net’s warp speed - look at some of the leading online brand builders, including a certain big three TV network here in the states and a book seller in Seattle trying to do classic brand extension, from books to barbecues.

We tell our B2B clients to build a revenue-producing online brand by developing a campaign that sells the value of their goods or services! Forget the esoteric, very expensive brand building campaigns that have no measurable impact! Here are my ten "cliff notes" to building an effective B2B Brand Online, B2C coming next article.

1. Do a careful Competitive Web Analysis of your competitors - you can’t build a unique brand without knowing the lay of the digital and real-world land! The beauty of the web is that it is a 247/365 resource for analysis and you can find out quite a lot from your competitor’s web sites. We’ve created a comprehensive matrix of 75-200 items to assess when preparing a competitive analysis report for a client.

2. Identify your target audience early on as everything flows from this. You can’t conceptualize your creative, graphical imagery, content or what type of online media you want to deploy until you know the size and characteristics of your target audience.

3. Think revenue producing branding - this translates to marketing campaigns that deliver sales (the goal of all good marketing campaigns) by customer acquisition. Meaning, develop messages that speak to your audience. B2B customers typically want referenceable data that addresses their needs. "Our xyz services help you leverage your IT resources by…." Think providing tactical information to enhance their decision-making!

4. If your early to market or just plain old early stage then you may want to develop some branding with other complementary partners who have established names (brands) in your market segment. This can include joint announcements, co-branded pages; direct marketing or opt-in e-mail pieces, etc. Here’s an example of a co-branded page we did for an existing client, PolyServe, Inc. http://www.polyserve.com/partners.html

5 .Make sure you PR agency and Interactive or Traditional Agency are all in concert when it comes to building a branding campaign. Your various messages and processes should be mutually reinforcing.

6. Select an Interactive or Traditional Agency that understands your unique B2B needs. Consumer branding is much different than B2B Customer Acquisition Branding. By "understand" I mean ask them about the types of campaigns they’ve set up for previous clients, what types of media they’ve used, do they know how to develop creative that speaks to a potential B2B client - I love the "do the Dew" campaign, but this isn’t the type of branding you would want to deploy for an IT Manager who is contemplating a purchase of your software.

7. How do you measure effective branding on the web? I am not sure if I have any answer or if I have unlimited answers - this is such a difficult marketing characteristic to measure. But, again, be "customer-centric" - ask people who purchase your software or services what they think. Why did you purchase (or why not if you can), did our marketing address your needs, was it meaningful and informative?

8. Think digital shelf life when branding on the web - you have to build messages and content that will only last for a finite amount of time. You have to continually refresh your branding and positioning by developing new content for a web site, opt-in e-mail or banner advertising campaign.

9. Incorporate your offline branding (creative, content, graphics, etc.) into your online branding when/where you can. So your customer has a sense of continuity when they review all of your marketing and communications processes. This also sends a signal to them that you have carefully thought through your overall campaign.

10. Last but not least - build net speed into your overall campaign. I’ve said it before in many articles, but always essential to underscore; better to be quick to market with something that may need slight calibration later on that to delay a facet of a campaign of the entire campaign to get everything perfect! Revenue is the engine that makes a B2B Branding campaign work and you can’t drive sales unless you are putting your branding message out there in front of your potential customers!

About The Author

Lee Traupel has 20 plus years of business development and marketing experience - he is the founder of Intelective Communications, Inc., http://www.intelective.com, a results-driven marketing services company providing proprietary services to clients encompassing startups to public companies. Lee@intelective.com

Lee@intelective.com

Oh Grand and Glorious Southern Guru, I am perplexed. What ails thee, my peabrained little grasshopper? My sleep has been short, my walls have been climbed, my hair has been pulled.

I must know the difference between advertising and high art. Oh Great Creator, please give me the answer.

Stir no longer, little vacuous one. Art is in the eye of the beholder, and yes, advertising can be high art.

But Holiest of the Holy, whilst I acknowledge there is a role for subjectivity in the appreciation of art, and that art and advertising similarly use form, colour and symbol to convey messages, and that both can be aesthetically pleasing and accessible, and that both share the goal of changing behavior and attitudes, and that both often highlight the tension between reality and ideals and can shape aesthetic tastes, does not an adequate answer to my question depend upon a precise definition of the term art?

Are there not different degrees of creativity and originality? Are there not different types of art?

Surely Majestic One, advertising is not "high" art, but rather popular, propagandistic art?

Not so, little inchworm. Art is a function of apprehension, ergo, there is no difference between "high" and "low" art.

But Mighty Aphrodite, do not ads see the world only through a blinkered lens: as products and services, as target markets and audiences? Do they not promote only consumerism and uphold only the status quo? Are not their motives restricted by budgets and deadlines, and by the necessity of pushing product?

How can ads experiment with ideas for their own sake when fettered by this capitalist manacle?

Do ads not craft specific messages for specific audiences at specific times?

Is not their goal to elicit singular responses?

Do they not aim to please, to arrest the intelligence and to allay our fears with easy solutions, and are they not primarily concerned with positive reactions?

And does not the prerequisite of mass appeal demand mediocrity? Does not art allow for a delight in, and the free play of, ideas for their own sake? Truly outstanding art rarely secures immediate popularity, n’est-ce pas Mon Dieu Seigneur?

Does not art encourage many ways of looking at the world?

Is it not often purposefully ambiguous and open to conflicting interpretation?

Surely, oh Towering One, artists do not worship audiences in the way advertisers do?

Do they not intentionally break boundaries, counter the status quo, and question accepted beliefs?

