Case: In 2010, Aetna, for the third consecutive year, was selected by FORTUNE magazine as the most admired company in the Health Care: Insurance and Managed Care category. In 2012 Aetna introduced a new logo in hopes of redefining the insurer—broadly—as a “health services”, or “health solutions,” company. Aetna changed its logo font from a variation of Bodoni to a newly designed word mark. It also brought back the ligature between the A and E used for 151 years, until it was discontinued in 2001. In the new logo, the ligature returns “as a unique symbol of our brand and our heritage — reinforcing our 160-year-history, our dedication to building relationships with our constituents, and our promise of a connected health care experience,” as stated by the company. Beyond the elegance of it and the re-appropriation of a part of its history, careful scrutiny of the ligature reveals an almost subliminal ‘hc’ for ‘healthcare,’ a nice stroke of design, both conceptually and executionally.

First point: I think Aetna’s current identity (the newest one), is on the money. Visually, it’s human and personal, in its lower case design trend – and most important, the outcome of the design delivers a story and visual thread about the endurance of the Aetna brand (on a side note, I’m thankful that Aetna dropped the symbol of the human figure with outstretched arms, as I’m tired of seeing this trite image, repeated ad nauseam, in healthcare identities (i.e. the new Cigna identity). For years now, I’ve seen companies all over the world, all-too eagerly stripping their identities and identity systems of historic artifacts or references, as if to say (scream): “See, we’re new and improved!” Yet recently, I see a trend: companies with decades of solid performance, are striving to ‘evolve’ their identities another notch (and perceptions of their brand in synch with them) — by looking back into their visual history to resurrect elements that demonstrate endurance and proud legacies.

Second point: Aetna makes no apology for its name. And it doesn’t need to. The company is one of America’s oldest and most well-known brands, with a solid reputation among consumers, that consistently inspires confidence and trust. Aetna has had over a century to make of their name what they want, to overcome the associations and meanings of its original and primary reference. The volcano is dormant, dead, and long ago left behind. Yet “new” and/or “evolving” companies should beware: even a great identity can’t rescue a bad new name. Names, especially new ones, receive a lot more media scrutiny today than when Aetna adopted its moniker. The point is that you better have a proven track record of success, or you’ll need a shipload of money to compensate for your misstep, that is if you burst out of the blocks with a ‘Vesuvius’ – then, all the design talent in the world probably won’t save you.
As for Banana Republic’s name, I am still trying to figure out how they ever overcame the origins of that name, but that is a topic for another time and another blog.

What are your thoughts? Would love to hear them.

Business success can often be attributed to consistency – consistency when it comes to quality, overall look and messaging, and customer service. In this week’s episode of Branding Business, RiechesBaird CEO Ryan Rieches talks with Brett Wood, President & CEO of Toyota Material Handling North America (TMHNA) about the ways in which the B2B division of Toyota leverages the brand equity, values and philosophies associated with the automotive brand. A common hurdle for B2Bs, Wood shares how TMHNA defines its key customers – both dealer partners and end–user customers – and how they develop consistent messaging that speaks to both.

Topics explored in this week’s radio show include:

• Brand is about more than just the product
• The importance of training employees – your true delivery of brand promise
• How TMHNA defended the brand and focused on quality during the negative challenges faced by the automotive division

I’d like to share an experience that is not business related, but has many business parallels. About one year ago, I was diagnosed with throat cancer. After evaluating all the options, my wife and I chose a surgeon, health system and treatment plan and approached this challenge with the goal of being fully cured of cancer. As if that goal wasn’t enough, a YPO friend suggested that I celebrate being cancer free by running a half marathon. At the time, I was in the middle of 33 daily radiation treatments and had no interest in a dare that seemed so extreme.

But the more I thought about it, the more it intrigued me to challenge myself to do something completely out of my comfort zone and I said yes – not knowing how I could do it. After months of training, I recently completed the OC Half Marathon. The thrill of this accomplishment continues to pump through my veins. What made it even better was that my wife, daughter and many friends ran the race as well. The truly motivational part for me was that I ran this race with another cancer survivor – 11-year-old Mason Moses. Mason was diagnosed with a brain tumor at the age of three and after many surgeries is doing great and is a true inspiration. The funny thing is that he viewed my situation as a challenge to run the race as well. By the way, I am doing great; cancer free and in the best health of my life.

Here is what I’ve learned about achieving stretch goals – business or personal.

Find your motivation
In the case of the race, my initial motivation was to see myself celebrating at the finish line. Once Mason started training as well, I pictured holding our hands high in the air as we finished the race together – which we did. I find that visualization is a very powerful element in achieving goals – if you can play that movie in your head, your mind can make it a reality. This concept applies to business goals as well. Find that emotional image of your accomplishment and play the movie in your mind. If you develop enough conviction, nothing can hold you back.

Develop a game plan
Stretch goals are difficult to achieve. I find the best way is to do these three things:
1) Ask yourself, what will prevent me from achieving this goal? Address these issues head on.
2) Break the plan into segments – what can I accomplish this year, then quarter by quarter, 30 days, this week and finally today. Big goals can seem unattainable unless you break them down into realistic measures.
3) Commit to the plan. Unforeseen events will occur, natural deviations will happen, but get back on the right path and make up the difference – falling too far behind will only tempt you to give up. If I only could run two days one week, I ran four days the following week – back on track.

Celebrate the wins
The journey can be just as much fun (or more) as the finish line. It’s important to celebrate each victory along the way. Especially when your goal involves a team. The feeling of mutual accomplishment builds upon itself and becomes a motivator all on its own. Momentum has a huge impact on building confidence and the power of positive thought. Plus it’s a lot more fun to enjoy the positive experiences along the way.

Mason’s story to run the half marathon was picked up by KABC News in Los Angeles shortly before the race. Mason continues to be an inspiration to me – he has set his sights on a pretty impressive goal – he wants to be a brain surgeon – and I am confident he will make it happen. My wife and daughter also ran the half marathon (pictured below) and continue to be a constant motivation in my life – I am so thankful they supported me in this goal. We have all decided to run the race again next year. What’s your stretch goal?

You may notice that we talk a lot about employees on this blog. Why? Because your employees are the single most important piece in your branding puzzle. Forgetting to inform them and include them in a new brand can hold back the success of your launch. Here are four reasons to launch your brand to employees BEFORE going public:

1. Your employees are your brand ambassadors: Your employees are the most human part of your brand, putting a face to your brand on a daily basis. They deliver your brand promise directly to your customers, partners, the community, the media, investors, etc.  How can your employees accurately communicate your brand if they don’t know what it is? Make sure your employees fully understand your new brand – and why the change is occurring – to ensure that your new image has a consistent message as it is brought forward.
2. If they don’t know, they’ll make it up: You want your employees to be able to explain the change and to be able to answer questions when they’re asked. Otherwise – especially if the change in strategy is more drastic – the confusion of your employees will reflect outwardly.
3. Employees can help add to the excitement of your new brand: A new brand – especially when it comes with dramatic elements like a new logo or message – is truly an exciting thing. By including your employees and communicating the changes to be made, you can generate pride and fervor in a way that a press release can’t.
4. Raise employee engagement instead of squashing it: By including your employees in a brand launch before or alongside the public launch, you’re showing them that you value them just as much as you value your customers. A brand is not just about reaching new customers, gaining market share, etc. It’s about instilling pride among the people who work with you. Launching a brand externally without first educating your internal audience can lead to confusion and frustration. And why wouldn’t it? When you don’t include your employees in your brand, you’re telling them that you don’t care about including them – or worse, that you forgot about them.

Of course, in the real world, it’s not always possible or even advisable to time an internal brand launch to take place prior to a public launch. But there are ways around it. Especially in situations where secrecy is paramount, we often recommend timing the employee reveal to take place at the same time as the public launch, or engaging the employees in other ways to prepare them for the public launch.

How do you engage your employees in a brand launch? Would love to hear your ideas.

Practically everybody knows about the classic Chevy Nova ‘case.’ ‘Nova’ which means ‘new’ in Latin, means ‘It doesn’t go’ in Spanish (‘no va’)—not exactly the kind of message one wants to attach to—well—lots of products, but especially not to a car. Frankly, I don’t know if the name spelled death for Nova sales in Latin American markets. And, what seems worse—though I’ve never heard anyone comment on it—is the astronomic meaning: ‘a cataclysmic nuclear explosion…caused by the accretion of hydrogen…, which ignites and starts nuclear fusion in a runaway manner.’ (Wikipedia). Pick you poison: from benign inertness to universal cataclysm.

What you hear less about, if at all, are ‘bad’ names that identify successful businesses. Here are two (and they might set the conventional naming wisdom on its head).

Aetna, the insurance conglomerate, is named after Mt. Aetna, an active volcano. Now, why would anyone in their right mind name an insurance corporation after a massive ‘object,’ that could explode or implode (or both) at any moment, without warning, causing untold death and destruction? Why would you name a company built on preventing, mitigating, and/or compensating for catastrophe, collision, etc. after the source of the very collisions, etc. it is sworn to protect from? What of the suggestion (or possible mis-interpretation?) that the corporation is to be identified with the object in question? As I’ve said before, this is a little like giving a fast food franchise a name that rhymes with ‘Coli.’ And yet, who faults Aetna for their name? Who even comments on this otherwise frankly bizarre choice of monikers?

The other topsy-turvy case that comes to mind is Banana Republic. Am I the only person who recalls that this is (or was once) a slur against ‘third world’ (another slur), ‘under-developed,’ or non-industrial nation states? Isn’t it odd that a company whose main demographic is probably composed of university-educated, white, liberal democrats—attuned and obedient to the niceties of political correctness—would not only overlook the choice, but adopt BR as their high-end apparel brand of choice (and as one that—like, Kenneth Cole—actually reflects their political values, to the extent it represents such values at all)? Could the recent adoption of “BR,” by the way, signal a late afterthought about all of this? An elegant way to sweep it under the rug with a little remedial naming? Quite possibly. Guilt is better late than never in branding, as in life. Who knows how many well-heeled Latino/Latina customers this saved or gained?

So, what are the lessons to be learned from these observations? First, think twice before establishing an overt ‘gag rule’ on names that may ‘give offense’ or have ‘pejorative meaning’. Second, if a slur-name shows up in the master list, don’t throw it out for that – at least not yet. ‘Park it on the side’ …you may have the next Aetna in your hand. Third and last: names—even ones that appear to have 3 strikes against them before they get up to the plate—are what you make of them. Within reasonable limits, almost any name can be ‘made to work.’ Naming appears to be a much more forgiving endeavor than it might seem at first blush. Important to know.

