Category: Branding

Design Fail

On By ashleyfausIn Branding, Work and OfficeLeave a comment
The invitation I made for a going away party for a friend!

 

 

The inside of the invitation.

 

I spent the weekend making invitations for a going away party for a friend. My mom is an awesome card-maker, and she had a gorgeous card sitting on the shelf last time I was there, so I decided that I wanted to use the design for my friend’s invitations. My mom and I have a habit of taking apart pretty cards or invitations we receive in the mail, always trying to figure out how the design works. So, true to myself (and my mom, I get it honestly!), I studied the design and came up with my own modification. Turns out, my modification took about 10x longer to complete than the original design. There were two tricks that I couldn’t figure out, and unfortunately, my mom wasn’t in town to show them to me. When she returned, I showed her my Saturday’s worth of work, and explained how I’d made my invitations. My solution was pretty clever, but her knowledge would’ve made the work much faster. So, what does this tale of design failure have to do with the office?

First, working backwards doesn’t always work! Sometimes you need to understand the steps at the beginning, and the logic behind them, in order to come up with an elegant solution. This is particularly true in branding. A lot of companies want to come up with some cool logo or concept, and then force the brand to fit that concept. But, it doesn’t work this way! You have to start at the beginning, take a look at the market and customer’s needs, then formulate the product and concept, then design the branding message and visuals that best represent your solution.

Second, use an expert, and use all the tools available to you. A professional designer taught my mom how to make the card I saw on the shelf, and had my mom been in town, she would’ve taught me. But even when she started showing me how to make the design, I wanted to forgo one of the tools, because I thought I could do it better all by myself. Turns out, using the tools made the assembly of the design much faster. Don’t assume that the experts don’t know what they’re doing, and don’t assume that the tools are actually a time suck. Sometimes, the process has already been optimized, and trying to re-invent the wheel is silly. This has been particularly applicable in my company’s attempts to customize an open-source CRM system “for free”. There’s companies with products that are fine-tuned, yet we keep trying to tweak a whole new solution! We’re not willing to use the tools available, so while it’s been a valuable learning experience, it has taken much longer to see results.

Last, you have to keep an open mind when trying to figure out the next best solution. My design style is somewhat haphazard when I first start formulating a concept. I need to see everything to start coming up with an action plan, and it’s pretty hilarious to watch. I walk in, pull out every piece of paper, ribbon, ink, and die cut that I think could possible work, and throw them all over the floor. I then walk around and start pairing the items that will work together, and tossing all the unwanted items into another pile. After several “random” culling sessions, the pile that’s left is what I will use to make the design. Though that process is haphazard and frenzied, I’m a machine once I’ve made the choices. I am laser-focused, and I don’t get sidetracked by other fun design rabbit holes (the time for tangents was during the pull and sort phase!) My mom, on the other hand, is very calculated in her initial design specs, and she only pulls the items that specifically match the specs. But, once she starts assembling the parts, she gets distracted by the modifications that she could make to her design. Our process is different, but when we work together, we try to keep an open mind. Our combined design styles generally turn out to be beautiful, and between the two of us, our experience usually helps us figure out a way to do it better, faster, and less wastefully. The same is true in business! You need to keep an open mind, and mesh decision-making processes to come up with the next best solution. Does one department throw everything on the wall and see what sticks? Does another hunker down the analyze the numbers? Can you combine the knowledge gained from both approaches to create a “whole is greater than the sum of the parts” effect?

My design fail reminded me of the importance of using all the tools, knowledge and experience available to me, both in the scrapbooking room and in the office!

The First Rule of Fight Club

On By ashleyfausIn Branding, Selling2 Comments
No logos, no visible brands... is this good or bad for the retailers that sold me clothes?

Dress: JC Penney

Cardigan and Tights: Target

Belt: NY & Co.

Pumps: Alfani Step ‘n Flex

Necklace: Forever21

Earrings: Silpada

Like the outfit? Click here for more details!

 

Today’s post is a bit of a marketing rabbit hole on branding, and I’m going to throw around some academic jargon. It’ll be a fun walk down memory lane undergraduate classes! In all seriousness, though, I wonder about the differences between clothing makers that put their label all over their products vs. retailers that let the product stand on its own. So, let’s go for a dive, shall we?