Many spend decades deconstructing society, transcending political, economic and religious systems, do they not?

You listen not, my pint-sized parvenu. Art is in the eye of the beholder. Hence an advertisement, even if it’s only one in a million, can be high art.

But Lord of the Rings, is it not the sale that motivates the creation of advertisements?

Does this not put advertising solely in the realm of the shallow and material?

And thusly, are not ads only original in the context of commerce? And furthermore, did not the great Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye suggest that ads are farcical, ironic and trivial (and that their prodigious power rests here precisely because we view them as a joke, without analyzing their bountiful effects)?

In short, Monsieur Le President, are not advertisements viewed primarily with scorn?

And does not true art inspire awe?

And does it not create new ways of looking at the world and increase our depth of understanding about the meaning of life?

And, as such, does it not reside squarely in the realm of the deep and spiritual?

And does not great art burst forth with such stunning originality that it changes the way we see the world and ourselves?

And are great artists, those rare geniuses, not moved by more than the simple desire for coin, and do they not dwell deeply on the profound questions of man’s universal condition?

And is not the equating of "high" art with advertising symptomatic of decadent, hollow, bankrupt, violent societies, which value material goods, "happiness" and facile solutions above all else?

And as such, All Knowing One, is this not an equation we should actively oppose?

Get not thy knickers in a knot wee Gordian. Your philosophizing incites me to slumber.

Nigel Beale is an Ottawa, Canada based writer.

You don’t think twice about a business card and letterhead logo for the visual aspect of your campaign, why not an audio logo to brand your broadcast campaign?

With the magic of music you can capture the personality of your business, create an emotional connection to your target audience and get recall & branding recognition (in some instances with people tapping their feet and singing your company name) even when you are not on the air.

The majority of advertisers use the free production services that radio and TV stations offer to save money. The fact is: Most Radio and TV production departments are overworked and many are burned out. In most cases, the same person writes and reads the majority of the spots on each station, recycling old ideas and trying to change their intonation and enthusiam for each commercial. Is that really what you want for your campaign?

It’s possible to seperate yourself from the clutter of bland, burned out creative that is circulating in epidemic proportions on radio and television these days. With music you can build the intensity under the voice-over copy so that the person reading your script can speak in a natural voice with the excitement building underneath. That excitement should lead into a compelling singing tag line that people look forward to hearing and will remember. The name of your business and your positioning statement… just like on your business card. Your musical identity. Maybe use it in the beginning of you spot as well?

With the aid of the internet search engine, you can find a great resource for the creation of such an identity. When seeking out the right music production house or jingle company, listen to as much of their work as possible. Compare overall quality. There are "one hit wonders" out there who may have one jingle that you like but the rest of their work is sub par. There are large jingle factories that have done some good work but are so large that you lose the personal touch and the buck tends to get passed when you want to make changes and suddenly no one is accountable. Don’t gamble. Take your time and do the research. Talk to the person who will be the writer and producer and get a feel for them before you commit.

It’s all about taking the time to find the right team.

Barry Volk is a former Staff Songwriter/Producer with ABC and Screen Ems/EMI Music Publishing, Musical Director for the West Coast Theater Company, National Director of Marketing for Metro Networks (A Westwood One Company). Barry is currently owner of Sound Advantage (A Musical Identity Company Since 1993).

http://www.soundad.com

Media Planning for Smarties

You say you’re ready to advertise. How are you going to choose whether to place your ad in the local newspaper or a national magazine? Why not do a radio spot or place a banner ad on a related company’s website? Understanding the benefits and pitfalls of these different forms of media will help you get the most out of your advertising budget.

Do you believe that simply placing an ad in the newspaper or a commercial on the radio will drive customers to purchase your product or service? Or does your business have a well-developed marketing strategy with an advertising plan for the year? An effective advertising plan will clearly identify and select the media that will provide the greatest amount of targeted exposure for your business.

Your advertising plan should answer the following questions: What are your specific marketing objectives? Who are your target markets? What media types will you use? How many placements will you buy? What is your advertising budget? How will you track the effectiveness of your advertising efforts?

The marketing strategies you implement with your advertising plan will depend on the length of time your products/services have been on the market, how you’ve chosen to position your business, the message you wish to send, and the media you’ll use to send it. Advertising will keep your product or service in the public’s eye by creating greater awareness over time. Defining your target market in terms of demographic, geographic, psychosocial characteristics will be the single most important factor in selecting which media to use. Choosing between radio stations, newspapers, magazines, and television stations, will be evident if you have defined your market well.

Savvy planners set advertising goals in terms of reach, frequency, gross rating points (GRP), and continuity. A basic knowledge of these terms will help you talk to advertising representatives and understand their media planning kits:

Reach is the number of different people or households that are exposed to your message during a specified time period.

Frequency is the number of times that your target prospects are exposed to your message.

Gross Rating Points (GRP) are a measurement that equals the reach multiplied by the average frequency. The GRP is intended to give the total impact of the media effort. Continuity relates to the scheduling or timing of the media placements.

Your overall marketing budget will determine how much you will spend on your advertising. Getting preliminary placement costs will help you estimate how much will be required to have an impact on the consumer. Like many aspects of marketing, it is not an exact science and you will have to use your judgment when it comes to developing a budget. It’s always a good idea to reserve a small portion of your budget for unexpected opportunities, like a "special issue" just before an important event that you had not planned for. Scheduling the actual media placement will depend on the seasonal sales patterns of your product. Typically, advertising will run in a continuous, pulsed, or flighted schedule.