Brand trust is vital in order to maintain longevity and win over competition. Building this trust goes much deeper than what is seen as face value. It’s about creating a reason to believe.

For B2B companies, having credibility with just the immediate customer base is not enough. Attention must be paid to secondary and perhaps even tertiary customers in the chain of consumption.

Ask yourself this question – How does your company benefit the end user?

Often, our clients don’t think about how their brand impacts the end user and they instead focus mostly on their direct customers. It seems logical, right? But, do your customers’ customers even know what you do? Why use up time and energy on resources that could be allocated to something that has immediate impact?  The answer may be simple, but how you get there doesn’t happen overnight.

We now live in a highly communicative world where technology enables people all over the world to get instantaneous information. The positive for businesses is that through sophisticated online profiles – whether on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or YouTube – they have the opportunity to educate and promote new product/service offerings. The caveat with an abundance of online information with real-time feedback is that customers are more sophisticated than ever. They have the opportunity to review, dissect and criticize every single bit of what a brand does.

This is why it’s important for B2B brands to focus on creating a lasting, positive impression and awareness. Connecting with end users is much more than an online or social media presence; rather it’s about defining the WHY. B2B brands need to think about what role they play further down the supply chain and how their business practices impact everyone involved.

In this day, some large corporations who are B2C may choose to only work with a B2B supplier that their customer base respects and trusts. There is a risk that your customers’ customers may find something they don’t like about your business practices and this jeopardizes the entire business relationship. For example, Lego had to drop its supplier (APP Packaging) after activists rallied against the supplier’s record of deforestation.

B2B communication strategies need to be targeted and not just about sales to build brand trust. Many of the world’s top B2B companies have developed tactics that promote the brand to the end-user customer base, which creates a win-win situation for all parties involved. Take Intel for example. While consumers may look for Intel microprocessor in their PC’s, Intel doesn’t actually sell their product to consumers directly, but rather PC manufacturers. A strategic approach in the 1990s with the “Intel Inside” advertising campaign made Intel and the Pentium processor household names.  The result was a consumer demand which required that every PC manufacturer incorporate Intel chips into their products.

On another end of the spectrum, General Electric has built credibility from direct-to-customer sales. While selling to businesses is GE’s primary focus, having dialogue with the end consumer gives GE a competitive advantage. On a different scale, Donald Trump has taken commercial real estate to the next level by promoting his name on a brand of neck ties in big box department stores. It’s about making consumers aware and making the brand more approachable that helps add more value.

Bottom Line: B2Bs need to start thinking more like B2Cs in terms of communication strategies. Creating positive brand awareness amongst everyone involved down to the end consumer will ultimately position a B2B brand for continued leadership and success.

To refresh a brand or take on a total brand transformation – that is the challenge many businesses face. In this week’s episode of Branding Business, RiechesBaird President Ray Baird sits down with Pegasystems CMO, Grant Johnson to explore the steps companies must take when they are going through an initial branding or rebranding effort. For more than 20 years, Johnson has worked with various companies on their rebranding strategies including his time with FileNet (purchased by IBM), FrontBridge (purchased by Microsoft) and in his current position at Pegasystems.

Grant Johnson Details The 3 Phases Companies Must Go Through When Considering a Brand Refresh or Brand Transformation:

• Phase 1: Brand Assessment
• Phase 2: Brand Development
• Phase 3: Brand Execution

Peter Bohenek is the President and Co-Founder of Rhythm Interactive, a full-service digital marketing agency located in Irvine, California. With more than 17 years of marketing and business strategy and development experience, Peter and the team at Rhythm Interactive take a strategic approach to all digital marketing campaigns to ensure client objectives and business goals are met. Learn more about Rhythm Interactive by visiting www.rinteractive.net, @rinteractive and www.facebook.com/rhythminteractive.

In RiechesBaird’s recent radio show exploring the attributes clients look for in a marketing partner, Tim Williams – the founder of Ignition – a consulting firm dedicated to helping marketing agencies create additional value for their clients, shared insights around the traits that lead to successful client-agency relationships.

As the President of Rhythm Interactive – a full-service digital marketing agency – we hear from many of our current clients and new referral clients that the characteristics Tim highlights in the show (and listed below) are what led them to choose Rhythm as their marketing partner.

I wanted to take some time to echo the points that Tim brings up in the radio show as well as add some of my own.

• Look for an agency partner that is efficient in their work process, project management and technology. Ask the marketing agency how they work with clients to manage deliverables, milestone approvals, and overall team communication.
• Many agencies claim to be “integrated”. This means they should be able to offer a full-spectrum of marketing services including traditional, digital, video, mobile applications, social, etc. Agencies that collaborate with other agencies to provide the full package offer a major benefit to the client as it’s difficult, if not impossible, to be an expert in every possible marketing channel.
• Look for an agency with experienced talent. Service proposals should talk to team member backgrounds, roles, and related skills. If they don’t – ask.
• Look for an agency that is not afraid to experiment in new channels. Things are moving rapidly when it comes to new technologies, platforms and marketing vehicles. Agency partners should be aware of the latest trends and newest opportunities and be willing to take risks to generate results.
• Your marketing partner should always be sharing their expertise and thoughtful recommendations for ways to enhance efforts and to achieve business goals. A partner that is continuously reviewing results of marketing efforts and refining strategies to drive additional engagement, traffic and sales is a partner who is vested in your overall success.
• Many agencies claim they are results driven. Ask them for proof of past client performance and ask them how they will prove your ROI and what type of reporting will be presented and analyzed.
• Customer service is huge. Look for an agency partner that is really there for you. Can you call and talk to your Account Director? How long does it take for someone to get back to you?
• Look for an agency partner that stands firm on their deliverables and sticks to deadlines. If deadlines are constantly missed and promised deliverables not presented, you may want to break up with your agency.
• Have some fun with your agency partner. Why? Cause laughter stimulates creativity and in general makes the world go round.

If you’re looking for a dedicated marketing partner to help you create effective brand experiences and achieve your business goals, come meet the team at Rhythm Interactive. Give us a call today at 949.783.5000.

Companies get complicated as they grow.

Logos and brand names proliferate as new business divisions are created and new products and services added.

With acquisitions there come even more products, more brands, more names.

No one in the organization is sure how effective these brands are, how they fit together, what brands should be supported and what should be retired. So the proliferation continues. Weak brands continue to soak up marketing dollars at the expense of stronger brands while the corporate brand – unloved and uncertain of its role – is often marginalized to an appearance on the annual report or the CEO’s business card.

So, how does a company get to grips with this kind of debilitating and expensive complexity?

The trigger can often be a CEO’s frustration of having to constantly explain what the company actually does. As the CEO of a large international energy company said in exasperation, “I am tired of explaining I am not the CEO of a local utility.”

This is when a branding agency is called in. At this critical point you have to be really sure about what the problem is and what you want to achieve – is there a brand architecture problem or a brand portfolio issue?

Simplicity is at the heart of brand architecture. But all too often it is reduced to nothing more than an elaborate exercise in organized complexity. It becomes a quest for tidiness in which logos, names and endorsements are neatly arranged.  Thus, the unnecessary is merely accommodated and the necessary is stifled.

What a business really needs is not just visual logic (although that is important at the right point), but the most effective and powerful way it can go to market with its brands, products and services.

It all comes down to a question of context and balance. Corporate executives can be oblivious to the potency and needs of a strong corporate brand, and in the vacuum product marketers continue to create brands they can manage and control.

A healthy corporate brand is essential in the first place. It helps to define how the enterprise makes strategic sense as a whole (a key investor message) and also makes an important customer promise of reliability and innovation that underpins the performance of individual business units and product groups. But they must also have the flexibility and tools to compete in their competitive market environments.

This kind symbiotic relationship requires a dynamic, flexible go-to-market framework. The focus must be competitive effectiveness and the measure has to be growth and value. And do make sure your branding consultant understands the difference between B2B and B2C.

Tom Asacker writes and teaches about radically new practices and ideas for marketplace success in times of uncertainty and change. He is the author of critically acclaimed books including his latest, Opportunity Screams, and A Clear Eye for Branding. He is a former General Electric executive, recipient of the George Land Innovator of the Year Award, and a former high-tech business owner. A popular speaker, Tom lectures to corporations, associations, and university audiences around the world, and works confidentially with executives and management teams at a number of top companies. Visit tomasacker.com to learn more.

I’ve heard a lot of speakers over the past year or so implore their audiences to pay no mind to the lessons of Steve Jobs and Apple.

“There’s only one Apple,” they spout. “The company is an outlier. You can’t be like them, so it’s best to ignore them.”

I implore you to ignore those speakers.

Apple is an exemplar in today’s rapidly evolving marketplace; a marketplace deaf to me-too brands and listless, promotional appeals. Apple is vibrant. Apple makes noise. Apple knocks down the doors of conventional thinking.

There is nothing inherently sexy about computers and cell phones. And despite the belief of the digerati, Steve Jobs was not a god.

In fact, there are no innately “high interest” or “low interest” categories. It’s the performance of the brand that makes it emotionally relevant and meaningful . . . or not.

Steve Jobs viscerally understood the marketplace. It was his exhilaration with uncertainty and insistence on creativity and attention to detail, which turned Apple into the world’s most valuable company.

How about sneakers and coffee? C’mon. Thirty years ago they were uninspiring commodities. Body wash and energy drinks didn’t exist. Computers were business machines. Shoe stores? Certainly not subject matter candidates for best-selling business books.

I am so sick of hearing the “we’re not sexy” argument that organizations use to remain comfortable and mediocre. Anything can be made cool and culturally relevant. It’s not what you have to work with; it’s whether or not you have the will to do the work.

I remember watching a gem of a movie about a guy in a box. The entire movie was filmed “inside a box.” One on-screen actor . . . in a freakin’ box . . . for 95 minutes!

Is your product or service–your idea–more constrained than that? I didn’t think so.

What’s choking the life and passion out of your idea–and your people–is your constrained, “low interest” thinking.

Get out of your box! Get into your box! Whatever. But for the sake of your people, your business, and your sanity, get out of your rut and back into a groove.

Take some of that cash you’re sitting on and create something unique, inspiring, and meaningful. Try something new. Stand for something original and special.

Make no mistake: Creativity is the acid-test for strategy in today’s marketplace. Re-imagine your business. Knock down the doors of convention.

And knock hard: the marketplace is deaf.

