Critical Elements to address when thinking about a re-brand?
- Do you really know the audience you want to influence with your brand and what they think of your company? If the answer is, “We think so but are not 100% sure or in agreement,” start with research into your customers and prospects to understand your brand starting point. Determine the channels they use to interact with your brand. Do they visit your site via a mobile device but you have not optimized for mobile?
- Don’t rebrand for the sake of re-branding. What are the corporate goals you are trying to accomplish? Are you launching a new product or service line? Have you slowly transformed your market but your current customer base does not know it? Do you need to energize your employee base?
- Analyze and agree upon your story and message. Many people can design a great logo, but it is the story behind the logo and brand initiative that is critical.
- Use the rebrand as your chance and excuse to re-introduce yourself to current customers.
- Think about all the brand elements to drive consistency. A new logo without a matching website experience, family of templates, new business cards, office signage, etc. can really fall flat. Make sure you design a corporate style guide that is strictly followed across the board, and can be expanded to business partners and other audiences.
- Start with your internal audience to roll it out. Your employees are your number one brand ambassadors. If they are excited about the brand and message you will immediately have a fleet of people ready to share it.
- Measure the impact of the rebrand. What are the key performance indicators you are measuring? Are you getting more meetings? Are you getting more website visitors? Is there a better understanding of your brand six months after launch? 12 months?
- Is your rebrand designed to scale as you enter new markets or expand with new products?
- Are there international considerations now or in the future related to your brand that you need to address?
- As you think about all of these, remember that planning is critical. A strongly mapped out strategy will get you the required results you desire for your brand.
The Republican National Convention has wrapped up in Tampa, Florida, after last night’s big speech by Mitt Romney. And perhaps more than anything else, the week was an attempt by the GOP to shape its own brand and message on its own terms. So how’d they do? For answers, let’s bring in Don Goldberg. He’s a branding and marketing strategist with BlueText in Washington. He says the goal was to attract the women vote and bring in more young people. “What they needed to do was put up a bunch of good spokespeople who could could send those messages to those audiences,” Goldberg says. “That’s the kind of thing that we would tell them to do if they were a company.” He says Sen. Marco Rubio, who was the main person to introduce Mitt Romney, is very charismatic and therefore appealing to young voters. At the same time, there were a lot of mixed messages, he said, especially in actor/director Clint Eastwood’s appearance in which he appeared to be lecturing an empty chair meant to represent President Obama. That didn’t appeal to either of the target audiences, Goldberg says. Hear more details in the audio above.
Bluetext is very excited to announce that it has been chosen by the Meridian International Center as its official Branding and Marketing Partner for Meridian’s 44th Annual Ball and Global Leadership Summit, to be held October 12, 2012. The Annual Ball has been named one of the top five social events of the year by The Washington Post, and attracts more than 1000 political, diplomatic, and business leaders from the Washington community. This is the first year for the Global Leadership Summit, and one of our assignments is to help make that a valuable and memorable event.
“We look forward to working with Bluetext to prepare for the 44th Annual Ball and Global Leadership Conference,” said Greg Houston, Meridian’s Senior Vice President for Development and External Affairs. “It’s vitally important that those who attend and enjoy the Ball every year recognize the value that Meridian brings to the global community, and Bluetext will help us develop and convey that message.”
Hosted by Meridian in partnership with Gallup and the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, the Summit will feature presentations from The Gallup Organization and from Fred Smith, the legendary CEO of FedEx. This year’s Ball and Global Leadership Summit will be co-chaired by Mr. Jay L. Johnson, chairman and CEO of General Dynamics, and Mrs. Sydney McNiff Johnson. The Summit will convene a cross-section of international and domestic policy makers, corporate and diplomatic leaders, academics, and members of the media to explore more efficient, effective ways to address global economic and social challenges.
While the Ball is well-known in Washington, the inaugural Global Leadership Summit preceding the Ball will bring leaders from Congress, the Administration, the diplomatic community, and the corporate world together to discuss issues that are central to the challenges they are facing. Part of Meridian’s mission is to bring leaders together to interact with and learn from each other, because leaders make better decisions through shared experiences.
We are honored and excited to be working closely with Meridian on this year’s events. Our brand and marketing experience gives us a unique opportunity to help Meridian deliver to its attendees a great understanding of what Meridian achieves for the international community, and how its members can engage with the organization to further that mission. We want everyone who comes to the Summit and Ball to leave there with a greater sense of global purpose, and also to have a great time.
The Meridian Ball is one of the most prestigious annual events in Washington. Now in its 44th year, the Ball brings together policy makers, private sector and cultural leaders, and the diplomatic corps to celebrate Meridian’s ongoing efforts to strengthen international understanding through the exchange of ideas, people, and culture.
Traditionally held in October, the Ball in known for its intimate dinners, each hosted by an Ambassador at his or her Residence or Embassy, in addition to a dinner hosted by Meridian at its White-Meyer House. After dinner, all guests convene for dancing, dessert, and dialogue at Meridian House, an architectural treasure listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Ball is well attended by public officials including Cabinet secretaries, Supreme Court justices, and members of the U.S. Congress, as well as prominent media figures, foreign Ambassadors, and representatives from the international business and cultural communities.
When I hear from a client that they have no true competitors, I feign acceptance as my BS meter automatically goes off. What I would like to tell them is that they obviously don’t need marketing and branding support since there must be no market for their product or service. But instead I take the opportunity to walk them through a messaging and positioning exercise to help them identify the market that their company does fit into, and then help them determine how they can be the king of that market. At Bluetext we call this the “Sandbox Exercise,” and it is a critical element for effectively branding or rebranding a company.
You can’t be the king of a sandbox until you can identify and accept which sandbox you play in. When referring to other potential competitors, comments like “they are too big and not focused on our market” or “we beat them head to head every time” may sound comforting, but my immediate response is to ask how often those competitors are scooping up customers and market share when you are not even on the radar. The actual times that we come across companies that have been in the game for a long time without feeling the heat of true competition are few and far between.
So with your feet firmly planted back on the ground, here are a few simple steps you need to think about to find the right Sandbox so that you can be successful in the long run:
- Be realistic about your product or service – this is critical for success. It’s delusional to think that any product that sounds too good to be true is the real thing. (Remember the Segway?)
- Determine your true differentiators. What is your brand promise? It is becoming harder to differentiate with words these days, but every brand has attributes that it can leverage to become the king of a Sandbox. We are working with a client now that is extremely passionate about its brand and business, but is also realistic about its competitors. By identifying reference points for prospects in the form of existing brand name customers, and creating a brand that incorporates beautiful, forward-thinking design elements to relay the passion of the team, they will stand out from the crowd.
- Realize that the best messaging and branding will get you nowhere without creative execution that delivers the brand to target audiences with passion and emotion. Don’t expect every potential customer to automatically know who you are and which Sandbox you play in. Allow your brand to work as hard as it can for your business by letting everyone know which Sandbox is yours, and why you are the king. Take every opportunity to hit prospects with an integrated message that is consistent, powerful and persuasive about your products or services.
Effective message and branding can take many forms, but at the core of your business is a brand promise. You may never have the same brand recognition as Coke or Facebook, yet at the end of the day, if you can effectively execute on the steps outlined above, you will be in a much better position to deliver value to your customers and prospects – and that should be the ultimate goal of every branding exercise.