Awareness for the masses vs. “the club”. In theory, all publicity is good publicity, right? So, plastering a recognizable logo on every available surface of your product should raise awareness, resulting in more sales. The problem is, some brands sell exclusivity. If you want to be part of the super secret club, you buy this brand. So, what happens when you see tons of other people walking around advertising the super secret club? It makes it less secret, and therefore, less appealing to join, since apparently, it’s open to the masses. When people buy access to “the club”, they don’t want to be reminded that someone who’s not just like them can also buy access to “the club”. This is particularly true for high-end brands, like one-of-a-kind clothing and accessories. It can’t be one-of-a-kind if you see someone else walking around with the same thing! Thus, making your product particularly recognizable by the masses may actually be harmful to your brand. If you’re selling exclusivity, you don’t want the masses to know about your brand (the first rule of Fight Club is that you don’t talk about Fight Club!). Only those with the highest salaries, most refined taste, or most trendy wardrobes belong in your target market, and if they’re truly “in”, they’ll know your product without the visible logo.

Aspirational brand devaluation. This is closely tied with the decision to sell exclusivity. An aspirational product is something that symbolizes the group you want to join, and when you finally obtain the product, you’ve “arrived” (like all the facial bruises that identify other Fight Club members!). High-end clothing and accessories are often marks of career success, so many young people see purchasing their first Armani suit or Blahnik heels as a signal that they’ve now joined the successful peer group. But again, no one aspires to be just like everyone else. This may seem counter-intuitive, since this product purchase means that you’re now a member of the most desirable group, so the other members will accept you. But, if you have to run around screaming to everyone that you’re one of the cool kids, you’re probably not that cool in reality. Label junkies tend to seem like they’re just posing as a member of the group, which means the product becomes associated with “fake” members. Soon, the product falls from aspirational status to cheap imitation status in the eyes of customers who dictate which products are aspirational.

Imitation is easy. Congrats, you’ve built a successful brand with a recognizable logo or signature design! Now everyone knows that when they see that logo, they’re getting quality, reliability, luxury, and great customer service… except it’s easy to slap a logo on a fake. And, those fakes on the market that proudly display your hard-earned reputation via the logo are further contributing to the brand devaluation. It’s much more difficult to imitate quality stitching, luxurious fabric, real leather, or precise time-keeping, which is why many high-end brands would rather let their discerning customers “recognize” the brand through personal experience with each item. Take the case of Louboutin’s attempt to trademark the red color they use for their signature soles. Several other shoe manufacturers started using red soles in their designs of lesser quality, which Louboutin felt impacted the integrity of their brand. Since it’s widely known that red soles = Louboutin, it’s difficult for the average consumer to tell the difference between the knock-offs and the original. If customers were required to learn the differences in the brands through experience, Louboutin would not be so upset about the use of the color red. And, if you’re selling exclusivity, your customers will be happy (in fact, they’ll prefer) to spend the extra time feeling, using, and understanding what makes your products different from another brand.

So, now we’ve come to the marketer’s dilemma: to logo or not to logo? This issue is much more easily settled when you have a defined target segment (who you’re selling to), a strong brand identity (what it is you’re selling), and a thorough understanding of what your customers value (why your customers choose you over the next guy). I’m not in the super secret club in the fashion world, but I do understand the first rule of fight club 🙂 Like the outfit? Click here for more details!

The Swing Vote

On By ashleyfausIn Advertising, Branding, PricingLeave a comment

I’ve been talking a lot lately about how marketers using intel makes me happy, but then I started thinking about who the marketers REALLY want. The information about who is buying your brand, how much they’re buying, and how to keep them buying is definitely interesting, but I’d say it’s equally interesting to see who’s not buying your brand. And, not just the hardcore brand-haters, but the wishy-washy people. The people without a pattern. They’re the swing voters that flip-flop based on price, convenience, trends, and any other fickle variable that suits their fancy that day.