Everyday, the RiechesBaird design team plugs away designing new logo identities for some of the world’s greatest B2B brands. I wanted to take a minute to make some quick personal assumptions here…

Logos are in fact highly complex things that remind me of nested boxes – having many compartments or messages that deliver incredible value to a brand. In spite of their often misleading simplicity, logos/signatures (symbol/logotype/tagline or endorsement) function as a multi-layered messaging artifact. There’s the symbol or graphic device that evokes a notion of visual ideas. The logotype substantiates the personal name identity and the tagline reinforces ideas that position the brand for distinction and competitive advantage. All of this adds up to a brand construct that is complex, yet must deliver a final concise rendering that makes the brand totally unique and a representative and truthful proposition for who the brand and is and what it conveys to its internal and external audience. All of this wrapped up into one simple logo.

Share your thoughts, and let me know what you think.

What are the attributes clients look for in a marketing partner? How important is brand positioning to a marketing team? In this week’s episode of Branding Business, RiechesBaird CEO Ryan Rieches explores these topics and more with Tim Williams, the founder of Ignition – a consulting firm dedicated to helping marketing agencies create and capture more value for themselves and their clients. Williams is also a sought-after speaker, author and regular contributor to such reputable outlets as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, AdAge and many others.

Tim Williams Shares The 6 Key Things Clients Are Looking For In A Marketing Partner:

• Clients are looking for agencies that are efficient in their work process, project management and technology.
• Clients are looking for agencies that collaborate with other agencies to offer the total solution. If you say you’re an “integrated” agency – be just that.
• Clients are looking for the best talent to work on their account.
• Clients are looking for an agency that will experiment in new channels.
• Clients are looking for more proactive thinking from agency partners, more value and thoughtful suggestions.
• They want agencies truly focused on results, not those that just say they are.

Brand positioning is an art form. It must adequately describe who your company is without diluting your identity. Given the diversity and complexity of almost all companies, this quest for a compelling, concise statement to cover an entire corporate brand can be quite a task.

When we work on brand positioning for clients, we place our energy and focus around the core business strength of that client. We sift through all the products and services a company offers, their business strategy and culture to nail down the one thing that that company does best.

While focusing on your strengths may not seem like rocket science, it’s a lot harder to achieve than you’d think. Think about your business – whether you’re a software company, a law firm or a bank, you most likely have some customers who are not squarely within your wheelhouse.

Ideally, yes – you should turn down business opportunities that do not complement your core competency, but that’s not always easy or even possible when those opportunities bring in extra money. A manufacturer of wood barrels may agree to manufacture wood tables for one large customer, but if those tables are not that company’s strength, they probably won’t be very good, or at best, simply won’t collect a high margin. In a worst-case scenario, those off-brand products and services can actually detract from the strength of your reputation.

When going through a brand positioning exercise, we recommend that companies focus on their differentiating products, services or traits that stand out and set them apart from their competitors. Does a brand positioning always cover everything a company does? No. Your brand positioning should not be a catalog or list of strengths and sub-strengths. A brand positioning is designed to focus perceptions on the thing your company is best at and does separates you from the competition – not to paint you as a jack of all trades.

In the end, your company may continue to manufacture or provide services outside their wheelhouse (those wood tables), but these offerings don’t need to find a home in their brand positioning statement. Because it’s better to be known as a phenomenal wood barrel manufacturer than an OK wood product provider.

Do you have trouble focusing your business?
How do you identify what does and does not belong as part of your brand?

Related Radio Show – Brand Success is About Focus

Virtually anyone who does naming for a living or has had to avail themselves to naming professionals, knows that the trademark landscape has transformed utterly in the last 25 years or so. What was once a vast garden is now a minefield or a mere ‘lot’ strewn with sharp detritus. Where once we romped, now we tip toe.

Tony Spaeth wrote an article on his website titled, “Are We Running Out of Names?” The answer to which was, “Yes, we are.” He predicted that we’d see—as we have—the increasing prevalence of contrived names that go variously by ‘synthetic,’ ‘evocative,’ ‘fanciful,’ and ‘neology’. Names like Altria, Accenture, Viagra and the like. He predicted—rightly—longer master lists, steeper hills to climb to reach a solution. ‘Sisyphus’ would be an apt moniker for a naming boutique.

Spaeth might have even predicted a return to the well-trod-but-still-safe path of eponymous names: companies named for their founders. He went on to note that federal anti-dilution statues (which came along in the mid 1990′s) would steepen the challenges by creating another hurdle, in addition to confusion. And they did, to a limited degree, because brands protected by dilution law had to be ‘famous’ (a concept akin to ‘pornography’: easy to point to, hard to define). Since famous brands (Canon, Coke, Nikon, Nike) are few and far between, it was fairly easy to avoid the shoals…unless or until the definition of ‘fame’ expanded ‘downward’. I don’t think it has, but stay tuned.

The future looked bleak. We’d be squeezed into manufacturing increasingly gratuitous, arbitrary, highly awkward names to appease the trademark Gods and have something ‘distinctive’. It seemed like the absurd and unpronounceable would be the inflated price of security. And, indeed, the trends and the experiences of many seemed to bear out this bleakness. Naming became more about expectation management and outwitting the trademark registries than creativity.

But hold on. We (or I) may be seeing a shift, perhaps not a return to Eden, but a change in the tilt of the playing field that may favor naming that is more sane and safe (safer) once again.

One of the questions I’ve put to TM and IP attorneys over the last 5-10 years is this:
If the TM registers are populated by a lot of similar (and even identical) marks both within and without a given IC category, what interpretation can we securely place on that? Is it a picture of a ‘non-litigious environment’ in which the holders of similar/identical marks, live in peaceful co-existence, whether from peaceful dispositions or from fear of mutual reprisal? Would they rather forego exclusivity and uniqueness to avoid the adoption of names that mean nothing and nobody can spell or pronounce?

I’ve gotten both positive and negative answers to my question, in roughly equal measure (and I don’t for a moment fool myself that this is anything other than anecdotal). Personally, I’ve tended toward the negative answer. Why? Because the TM registries don’t publicly post ongoing litigious activity. It’s not one of the cells or ‘data tags’ associated with marks as displayed in the public databases. The registries can actually ‘screen’ such activity. That said, recent events (at least that I’ve been a direct witness to) may favor the more positive spin…

A New Day?
Recently, I’ve noticed companies going after marks—over our recommendation not to—that transparently derive from very commonly used real words and which resemble the marks held by other businesses—both in and out of their IC class. That’s not unusual—attraction to those sorts of names, even under, those kinds of conditions. What IS unusual is seeing their legal counsels ‘bless’ those names. Assuming this could be representative of a trend, what could it mean? As a matter of speculation, I’d say it means that the positive interpretation of ‘trademark traffic’ actually may be the right one: mark holders may be relaxing on the demands of exclusive ownership and ‘sharing the wealth’. There is perhaps, an emerging ethos of drawing equitably from a common stock of more ordinary verbal assets, even at the expense of exclusivity and distinction.

Is there more? Yes: we’re seeing some interesting trends (or, to be more accurate—suggestions of trends), that ‘break the rules’ (best practices) of naming, as we know, promote, and follow them:

1) Adopting names that overtly sound like words or ideas with pejorative meaning: Insperity (disparity); Experis (expires); and Xylem (asylum)
2) Adopting names that sound like other names: Exelis (like Excel!…or even Experis!)
3) Adopting names that offend against modern gender sensitivity, e.g, Manpower or are veritable slurs: Banana Republic—once a jingoistic title for ‘Third World” countries, now an unredoubtable high-end fashion brand

So, don’t despair: Naming may be returning to more forgiving times, as when one of the largest corporations in the world—and more importantly, an insurance company—could adopt the name of a volcano—a massive, dormant object, that could erupt at any, unforeseeable moment, wreaking havoc, destruction, and death—Aetna—without anyone batting an eyelash over the choice. Today, that would be a little like creating a name for a new hamburger franchise, based closely on the word ‘Ecoli’.

Good news: it may be spring time again for namers and a searing summer for designers and clients, who will now shoulder the Lion’s share of effort to create the distinction that is the Holy Grail of branding practice.

Brands that customers can relate to have a higher likelihood of success. In today’s saturated marketplace, it becomes harder and harder for brands to compete when many others have a similar product or service offering. To rise above the noise, it’s important to connect with customers. Everyone has unique needs and your customers want to know that you truly understand who they are and can provide them with the proper products or service. Not everyone is looking for the best value and value alone can only get you so far. Creating a personal connection with customers and establishing trust is important to maintain longevity.

Looking at Amazon, the brand has grown from being an online retailer that only sold books, to a mega brand that sells millions of diverse products and services. According to Entrepreneur magazine’s April issue, Amazon has taken the #1 spot on the list of the “Ten Most Trusted U.S. Brands.”  The brand has been able to achieve this not only through low prices, variety and product accessibility, but also through personalized service such as product recommendations based on past purchases, complimentary products, user reviews, user profiles and wish lists. Customers are loyal because Amazon engages in a dialogue with them and this forges a personal connection.

This type of personalized purchasing model is beneficial for both parties.  Amazon is able to leverage online customer profile and review information to help design new product formulas, processes and resources that help the company grow.

While not every business has a well-developed online presence where customers have the opportunity to offer their feedback, there are other ways to gather customer insights and use this to create dialogue.  The first step in developing targeted messaging is customer research. Research is the foundation of any marketing strategy and will help identify key insights about your brand, category and customers. Customer research in the form of customer interviews, groups, surveys and workshops gather in-depth data to generate hypotheses.

Ultimately, you would want to speak to your current customers, lapsed customers and prospective customers to get a diverse perspective. Once you decide on the methodology, you will need to carefully select topics for discussion. Here are some important questions to ask your audience:

• What are their needs?
• What motivates your current customers to make purchases and how often?
• If lapsed or prospective customers, why did they switch or never use your product?
• How and when does your target market use your products and your competitor’s products?
• What was your customer’s and prospective customer’s initial impression of your brand?
• What are your brand equities? Specifically, what does your audience remember and value about the brand?
• What are the brand’s strengths and weaknesses?
• Does your brand fit your customer’s future needs? If not, what would make your product or service more appealing?

Starting this dialogue with your customers is important. While some insights may be expected and some may be unexpected, it’s how the information is analyzed that will provide your brand with insights around innovations and future direction.

Whether you’re building a new brand or considering rebranding, it’s always a smart idea to have a clear understanding of the intended outcomes and benefits to ensure success. Too often brand initiatives are delegated to the marketing team without the involvement and clear expectations of leadership, employees and key stakeholders. Other times, the very idea of branding is reduced to a new logo or ad campaign with the expectation of delivering some economic value and that’s what gets many marketers in serious trouble.

