Last time we discussed the ordinary kind of branding. This time we’ll look at the better kind.
Archive for the ‘Brand awareness’ Category
Branding Requires a Philosopher (Part 2)
Posted on March 15th, 2007 in Brand awareness, Marketing, Methodology | No Comments »
Branding Requires a Philosopher (Part 1)
Posted on March 13th, 2007 in Brand awareness, Marketing, Methodology | No Comments »
Good branding creates an understanding of the essence of the company. Just as a writers characterization allows the reader to grasp the true essence of the individual (whether fictional or nonfictional), the brander must establish the true nature of the company.
Custom Design vs. Templates
Posted on March 8th, 2007 in Brand awareness, Design | No Comments »
John Gruber offers a new take on an old debate: are design templates a good idea? He’s talking about blog templates, but the idea is general. And so is his conclusion:
Default templates are terrific for people who can’t or don’t want to design their own—but they’re terrible starting points for anyone attempting to establish their own unique brand. If you start with nothing, you’re forced to think about everything.
Since it’s general, the same applies to Web sites. Many companies think that they need a template and not a custom design. They don’t think it matters. In a certain sense, this is true. The content is the main attraction, not the design. On the other hand, I think that this attitude reveals a deeper attitude. It shows that a company doesn’t value branding. In this sense, branding means your public persona. And since they don’t think their public persona needs to be unique, they don’t think their Web site does, either.
Again, at one level, that’s fine. Maybe you’re going to focus on content to be unique. But, there is no sense in which you don’t have to be unique. Branding is not trickery. It’s a method to make it easy for your customers to clearly understand who you are and what it would be like to do business with you.
In making sure that customer know who you are, a custom Web site can go a long way.
Is Your Company for You or for Your clients?
Posted on March 7th, 2007 in Brand awareness, Design, Marketing | No Comments »
Seth Godin brings up an example of an attitude that I see often. When you work at a company for a while, it’s easy to start thinking that your company is the universe. In this way, you start optimizing the work to suit you, not your customers.
In the agency world, it’s the same thing. The best example is designers who design for themselves, not their clients. They create what they think looks great, ignoring their client’s needs. The worst part about this is the clients often don’t realize this is happening. Unlike with parking spaces, clients often can’t tell when a design represents the designer and not them.
And this makes it hard for me, too. In explaining why Synaxis doesn’t do that, I first need to educate clients on how to hire an agency and on what to look for in design work.
What’s the Value of Branding? (Part 4)
Posted on February 1st, 2007 in Brand awareness, Business | No Comments »
Last time, we looked at how branding makes things cheaper. To wrap up our series on branding, we will consider the role of branding in furthering business goals.
What’s the Value of Branding? (Part 3)
Posted on January 30th, 2007 in Brand awareness, Business | No Comments »
Last week we saw how branding should be amortized over its valuable life. This week, we’ll briefly look at how good branding makes other things cheaper.
What’s the Value of Branding? (Part 2)
Posted on January 25th, 2007 in Brand awareness, Business | No Comments »
Last time we looked at the definition of branding and talked about why it typically is difficult and expensive. Starting today, we’ll review why it’s worth it.
What’s the Value of Branding? (Part 1)
Posted on January 23rd, 2007 in Brand awareness, Business | No Comments »
Branding is most expensive, most cost-effective, and least understood discipline. In the next 4 articles, I will advance 3 arguments for why it’s worth investing the right amount in branding.
Market Position Archetype?
Posted on November 9th, 2006 in Brand awareness, Marketing, Methodology | No Comments »
The position chart is ubiquitous. A set of X and Y axes representing 2 dimensions in the market and dots representing company’s positions with respect to those dimensions. There are many versions. Price v. Quality. Capabilities v. Price. Price v. Value. Luxury v. Reliability. Price v. Economy. These are all interesting and useful, but why are there 2 and only 2 axes?
Branding and Human Cognition
Posted on October 5th, 2006 in Brand awareness, Marketing | No Comments »
This post will discuss something that is at the heart of everything we do as human beings. It also shows why we have marketing and branding companies at all. Finally, it shows why I love this business so much.
We are essentializing beings. That is, our way of knowing the world tends heavily towards looking for the essential, the typical, and the regular. We tend to see the general, the core, the one single “thing” that summarizes, encapsulates, or explains what we’re looking at.
And this is the core thought behind the importance of branding.