It’s not worth my time as a marketer to convince a die-hard Pepsi drinker to switch to Coke. It’s also not worth my time to keep coddling the die-hard Coke drinker, because, unless I do something completely stupid, like introduce “New Coke”, there’s no way I’m going to lose you. So, the really interesting segment to target, is the swing voter. When considering promotions, I need to seriously consider the cannibalization effect. I’m not looking to give $2 to someone that will already buy my product, I’m looking to attract a new customer that will hopefully become a loyal customer. I’m willing to take the $2 loss to get this new customer’s future full-price purchases. But, if I know this person is a swing voter that refuses to commit, do I really want them anyways? Is it worth the $2 loss to attract a customer that will drop me as soon as my competitor offers a $2 coupon?

So, we know we don’t want people who are willing to pay full price to start using our coupons, and we know that we probably don’t want to waste a coupon on a swing voter. Who do we actually want to spend money to attract? This is where the brilliance of parent companies comes in. They own a brand for every customer segment! There’s some people that always use a coupon, and others that only shop at one store. If you’ve got both the one store and the coupon, you’ve increased your market share and your bottom line. Of course, there’s always a few caveats. Are you going to be the best of the best in one thing, or average across all categories? It also goes back to the question, “Do I really want ALL customers?” Many companies think that a dollar is a dollar, but marketers know that customers come at a cost. Swing voters come with a very high cost, since you’re constantly having to wave the shiny object to keep their attention.

For all the posting happiness about what the data tells me, I’ve gotta admit that what the data DOESN’T tell me is equally fun to play with!

Blog Perceptions

On By ashleyfausIn Branding, Outfits/Workwear6 Comments

What is the image that I project? Is it authoritative and professional?

Pants: NY & Co.

T-shirt: Forever 21

Vest: NY & Co.

Necklace: NY & Co.

Earrings: Silpada

Heels: Alfani Step ‘n Flex

Like the outfit? Click here for more details!

 

Part of my New Year’s resolutions include some goals for the blog. I’ve had several experiences over the past few months that have made me consider the perception of my blog, and whether I believe it’s accurate. Fair warning, this post might get a little raw and a little ranty, but in the spirit of transparency, I decided to publish this post.

First, the obvious: I’m female. Second, more obvious: I don’t write “for women”. Initially, I started this blog to write “for marketers”, and over the course of posting, this morphed into writing “for business people”. Notice that nowhere in any of my mission statements do I say that I write “women’s content”, “for women”, “about women”, or any statement that otherwise makes it seem like my blog is written for a specific gender. And yet, from what I can tell, the perception is that my blog is a “women’s blog”. Now, I’m happy to have readers, and I don’t have a problem with all of my readers being female, as long as that’s a coincidence. But, I don’t think it is.

One of my MBA classmates landed on the blog on an outfit post, and he told me that he assumed I wrote about fashion. The post in question actually discusses marketing by retail companies, with very little discussion about actual fashion-related items. The post directly below it was a guest post written by a male, describing his corporate life as a sales rep. The post at the bottom of the page, after the other two, was about pricing and deals. Basically, NONE of the posts on that page are written exclusively for females. Sure, the inspiration for one post might have come from a “girly” topic, but there’s plenty of male marketers in the retail industry, so it’s not irrelevant. I usually give a blog a quick scroll-through on the first visit, and visit the “About” page to see if the content might be a fit. I don’t love every post by every blogger, but I’m willing to give it more than just a quick glance if they have a tagline or post title that piques my interest. I wonder how many readers come to my blog on an outfit post, and instead of giving a 2 second scroll (or actually glancing at the content of the post), just bounce, and write me off as another “woman blogger”?

I had a conversation with another classmate, who blatantly said he thinks it’s true, men won’t read a blog written by a woman. Again, this is anecdotal, but my frustration about the breadth of my audience didn’t seem outrageous to him. I debated a lot about the outfit posts, as I knew they were “girly”, but I realize that this area is a huge space for marketing success and failure, so cutting it out makes no sense. I’ve written about cars and bug repellent, both of which are more “manly” topics. I generally write on completely gender-neutral topics like branding, selling, pricing, and social media. I also realize that I generally guest post on blogs targeted at young female professionals, but most of my contribution posts are on gender-neutral topics, like extreme behaviors to avoid in the office, a business analysis of the 5 Love Languages, or making the decision to attend business school.