True brand vision, strategy and best practices embrace a company’s business objectives and specific desired outcomes. This process also takes in account the role and involvement of the entire organization and its ecosystem, so it’s critical that all parties understand why they are making the investment, what it means to them and most importantly, how it’s going to help move the business forward.

Almost without exception, when we engage in a business branding assignment the client will ask, “How can we prove that our new branding is working and how can we measure success?” These are great questions and the answers can be found, measured and explained, but unfortunately there is no silver bullet. Our methodology centers around measuring the change, effect and brand power (or affinity) across multiple constitutes with a defined quantitative methodology. But first, it starts with an agreed upon set of outcomes. At RiechesBaird, we like to measure the effectiveness or impact of a brand in the following ways:

1. The Impact on Employees: Understanding/Inspiration/Satisfaction/Referral to peers
2. Customer Loyalty: Satisfaction ratings/intent to purchase (index rating)/referral source
3. Competitive Differentiation: Yearly competitive Brand Power rating including awareness/consideration/preference/buying intent
4. Infrastructure Contribution: Reduction of budget waste due to meaningless marketing activities (such as unnecessary brand investments or misaligned corporate architecture/support)
5. Stakeholder Confidence or Economic Value: Stock valuation and brand contribution/valuation model (See BusinessWeek Top 100 Brands)

Regardless of the size of your company or brand, having a well thought out plan and approach can only help guide and support your investment opportunities. In addition, it will help closely monitor the impact of your brand across all audiences. Imagine a brand dashboard you monitor on a quarterly basis to assist with investment strategies. Imagine at the end of the year providing your organization with a detailed summary of how your brand is performing and how you will optimize next year’s investment based on the analytics. Imagine aligning your personal performance goals with the plan and outcomes.

So if you want to ensure your brand efforts or rebranding initiatives will be successful, use these best practices and advances in technology to prove your success and drive decision making. We hope this information is helpful and look forward to your feedback, experience and conversations.

Aaker’s Tips on How Companies Can Create Disruptive, Substantial or Transformational Innovation:

• Have a strategic vision of what is needed in the marketplace and what is possible for your company to deliver this need.
• Make sure there are resources allocated to support large innovation.
• The support of leadership is a must.
• Engage your customers to truly understand what they want, what that “must have” is that they are looking for.

Related posts by David Aaker:
Why Companies Under-Invest in “Big” Innovations
Steve Jobs: The Ultimate Brand Relevance Champion

RiechesBaird has been named one of the nation’s top BtoB branding agencies by BtoB Magazine for the 11th consecutive year.

BtoB Magazine’s annual listing of the top agencies in the United States features a select group of leading national BtoB agencies, based on innovative online marketing campaigns, percentage of business that is BtoB, new client wins, effective use of new technologies, overall revenue growth and other criteria.

“Being recognized as one of the nation’s top corporate branding agencies by BtoB Magazine for the 11th consecutive year is a testimony to our entire RiechesBaird team’s determination and dedication to create the world’s most successful BtoB brands year after year,” said Ryan Rieches, co-founder and CEO of RiechesBaird.  “Our corporate branding methodology embraces business strategy to enhance business performance, and to have that recognized yet again by BtoB Magazine is gratifying.”

“To continually earn this position as one of the top BtoB agencies in the country demonstrates our unyielding commitment to aligning brand strategy with business strategy, so our clients can compete better and grow market share,” said Ray Baird, co-founder and president of RiechesBaird.  “Our vision is to create the world’s most successful brands, and our mission is to find greatness and promote it fearlessly.”

RiechesBaird specializes in building the value of BtoB brands and has worked with such brands as American Airlines Cargo, Toyota, Sharp and Linksys, a division of Cisco.

In honoring RiechesBaird, BtoB Magazine noted that over the past year RiechesBaird added new clients including Huawei Technologies USA, Hitachi Consulting and ABM Industries, while continuing to work with existing key clients including American Airlines Cargo and Epicore Software. The magazine highlighted a trio of online campaigns created and implemented by RiechesBaird, including “Did You Know?” for American Airlines Cargo, “Promise of the Future” for Huawei Technologies USA, and “Accelerating Nonprofit Success” for OneOC.  The magazine also recognized that RiechesBaird launched BrandingBusiness.com last year, an industry thought-leadership portal dedicated to brand strategy, brand development and brand engagement.

“’Branding Business’ is not merely a tag line or ‘shorthand’ for our BtoB expertise,” added Rieches.  “BrandingBusiness.com is a natural extension of our work and a valuable place for businesses to discover real-world insights that help drive business forward and improve market share.”

Read full press release.

In his landmark book, A Random Walk Down Wall Street, Princeton professor Burton G. Malkiel remembers the “tronics boom” of the time when companies thought investors would be attracted to any name reminiscent of electronics and the space age.

Monsell, a New Jersey-based maker of mechanical equipment, changed its name to K-Tron International in 1964 hoping to escape the gravitational pull of its founder’s name. Others followed. Malkiel writes:

“There were a host of ‘trons’ such as Astron, Dutron, Vulcatron, and Transitron, and a number of ‘onics’ such as Circuitronics, Supronics, Videotronics, and several Electrosonics companies.. Leaving nothing to chance, one group put together the winning combination of Powertron Ultrasonics.”

Various technologies and company naming trends come and go. In a desperate attempt to associate themselves with a new, sexy technology, companies begin to sound alike and eventually become indistinguishable from each other. Then a newer, sexier technology springs up, an older technology is displaced and with it go the companies that staked their future on that technology.

It’s thus possible to undertake an archaeological dig through layers of technology civilizations and corporate naming trends and unearth the fossilized remains of companies that once strode the earth like dinosaurs, only to die like them.

The advent of wireless technology gave rise to thousands of soundalike companies with either ‘com’, ‘tel’ or ‘cel’ in their names. It was calculated at one point that there were more than 3,000 tel-somethings, 7,300 com-somethings and an astonishing 10,000 cels, cells and cellulars floating around.

Today, we are over our infatuation with wireless and cellular and people are more than happy to buy mobile services from Verizon, Sprint and Cricket. Oh yes, there’s poor old AT&T out there, still trying to get past its old technology glory days when it was American Telephone & Telegraph.

Now we have the solar companies, all of them desperate to get ‘sol’ or ‘solar’ in their names. Hence, we have Solexa, Solexant, Soliant, Solaris, Solarmer, Solarwatt, etc, etc.

And two of the most recent and biggest trends in computing – open-source software and cloud computing – have been accompanied by some of the most generic naming conventions ever.

For open source, as Matt Asay points out in CNET News, it has become a requirement to include “source” in the company name – XenSource, MuleSource, SpringSource, SourceSense, Sourcefire, etc.

Already, there’s a telling shift in the market. As open source goes mainstream, companies don’t seem to be appending source to their names as much anymore. Instead, it’s cloud-computing companies that are eager to tack a “cloud” badge to their name – Cloudant, Cloudkick, Cloudshore, Cloudswitch, CloudSource. This too shall pass very quickly.

Technologies soon become commodities. Yesterday’s breakthrough becomes today’s industry standard. Sub-categories are created and they are dominated by companies such as Apple, Amazon, Verizon, Cisco and Oracle. You know – brands.

Scott Cook, the founder of Intuit, once said: “People don’t buy technology. They don’t say ‘fill ‘er up, I’ll take 10 pounds of technology’. They buy what technology can do for them.” In other words – focus on the value you deliver, not the technology you use to deliver it.

Technology companies that want a chance of survival after the initial flurry of investor interest would do well to bear Scott Cook’s words in mind when naming their next company.

One of the trends we are seeing across all industries is the realization by corporations to align and engage their most important asset – their people. While this focus should always be a priority, the resurgence of the ‘employees first’ discipline has more recently been seen. At RiechesBaird, we hold the belief that our employees are our biggest asset and therefore during corporate brand strategy engagements, we like to poll our client’s employees to understand the current level of internal brand alignment. In addition to our own findings,  we have collaborated with other research partners to share findings – which have been very consistent.

During the recent recession, as budgets were cut and jobs eliminated or saved, employee expectations significantly declined from the go-go years. Now that the economy is turning around, we are seeing an increased desire from employees focused on the following in order by priority:

Clarity on where the company is going
Business uncertainty has been the common theme over the last few years. Employees realize that businesses still face challenging times, but they want leadership to provide a plan for the future. When we survey employees, the number one request is clarity on the future direction of the company. Employees want to know the corporate vision of the company they work for and how they fit into it. If they are inspired by the company’s purpose and vision, they can truly become a powerful force in actually helping the company achieve it. I believe employees are very motivated by the desire  to contribute and make a difference. With this feeling of accomplishment also comes the feeling of being valued, appreciated and hopefully rewarded. Going through the motions of simply having a job is not fulfilling and is usually a short-term relationship. Employees expect leadership to set a clear course for future success – now more than ever. And they deserve it. The companies that understand this and act accordingly will reap the rewards.

Communication, communication, communication
Good times or bad – employees desire ongoing internal communication. The most common response we get from leadership on this topic is – “I thought we were doing a pretty good job in this area.” The reality is you simply cannot over communicate. What we most often see is a start-stop approach. Leadership usually has the best intentions in mind, but business gets in the way. Understood, but hardly an excuse considering the importance of an informed and aligned team. Without regular communication, employees guess and rumors spread. Another trend we are seeing is a desire for more transparency. I believe employees can handle the truth and they will respect leadership who is upfront and shares the truth. With information comes knowledge and knowledge can empower desired outcomes. If employees understand their role in where the company is going, the path to get there is much clearer.

Live the established values
Internal culture is an incredibly powerful or equally harmful component in realizing a company’s potential. Most companies establish corporate values but very few actually live them day to day. The best solution is when the values are clearly understood and truly influence how people make decisions and behave on a daily basis. It is important to remember that values do not drive the business; they drive the people within the business. These values must be demonstrated by leadership to have true meaning, otherwise they are just an empty promise. The other challenge is when certain employees do not live the established values, but unfortunately are not reprimanded or asked to leave the company. This lack of action by management can be incredibly de-motivating to the rest of the team. As Peter Drucker said, “culture eats strategy for lunch.” Culture begins with a commitment to determining the appropriate values and most importantly, living them. A quick way to demonstrate the importance of these values is to follow Ken Blanchard’s advise – “catch people doing something right and reward them – other people will notice as well.”

In summary: There is rarely a silver bullet for a company to realize success, but if leadership recognizes the importance and power of an aligned, internal culture, motivated by a compelling vision, success is certainly within reach.

While realizing great brand ideas and design can be a challenge, it’s almost always achievable when there is passion and teamwork. My team here at RiechesBaird recently completed a new brand strategy, brand identity program and brand launch for ABM. ABM is a 100+ year-old company with 100,000 employees in 15 countries that generates $4 billion annually.

