Our thoughts on all things brand related.
Brand decaf?
By Dan Dyksen
Barely awake, with my hot Venti in hand, I noticed that something was missing from my Starbucks cup. Like Nike, AT&T and Target (just to name a few), Starbucks has gone “nameless.”
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Improving financial performance through brand portfolio optimization
Here is a piece I wrote about “Improving financial performance through brand portfolio optimization,” along with some of my thoughts on authoring this article.
Google Instant – find your brand faster, or not
By Larry Roth
One of the things that has always kept me a loyal Google user has been speed. Don’t get me wrong, their search results are pretty good, but the speed of the results allows a user to quickly try many different search queries. One big improvement to recently occur was suggested queries—where Google provides suggested search strings as you type. This helps a user to refine their search query on-the-fly. I have found it to help me produce much better results.
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Merging the worlds of design and travel
Pantone, Inc. is best known as the source of industry-standard references for color. The brand primarily targets design professionals. It is fair to say that Pantone revolutionized the graphic arts industry by allowing designers and printers to categorize and replicate color, accurately, anywhere in the world, by referring to uniform color palettes.
Recently, though, Pantone has begun to branch out, addressing a new audience: consumers. Pantone Universe is a new, multifaceted sub-brand that makes Pantone color the centerpiece of everything it does, from the Pantone Universe magazine to a line of themed products ranging from eyewear and jewelry to kitchen gadgets and more. Continue reading
Managing brand performance in financial services
In recent years, corporate brands in financial services businesses, both retail-facing and B2B, have become a major factor in the attraction and retention of clients, talent, partners and capital. In this industry it has not always been so, but in today’s crowded, highly competitive global marketplace, a strong brand can be a major source of advantage. Corporate brand salience has become particularly important in service industries, where economic value is delivered through intangibles and offerings are often seen as interchangeable.
Why have corporate brands come to matter so much in financial services? Much of the answer to this question lies in the growing understanding among corporate executives of what brands actually are and how they add value. Continue reading
When a shape is just a shape
By Paula Snyder
Garnering attention in the media recently is the logo created for the Nuclear Security Summit, hosted by President Obama in Washington, DC last week. A theory popularized by a FOX News segment, but also running rampant across various newspapers and blogs, claims that the logo echoes the Islamic crescent moon and star symbol.
Integrated corporate reporting: Articulating the whole picture
By Ali Rossi
We found it interesting that Harvard Business School published an article this week touting the benefits of integrating financial and non-financial (social responsibility and sustainability) information into one corporate report, a method referred to as One Report. This idea echoes BrandLogic’s method of 360 Degree Reporting, which our president Hampton Bridwell wrote about previously in this 2007 article. Continue reading
Battle of the Brands in Higher Education
By Denis Riney
The days when the biggest rivalries among colleges and universities were fought on the gridiron and in the gymnasium are gone. Today, the main clashes take place within the admissions arena, where schools are locked in intense competition for the best and brightest students.
Schools employ many strategies to win these battles, but none are more effective, especially over the long term, than projecting the right image, or brand identity, to prospective students and their families, as well as faculty, academic journals, high school counselors, donors, alumni, government officials and other important audiences. Properly conceived and communicated, an identity can be self-perpetuating by bringing to the school the students, faculty, grants, corporate sponsors, and alumni giving needed for the institution to achieve and expand upon its most ambitious goals. Continue reading
How Visionary Marketers Are Building Their Brands: Global brands, local culture
By Larry Roth
This is part three of an ongoing series.
The myth behind global brands: why local culture still matters
What we’re hearing: You can have a global brand, but you need to make sure you localize it. Many companies are able to take a brand campaign or tagline and run with it worldwide; however, they find that the same creative or messaging is not always effectual or appropriate in every country. Continue reading
Innovation and brand-building: tips for B2B marketers
By Denis Riney
Innovation is perhaps the most overused word in B2B marketing. Whether it’s information technology, medical devices, industrial equipment or professional services, we find brand-builders returning over and over again to innovation as the core promise that will set their company or product apart from the rest of the pack.
But does being perceived as an innovator truly drive brand preference and ultimately purchase decisions? In this article, we focus on what we’ve discovered about the meaning and relevance of innovation to B2B buyers and how marketers can infuse these learnings into their brand-building efforts. Continue reading