To build sales, your business has to market itself. And, since advertising is expensive, it’s important to make your efforts effective. However, advertising planning can be a bigger job than most people anticipate. A marketing professional can help you to define your goals, develop your advertising plan, and place your advertising to maximize the impact and effectiveness of your message.

Here is an overview of the pros and cons of different types of media:

Newspapers

Advertising in a daily newspaper can be very effective if your product or service is relevant to most people. On the other hand, it can be a waste of advertising dollars if you are trying to reach a very specific interest group. Newspapers allow you to take advantage of current events. This is a great advantage if you’re selling roses and Valentines Day is a week away, but isn’t likely to be helpful if you’re trying to reach a narrow niche (ex: marketing a new technology to IT managers at community hospitals). Advertisers will find an unlimited amount of print space available, but the cost is incrementally high. It doesn’t pay to incorporate detailed photographs or quality color images when the newspaper printing is generally poor to medium quality.

Magazines

Magazines allow for good quality image reproduction and layout flexibility. Advertising space is usually expensive. Magazines cover hundreds of niche interest areas, so finding the right publication to reach a specific audience is easy. Magazines tend to be around for a longer time, so ads have the potential for being seen multiple times. However it is difficult to predict when the reader will actually see an ad. Deadlines for advertisements are generally a month in advance of publication, so there isn’t much room for last minute changes.

Internet

Web advertising can take the form of a Web site or an ad banner on another’s website. With an ad banner targeting a specific audience is a matter of finding other relevant but non-competing websites that reach the same target audience. Websites that are set up intelligently count hits and can even identify repeat traffic. It pays to study the traffic and number of hits at the different sites and make your own comparison. Ads can be interactive and quickly edited. When properly indexed and registered on search engines, advertisers can maximize the number of potential hits. The negatives are that it is difficult to gauge the impact and costs effectiveness of Internet advertising.

Radio

Radio is a great medium for targeting a concentrated geographic area and is considered to be relatively cost-effective. The various formats such as talk radio, classical, and easy listening help zero in on the demographics that match those of the targeted consumer. Advertisers can select the frequency and time of day that most closely matches the target audience’s listening habits. With radio there is room for quick reaction to sudden developments like a snowstorm or a stock market crash. Since radio uses voice, the advertiser can reinforce his or her message with a voice that suits the message.

Other

Other forms of media that one might consider include direct mail, broadcast TV, cable TV, transit, and outdoor billboard advertising. If your decision seems more complex than you anticipated, consider soliciting the help of an advertising agency. An ad agency can not only help you select the most appropriate forms of media, but can develop and design ads maximize the impact of your message on your potential consumers.

Define your target audience, map out your advertising, and determine your marketing goals. Make sure you have a tracking system in place. With a carefully developed advertising plan, your business should realize a much better rate of return from all of your advertising efforts!

Wendy Maynard, your friendly marketing maven, is the owner of Kinesis. Kinesis specializes in marketing, graphic and website design, and business writing. Visit http://www.kinesisinc.com/resources/articles.html for more articles and free marketing wisdom.

You can visit her marketing blog, Kinetic Ideas at: http://www.wendy.kinesisinc.com

Want to harness the power of kinetic marketing? Sign up for Kinesis Quickies, a free bi-monthly marketing e-newsletter: http://www.news.kinesisinc.com

Adored, respected and coveted by customers and organisations alike, corporate brands represent one of the most fascinating phenomena of the business environment in the 21st century. Their importance is unquestionable. Brands, in their various forms, are integral to our everyday existence. This is particularly the case at the organisational level where the concept of the corporate brand now enjoys wide currency in business parlance. There is an increasing realisation that corporate brands serve as a powerful navigational tool to a variety of stakeholders for a lot of purposes, including employment, investment and, most importantly, consumer buying behaviour.

Corporate branding has been defined by Van Riel (2001, p. 12) as: “a systematically planned and implemented process of creating and maintaining a favourable reputation of the company with its constituent elements, by sending signals to stakeholders using the corporate brand.”

Creating a coherent perception of a company in the minds of its various stakeholders is a major challenge faced by many companies. Particularly in large multinational corporations speaking with one voice is a challenging task. Especially when grown through extensive merger and acquisition activities, large companies often comprise multiple subsidiaries and subsequently multiple brands and cultures. Managing the signals these diverse corporate subsets send out to their stakeholders is often impeded by various aspects such as historic turf wars between divisions, cultural and language differences, deficient management structures and unclear responsibilities, or simply by spatial separation. Furthermore, incoherence in messages and difficulties in coordination are often fostered by communication representatives’ narrow focus on their particular stakeholder groups.

For example, investor relations representatives only have a small community of investors in mind. Those responsible for a certain product brand focus on their particular customer base and the internal communicators primarily see their recipients, the employees. Such thinking in a box and acting in narrow realms of stakeholder groups often leads to the communication of messages that might be suitable for each individual stakeholder group, yet all in all the picture drawn of the company as a whole is blurred or even contradictory.

This article asserts that a stronger integration of the different internal units responsible for stakeholder relations is needed in order to foster more coherencies in messaging and to eventually generate a coherent corporate brand image and favourable corporate reputation. The management process of creating and maintaining a coherent corporate brand image in the minds of each individual stakeholder which is the basis for a favourable overall corporate reputation shall be labelled corporate branding.