Our internal team spent a compressed 10 ½ months in constant collaboration with our client. Together, we were one unified team. At the very get-go and with precision-like clarity, we all defined our specific roles and confirmed our overall goals and objectives in order to successfully launch the new brand. Milestones quickly filled the calendar as we marched forward. Weekly meetings and constant communication kept us on track. Each of the members of our encompassing team displayed respect for the opinions of others. We always thought as a team and never within a vacuum – even when we each at times were passionate about our own opinions (which is vital in terms of sustaining high-levels of creativity). This past February, the “new” ABM was launched. The result – a beautiful new identity program that we – as a team – could not be more proud of. There is a great sense of pride in what we have helped ABM achieve and we will work with ABM to protect this new brand identity day in and day out – that’s our job.

At the end of the day, our goal is to help our client’s brands succeed. Brett Knox, Senior Vice President of ABM, gave our team a fantastic compliment. He told us… “Well team, you all did a fantastic job. Thank you for all your hard work and focus on perfection! Overall, it was like Pujols in the World Series – nothing but Home Runs! We were very blessed indeed on this one, absolutely stellar. Outstanding job team. Mission accomplished!”

These kinds of compliments are humbling and I am always grateful for the trust that our clients place in us each and every day. Here are a few things that can help teams achieve successful outcomes:

1. Understand each role within the overall team (internal and client team combined). Understand what the expertise and contribution of each person is. Identify any holes
2. Never lose focus on the finish line. It’s a long-distance event, so pace your mind and your heart.
3. Bring your passion to work every day. Because this is the heartbeat that keeps things moving and provides inspiration at every point.
4. Always do what’s in the best interest of the brand.

So, what tips can you share to help teams create and achieve success? Please share.

If you’ve been watching the news recently, you may have noticed the popularity of “Kony 2012” rise astronomically and subsequently be crushed in the span of two weeks.  Sometimes, for reasons beyond a company’s control, a PR crisis can strike and take an untold toll on a successful brand. Today, in the age of social media and the 24-hour news networks, you must be ready to act quickly. This recent Internet sensation has become a case study in the importance of being ever ready to come to your brand’s defense.

At this point, you have most likely heard of the Internet sensation, “Kony 2012.” The 30-minute film intended to educate the public about the war criminal who has led human rights atrocities in Uganda, went viral in early March collecting 100 million views in a little over a week . Since then, the video and its creators, the non-profit, Invisible Children, has drawn praise, but mostly loud criticism from detractors who claim the organization’s financials were questionable, their story-telling overly simplistic or their cause misguided.

From a business perspective, this story has some interesting lessons. The most apparent lesson is the incredible power of a social media strategy to propel an idea to the international spotlight with almost unfathomable speed. (The creators’ inclusion of “2012″ in the title was no fluke – a subtle allusion to the U.S. presidential election was intended to draw interest and increase SEO rankings.)

A more telling lesson comes from the barrage of criticism the group received and the way Invisible Children responded to it.

As the video’s popularity grew, so did the negative response from followers and the media. In addition to the criticism of the video, the group had to deal with a very public mental breakdown of one of their founders. Despite these challenges, the CEO and founders made themselves visible to the media, defending their reputation and cause on an almost daily basis and encouraging individuals to explore the issues. They approached their issues with a policy of complete transparency, responding to each negative message with a full explanation on their website. Luckily, the brand is young and plays to what has proven to be a changeable population, so it may be able to repair itself quickly. But the lesson here is that in this new reality, any successful brand can fall prey to the unpredictability of social media and a quick and direct strategy has become imperative to survival.

Invisible Children’s PR crisis demonstrates that the amplification of the Internet can be swift, powerful and damaging. These whirlwind attacks on even the most innocuous brands may become more common as masses continue to mobilize online.

So, what can you do to protect your brand from a crisis and ensure that minimal damage is done? Here are the top 4 considerations in preparing a crisis management plan for your brand:

1. First and foremost, make sure you have a strategy. How would your company protect your brand – its most important intangible asset – if a crisis were to hit? You want to make sure your company is proactive rather than reactive – a panicked, reactive response most likely does not represent the strengths of your brand.
2. Who will your spokesperson be? Is there an individual in your company that embodies the personality and values of your brand? This person will become the face of your brand’s reputation, so choose wisely. Here’s a hint: the CEO may not always be the best choice. (Think Tony Hayward during BP’s Gulf Oil Spill.)
3. How will you communicate your response internally? Never, ever forget the importance of frequent and transparent communication with your employees, especially in the face of a crisis. You want your employees to be ready and able to answer the questions they may face from friends and family. If your employees don’t know what’s going on, they will assume the worst and fuel rumors rather than protect your reputation.
4. Monitor the day-to-day conversations about your brand. The lesson from “Kony 2012” is that social media and the Internet are the ultimate amplifiers – if you are unaware of what people are saying about your brand online, you may not even know you have a problem until it’s too late.

What steps have you taken to protect your brand in the event of a crisis?

While a new batter shouldn’t be judged on his first at-bat, nor a storied franchise immediately second-guessed by fans after a change in leadership, in my opinion, the new chairman of Apple – Tim Cook – successor to the immortal Steve Jobs, whiffed at three pitches in his first time up to the plate, in his recent matriculation speech.

Pacing, gesticulating, articulating and to a point, grooming in a similar fashion to channel his predecessor, Tim Cook committed three no-no’s that probably caused Steve Jobs to turn over in his grave.

1. Cook addressed the assembled audience (and the much greater virtual audience) as if they were a bunch of investors, rather than the global parish of ardent devotees that they are.
2. Cook made no mention of Jobs who was not only in a dull technical sense his recently departed predecessor and colleague, but arguably a bona fide visionary of the 20th and 21st centuries.
3. Cook presided over the lamest, dull-as-dishwater naming of the company’s most recent, brilliant, and wildly successful innovation – the iPad – as (drum roll), the ‘new iPad.’

How did Apple fall so far from the tree so fast? Does Steve Jobs’ hand-picked successor prefigure the downfall of a giant? Those without its one, true captain at the helm, Apple will soon falter? Or am I just one of the Apple faithful, predicting a more modest apocalypse in 2012? How could – again, arguably – the most famous, ubiquitous, remarked upon – even hallowed – brand in the world, be so clumsily bobbled in its first, crucial public moments PJ (post-Jobs)? I don’t know, but these three mishaps were all brand occasions so to speak, and they did not seem to me to bode well for Apple.

In fairness to Tim Cook, Steve Jobs is a tough act to follow (and that is dramatically understating the case). That said, if Cook could do so much, so successfully to ape parts of Jobs act (wardrobe, phrasing, pacing), why couldn’t he have observed the brand fundamentals? A mention of Jobs, if nothing else, would’ve been ‘proper etiquette’ for the occasion. But, beyond that—and as morbid as it may sound—Jobs, though gone, persists as part and parcel of the brand he created. His passing was a global event and while it worried many like myself, it threw massive publicity attention on Apple.

You could also argue, in fairness to Cook, that ‘the new iPad’ as a ‘name’ isn’t much worse than iPad 2. Press reports claimed that ‘iPad HD’ was kicked around. That too, would’ve been lackluster and might’ve confused some (does HD stand for Hard Drive and say something about performance or High Definition and say something about resolution?). But ‘the new iPad’ has problems of its own, which are so obvious I’m not going to mention them. Certainly, a brand/brand name with the equity of ‘iPad’ is probably thought better off without a sexy appendage that would draw attention and distract. Still, this feels like an opportunity squandered, even if the alternative might not be much sexier (and with good reason).

Then there was all the talk around how ‘any company would be happy to have just one of these products (iPod, iPhone, iPad), but Apple has all three and recently announced the download of the gazillionith app. Suddenly, the spotlight was turned back inwardly and we got autobiographical branding – me, me, me; us, us, us; we, we, we. This is a new/old script and not one that draws its inspiration or authority from Steve Jobs.

It may be time for Apple to take a dose of their own medicine and Think different. Think new… and think again.

To stay competitive and keep ahead of the game, companies need to embrace change.

Advancements in technology and shifting customer desires are challenging how companies manage their brands. A product or service that was ideal yesterday may not be relevant today and even obsolete tomorrow. So, how can your brand innovate to stay relevant and competitive?

First, let’s be clear about what innovation is.

According to economists, innovation can take two forms in business: product innovation and process innovation. Product innovation is the introduction of something new – take the introduction of the Apple iPod and Pepsico PET bottle as examples. Process innovation is a new way of making or delivering goods or services. ZocDoc is a good example of process innovation – it’s a free online service that allows patients to book doctor appointments online.

In the world of brand strategy, we need to look at innovation in much broader sense. Innovation can come in many shapes and sizes i.e., a new purchasing model (Groupon); to a new strategic partnership (Nike and Apple to form Nike+); to a new service (HBO Go) or to new category rules (Square).

Let’s take a look at Square. On Fast Company’s annual list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies, Square was launched by the founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, and can be best described as a disruptive force set to transform the exchange of money for goods and services.

Structured as a small phone plug-in, Square allows small businesses and individuals to process credit cards anytime and anywhere. According to Fast Company, Square allows people with an easy, cost effective way to take payments for products or services, promoting business growth and added jobs.

Now you may wonder, how does this type of thinking apply to my company and what can I learn from this example?

Your business may be well established, growth is consistent and your current customers seem to be happy, so where’s the need?  Or perhaps you feel your company is too large and it would be difficult to embrace change. And then there are the skeptics who are reluctant to even consider change. Establishing a culture of innovation is not always easy.

This is when it’s advantageous to have an expert third party come in, develop strategic exercises that inform discussion and provide unbiased jurisdiction over the participants. The output from one session may shed light on some important ideas that have the power to transform a business and pave a path for future success.

At RiechesBaird, we host collaborative workshops with key executives that promote interaction and create an environment in which team members from different disciplines work together to generate new ideas.

One step in the right direction can create a huge difference over time. Take a moment and ask yourself, “Does my business need to embrace a culture of innovation to help stay ahead of the competition?” What you learn may surprise you.

When it comes to branding, we need to look beyond design, logos and naming. We need to look at ways of continuously sensing people’s desires and rapidly delivering compelling value to satisfy those desires. In this week’s episode of Branding Business, RiechesBaird Principal Alan Brew sits down with well-known author and brand strategist, Tom Asacker, who narrows it down for us. While a complicated discipline of sociology, psychology and behavioral economics, branding is really about how people make choices. The idea of creating something desirable – creating value – so people invest in your brand is what branding is all about. A brand in essence is an expectation of value, an experience customers are looking for.

