Thanksgiving week is a perfect time to thank those you rely on in your business. Improving your business relationships increases your brand value and customer loyalty at the same time. Sales are based on relationships. In this increasing impersonal world we all crave personalized attention. Your buyers are no different. Where there’s a choice, and [...]
Tag Archives: Brand building
Build your Brand with Charity and Thoughtfulness
Rachel Ray, the CBS TV personality and Emmy-winning chef, has donated 4 tons of her Nutrish brand of wet and dry dog food to the canine victims of Hurricane Sandy. She believes she should give back in the same way as she makes a living. Everybody who makes a product or offers a service needed [...]
4 Pillars of Brand Promise
A friend who is a Fortune 500 exec asked us recently, “What really makes a brand?” We knew he was an experienced and knowledgeable guy, and we owed him a thoughtful reply. What initially came to mind were all the elements that affect a brand: its logo, its catch phrase, its positioning, and so on. [...]
7 Brand Killers and How to Stop Them – Part 2
Some brand killers are coming from your competition or the marketplace. Others may be coming from your own office staff. Yes, they are well-meaning, but do they have the knowledge and experience required to make suggestions affecting sales? Administrative and production people have a tendency to discount what the sales team has painfully learned over [...]
7 Brand Killers and How to Stop Them – Part 1
Your administrative and production folks can be well-meaning when they offer their suggestions, but they can unintentionally kill your brand. Because they don’t have street experience in the marketplace, they can make decisions that can undo years of brand building. In their desire to understand the nature and success of the brand, non-sales staff want [...]
Maximize Your Impressions with Strategically Chosen Logo Wear
When we had Barefoot Wines, like many companies, we used logo products to get our name and image out there. These included T-shirts, tank tops, polo shirts, corkscrews and visors. We always chose the best quality, most long-lasting items we could find to put our logo on. We started to get push back from our [...]
Brand Building Requires Constant Vigilance
Many producers, especially of consumer goods, get excited when their brand is for sale in some far away city across the country. They act like it’s some kind of an achievement to have placed their product there. They may even brag about all the places their product is “sold.” The fact is, their brand may [...]
When it comes to Brand Development, Reputation Trumps all Else
When the Exxon Valdez spilled crude oil into the pristine Prince William Sound in 1989, years of building their name recognition instantly worked against them. Their high profile brand was a household word and the incident became a daily topic of conversation. Even though Exxon took responsibility and voluntarily committed massive funds to the clean [...]
Company Branding Should Convey your Message
Michael Caine played a Cockney womanizer in the popular 1966 movie, Alfie. Burt Bacharach’s theme, by the same name, asked the rhetorical question that conveyed the message of the movie. Your company branding starts with a succinct message that communicates what it’s all about and how your company distinguishes itself from your competition. Considering the [...]
Retail Packaging Must Serve Many Masters
Your retail packaging must play by the established rules for labeling, dimensions, weight, units-per-pack, packs-per-box and so on. Your product must make it through the entire distribution system without getting crushed, marred, broken, misplaced, or misidentified. If your package can actually make it to the retail shelf or floor, only then do you have the [...]
HBS Branding Blog by David Aaker
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“They laughed when I sat down at the piano — but when I started to play!”
When identifying the top print advertisements and best headlines in the last century of advertising, one written in 1926 by a young copywriter named John Caples, only one year on the job, is always part of the conversation. The ad is known by its headline, “They laughed when I sat down at the piano — but when I started to play!” His assignment was to entice […]
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What Can We Learn from the Reframing of Romney?
Brand executives can learn a lot from political professionals who exhibit creative brand building programs and then subject them to huge field tests. Consider the Obama campaign’s early decision to spend a good part of their budget on defining Romney. This money was expended before the conventions and some of it well before Romney wrapped up the nomination. […]
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How to Find External Brand Energizers
Almost all brands need energy in order to gain visibility and support key associations, which I wrote about a few weeks ago. I wrote later that one way to gain energy is with an ownable, internal branded energizer.However, creating and owning an internal branded energizer that resonates with the target segments and energizes and enhances the target brand is […]
Brand Week News And Features
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Three Agencies Vie for Coty PR Account
Coty has entered the final stages of a review of its public relations business in Canada, with a trio of agencies vying for the account. The assignment includes social media responsibilities and encompasses dozens of brands. Account revenue is estimated at $1 million. Coty’s top brands include Davidoff, Marc Jacobs, Rimmel, Calvin Klein, OPI and Adidas. The […]
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Ad of the Day: Cartier
Could someone please explain to me what is going on in any Cartier ad, ever? First, they had the free-associative Russia-elephant-dragon-airplane odyssey (seriously, it was called "L'Odyssée de Cartier"). Now, in its latest animated adventure, there's this beautiful jaguar chasing his friend up a giant Christmas tree to get to a box fille […]
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Citi Concludes Direct Marketing Review
The outcome of Citi’s direct marketing review for North America represents a split decision. Citi awarded direct mail and collateral responsibilities for its retail bank and credit cards to Havas Worldwide, even while assigning online advertising for the bank and its cards to Wunderman, according to sources. The Chicago office of Havas will handle the mail a […]