So, maybe I’ve unintentionally set myself up as a blog “for women”. This wouldn’t frustrate me so much if I wasn’t cutting out half the population from readership! Maybe I’m only hearing from a biased sample, which led me to explore the perception of my blog in this post. I’m not trying to insult blogs that target women, as I’ve written for several, and read many of these types of blogs. But, I’ve also expanded my readership to include a variety of topics, targeted at both genders. Part of my goal this year is to contribute to some sites that aren’t targeted specifically at women, so that I can help myself by being part of the solution. So, readers, how do you perceive my blog? Any tips for making the blog welcoming to both men and women? Like the outfit? Click here for more details!

A Marketer’s Holiday

On By ashleyfausIn Advertising, Branding, Selling1 Comment

Many people resent Valentine’s Day because they feel like the evil marketers at the greeting card, chocolate, and flower stores colluded to dupe them into buying more useless junk that they (and their significant others) don’t need. As a marketer, I can’t decide if I should be offended, or applauding the genius.

From the offended stance, I would say that the whole Valentine’s Day craze isn’t totally a marketer’s fault. I mean, people have to actually buy into this whole scheme, right? It’s also interesting that no one gets up in arms about St. Patrick’s Day, even though it’s a commercialized holiday as well. Maybe it’s because St. Patrick’s Day is all about drinking green beer and pinching people, instead of buying flowers? Maybe it’s because everyone has the ability to participate at different levels, and no one feels left out if they’re single (heck, you probably fare better when you’re single on St. Patrick’s Day!). Either way, I don’t place the blame totally at the marketer’s feet. As a society, we push for more, more, more, and the company’s bottom line needs to rise, rise, rise. And, quite frankly, “if you sell it, they will buy it”. Valentine’s Day bears and heart-shaped boxes would’ve died if no one bought those items, but people DO buy them, to the tune of millions of dollars. It’s like the latest toy craze, but for adults! So, if I’m going to get offended at the “evil marketer” accusation, I’d like to point a few fingers at society at large, and the obsession with outdoing the Jones in every aspect of gift-giving and purchasing.

However, I could also choose to applaud the marketers who increased sales profitably in a variety of industries with a single branding of one random day in February. People like to give and receive, and people like to compete and set expectations. Why not capitalize on this? Isn’t it a marketer’s job to see unmet needs in the market, and produce a product or service (or, in this case, a day) to meet those needs? Love is one of the strongest emotions to tap as a marketer, so what better way to sell something than to make a whole day dedicated to love? This is particularly valuable, since most of the items associated with Valentine’s Day have no utilitarian value. The flowers die, the chocolate makes you fat, and the bears just waste space. But humans value the ridiculous things that others do to show love. It’s such an intangible, immeasurable thing, that if you as a marketer can put some kind of price on it, you’ll hit a gold mine.

So yes, I must agree that Valentine’s Day is really a marketer’s holiday. My husband and I tend to shy away from commercialized holidays, and we’re working to make sure we don’t fall into the trap of marketers (it helps to have some inside information 🙂 ). But, I must admit, it made my day when flowers showed up at the office yesterday, the day BEFORE Valentine’s Day. We’re not flower people, and I know that my flowers will probably only last for a few days. But the sweet thought, the nice note, and the pop of color on a dreary day can make even the cynic’s heart melt. See… I knew it was marketing genius!

UPDATE: Newsy, a site that uses multiple resources to get the full view of a story, sent me a link to a video they produced on Valentine’s Day. Take a look at some of the crazy spending people do to show someone how much they care!

TOOL Censors Cell Phones

On By ashleyfausIn Branding, Social MediaLeave a comment

My husband and I recently attended a TOOL concert, and I found it pretty funny that the ushers were actively monitoring the use of cell phone cameras and cell phone videos. Remember the attempted cell phone bans from sports stadiums a few years ago? Fortunately, the band and the venue aren’t trying to keep people from bringing them in at all, but it’s pretty useless and futile to try to ban media use once inside. In fact, I think the videos and pictures actually help the brand!