The importance of corporate brands has been ignored in the literature for a very long time. It was only during the 1990’s when branding and communications consultants went on to assess what is called as a ‘corporate brand’ (King, 1991). Writers about a few decades ago always focused on the importance of a ‘company brand’ rather than a ‘corporate brand’. However, there is an overarching explanation as to why there has been a growth in the importance of studying a ‘corporate’ rather than a ‘company’ brand. Some of the early academic work in the area of corporate brands reached a broadly similar set of beliefs. The importance of staff in corporate brand building was emphasised, as was culture. The role of the chief executive as brand manager was also stressed. Balmer (1995) also said that the new millennium would witness increased importance being assigned to the corporate brand. It can also be found in academic literature that marketing scholars have largely ignored the challenges presented by corporate brand management.

The reasons for this short sightedness can be seen in a lot of branding and marketing textbooks, which though acknowledge the importance of corporate brands but fail to highlight the following attributes:

* corporate brands have a wider scope and management as compared to product brands;

* corporate brands have multi-stakeholders rather than customer orientation and

* the traditional marketing framework is not sufficient when one is studying a brand at a corporate level

Most of us today fail to understand the difference between what is and what is not a corporate brand. Brands such as McDonalds, British Airways, Vodafone, Virgin and Manchester United are examples of organisations with clear corporate brands. However, in the case of Procter & Gamble, Unilever and Diageo, it is more the product brands that have a clear recognition as compared to the corporate brand. In such cases organisations face a lot of difficulties in building their corporate brand because of their stronger focus on building their product brand portfolio. A corporate brand may be viewed as a contract in that the company needs to articulate its accord with its key stakeholders by demonstrating, unceasingly and over time that it has kept true to its corporate branding pledge. As such, the brand name and/or logo play an important part in creating awareness and recognition but also as ‘signs’ of assurance. However, a number of authorities have cautioned against seeing branding as a one-way process that affects the image of those engaged in some form of branding partnership such as customers and employees. This is because these groups also have a key role in defining a brand’s image (Johansson and Hirano, 1999).

The relationship of corporate reputation to the success of a brand

Corporate Reputation has never been considered so important than it is today. In the recent years it is not just the markets which have nose dived in the corporate world but it is the corporations themselves. Scandals such as that of Enron and WorldCom have seriously hampered the trust among stakeholder groups and widespread public scepticism about company ethics. If we look at the case of Andersen, the major reason why the company ceases to exist is because of the negative reputation that built up over a short period of time. Since the mid-1980s senior managers have recognised the strategic necessity of building and sustaining a favourable corporate reputation to create corporate competitive advantage. This recognition has been reflected by a wealth of academic publications that have highlighted the value of a favourable corporate reputation as a means of enhancing an organisation’s financial value, influencing intention to buy, acting as a mechanism for assuring product/ service quality, influencing customer and employee loyalty, and offering inimitability to the organisation. Authors over the years have also recognised that an organisation’s corporate reputation is affected by the actions of every business unit, department and employee that comes into contact with another stakeholder.

Reputation is a concept more generally known to us as how an organisation lives up to the expectations of its stakeholders. A firm with a good overall reputation owns a valuable asset ‘goodwill’: brand names, corporate logos and customer loyalty. Brands in general are used by the consumers as a symbolic meaning in their recognition and decision making process. Often brands develop a ‘personality’ of their own that has an effect on whether users decide the product’s image is consistent with their needs. With this ‘personality’ often goes a reputation as well. Brand names can often be repositories for a firm’s reputation: high quality performance on one product can often be transferred to another product via the brand name.

For a firm expanding its product line, a well-known brand name can be advantageous in facilitating user acceptance of the new product because of its existing brand reputation. Family branding, that is a company placing the same brand name on all products in a product line, enjoys the distinct advantage of instant recognition, benefiting from the “halo effect” of the brand’s established reputation. This leveraging effect has led some firms to enter new fields under the same name – brand franchise extension. The advantages of such an approach are the facilitation of the adoption process and acceptance of new products, since users assume new products have the same quality level as existing ones; a minimal cost of branding to the manufacturer, extensive advertising for brand name awareness and preference will not be necessary; and user response will tend to be faster, thereby reducing the introduction stage in the product life cycle where profits are negative.

In addition, another advantage often obtained is the greater ease in gaining distribution (particularly shelf space) due to its familiar name. While the reputation of the established brand name can facilitate the introduction of a new product, any problems with the new product can, conversely, affect the saleability of all items bearing the same name. If consistency in new product quality is not maintained, user dissatisfaction may result which may carry over to older, successful brands in the line. Family branding, therefore, places high demands on quality control because every single item is considered representative of the entire line. A lower quality item may hurt sales of the better quality products. Promotion of a better quality product may result in credibility gaps among potential buyers. A new product failure may well tarnish the reputation of sister products carrying the same brand name. One bad egg may well spoil the entire basket.

Reputation is thus the assessment of the continuous sustainability over time of an attribute of an entity. This assessment is based on the entity’s willingness and ability to perform repeatedly an activity in a similar fashion. Reputation is an aggregate composite of all previous transactions over the life of the entity, a historical notion, and requires consistency of an entity’s actions over a prolonged time for its formation. A firm will lose its reputation if it repeatedly fails to fulfil its stated intentions. Having a good reputation also insures high quality firms will be larger and have more customers since fewer customers will depart from high quality firms in the long run and more will arrive because of word-of mouth activity from other customers. Thus, to become successful and hence profitable, brands must develop a positive reputation.

Gaurav Bahirvani
MBus.(UK,2004), MSc.(UK,2003), BMS.(INDIA,2002)
Corporate Brand Development Consultant
Manchester, England, United Kingdom.
Email: gaurav.bahirvani@gmail.com

I promise you’ll be able to finish this article before you finish the first half of your PBJ. Are you sitting down? Good. Because I have some startling news for you.