Tom Asacker Shares How Companies Should Look At Branding

• What is the value we bring to the marketplace?
• What can our company do to strengthen that value?
• Value is co-created by the company itself and consumers.
• Always look at ways to innovate and bring more value.

RiechesBaird’s “Branding Business” team is looking for TWO highly-experienced leaders to join its crusade to “Inspire Greatness” and “Build the World’s greatest B2B brands.” If you have 10 or more years of creating successful brand strategies, keep reading…. you may be interested in this value proposition.

Experienced B2B Brand Strategist:

RiechesBaird is searching for a brand strategist that eats, breaths and loses sleep over brand positioning. This individual will understand the value of research and be able to conduct meaningful brand analysis to uncover business insights and competitive distinction that leads to undeniable TRUTHS and BIG BRAND IDEAS. This sought-after individual appreciates and understands complex brand architecture and can confidently guide C-level executives through change and deliver B2B brand strategies other companies would envy. To be clear, advertising and/or PR experience – while brand related – is not going to cut it. Applicants must have worked at a pure brand strategy firm and have considerable experience to bring to the team and be able to fit in with our culture. It’s all about developing brand strategy at the highest level, working with colleagues that expect brilliant thinking and passionate delivery. If this sounds like YOU and you’re ready to make a difference, contact us today.

Thought Leading Interactive Strategist:

At RiechesBaird, our clients expect and demand contemporary thinking on how to continually command brand loyalty and outsmart the competition. Obviously, interactive strategy for B2B brands is a critical component of our offering and one that is constantly changing. What was once delivered, is now being found. And that’s what we’re trying to find. A like-minded interactive strategist (BIG THINKER) to join our team of B2B brand thought leaders. We are looking for an interactive strategist that can lead clients and create best-in-class strategies with exceptional, executable roadmaps. The Interactive Strategist will guide and deliver our internal teams and partners across the digital spectrum. Applicants must have at least five years of experience working in a strategic, interactive realm and bring innovative B2B thought-leadership case studies to prove it. Is this YOU? If so, make a move.

Applicants interested in applying to either position must send their resume and cover letter to jobs@RiechesBaird.com.

Today’s association model, created more than 100 years ago, is dying.

The days of homogenous markets are long gone. Industry consolidation and globalization have rendered many trade association’s traditional member markets virtually unserviceable. Increased competition and higher member expectations have combined with market changes to create an environment that is hostile to the broad-based association trying to serve a complex and diverse member market.

These macro and irreversible trends have resulted in an unprecedented quandary for most associations: Do we continue attempting to serve an increasingly diverse member market? Or do we refocus to serve a member market that has changed significantly from the one that the association was designed for?

In the past, the typical association’s approach was to focus on members’ considerable common interests and needs. They have a predisposition to the member market as it has been. “We serve CPAs.” “Automobile dealers are our members.” “We serve physicians.” “Manufacturers are our members.” And so on. They act as if nothing has changed, when the reality is that fundamental and irreversible changes have taken place in their member markets.

Now common interests and needs are scarce. As a matter of fact, the interests of one member are sometimes diametrically opposed to those of another member.

What is an association to do?

When you boil it all down, there are only three options:
* Continue to struggle with divergent interests and needs OR
* Organize and structure to meet diverse needs OR
* Focus solely on the needs of a definable segment

The first option is not defensible. For an association’s governance and management to acknowledge the situation and its consequences, but do nothing, would represent a major failure in their obligations. This would be like a newspaper seeing the impact of digital information alternatives and saying they’re not going to do anything differently.

The second option has been tried but with marginal success in most cases. Ask any association with sections, special interest groups or divisions, “How are they working?” and the answer will be “It varies. A few work well, some do OK, and others do poorly.”

The last option, focusing on the needs of a definable segment, is the radical solution to relevance.

Does focusing solely on the needs of a definable segment mean yours will be a smaller association? It might. If it looks that way, ask yourself: “Would our members want to belong to a large association or an association that helps them perform and succeed?”

For example, the American Medical Association (AMA) and its constituent state and local societies have been unable to serve a population of doctors who are increasingly diverse in practices and interests. Hand surgeons don’t need the same information as family practitioners. Hospital-based physicians require different advocacy than rural, solo practitioners. And plastic surgeons have little, if anything, in common with pediatricians.

While the American Medical Association’s membership and market share have plummeted, the number of specialty and subspecialty medical societies has grown. The American Board of Medical Specialties certifies physicians in more than 145 specialties and subspecialties. With an average estimated membership of 5,300 in a specialty organization, more than 768,500 physicians could be members of these groups compared to the AMA’s membership, which estimated only represents 135,300 ‘real, practicing physicians’.

The growth of associations over the last 50 years shows almost all of them with a narrower focus than their predecessors, indicating that those associations with a precisely defined member market are in demand and succeeding. Their mission is clearer with a well-defined market. Their value proposition is stronger because their programs and services are more focused. Their organizations are more efficient because their resources are more concentrated. Their communications improve with more targeted messaging. Their competitiveness is enhanced with efforts dedicated to a more distinct market.

The key to success is brand relevance: focus energy and resources on meeting well-defined member needs and problems rather than trying to be all things to all people in hopes of maximizing membership and dues income.

Early in my career, I got some great advice from a client’s CEO. He had started, built and successfully sold a number of companies and I asked him to share his secret to success. His answer was, “never start a company unless you have an unfair competitive advantage”. Being in marketing, I related to the base line approach of developing a unique selling proposition, but the concept of being “unfair” caught me off guard. He went on to explain that most of his companies were technology based and he would not venture into a business unless the new technology was capable of affording him a significant head start whereby the competition would be playing catch up for years. The benefit of being the innovator and only provider gave him that “unfair advantage” but that alone wasn’t enough to guarantee success. That is where branding comes in. You must be known for a single value proposition and just as importantly, your new promise must be accepted as credible and reliable. Often, early innovation is viewed as risky, which requires a more comprehensive story to be told to ensure acceptance. For example, when we build brands at RiechesBaird, we make sure that the new brand promise can live up to being believable, defendable and relevant – if it falls short on any one of the three, it is doomed for failure.

When I share this story with others I often get the response – “But my company doesn’t have the benefit of proprietary technology or IP”. The reality is that it doesn’t have to. You can generate a similar advantage by establishing the following:

Focus – “Commit to being known for one thing.”

Avoid trying to promote and sell everything possible that your company, product or service can offer. Singular focus establishes clear value in the mind of the prospect, which can be much more easily remembered and shared with others.

Communicate – “Consistency and continuity lead to clarity.”

From the top down and throughout the organization, develop common language that becomes so engrained that the story comes out naturally. Unfortunately, people inside an organization tend to get tired of telling the same story far before their prospective audience is able to grasp it.

Deliver – “Keep your promise.”

A clear brand clearly defines an organization’s “promise of distinction.” That promise must be understood throughout the company so everyone knows their role in delivering that promise. There are literally hundreds of brand touch points that a customer can come in contact with throughout the buying process. If any of these touch points fail to deliver upon your unique promise, trust is immediately compromised and loyalty begins to fade. And we all know the consequences of a disgruntled customer telling their friends –especially in today’s social media landscape.

In certain networking circles, I have become known as the guy who asks people to introduce their company through the lens of sharing their unfair competitive advantage. It’s not easy to do, but I invite you to take the time to define or redefine yours.

Last time, we talked a little about the importance of engaging employees in your brand promise, and the importance of frequent communication. Now that we all agree, let’s talk about the ways companies can pull this off.

Employee communications can serve multiple purposes. It can inform, align, and ultimately build organizational pride; this is not just a brand exercise we are talking about.  At the same time, your business and brand strategy should inform how you execute those communications.

Let’s take a look at some examples.

Zappos
We are all probably pretty familiar with this loved brand. The CEO, Tony Hsieh, has been interviewed dozens of times to address the brand culture he – or really, the entire team at Zappos – has built. The culture of this company has really shaped the brand and it is largely due to the focus on employees and their dedication and commitment to the customer. Zappos has an in-house blogging team that regularly publishes what is happening internally in the company, making it a fun place for employees to access information and connect to the brand in a more personal and casual way. The Zappos family core values are listed everywhere on the site and the company freely shares these values and learning opportunities with their customers directly. It comes down to the fact that at Zappos, employees don’t see the difference between internal and external communications – they believe it’s one in the same. Learn more about the Zappos employee culture.

While this is a great example of a brand that puts a lot of focus into their employee communication efforts, depending on your internal culture or current business position, this may not fit your company’s purpose, budget or personality. Here is another example of an employee communication strategy – this time much simpler, but still effective.

This above email was sent from a CEO to all employees after we presented the results of our employee brand alignment battery. It’s short and to the point, and it serves its purpose: acknowledging employees for something that they did and assuring them that they were heard. And if executed correctly, small, frequent bytes of information can be just as effective as an elaborate corporate newsletter or dedicated website.

The bottom line here is that each company is using something that works for them – and regular communication like either of these examples will help internalize your brand promise on an organization-wide scale.

How do you keep your employees informed? It may be time to re-evaluate your internal communications strategy.

The daughter of positioning pioneer, Al Ries, Laura Ries is President of Ries & Ries, a best-selling author and a sought after branding analyst for many prominent media outlets. Following the passion for branding held by her father, Laura Ries has helped many large corporations build their brand by narrowing their focus and owning a word in the customers mind. In this week’s episode of Branding Business, Ryan Rieches sits down with Laura Ries to explore the content of her latest book, Visual Hammer. Ries explains that in a world saturated with messages, it is often difficult getting the attention of your audience with words alone and a Visual Hammer is what ultimately gets remembered.

Laura Ries Shares Insights on Creating a Brand that gets Results

• Tips for Corporate Executives considering rebranding
• Examples of owning one word in the prospects mind
• Verbal Nail and Visual Hammer concepts
• Visual Hammer – success stories
• Examples of Visual Hammers – color, shape package, founder etc.

1. Because the brand scorched into their back was likely designed by someone who thinks chaps are fashionable.

2. Because cows are not brand loyal.

3. Because cows want a brand they can emotionally attach themselves to (think Chick-fil-A).

4. Because you have to be born with Mickey Mouse on your side to keep from being turned into a Big Mac. See visual.

5. Because some cows like to express their individuality and not be just one of the herd.

6. Because punk bands think it’s fun to use cows as album covers.

7. Because the smell of burning is so obnoxious.

8. Because there’s more to branding than just a symbol.

9. Because it’s easier to tip a cow than a Range Rover, Chevrolet, Toyota…

10. Because it’s more permanent than a tattoo.

Full Disclosure: Crunch time. Workload piling up. Too many screens open on my computer. Design sketches all over my room. Day is melting and pressure to produce this post is mounting.

