Brand tasting event

To learn HOW to get more customers and clients, you need to know WHY.

The first question clients have is, HOW do I get more customers or clients for my business? This question is typically asked to early. The real question people should ask first, is WHY do customers want what you have to sell them. Effective branding answers that question. Your brand is the perception people have of your product, business, or service, it’s intangible it lives in the mind and consciousness of consumers. Its the same thing as your reputation. It is all the associations people connect to your business.

Effective Branding is the process of POSITIVELY influencing your brand to increase it’s value.

We do that by creating and shepherding every visual and experiential touch-point that your customer has with your brand.

Let this be the year you start to effectively use branding to answer your HOW by understanding the WHY.

Political branding

I have really noticed in this last election that there is a real need for the worlds of politics and branding to meet. Of course the most obvious connection is with the branding of their names as they relate to their infamous yard signs but I am more concerned with the mass amount of information that one most have to gather to make an informed choice. As a designer I feel this is an areas that directly relates to a design way of thinking. Taking alot of info and condensing it to it's essence to understand the true message is what we do all the time. Why has this theory not been adopted to the political arena. Aside from smear campaigns on tv spots or the rhetoric we get from biased "news" channels where can one get the true facts in a concise format. I would like to see a platform where you can compare one candidate with all their opponents and see where they sit on the important issues based on how they vote. I would also like to see more candidates incorporate smart designers to effectively get their message out. A little design could go along way. Ask our president about affective branding.

The infamous gap re-brand

The recent news about how the Gap re-brand project shook out raised some interesting questions for designers. First was the issue was on "crowd-sourcing" to develop a new brandmark. I was very happy to learn that The Gap understands how important your brand is to the success and future of a company, and that it takes more knowledge and strategy to develop something that will reflect the company in a correct way. On the second hand this branding disaster showed how influential and integral your customers are to your brand, after all it is them who align themselves with the values of your brand culture and ultimately are the ambassadors for your brand. The other interesting issue that was insightful was the way The Gap introduced their new brandmark. It proved that a launch strategy plays a very important roll in a brands success as well. Consumers need to be educated the included on the big moves in order for them to support the culture. Surprise strategy has a place and is beneficial, but only if the is a smart strategic plan for action that follows. Lastly, you always can look at it like this, there's no bad publicity. because we are talking about them.

Branding

"Branding is much more than drafting messages ... or designing logos. It's about managing the collective impression people gain from all of their interactions with you—and the interactions others have as well (newly amplified through social media). If you take a social approach to branding—if you actively engage with and respond to these conversations—you can know, in an instant, whether the brand you want is the brand you have. Since you control your response, you control your brand."

"welcome to the "wonderful" world of advertising!! Remember to listen to the Clients (after all its their $$) - an advertising wiseman once told me; the ad design may be on target, eye appealing, gets the message through but . . . if the product is no good . . .the campaign is a failure. . . same if the ad design is no good but the product is good- the campaign is a total success--- one of the great "truths" in advertising - - - its all in the concept and how you sell it in your Client presentation. Best of luck fish"

-Francis Kelman Namerow