Print ads are here to stay. That’s right. Those dusty, musty, fusty old relics of the century past are still with us. And despite the ubiquity of commercials on radio and TV; despite the onslaught of banners, pop-ups and all manner of intrusive online ads; newspapers and magazines are, and always will be, a mainstay forum for mainstream advertising.

There’s something about the readiness, the handiness, the heft and feel of a magazine or a newspaper that appeals to the nature of human beings. Yes, flat screens that glow with vivid colors are attractive. Especially when they’re displaying something we specifically asked to see.

But as we page through a magazine or a newspaper while enjoying our lunch or riding a commuter train, we don’t mind at all if a surprising or intelligent or just plain appealing ad – even one in black and white – suddenly grabs our attention. We expect it. We secretly look for it. We even welcome it as a break from all the dull gray type we’ve been slogging through. Why? Because – let’s face it – a really good ad is a delight to behold.

Is this the kind of ad your target audience is seeing? Do your ads stop them and make them smile…think…take in your message and make a mental note to look closer at your product or service? Maybe even go to your website for the kind of information that could lead to a sale?

Think carefully about this. If your ad doesn’t stand apart, doesn’t attract, appeal or grab; if it doesn’t delight in some way, the readers you want to capture and bring into your world will simply turn the page and plow on through the dull stuff . . . until they bump into your competitor’s delightfully different ad. And then they’ll stop – and, unfortunately for you – pay attention to the message.

So take a close look at your company’s ads. Do they stand out from the crowd of other ads? Are they different from your competitor’s ads in a powerful and relevant way? And most important, do they convey your core message in an engaging, persuasive and delightful manner?

If so, let them run and run, because they’re bound to bring you business.

If not, better change your approach soon. Before the competition eats your lunch.

Gary Watson writes ads for companies that want to add to their bottom line. He also does product/service naming, slogans/tag lines, billboards, web content, sales letters (print and email), etc. etc. He can be reached at Gary@GWCopy.com.

We will discuss Brand Marketing for a minute. In this discussion we would like to talk about brand line extension and how to do it correctly. First we are not sure if you have been looking in the grocery stores lately, but you might have been noticing some very interesting things amongst America’s top selling brands, this has been increasing for about the last 5-years. For instance look at GE Light bulbs sometime. They have not only the original light bulb that GE is known for they now have; Soft Pink, Crystal Clear, Original, Standard, Miser (The energy saving light bulb), and of course Party Light Bulbs in colors of yellow, red, green, blue, and orange.

If you do not find this interesting perhaps you might find the line extension of Kingsford Charcoal interesting. 3-types now. What about Raid, the bug killer, they have it now for ants, slugs, flies and ants/roaches, Roaches only. Raid for the garage, for the bathroom, for the kitchen and for the garden. 7 different types. They own the entire space for bug killer on many a store shelf. And what about our famous Lego Brand? They already have all the Star Wars characters and hardware of spacecrafts, and structures.

Yes we are very aware of Lego Brands. Lego is very aggressive promoting their brand identity and expanding their customer base, they have something for everyone, We are on the leading edge of these trends and have read all the same books and sometimes it amazes me how many large corporations in America make such unfortunate mistakes with their brands. Lets look a Hot Wheels line extension. Garbage trucks, Fed Ex Vans, Over the Road 18 Wheelers, Skateboarders, SUVs etc. And Barbie, judging by their books, cars, houses and clothes-lines. Interesting that the founder died and they simply did what Wendy’s Hamburger did, use the PR to sell even more and extend the brand name even further, with books and video-tapes and newest lines. Look at Wendy’s launching a new hamburger early ahead of schedule. Who else is going for it on the grocery shelves of America’s largest chains? Windex with now 7 colors; Blue Original, Clear Vinegar, Purple Mountain Anti-Bacterial green, Aqua, no drip no streak. Lysol same thing. And 409 cleaner? Original green. Misty Breeze, Orange Power. We have brands everywhere and they sell too.

Now then if you look at the Fast Food Restaurant Corporations and their Multi-Brand Franchises in the QSR Sector, we see the leader McDonalds has diversified quite a bit. Recently we did a Multi-Brand Franchising Report Observation and we were quite interested in what we found. Well not everyone is aware that McDonalds also owns several other bands such as Boston Markets; 650 stores in 23 states, Chipotle Mexican Grill; 230 stores in 10 states, Donato’s Pizza 200 stores in 10 states, Pret a Manager 140 stores in 4 countries, Fazoli’s 400 units in 32 states and two countries. Of this the company derives 2 Billion in annual sales, this is not even counting McDonalds. Many people are unaware of this because McDonald’s has not connected the dots.

However other franchise companies, which franchise and have multiple brands have. The question shall always be do they co-market to the same customers or serve separate niches. Do they buy out their competition yet sell and take away an cannibalize their own same store sales? It depends, McDonalds seems to be targeting different customers although if you consider in the US people eat major meals 2-3 times per day and there are 7 days a week, we are talking about 14-21 opportunities to feed them, now obviously other than single males, most of our population will eat the majority of meals at home. However how many of those meals will be eaten out side the home and of those visits to QSRs how many can McDonalds pick up. Apparently after considering the additional 2 billion a year in sales, quite a few and remember McDonalds is in 141 countries thus far so perhaps the cannibalization discussed in the franchising industry is a US thing for McDonalds and is not affecting it’s other brands here yet or all of it’s overseas markets for it’s stead fast Mickey Ds Brand.