Okay, I’m going with the first thing that pops into my head. I’m thinking about where the word “branding” came from (no joke). As an early adopter of Cliffs Notes and growing up talking with Cliff every day on my way home from school (no kidding), I’ll follow his lead by presenting some high-level thoughts.

Tidbit 1 – On Origins: Wikipedia states “The word ‘brand’ is derived from the Old Norse brandr meaning ‘to burn’. The act of marking livestock with fire-heated marks to identify ownership has origins in ancient times, with use dating back to the ancient Egyptians. Among the ancient Romans, the symbols used for brands were sometimes chosen as part of a magic spell aimed at protecting animals from harm. In English lexicon, the word “brand” originally meant anything hot or burning, such as a “firebrand”- a burning stick. Ouch!

Tidbit 2: On Definition: The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a “name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s goods or services as distinct from those of other sellers.”

Tidbit 3 – On Originality: The British brewery, Bass & Company, claims that their red triangle brand was the world’s first trademark.

Tidbit 4: On Non-branding: The term “maverick,” originally meaning an unbranded calf, comes from Texas rancher Samuel Augustus Maverick who, following the American Civil War, decided that since all other cattle were branded, his would be identified by having no markings at all.

What I learned:

• The true meaning of “hot branding”.
• That the American Marketing Association may not be the best organization to define what a “brand” is.
• That I love the color red, specifically RiechesBaird Pantone 485.
• That Mavericks make great brand designers.

What I think: Great brand design stems from originality. It is fueled by incredible passion and invigorating conversation. Shake it up. Turn it on an angle. Don’t think in terms of a template. What are your thoughts? Would like to hear them.

What’s the secret to developing a great tagline? There isn’t one. It’s a process, like everything else. And the process is equal parts strategy, method and creativity.

Upon completion of a corporate brand positioning, the tagline is usually the next deliverable in the brand development process. Typically we develop them in conjunction with the corporate signature, or logo.

I don’t believe in hard and fast rules for taglines, because it limits exploratory thinking in the development process. But here is one notable exception: never, ever, ever, be boring. Taglines can suffer death by a thousand cuts (just like other creative work) as they move through an extended approval process, and the result is boring, benign blathering. Avoiding this fate isn’t always easy, but it is always worthwhile. The tagline represents your brand promise—don’t squander the opportunity to engage via the force of language and ideas.

With that said, you do have to know what kind of tagline you’re trying to create—descriptive or evocative—and why. When a new brand enters the world via spin-off, start-up or merger, it may need a descriptive tagline to immediately declare its point of distinction in a crowded category.

Evocative taglines, on the other hand, represent the high road in brand strategy. At the core of the brand positioning there should be a promise of distinction—and it is by translating that promise into the ultimate benefit to your audiences that memorable, engaging and compelling taglines can be conceived. Now repeat that process at least 50 times to make sure you’ve explored every angle and idea, and you’ll have a list of candidates. But then what?

As is the case with corporate naming, it isn’t a great tagline if it isn’t available. Prescreening through search engines, the USPTO and IP service bureaus will reveal potential conflicts.

Managing the approval process is another blog post entirely, but once you have a shortlist of recommendations, it’s time to add context to each candidate so that others can see its full potential just as you do. A short statement or paragraph, or even some preliminary ad concepts, can bring the tagline to life and reinforce its larger context to company leadership who is ultimately charged with approving a candidate.

And finally, as with the brand name and logo, remember that the tagline can’t (and shouldn’t) do everything. They are tools in the brand-building toolbox, and each has a specific purpose yet all work together to form the complete impression.

Branding as we know it has changed. Has your brand evolved to stay relevant?

RiechesBaird was recently invited to pitch a major brand development project for a large, well-established B2B brand. During the pitch, the potential client asked a great question – one that most B2B companies need to ask themselves to protect their brand relevance. They asked, “What has changed in the B2B world and how do we need to think about our brand and business to stay ahead?”

So, what has changed in the B2B world in the last five years? Or has the B2B business model changed?
In our opinion, there has been a fundamental shift that most B2B marketers are experiencing, but there is also reluctance to change or insecurity around which strategies to take – and that’s the conundrum.

Marketers – who are supposed to be champions of change, are sometimes the last to change.

Before the Internet, Google, social media, and mobile devices, the classic B2B model operated in a “push” delivery fashion where corporations were in control of the message and the means by which it was delivered. Corporate marketers created ads, decided what content resided on their websites, staged trade show booths, armed sales forces with key talking points and instructed PR teams to get the desired message in ink. Companies designed their internal marketing departments to deliver on this model and developed outside relationships with specialized agencies. But that was then, and this is now.

“What once what was delivered, is now found.”

Today, marketers need to make a fundamental shift away from pushing information upon their audiences to providing value via a new, more engaging thought-leadership model. This brand mindset and value-based model will help to position your brand in the immediacy of the interactive world and leverage your organic SEO efforts. It takes a blend of powerful focused positioning and search strategy marketing along with an integrated media and brand relations program (throw the standard press release method out the window). B2B marketers need to not only shift brand investment from traditional methods to smart interactive experiences, but they need to shake up the structure of the organization – the various roles, responsibilities and reporting to deliver relevance in the new age. Trying to change with the same delivery mindset and people is a slow and sure death. Today it is all about connecting, sharing and monitoring the strategy – both for B2C and B2B.

Here are some things to consider when embarking on this new model:

1. Think thought-leadership. What can you do to provide value and stand apart from the competition?
2. Rethink your strategy around being found. What can you do to drive more engagement with customers?
3. Content is king. Rich content, relevant content, timely content. For brands to stay ahead, they need to connect their brand position to a voice customers trust
4. Rethink your existing structure and reinvent partnerships and merchandising approaches to reflect this new thought-leadership model.
5. Get your entire team on board. Explain this new shift to your internal employees/stakeholders and get them excited and eager to participate.

A great example of a B2B brand that is doing just this is American Airlines Cargo. RiechesBaird worked with American Airlines Cargo to design, develop and launch www.aircargoinsights.com – a central resource where customers can find valuable data to help drive business and learn from industry experts. This strategy took on a whole different approach and way of thinking around how the organization developed and shared content. Look at how American Express has built a similar community for its customers. These are the types of strategies that are driving leadership and brand value.

So, if you’re going to remain relevant to your customers and create differentiation in the marketplace you need to ask yourself the right questions: “Are we doing what it takes to be “found” and delivering the type of relevant content that positions us as a leader?” If not, maybe it’s time to rethink your approach and really address the conundrum.

A thought-provoking way to approach corporate identity (and more specifically, corporate identity change) is to think of it as an extension of personal identity. That comparison explains a lot of things (or, at least, it suggests answers to some of the more vexing aspects of corporate identity change). Foremost among them: why corporate identity makeovers or modifications are so dramatic and difficult. I mean, isn’t it just a matter of swapping out some colors, fonts, symbols, and perhaps a name? Okay, so we need new business cards—what’s the big deal?

Employees’ egos can become psychologically enmeshed with the corporate (formerly ‘Royal’) ‘we’ identity. Reciprocally, the ‘we’ comes also to permeate the ‘I’s’. The employee ‘identifies’ with his/her corporate identity. It becomes an extension, adjunct, or aspect of their own. As individuals, we instinctively, sometimes aggressively, resist attempts to be altered. This is the most fundamental kind of assault, not only on our autonomy, but on our very personality.

I suspect this explains resistance to corporate identity change (e.g., renaming, rebranding, and other kinds of makeovers). Changing the corporate identity is tantamount to tampering with mine—’The Acme name, logo, colors are a part of me!’ the recalcitrant will cry in the face of revolution.

To be sure, far less personal considerations will play their role in eliciting shock and triggering resistance: Do such changes portend demotion or job loss; shifts in comfortable (or at least familiar) roles, routines, and responsibilities; changed reporting lines? How will I explain the change to established customers? Changing out stationary, web screens, architectural signs, etc., will require time, money, effort, and will be a distraction. Yes and no. That said, almost all of these nervous questions and concerns can be nipped in the bud, by the way, through intelligent, proactive communications, deployed in a timely manner.

The reasons for corporate identity modification or ‘reboot’ are no mere change-of-wardrobe or window dressing. Identity changes, in the best of circumstances, are driven by and serve underlying strategic business change. Well-wielded, they are indeed, critical leadership tools.

As part of our own ongoing work in this area, RiechesBaird conducted an informal audit of more than 90 companies that changed or modified their corporate identities. Using case studies dating back to 2000, found on www.identityworks.com, we distilled nine (9) ‘drivers’ of corporate identity change. The common denominators behind virtually all identity change were: (1) the presence of underlying business changes (of one form or another) and (2) a conviction that identity/identity change is an effective leadership tool, that helps draw attention to, and promote and/or explain critical business shifts. Here are the nine—by no means, exhaustive—drivers of corporate identity:

1. Change of business strategy
2. Change of corporate leadership
3. Market expansion (category)
4. Market expansion (geographic)
5. Major Acquisition
6. Merger
7. Spinoff
8. Obsolete, irrelevant, or dated identity
9. Repositioning (to capture new opportunities, gain competitive advantage, and grow)

Circling back to our starting point, don’t we—almost all of us—in our personal lives, at one point or another, attempt to change our identity? Putting aside whether we succeed or not or whether the changes we pursue are ‘right,’ isn’t identity change the motivator or the intended goal of our annual New Year’s resolutions; the adaptive response to challenge or crisis? The difference, in our (individual) cases, is that we and we alone choose, control, determine, and enact (or not) the changes. And, yes, making the adjustments can be hard, awkward, painful, etc. But, hopefully, they’re judged, in hindsight, as noble, well-intended or necessary, in spite of the effort, pain, and distraction they often entail; and that the result justified the sacrifices, as the price of growth.

With an entrepreneurial spirit and serious determination and focus, Mark Moses started and successfully sold two businesses – one of which achieved more than $1Billion in annual revenue.  Moses now coaches CEOs throughout North America – helping them to focus on their vision and drive success. In this week’s episode of Branding Business, Ryan Rieches sits down with Moses to discuss the process he takes to help businesses realize success.

Mark Moses Shares 5 Tips To Maintain Focus

• Clarify your vision and value proposition – then clearly communicate it to all involved.
• As a CEO, you are ultimately responsible – especially for the financial stability of the company.
• Put the right people in the right jobs to get to where you want to go.
• Focus on key relationships internally and externally.
• Have a process in place to continue to learn and grow.

