Marketing Wisdom

Branding Success Notes

A lot of you have been writing me about the values of a successful brand – or – what makes a brand(name) successful?

Here are the three that I think are very important:

• Intrinsic Values: When a brand (name) is mentioned, an image or idea is conveyed – this image or idea transcends the product context
• Expansiveness: The brand (name) is able to support multiple messages and be able to grow and adapt with product change
• Credibility: The brand (name) is believeable among consumers, within the product’s category or context

I know, I know, these three are mentioned in most branding and marketing books, but, I keep getting the questions and I am here to help.

Continue writing me if there are more questions on this and I will post.

Pet Poison and the Brand

Just had to follow-up on this and what I had written earlier about this.

Remember how I alluded to the fact that the Pet Food BRANDS left the food manufacturer out to dry (since they shipped the poison, they should be the ones that fall on the sword)? Well, sadly, companies don’t realize that consumers don’t always expect the right company to fall on the sword.

Watching the news this morning, they interviewed pet owners, who ALL SAID:

“You would expect, from these major brands, that charge more money for better ingredients, to have done a better job.”

No, they didn’t say “You would expect, from the guys who supply the materials to the brand, that they would have done a better job”.

I am amazed that these companies continue to sit back and watch this blow over – which, don’t get me wrong, it will, but, this is an opportunity for the brands.  Sadly, they don’t see it.

Don’t get caught up in the Branding Hysteria!!!

Was actually strolling through some web marketing advice the other day and came across some discussion on brands and how you should build them.

I thought it was a pretty good article (not great), but, pretty good.  Why?

Because they said “Your web name is your brand”.  Which I kind of disagree with. Your brand better be bigger then your web.  Yes, you may have only enough money right now to have a website and not do advertising or promotions, etc., but, the brand better be strategized to be bigger then this.

What do I mean….hmm…Okay, I have a client. She has a website, called www.kittykatgraphics.com. (Long name, huh?) If you were to go to this site, you would see beautiful artwork – typical wall mounted pictures, but, also those same pictures put on unique items (like tops of boxes, tables, etc.). When I spoke with her about the name – and how hard it may be for someone to remember it, she said “I don’t care about the website name, the brand that I want to build is my name”.

That’s great – so, why not put your name all over the website – instead of in the area of “About the Artist”. Why not put the name front and center (the name was already taken by another individual).

She did.

Why? Because she knew, after discussions with her, that she needed to start building her brand/name. That eventually, if she were to move into a gallery, or a retail store, that her name would be used, not the website name.

Okay, so, back to my point. Sometimes, the website can’t be the brand, OR, the website limits the growth of the brand. The brand has to be bigger then the product, the website, the marketing, etc.

In other words, when you are thinking about building your brand – remember something, THE BRAND TIES EVERYTHING TOGETHER – or – it is the glue that holds everything together.

Branding vs. Business Model

Was speaking with a friend of mine who has just been hired by a software company to lead their marketing efforts.

We were talking about White Label branding and Ingredient branding, what the differences were, and what she should tell her company to do.

She kept getting more and more confused as to what to do and I became more and more frustrated because it became clear, very quickly, that the issue was not the branding but the business model of the company.

You see, the company wanted to get its software onto other companies hardware.  But, they wanted to keep and build their name/brand.

First – do they want to make money and survive or not? How far are they willing to go to make this happen (i.e. how much money are they willing to “not make” or “lose”)?

Second – do they have a strategy over how they are going to build their brand?

Third – what have they done to bring both of these together?

So, lets walk through the above:

A company can sell their software for $10 (and the 3rd party wants the software and is willing to pay that amount). The $10 is profitable for them and they can survive as a company. But, the 3rd party will also say, “For this amount, we will not put your name on the product and we want you to label it as “our” software”.

So, the strategy and business model can lead to the second step, by offering the 3rd party the software for $8, where the 3rd party gets the price break, but, the brand remains with the developer (my friends company).

Be clear, you must have a strategy for your brand that INCLUDES your business model when you are planning on making your brand famous. Without a strategy, you will waste money and time in trying to develop your brand.

Good luck friends.

Trademarks – to give or not to give

Recently worked with a client and we started a debate (that is still ongoing) about how to make your start-up grow and the value of its trademarks.

Some background – the company is a start-up, like TRULY a start-up, two guys in a garage. They do have products that are bringing in revenue, so, a successful startup. Now to the point – they have a technology that they license. They have given this technology a trademarked name. That name is not well known on the street (if at all), but, is known in the media as well as with all their partners (only two partners, but, better then none).

Next point – they want their partners to be succesful, so, one of the partners started to use the trademarked name of my client.

My client did not think that this was a bad thing – it would build their brand as well as insure the success of their partner.

I disagree, because:

1. It is my clients trademark, not their customers
2. It is my clients brand, not their customers

and, because, if my clients customer goes under, has to do a recall, has a virus, catched on fire, or whatever, it is my clients trademark that will lose all credibility, not their customers (of course, if money or death or liability issues are involved, the clients customer will be hurt).

Don’t be so hasty to “share” your trademarks. The odds of it hurting more then helping are about 50/50, but, are you willing to take that risk?