Hyping up the experience. When cell phone videos and pictures are uploaded to social media sites, it just makes the people at home wish they were at the concert. A grainy, shaky, incompletely cell phone video does not do the experience justice, so would-be ticket buyers are not going to abandon a purchase of “the real thing” after seeing a YouTube video. In fact, since they know the video doesn’t come close to the live experience, viewing the video only increases their desire to actually be at the concert. When other fans post up footage, it serves to create even more buzz for the brand. If you can see just a little bit of the awesome lights and sounds at the concert, you’re much more likely to want to purchase tickets in the future.

Engaging the fans. “Engage” is the number one goal of social media, and “conversations” are evidence of achieving that goal. What better way to engage fans than to have them sharing all aspects of your content? It’s an easy segue to say, “You think the lasers look cool on the video, you should see them in real life!” Fans can talk about the best seating, the acoustics, the playlist, and the graphics, and it’s much more than just talk when you’re able to share the experience via social media.

Top-of-mind and building loyalty. Souvenirs remind people of a wonderful experience, and showing those souvenirs makes other people wish they’d been there to have the experience. The more souvenirs a person has to evoke a good memory, the more loyal they become to the provider of the good memory. If someone is logging on to Facebook and seeing tons of pictures and videos of the TOOL concert that they attended, that experience stays at the forefront of their mind, and they want to have that experience again. It’s proven that people want their choices to be supported by their peers, so sharing, discussing, and viewing this content with your peers makes you feel like you made a good choice to attend the concert. This positive re-enforcement entrenches your loyalty to the band, and your likelihood to repeat the choice.

The laws haven’t kept up with technology, but I think marketers are beginning to realize the benefits of sharing the content instead of keeping it in the live venue. I’m hoping the bans will be lifted soon, since they only hurt the brands they’re meant to protect.

JC Penney Downs Discounts

On By ashleyfausIn Branding, PricingLeave a comment

 

I felt great about purchasing these pants prior to the new pricing.

Pants: JC Penney

T-shirt: Target

Blazer: Target

Scarf: Target

Flats: Payless

Like the outfit? Click here for more details!

 

A classmate of mine asked for my take on the new JC Penney strategy, and after a discussion with my dad about the strategy, I decided to do a little hands-on research. JC Penney is the king of huge discounts, all the time, on all their items… at least, they were. This article details their new strategy to drop prices across the board to an “everyday value” price. They’re also moving to whole numbers, instead of the $19.99 or $29.99 prices, the tags will now read $20 and $30 respectively. So, what’s my take on downing the discounts?

My initial reaction was that the everyday value price was a smart move, but the whole number pricing was a bad move. When you’re in the dressing room (I use this example since I most frequently buy clothes instead of other items from JCP), you know the price on the tag is not the price you will actually pay. However, there’s no uniform discount, so you can’t really remember if the $69.99 dress is 40% off or 50%. Then there’s the extremely rare occasion where the item isn’t marked down at all. So, you pick out all the items you like, and then circle back through the aisles to try to determine how much money you’re actually spending. This is particularly important and frustrating if you’re on a budget, since the discounts drastically reduce the prices. As a marketer, I’m also frustrated that you’re trying to anchor me to a price that’s MUCH higher than I actually think the item is worth. I know full well I’m not willing to pay the price on the tag, and I know full well I won’t have to pay the price on the tag, but even with all my insight into this scheme, I still battle my human brain. And, my human brain automatically considers the number in front of my face, no matter how ridiculous it may seem! So, I don’t appreciate the mind games, JC Penney, just give me a price!

Now, JC Penney is giving me the price, but since they’ve trained me to reject the price on the tag, it’s quite difficult to break that habit. I took several skirts into the dressing room, and I had to force myself to consider the price as stated. I was happy to pay the $25 listed, but I felt like something was wrong about paying “full price” at JCP, even though the price was less than the amount that I valued the item. Again, all my marketing know-how pales in comparison to good ‘ole human instinct. The whole pricing was also a shock to the system. It’s one little penny, but for some reason, the price of $25 instead of $24.99 just made me feel a little off. Again, you’ve trained me to think I’m paying less than $25 by constantly knocking off the penny, so again, you’ve made me feel like I’m paying full price at a place that shouldn’t ever receive full price for an item!