Think about it Pizza, Chicken, Tacos, Italian and Pretzels? Oh yah that Hamburger thing will never work? Sure, that is what they told Ray Kroc in the beginning, guess they were wrong. And today we see some interesting new factors to be considered namely; The New American diets and how these different food types are effected by the new perception of Atkins, South Beach Diet, etc.

Some stores allow for multiple brands inside the same establishment, this is prevalent in Fast Food, C-Stores and Auto-Service Businesses. We had recently did a small study on the Point of destination Theories or One Stop Shop Scenarios in Car Washes, C-Stores, Quick Lubes, QSRs or Other Auto Businesses and how they attempt to use the multiple brands to draw in customers. If you study Micro Economics of Multi-Revenue Streams Concepts and Co-Brands you will see this trend. In 1997 at the annual International Franchise Association Trade Show we saw that many break away forums focusing on this new rage at the time of Franchise Co-branding and as the moderators introduced the franchisors, Franchise Marketing Executives and Attorneys involved in some of these major projects of mini-franchises in side of C-Stores and Donut, Cookie, Pizza concessions in fast food locations, mom and pop shops, food courts, etc. they all admitted that about 50% of these deals failed when the franchises were owned by separate entities. However it was our observations that things like Starbucks, hair cut places, Mail Stops inside grocery stores were very successful and kiosks with low costs depending on the product did turn out to be profitable.

Let me take a quote from Plato, because it maybe more than relevant to this situation and discussion. This quote is taken out of context although there were none of these types of businesses during that time period. However the theory has not changed and may not change with regards to business operators who leave core components of their business model to create a one-stop shop scenario in order to take advantage of the similar theory of a regional shopping mall or Wal-Mart store. Small privately owned businesses should concentrate on what they are good at first and think twice about co-brands concepts they are unfamiliar with, are hard to learn or not their specialty. Many businesses fail and recently I watched and reviewed such a business that is not long for this world which I will be glad to describe without giving names and allow you to see our point of this discussion. Here is the famous quote by Plato in the Republic, which rings through to the topic some 2300 years later. Could have been written yesterday. You may wish to copy it down and teach it to your off spring.

"the result, then, is that more plentiful and better quality goods are more easily produced if each person does one thing for which he is naturally suited, does it at the right time, and is released from having to do any of the others."

There are many other later themes encompassing parts or all of this idea of specialization. Forget the equal pay for equal work communism or the socialist connotations that this might enter and think of the business aspects of free markets and core business models and current comments from fortune 500 CEOs to shareholders and of course the aspects of small businesses on relevancy. In Parenting too, for instance the quote you may have heard is "If you try to do everything, you will do nothing well?” Unfortunately this is used by many a lazy person to relieve himself of responsibilities of doing what is right or responsibilities he has already committed to or to get him out of responsibilities he is employed to do. In other words for excuses, however when used by a man of commitment to do what he says he was going to do, does it and then determines it to be something he should not be engaging his time in, in that case it is seen as a prudent insight.

I cannot tell you how many companies make obvious mistakes with their brand name, based on advise from experts, advertising agencies and academia, which in my opinion is always looking back, and has not a clue how to change the market direction midstream and take advantage of brand name value in opportunities right before their eyes, Service Master should be commended as they have done well, but they could do so much more really. I want to thank those students for their questions, which enabled me to formalize my worldly observations and enable me to define my theories on brand name.

"Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

The single easiest way to increase sales is to look professional. People believe what they see. If you look the part, you get the part. You must be committed to keeping a positive image in the mind of every customer. What you may not realize is that a high public image may not cost as much as you are led to believe. In a small business, image is fifty percent (50%) of your business. The impact you have on your customers, whether it be your appearance, cleanliness of your store, equipment, uniforms or the style of your classy color brochures. You must continually re-audited your small businesses image. Even if your first impression is great, you can lose it just as fast if you fail to handle simple details, because things change and customer buying behavior and perceptions change with local, regional, national and world events and views.

Here are a few areas that are the cornerstone of your “new image” if you choose to audit your current image for a slight make over. Customers will judge you by:

The clothes you wear

The way you carry yourself

The equipment you use

The people you hire

The advertising you choose

Phone conversations

Your work quality

Cleanliness of your equipment

Your general appearance

Literature, signage and business cards

Let’s face it, this is not a new idea and if you are already in business for yourself, you probably already have a head start. You have uniforms for you and your workers, confidence through training, nice store layout and new equipment. You also would not have been reading this article if you were not serious about your company’s image. A positive image reflects integrity, success, customer service, doing it right and the will to succeed and service your customer.

All you have to do is continue to take pride in your work, store, uniform, advertising, equipment and most importantly, yourself. If you take pride and effort, it will show. These are just basic winning attitudes to maintaining an award-winning attitude. Remember this saying: “It’s surprising how lucky you get when you are working hard.”

Your customers will be true to you if you are true to them and any competition you might have will never have a chance. Your customers will help you by word of mouth advertising. They will take your business cards, hand them out to friends, relatives and business associates. Think of public image costs as an army of sales people. All of this is free; you don’t have to even ask for it. Just try your best and pay attention to the image you are projecting. People will see this and help you. The results are phenomenal. Think about image.

"Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

I was asked today by a group of students; What do you feel is the best way to build brand name and why? And what significance do you feel are relevant to a strong corporate identity?

Well obviously this is a group of marketing students. And it almost sounded as if I was being tested on an essay question. My answer will differ from those you maybe use to hearing. That is fine, but I am right. They may also be right and it may not be a black and white issue in all markets, sectors or areas. Here is some of what I know in relation to building brand name.

