BRANDINGETC - SCRIBBLES

"I'll know it when I taste it"

7/31/2018

Imagine this scenario. You want to treat a special someone to a homemade meal and you would like to make him/her one of their favorite dishes. You ask them what is their heart’s desire and the answer is “I’m not sure but I’ll know it when I taste it.”

What would you do? Make 10 dishes and hope that one of them hits the spot? Well that would not be an efficient use of your time and would create a lot of waste — even from 10 dishes you can’t be sure if you will come close.

This is why a person who is trying to bake your brand should ask you a lot of questions up front. These questions would be about the audience you are trying to feed. What are the demographics? Are their taste buds classic, contemporary, foreign or fusion. Are there any allergies or bad associations with a certain type of cuisine or key ingredient?

Whenever I start a project I ask as many questions that come to mind. Why do I do this? Because I want to serve up a bunch of your favorites so you are delighted by the choice versus being left hungry for other options. And, like any great chef, I may throw in something with a twist for you to taste that you have never considered trying before. Together, we might just come up with your new favorite.

Accord. A town? A car? Discuss.

8/17/2016

When naming your company or brand it is important to think of a number of things:

• What does it mean?
• How does it translate?
• How does it look?
• How does it sound?

What does it mean? Some brand names have meaning behind the words and some do not. But if yours does have meaning it is important that it aligns to your mission statement and your target audience. For example Google’s original name was going to be BackRub. Can you imagine telling your work associate to “just BackRub it”.

If you are thinking globally you also need to make sure it is not offensive in other countries. To reverse engineer this … would you ever want to be a brand advocate of PEE COLA? In Ghana this means “very good Cola” so maybe not a bad choice there. Although, in the states I would opt for a COKE myself.

How does it look? Amazon’s original name was going to be Cadabra. However at quick glance someone thought it read "Cadaver." That would make for some pretty expensive and extremely creepy overnight shipments.

How does it sound? I moved from Brooklyn some years back. My mailing address is Accord. When I was getting acclimated to the area I pronounced it Accord — \ə-ˈkȯrd\ — as in the car Honda Accord. Many times I was corrected until I got it right. Accord, the town, is pronounced with a flat "A" — /eɪ/ -- with the accent on the "A"— ACK-kord. This just doesn’t sound like the bucolic place I relocated from Brooklyn for.

The original name of Accord NY was Port Jackson, which also has a more romantic feel than Ackkord. The story goes that the townspeople signed a petition which went to the Capital in Albany for a new name. However, “the powers that be” could not come to an accord on a new name. And “Accord” was chosen. Well, at least there was some reason behind the name.
Even so, in lieu of making a faux pas and saying I live in a four-door Accord, I opt to tell people the towns I live closer to such as Stone Ridge, Kripplebush, Lyonsville. All of these names feel good when I say them, feel representative of where I live and put a smile on my face.

So when coming up with a name for your brand, consider who will be your brand advocates and if your company name will put a smile on their face…. for the right reasons.

2018 update — More THOUGHTS COMING SOON.

9/14/2015

Whatchamacallit

7/20/2015

When I was a kid I always loved the strange words my mom would say like "whatchamacallit" and "thingamajig". Later on she taught me the beauty of creating two words in one play during Scrabble.

Then in my professional life, when I was in my first briefing for Microsoft, I heard the most wonderful sounding word "wysiwyg". I couldn't wait to find out what that meant. Shortly after, naming a company, Zip2.com and seeing it sell so quickly was a thrill!

At Ogilvy I was fortunate to have copy writing partners that would allow me during our conception phase to throw out a headline such as "CROSS BORDERS, NOT FINGERS." for DHL's international delivery service, and actually letting it get to presentation stage.

Words are powerful, that is for sure. I'm a graphic designer and art director by training and love playing with typography. But when it comes to words, playing with them, it's just down right fun.

So here it is and it is official. (drum roll here please).

My first word:

BRANDOVER®: the act or process of making changes to improve the appearance or effectiveness of a brand

Digital marketing, formerly known as...

12/1/2014

Have you heard about the next big thing? There’s a buzz around it. Companies are trying to embrace it. Experts are being hired. Laggards are getting fired. Departments are being reorganized. New companies are emerging daily claiming to be experts on it. Digital marketing.

But… here’s some news. It’s not new. In fact, the whole strategy behind digital marketing has been around for a long time. CTA (call to action), CRM (customer relationship management), conversion, testing — all of this has been around for years. What was it called? "Direct Marketing."