The other issue with the whole pricing, is that they picked some odd prices for rounding. Signs with “$6 and up” or “37 and up”… what? At this point, you’ve now triggered my $10 price point or my $40 price point, but I’m not willing to pay $10 or $40. Again, I can analyze it to figure out why this bothers me, and rationalize that it’s silly, since I won’t actually have to pay $10 or $40. But still, had you told me $5.99 and $35.99, you’d trigger the lower price point that I am willing to pay. Further, the whole pricing just feel cheap, and JCP is trying to bill itself as quality. Again, it has very little to do with how much I actually value an item, and how much I’d actually be willing to pay for the item, and much more to do with how I feel during the buying experience. And, JCP is trying to make you feel better during the buying experience, as their competitive advantage and value-add. But they haven’t made me feel better, they’ve just made me spiral into a marketing nerd analysis of why I would normally be fine buying the $25 skirt, but today, it feels funny! (Granted, I’m a HARDCORE marketing nerd, so the general public probably doesn’t go through such analysis while buying, but the research has shown that the points mentioned above do affect people, whether they know it or not. So, sans crazy marketing rabbit hole, people might choose to abandon the purchase altogether!)

Long story short, this strategy has some major pitfalls to overcome, and it’ll be an interesting case study once the new wears off. How do you feel about the new strategy? Like the outfit? Click here for more details!

Masks and Brand Authenticity

On By ashleyfausIn Branding, Outfits/WorkwearLeave a comment
Your brand is captured in your clothes, actions, and words.

Blazer: NY & Co.

Pants: JC Penney

Boots: Ross

Like the outfit? See more details here!

 

Forbes had an article during the holiday season about drinking at the office holiday party, and a quick mention at the end of the article about cleaning up your Facebook profile. The author mentions the concept of a Work Identity and a Party Identity, and discusses how much those two intermingle when you’re in a professional setting. This got me thinking about masks and brand authenticity, particularly as it relates to our personal brands.

We’re whole humans, with whole lives, not just corporate drones with a “professional” persona. During my Organizational Behavior class, we had to take surveys about stress, life satisfaction, and behavior, and nearly every student wanted to clarify if we were to take the assessment based on how we would act in a professional setting or a personal setting. I wear different clothes to work than I wear on the weekends, and I behave differently on weekends (waking up at 6:30 am on a Saturday? I don’t think so!). So, am I two-faced, or multi-faceted? Is my professional brand just a facade that I drop when I’m at home?

I think there’s a strong distinction between wearing different clothes and sleeping in on Saturday, and “character flaws” that could creep into my workday. Being a hard worker is one aspect of my professional brand that I think is highly important, and I feel like my behavior outside the office affects this brand perception inside the office. Would you believe that I’m really a hard worker if I lounged around in my PJs on the evenings and weekends, or would you assume that I’m just going through the daily grind for a paycheck? Many people view private actions as a reflection of your commitment to your public actions, and that if the two don’t match, eventually, the truth of your private actions will permeate your professional life. This brings me back to the holiday party mentioned earlier in this post. If you are a loud, rude, embarrassing drunk at the office party (which, in theory, is a perfect place to “mix” personal and professional), what’s the likelihood that you will eventually show such characteristics during the workday? Most of the time, these concerns aren’t necessarily about the actual behavior at the party, but rather about the lack of judgement in getting into a situation to behave inappropriately (ie: drinking too much). Going beyond acceptable boundaries in one area of your life indicates a possibility that you may do the same thing in another area of your life.

I think brand authenticity is about consistency and congruency. Do you regularly act in accordance with your professional brand by displaying characteristics like hard work, loyalty, and creativity? Would your friends, family, and co-workers say similar things about you at your core (literally everyone I know would describe me as energetic and a talker!)? Eventually, the masks come off, and it’s what’s beneath the mask that counts. Like the outfit? See more details here!