I would like to say a few words on this subject, which I feel of important. For instance the universal sign for a barbershop, the candy cane striped pole, for happiness the Belgium born happy face. But let us look deeper. In the grocery store on the Soda pop isle, look at it from the distance let us say the end of the row. Let us say you want a citrus soda? We all know that drinks that taste like citrus have green color bottles, Yet the appropriate color would be yellow or even orange, if you were to think of it. Some use these combos. Orange is for Orange soda, Yellow with green would be lemon type soda. Green for Mountian Dew and all the copy type generic sodas. Red obviously for cola. But why? Red is the color of blood not soda, and green is not necessarily the color of Mountain dew, that would really be crystal clear. Yet green tint and die coloring is added for effect, why to create brand identity. Has nothing to do with anything else. 7-up is clear yet the bottles were green. Then Mountain Dew came along and simply used this color theme. They used the other brand to build their identity.

Pizza Hut buildings are all the same, so are IHOPS and McDonalds restaurants. Even if they were to close a store you can always tell what use to be a Hubble House, Wendy’s, Der Wienersnietzel, or Blockbuster store. Why? Brand identity. But colors and brand are also important. Think about the bear companies they almost have to have the cans gold or silver or at least some showing. Coors, Miller, Bud, but also Mickey’s (yuk), Red Dog, Sapporo, but why those. Why not, why recreate the customer’s perception. The customer wants everything in their perspective, they want order, but why? It is a chaotic world and some postulate that chaos is the only given in the random order of the universe, and that the only thing constant is change, yet the consumer buys what they are familiar with? This that go against this familiarity concept, must spend money to change customer perception. A risky ordeal and if they succeed? No problem, some one will copy that theme and cash in on the progress made and the marketing dollars spent.

Why do I as a Car Washer submit these facts to a bunch of hungry knowledge seeking students? It is our job at WashGuys (my company) to create brand identity, We have, we are, we will. What do you pay for when you buy a franchise? You pay for brand identity and future growth in customer recognition of that brand. Sometimes with a small franchisor, (using the franchising industry due to the many examples and my familiarity on the subject), that can be risky and it is one topic that is often discussed in academia, yet few really understand it as well as franchisor.

It is a current trend of corporate identity people to create an image that brings with it thoughts of the conditions needed to affect a customers desire to buy. So a logo created need to instill reliability and honesty and strength in a Phone company or a bank. In a tech company; state of the art, innovation and vision. In a sports shoe company; winning, comfort, effortless versatility and power. There maybe other reasons but let us look at the logos for AT&T, Nike, Addias, Silicon Graphics, Apple Computer, etc. Think of all the symbols you know like Coca Cola, Levis, California Cheese, Starbucks, Kinkos, Frito Lays, etc. What do these brand names need to retain customer base and extend market mix. If they are too limiting they lose and if they are too diverse they do not hit their intended audience. Band names; some many of them remember and they for the most part achieve their objectives.

Frito Lays logo tends to promote longevity in the market place, your grandparents ethics, reliability. Coca Cola Classic says it all, An American Tradition, precisely what the company wants it to say. This is one reason the New Coke failed, people drink coke because it is a tradition and it is a coke sometimes even if it is a Pepsi or RC Cola. Often our customers call the people who wash their cars “The Car Wash Guys”, yet it likely may be Jose’s Mobile Wash in Albuquerque, Schmit’s Detailing in Couer D Alene ID, Winslow’s Washing Service in Boston, Chang’s Car Wash in South City San Francisco area, Fidel’s Fine Finishes in Miami, Jacques Car Care in Quebec, Bernies Beverly Hills Detailing, or even Paquito’s Truck Wash in El Paso. Hey stop laughing, they do not have brand name we do. We win again. The more cars and trucks they wash and detail the more famous we get, because we own the most recognitzed name and the name which has become figures of speech. Gotta love brand name recognition. Lord knows I do and you know what? That is right you can say whatever you want, but we are winning that brand war. Even the FTC attempted to increase our brand name by having us interviewed by Forbes, Business Week, WSJ, USA Today, Business Journals all over the country, when competitors could not beat us in the market place and complained to the government. Every time your brand is written about, spoken about, promoted, publicized, advertised, you win. We certainly know what we are doing. Yet the rest of the industry lacks any brand identity at all, as a matter of fact the attempts are even poorly engineered from a academic standpoint. Simonize Car Wash, uses an old brand name not popular with most of its clientele, Mace changed its name and was unable to capitalize significantly on its efforts. WOW-Wash-on-wheels did not do it. Spaklewash? No, Ziebart? Not really, what is Ziebart? A Zebra on the wall in a painting? Imagine the cost of promoting nothingness into a brand name?

Imagine being a franchisee of a system and being forced to use a name that is nothing. I think that Yahoo, had a better chance. Yahoo is a yell of euphoria. Like in the beginning, Yahoo, I am cruising the Internet. So how did the Car Wash Guys come to be? Well this is interesting. One day washing cars in Westlake Ca, I went to an office as I had gone into every week for a year. The lady at the front desk said. The car wash guys are here. Our name was at the time Aero-Auto Wash. Signifying that we washed cars and aircraft. That was our two specialty niches back then, yet we washed other things, we were known for these. What she was meaning to say to the rest of the 500-employee office on the intercom that day was that the guys who wash cars, me and three workers were there again at the prescribed time. Each week same announcement. Eventually people would say Hey it is the car wash guy. And Hey I said “why fight it?” It was a few months later that I had heard the same announcement several times at other offices some small, some large, some over the Public Address System and some just yelled it over the counter to the small staff of my potential or weekly wash customers. Even more interesting was that eventually the checks made out to my company said things like Wash Guy, The Car Wash Guys, Wash man. So that is when I decided that before someone looked at the name the check was made out to at the bank, I better get that DBA. I did, but before that I had to hide those checks that were not made out to Aero Auto Wash in the middle of the stack so the teller would not see them. Eventually the checks started to say all different things.

