Is Your Brand Overweight?

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posted by Brenton on June 16th, 2010

Is this your brand?

Has it become so big that it feels like you’re offering everything to anyone? I’m seeing more and more of this “quantity” over “quality” branding every day, so I thought I’d provide a helpful list of questions to help you determine if your brand suffers from too much weight gain. The questions are:

Do you keep adding (new features, new products, new messages) and rarely cut things out?

Are you in a market space where you have no competitive advantage or ability to create value above and beyond the competition? Why are you in that space? What is being in that space doing to your core business?

If you had to reduce your product line, reduce your marketing copy, reduce your team, reduce your prospect list down to the 20% that generates 80% of your success, what would you cut today?

Don’t over think this. Write down whatever first comes to mind and share it with the rest of us so that we can all learn and improve our branding initiatives together. I look forward to your feedback.

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3 Brand Messages in a League of Their Own: Finale

posted by Brenton on June 3rd, 2010

Today marks the final post in my 3 favorite and most (personally) impactful brand messages series. Yesterday we looked at eHarmony, a brand that cleverly marries (pun intended :) a clear brand essence with credible and convincing brand proof that builds customer trust.

I’d like to end my series of favorite brand messages with Geico, you know, the company with the cute gecko ads. This strong gecko personality, backed by the strong Geico brand promise of “15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance” increases the appeal of the insurance provider (it does for this guy at least).

I find that the key, and often under utilized principle demonstrated by Geico, is the use of numbers. If Geico’s promise merely stated “we save you money on your car insurance,” it would be a very generic idea that would likely generate ‘same old car insurance company’ response. But by adding hard numbers—“15 minutes can save you 15%”—Geico’s gecko boosts the strength of the company’s brand message and stands out from other insurance providers who stick to broad (and weaker) messages.

Now that I’ve done all the sharing, please give us your two-cents with some examples of your favorite strong brand messages.

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3 Brand Messages In A League of Their Own: Part 1

posted by Brenton on June 1st, 2010

Everything communicates. Especially your core brand message, which is the differentiating and compelling benefit you are promising customers will receive if they choose you.

Some messages are weak and just add to the noise; while others truly impact their audience.

Over the next three days I plan to share three core brand messages that I love.

I love these core brand messages because of the way they make me feel and the intelligence of the clear brand positioning strategy that is informing the message. They are truly in a league of their own.

I encourage and welcome you to share the branding messages that most resonate with you.

1. Enterprise – We’ll pick you up

www.enterprise.com

In the sea of car rental options, Enterprise rises above the rest with a differentiating idea that they will come to your home, office, etc. and pick you up. The double meaning of this first core branding message is brilliant. There is a functional promise (we’ll come and get you) and an emotional promise (you’ll feel great). If you can combine them into one idea why not? It’s a rare thing, which is why I love this brand message so much.

Tomorrow I’ll share the second core branding message in the series. Again, please share your own favorites.

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What’s in your brand name?

posted by Anna Fleet on May 26th, 2010

One of our favorite blogs at MFX Partners, the MOO Blog, is dedicating an entire week of helpful posts to small business promotion.

I found yesterday’s post, Small Businesses – What’s in a (brand) name?, particularly valuable. Business names were the topic of the day, and if yours happens to be a one-human operation you should put down that smartphone and listen up!

If you’re a single person acting as employee, owner, marketing department, salesperson, receptionist etc., then you can count yourself amongst the likes of Chanel, Jack Daniels, JC Penny and other owner-named businesses. But before you open an off shore account and start planning your empire’s expansion, take heed that there’s some gray area when it comes to differentiating between brand and owner. For instance, if you rely on social media as a marketing tool, where do your personal tweets stop and your business tweets begin—especially if they all originate from an account using your own personal moniker?

I encourage you to check out the MOO blog’s small biz series. If I owned a small business of my own, I would. Plus, hint, hint … they’re giving away prizes to users who share their real business experiences.

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