In searching for the true essence of brands, we often journey, sometimes physically and at other times virtually, to mythical lands of their origin stories. Consider some recent places we have visited in our imagination: Xanten in Rhineland where St. Norbert was born, monasteries of Holy Cross in Southern France where Blessed Basil Anthony Moreau began the Holy Cross tradition of living faith through service, oil and gas rich sand dunes of Qatar where Education city now thrives, some of the most beautiful seaside hills of Malibu where Pepperdine reigns, and rain forests of the Amazon which now frequent the Phipps Conservatory. In carrying forward this tradition, we are currently working with a client that offers ocean safaris off the beautiful shores of Costa Rica. Every time I think about them, I am reminded of Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea” which celebrates and honors struggle and manhood. In case if you are wondering, have I had the privilege … Continue reading →

In our view, branding is the process of: attaching an idea to a product or service e.g. achievement for Nike, freedom for Southwest Air. creating expectations and promises around a product or a service creating strong to impenetrable differentiation in the marketplace What’s your definition?

One simple truth, so many ways of saying it. Here are a some you may recognize and others you may not: “Keep your eye clear, and hit ’em where they ain’t” said the baseball legend William Keeler. “The purple cow”, a book written by Seth Godin of “Permission Marketing” fame. “Zag when others zig”, the famous adage turned into a book by Marty Neumeier. “It don’t mean a thing (If it ain’t got that swing)” is a 1931 composition by Duke Ellington, with lyrics by Irving Mills. “The beginning of greatness is to be different and the beginning of failure is to be orthodox” is a famous quote by David Ogilvy. “If I am going to sing like somebody else, I don’t need to sing at all” Billie Holiday Enough said. We keep hearing that brand differentiation became more important as the choice increased for consumer products. Decided to check the validity of the hypothesis using Google ngram viewer which … Continue reading →

The bad old days of expensive brand monitoring tools are finally coming to an end. Here is a listing of a few free tools that you may want to bookmark: 1. Google Blog Search 2. Nielsen blogpulse 3. Tweetdeck 4. Tweetbeep 5.Twitter Search 6. Google Alerts 7. Compete.com Happy brand and buzz tracking!

If you think about it, we trust great brands for very simple reasons. They: 1. create an emotional response 2. resonate with us 3. listen to us and talk to us 4. embrace simplicity 5. pay attention to details In a nutshell, we are willing to reach deeper into our pockets for great brands because of their humanity, relevance and simplicity.

Unlike in personal life, in business, familiarity breeds trust. The art of marketing is for your prospects and customers to find your brand at all relevant touch points: in search results, on review sites, on analyst reports, in industry forums, in discussion groups, in blog conversations, in slideshares, on twitter, and other social media sites. Brand ubiquity creates familiarity and brand trust.

Purely aside from the fact that I love this concept, the question raised is increasingly important, and increasingly broad. It used to be that you were the sum of what the people in your sphere of experience knew of you. And while that hasn’t essentially changed, the sphere has expanded, and now what people know of you isn’t just what they see when they see you, what they hear from you and about you, and what they know from those who know you. Now you’re everywhere, digitally. Google yourself. What comes up? Is it right, wrong, not enough, too much? We worry a lot these days about being too electronically visible, but chances are that in some respects, you’re not visible enough. You’ve probably done more things, and more important things, than any of us know. Seth’s Godin’s blog today makes an interesting observation: maybe resumes are old school, passe, irrelevant, last generation’s way of painting the hire-me self-portrait. His … Continue reading →