One said the Car Wash Gays, which we were not. Car Wash, all kinds of stuff. So we said hey the most common thing people say is; “The Car Wash Guys are here.” So we started to put that saying on the trucks and then we officially changed the name to the customer’s perception of who we were. We are the Car Wash Guys or Car Wash Gals and we own both Federal Trademarks. They are undisputed and we do enforce our brand rights. Sometime later another company was formed called the Good Guys, electronic retailer. Then people occasionally made the mistake and made the check out to the Good Guys. Wow, I knew we had won the brand name war in that area. The Good Guys, sub consciously that is what people thought of our clean-cut crews and uniformed service. We had made it. They thought of our fundraising efforts as Good, our team as Good Guys and we washed cars. That is miraculous. We know take what we have learned to any market and immediately establish brand identity. And we are growing in size and numbers. We always win the brand war. Perhaps it is because no one else has as many units in as many states as us or that the cost to create that recognition is the reason. Perhaps no one in this industry knows what we know about the customer or that they do not care.

Maybe they are just lazy, stupid, incompetent or bullheaded to think that a name like Bubbles, Sunshine, Dicks Car Wash, Car Spa, Dr. Car Wash is where it is at. The car washes, which just say “car wash” may actually have an advantage in that they have no identity at all. Yet that is easily arguable, if you looked at our rise to power in various regions in the 1990s.

Our company has been called by our critics and competition the McDonalds of The Car Wash Industry, The Wal-Mart of Car Washing, low price leader, usually in a derogatory since, yet it is by far a compliment to the Brand name we are building, it will increase its value to us and decrease their market share. The customer is calling us the good guys, the convenient choice, a better mousetrap, a time saver, a good deal, a cool business, a lifesaver. WOW, sometimes it gets heavy, when a customer tells you, Oh thank you, how can I ever repay you, you are a gods sent. Sometimes you want to say Hey Chill Out Lady, All I Did Was Wash Your Car, but that is inappropriate, so you just smile and graciously accept the large tips. Ever wonder why Starbucks puts out a tip jar? With every car you build brand name and goodwill, one car at a time, yet that critical mass theory is also real, in that once you become a household topic, the exponential exposure is intense. Who can we thank?

We can thank careful planning, strategy, customer service, community goodwill, belief in what we do and ever motion we make. It is not luck building brand name. Far from what many believe. Ben and jerry drove around the country in a damn beat up motor home delivering free ice cream to every group they could find. Luck. Yah right, tell them that. Hopefully as you go about your business this week you will begin to understand some of these observations in the Real World and perhaps you already have? Are you on a Dell, HP, IBM, Apple Computer right now? Are you wearing New Balance, Addidas or Nike Shoes? Think about it?

Why is that so hard to see from the perspective of a college student who wears name brand clothes, wears a name brand watch, eats at name brand establishments and drinks a lot of name brand beer, when they can afford it? It appears that until you live brand name from the business side you cannot fully understand it. Likewise I feel and have personally witnessed former Professors who run large companies fail to capitalize on their brands. People like Service Master’s President, straight out of what I consider a top business school and a company doing billions a year in sales, but in my humble opinion should be doing 150-200 Billion per FY. I cannot tell you how many companies make obvious mistakes with their brand name, based on advise from experts, advertising agencies and academia, which in my opinion is always looking back, and has not a clue how to change the market direction midstream and take advantage of brand name value in opportunities right before their eyes. We will not allow ourselves at The Car Wash Guys to miss opportunities within our reach when they meet the criteria needed to win against the competition in the market sector or deliver the desired results to the consumer.

I suggest you watch such trends in your company and offer suggestions or use this knowledge to make strategic decisions which will propel you company from good to great or help consumers believe you are a company that was built to last.

"Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

One of the main problems people find with marketing, is the actual selling. How can you create ads which sell?

Well there are tons of articles, and pay for e-books to help you create ad copy, but there is a free and easy way to create your own ads which sell, sell sell.

Swipe them

I don’t mean word for word, not even close, but keep your eyes and ears open to ideas. We are all bombarded with adverts daily, and these are a goldmine to anyone trying to sell something.

The hard work’s already been done, ad men have been paid small fortunes to make an ad which will sell something, all you need to do is modify it to your own product.

Don’t feel guilty about it either, even those highly paid advertising companies do it, it’s not unusual to see one company using anothers successful campaign to piggy back their own ads onto giving them an instant boost.

As someone looking for ads which will make sales you have a myriad of resources to swipe from, just keep your mind open, and if something catches your eye make a mental note (or physical one) and see if you can’t adapt it to your own products.

Before long you’ll find yourself looking at newspaper television and magazine ads in a whole new light. No longer are they getting in the way of your passtime, now they’re the beginnings of new ideas for you to use in promoting your business, or products.

All the best advertising and marketing men have their swipe files, start your own today.

Doug Titchmarsh runs several sites including http://www.cashinonline.info and http://www.titchmarsh.com and publishes an e-zine for marketers online and off which you can get by sending an email to douglastitchmarsh@getresponse.com