It Started…

On By ashleyfausIn Branding, SEO/Website1 Comment

Remember the name-change can of worms I mentioned last week? The brand insanity has started! I got a request for letter head first thing this morning, which forced the issue of the plans for a web presence. Since the letter head requires a website URL, I mentioned that a URL required some content. The problem is that, as I mentioned last week, the Parent Company’s website doesn’t really have a place for the new company’s information. I’m currently trying to create a website within a website, and it’s a little complicated.

The “Contact Us” page in the main navigation bar gives the information for the Parent Company’s employees. But, since those employees don’t handle New Company’s endeavors, we need a contact page for New Company. So, I’m making a link to the contact page for New Company that will live on the homepage for New Company.

The top-level navigation also proves difficult, because we’ve got an “About Us” tab, “Portfolio” tab, and a “News” tab. Where should New Company tab go? It needs it’s own tab, so that visitors can quickly find the information, but technically, it’s part of Parent Company’s portfolio. And, this will be the only tab in the top-level nav bar for New Company, which will probably confuse visitors that end up on pages that are linked from New Company’s homepage.

So, I’m currently mucking around in some website code, trying to figure out the best way to create, link, and organize all this other information. I’m also trying to either use content that was supposed to be for the Child Company that we originally branded, or create new content out of thin air. Top that off with a tiny little deadline off…. oh, whenever they send the letter head to a customer, and this is making for a crazy day! Tips for on-the-fly page creation are much appreciated!

Can of Worms

On By ashleyfausIn Branding1 Comment

One of my companies recently opened a massive can of worms when it comes to branding. It’s like a project premise from Marketing 101, and if it hadn’t been dropped on me AFTER the fact, I would have really enjoyed this intersection of academia and real-world application. Unfortunately, this branding challenge was dropped on me after it was too late to make a strategic decision. So, now I’m trying to strategize backwards. It makes for fun (well, fun for us marketing nerds) thoughts on branding! Let’s take a look at a few of the challenges I’m facing, shall we?

Company structure. I work for the Parent Company, and this Parent Company is strictly a holding company for Child Company A, B, and C. Parent Company doesn’t actually buy, sell, make, or distribute anything, other than money and marketing prowess to the Child Companies. Child Company B buys, sells, and services aircraft parts and engines. Child Company B recently went into a new market under the name Child Company B, Country. Unfortunately, another company in the new country has a very similar name, so all of the incorporation documents were denied, unless we used a different name. Parent Company decides to just use the name “Parent Company” for this new market. The problem is, Parent Company isn’t actually in the business, and it would mess up a lot of things for Parent Company to enter the business!

Name recognition. In preparation for full-fledged entry into the new market, Child Company B has been actively working for brand awareness. They’ve attended trade shows with a booth that proudly displays “Child Company B”, they’ve handed out business cards with the name “Child Company B”, and they’ve had tons of promotional items and marketing collateral printed and distributed to get people thinking about buying from “Child Company B”. Now, all of a sudden, we’re talking about making people buy from Parent Company… who they’ve never heard of… and never met… and who doesn’t actually even operate in the business! We’ve built a pretty strong reputation as Child Company B, so it’s not just starting from scratch, it’s backtracking!

Logos, websites, and names, oh my! A name change for a company is not as simple as just writing out a new name on a form. There’s logos, websites, promo items, letterhead, email addresses, and the list goes on! From an IT perspective, all of the personnel from Child Company B have emails @childcompanyb.com, and all of the contacts for each rep have saved the reps as @childcompanyb.com. We’ll need to have a completely new set of business cards made, and we’ll need to change all the servers to give them new addresses. We just finished a huge website overhaul for Child Company B, which included several sections on our new market offering. And, we can’t just cut and paste that content in to Parent Company’s site, because Child Company B’s endeavors are completely different and completely separate from Parent Company’s! A “name change” touches so many areas of marketing, and in many cases, kills the brand momentum we’ve already started.

I’m the only “marketer” in my company, and this change was made on-the-fly, so I don’t think management realizes that complexity of this can of worms yet. So, cheers to a marketing case study, right off the bat in 2012! I’m excited to see what I can pull off for this project, and I foresee some interesting blog posts about my action items in the next few weeks.