What's new? The platform.

“The Internet is really about highly specialized information highly specialized targeting.”
— Eric Schmidt

With the advent of the World Wide Web came social networking platforms provides new funnesl for messaging — Social Media and eMarketing. It is new in that it’s a new vehicle for brands to reach out to customers and build brand awareness, loyalty and even create brand zealots. But the best practices are not new.

From a Direct Marketing vet… yes, I dare admit it, the more I read, the more I smile, as the principles I’ve learned throughout my career still hold true for social media:

Some things just take time.

3/20/2014

How long does it take to build a brand*?
There are so many variances to this. Are you starting from scratch without even a name? Are you taking the legacy of a brand and improving on it? (What BRANDINGETC calls a brandover.) How many products or divisions does the brand need to apply to? In other words are you creating sub-brands? How many decision makers are involved with approving the brand development?
My experience shows that it it takes a bare minimum of 90 days to concept and design a brand identity. Yes, you can try to do it faster. But to develop a brand properly it is best to do the research including the competitive analysis, know what makes your idea better and different from others (your unique selling proposition - USP) and develop a mission statement. Give yourself and the brand the gestation time for both perspective and refinements.
Once you think your brand is developed it doesn't stop there. You need build brand awareness, in other words spread the word about your brand. As in everything that is brought into this world, building a strong brand takes time. But with patience, determination, and keeping a watchful eye on it, your brand can grow to be strong and will live a long life. And, who knows, maybe it will have a brand of its own one-day.

*There are many definitions of the word "brand". For the purpose of this article we are talking about an idea that gets "wrapped" in a look and presented with a tone of voice so it can be communicated and consumed by the general public.

What does $24.99 get you?

1/6/2014

Apparently, according to Logo Thief, $24.99 gets you someone else's logo! Something to consider when you are looking to hire talent to create your brand identity. Design firms in other countries are not held to the same copyright laws as in the US. Might be okay if you are opening up a brick and mortar in Tristan De Cunha. However, most businesses need a website to confirm their legitimacy and to go for a broader reach… don't forget what the first 2 Ws stand for in www. Be sure to invest in a logo you know for sure you can call your own.

A creative's job is never done.

12/9/2013

One of my favorite books is "A Giacometti Portrait" by James Lord. It put my mind to rest of my constant desire to make my work perfect and knowing it will always feel like "it's the beginning of what it could be."

Image on right ALBERTO GIACOMETTI Femme debout (certificate No. 1569), 1963 Ballpoint pen on book page courtesy Artsy.net.
A wonderful site and organization who's "mission is to make all the world's art accessible to anyone with Internet connection."

God Bless America… just not your domain name.

12/2/2013

You finally determined your domain name AND it's available! So you jump on it and buy it. A couple of months later your receive a notice in the mail that you need to renew or lose your domain name. What do you do? IGNOR IT.

When the legitimate time comes, just renew with who registered your domain with in the first place or shop around. You are allowed to transfer to any registrar of your choice.

NOTE: If you go with the big Daddy of them all, expect constant upsells. Again, you have options. Do your research and ask around.

The acne of design

11/25/2013

One of the first projects I did for IBM I was called into a senior executive's office at Ogilvy. My offense? I changed the color of the register mark after IBM so that it matched the logo -- IBM blue.

My instincts were right by my application was wrong.

Register marks, copyright marks, and the rest… they are important and do serve a purpose. However, they don't need to take over your message.

Some good go-bys from font.com

For ®s, TMs and SMs:

At text sizes, these symbols should be little smaller than half the x-height (height of lowercase) of your text.
As your text gets larger, the symbols should become proportionately smaller, especially in headlines

For ©s:

When it appears after text (such as a company name), the symbol should be a little smaller than half of the x-height (heigh of lowercase) of your text.
When it appears before a year (as in ©2013), match the symbol size to the size of the first numeral.

In "March of the Doohickeys" an article by Paul Rapp, a lawyer who specializes in intellectual property law, you can read about the purpose of all of these extra doodads.

Bottom line: the marks need to be legible but not overbearing and not a design element of your logo. So if you are designing a bill board, be sure to scale down the size of the register mark accordingly … it doesn't have to be the size of a stop sign. And if you are creating a logo for an LLC my recommendation is to make it look like a "mark" versus part of the name. And always always follow the brand guidelines.