RiechesBaird recently partnered with Latham & Watkins LLP and LCX Digital to deliver a webcast covering the fundamentals of how brands are created and the steps branding professionals and marketers need to take to protect brands from infringement.

Here are some basics. What are the differences among ©, ®, SM, and ™?

• Original works can be copyrighted (©) – screenplay, book, song
• Names can be registered (®) – your business name, school name
• Trademarks (™) – words, logos, symbols, characters, colors, smells, sounds
• Service Marks (SM) – to protect a service offering versus a product name

Really, a sound can be trademarked? Yeap. Intel’s ‘Inside Intel’ tones are trademarked. And as for colors, most people are familiar with Tiffany & Co. and its trademarked pantone of blue.

The recent webcast covered many infringement examples and even went into “Cybersquatting” or domain name infringement and whether or not purchasing trademarked “key words” in Google AdWords is considered infringement. If you were not able to make the live webcast, view the on-demand webcast here.

Below are some answers to questions that came up during the Brandjacked webcast.*

*Please note that the information provided herein is for information purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice. Should further analysis or explanation of the subject matter be required, please contact the attorney with whom you normally consult.

1. In regards to SEO efforts, are there any infringement issues when a competing brand tries to capture traffic by purchasing trademarked key words?

Trademark infringement actions have become increasingly frequent where one brand tries to capture search engine traffic by purchasing another company’s trademarked keywords. See, e.g., Rosetta Stone Ltd. v. Google Inc., 730 F. Supp. 2d 531 (E.D. Va. 2010); 1-800 Contacts, Inc. v. Lens.com, Inc., 755 F. Supp. 2d 1151 (D. Utah 2010). These actions have been popularized as “Google AdWords” cases. A plaintiff in a “Google AdWords” case must prove the same elements as in a more traditional infringement case: (1) a protectable ownership interest in the mark; (2) that the defendant used the mark; (3) that the defendant’s use of the mark occurred “in commerce”; (4) that the defendant used the mark in connection with the sale, offering for sale, distribution, or advertising of goods or services; and (5) that the defendant used the mark in a manner likely to confuse consumers as to the source or origin of goods or services. Rosetta Stone Ltd., 730 F. Supp. 2d at 540. Courts have diverged in their holdings as to whether the purchase of “keywords” constitutes infringement. This divergence occurs primarily because the outcome of keyword cases depends upon evidence produced by the parties as to whether there is a “likelihood of confusion,” and is therefore heavily fact-based. This area of law is likely to be more settled following the decision in the Rosetta Stone Ltd. v. Google Inc. appeal, which is scheduled to be decided in 2012. See Rosetta Stone Ltd. v. Google Inc., No. 10-2007 (4th Cir. filed Oct. 25, 2010). However, in the meantime, companies must be careful when purchasing trademarked keywords, as there is a risk that they will be found liable for trademark infringement.

2. Do you need to register or trademark a slogan?

Registration is not necessary to obtain or maintain trademark protection. In the United States, trademark protection is granted to the first user of a mark in commerce, regardless of whether the mark is registered. Sengoku Works Ltd. v. RMC Int’l, Ltd., 96 F.3d 1217, 1219 (9th Cir. 1996). However, registration offers added protection. In particular, registration on the Principal Register, which is available for distinctive marks, confers many benefits. For example, registration gives rise to a rebuttable presumption that the registrant owns the mark and has the exclusive right to use the mark in connection with the goods or services described in the registration. 15 U.S.C. §§ 1057(b), 1115(a). Registration also allows the owner to sue in federal court for profits, damages, treble damages, and attorney’s fees. 15 U.S.C. §§ 1117, 1121. Additionally, if a mark is used continuously for five years after registration, the mark can become incontestable, subject to certain statutory defenses. 15 U.S.C. §§ 1065, 1115(b). This list is not exhaustive and parties considering registration should discuss their specific situation with legal counsel.

3. When is it necessary to use the ©, ®, ™ or SM symbols when using a brand name or slogan in print? Is it always necessary?

Only owners of marks registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) may use the ® symbol. 15 U.S.C. § 1111. Under this section, owners of registered marks who do not use the ® symbol or state that the mark is registered with the USPTO cannot recover damages in an infringement action, unless the infringer had actual notice of the mark. The ® symbol may not be used by those who have only filed an application to register the mark or who hold a state registration for the mark. Trademark Manual of Examining Procedure (8th ed. 2011). In contrast, the TM or SM symbols can be used by anyone who claims to have a trademark or service mark, but merely using the symbols does not create trademark rights. In re Volvo Cars of North America Inc., 46 U.S.P.Q.2d 1455 (T.T.A.B. 1998). Still, employing the TM and SM symbols can be helpful because it notifies other potential users of your claimed ownership and informs the public that the mark identifies your goods or services and is not being used in a generic or merely descriptive sense. In re Mine Safety Appliances Co., 66 U.S.P.Q.2d 1694 (T.T.A.B. 2002). In the copyright context, if the work was published after March 1, 1989, use of the © symbol is not required to obtain copyright protection. Garnier v. Andin Int’l, 36 F.3d 1214, 1219 (1st Cir. 1994). Using the © symbol may still be beneficial. If a work bears the © symbol, then an infringer will be unable to claim “innocent infringement,” which could otherwise lead to a reduction of the infringer’s damages, subject to one exception for some non-profit entities. 17 U.S.C. §§ 401, 504(c)(2). However, works published before March 1, 1989, must comply with notice requirements, which differ depending on when the work was published. Parties interested in determining which of these symbols they should use and how they should use them should discuss their specific situation with legal counsel.

For additional questions regarding branding and trademark issues you can contact:

RiechesBaird
www.riechesbaird.com
(949) 586-1200

Latham & Watkins
www.lw.com
(714) 755-8288

When we first launched our thought-leadership site, brandingbusiness.com, some of our employees were a little questionable about why we would be asking them to invest their time into sharing their insights surrounding brand strategy versus just focusing on our client’s business. With their workloads already pressing, many of our regular contributors were trying to figure out where they would find the time to write posts. And, why would we ask our internal employees to engage in social media on work time? Simple…we want to provide value and engage with our followers and likeminded individuals.

Well, after almost a year since launching brandingbusiness.com and becoming more active in social channels, the investment has paid off in more ways that we thought. Why? Because providing value does strengthen your brand.

Here’s the real ROI:

• Since the launch of brandingbusiness.com, overall site traffic to both our sites riechesbaird.com and brandingbusiness.com has increased month over month. The time spent on the site has also gone up, reinforcing that people are staying for a while and taking in what we have to say – and very importantly, share their point of view.
• Pingbacks on our blog posts and radio shows are common, showing us that others are sharing our material on other sites and driving traffic back to us.
• We have secured multiple new business opportunities via searches that led to brandingbusiness.com.
• By commenting on other blogs relevant to our industry and engaging in social channels, we have secured big brands and big names as radio show guests and guest bloggers. These brands and guests then promote these radio shows/blog posts via their networks and well, the power of sharing unfolds, driving more traffic and engagement on our sites.
• Our contributors do find the time to craft brilliant posts and their reward, the interaction with followers. Comments made on posts can be likened to an author winning the Nobel Prize…it just feels good. Please keep the comments coming.
• More than a few times, our posts have made it to the ‘most topular stories’ section on Alltop. Not only is the recognition appreciated, but it inspires our contributors to deliver their best and most valuable content every time they write.
• The first Slideshare deck we posted generated 700 views and around 40 downloads in only a few days. The possibilities are endless.
• By actively participating in LinkedIn discussions among various groups and answering the questions of fellow marketing professionals and business owners, we have grown our company page followers and have forged new relationships.

Bottom line: The time invested does pay off.

While it can be daunting at first, investing in providing value to others and becoming engaged in social channels is truly rewarding. We are here to help you tap into this goldmine of opportunity and learning. Ask questions if you have any and we will get back to you with answers. Oh, and engage with us won’t you?

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Kodak’s recent filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection is a historic comedown for a brand that once defined American industrial power and innovation.

The photography empire founded by George Eastman started at the end of the 19^th century, dominated the 20^th and did not last long into the 21^st.

The company felt a tremendous impact from the shift to digital photography — a technology Kodak invented — and away from film, where Kodak once earned 70% margins and enjoyed a 90% market share in America.

Yet its problems were not unlike those of other big American technology near-monopolists had to deal with in the 20th century. National Cash Register (NCR) was once one of the world’s top computer makers, but has been reduced to making ATM machines. Westinghouse, once an industrial powerful equal to GE, has morphed into CBS, the broadcasting company it acquired and now licenses the once noble Westinghouse brand name to a ragbag of companies. Xerox, the pioneer of copying machines, is struggling in the competitive market for imaging products and services. Even AT&T, the telecom giant, was not able to replicate the dominance it once enjoyed in handling long-distance calls.

The moral of Kodak’s fate is that technology trends are often clearly visible, but changing a successful company is exceedingly hard.

Take Nokia for example. In 2007, the Finnish mobile phone manufacturer was at its power peak. It made 4/10 mobile phones sold worldwide and demand was exploding. BusinessWeek lauded the Nokia brand as the 5th ‘best’ in the world, one place behind GE. In June of that same year, Apple released the iPhone. The game suddenly changed. Today, the industry giant is struggling to reinvent itself in a market that shifted abruptly to smart phones. So too is RIM, the maker of the Blackberry, with their two joint-CEOs ousted by an anxious board concerned about Blackberry’s declining relevance and the poor performance of its tablet.

For Kodak, the shift to digital photography was equally massive and sudden and it failed to make the leap. Perhaps a new management team will be able to revitalize the brand. Its brand name is certainly recognized the world over, but for what?

Yet Kodak’s fate ought to be a lesson not just for today’s technology powerhouses such as Google, Microsoft and Facebook.

Digitization of content is laying waste to traditional industries that either can’t see the writing on the wall or choose to ignore it. Amazon and Apple between them have destroyed Borders, Blockbuster, Tower Records and (almost) Sears.

What gets you there won’t keep you there.

Iconic brands tend to lose their relevance long before the cash they generate begins to dry up. Once they lose their luster, they are nearly impossible to change.

The companies that survive are the ones who have no problem moving beyond their cash cow brands. IBM has successfully reinvented itself—and more than once. In recent years the brand deftly managed the shift from selling hardware to offering software and services.

Apple has done this over and over again, disrupting first the computer industry, then music, and now the mobile phone industry. Killing cash cow product brands has been the hallmark of every Apple product innovation since the Macintosh.

The marketplace moves too rapidly to rely on the momentum of scale, history and heritage. When brand heritage represents “old and tired”, it’s nearly impossible to change that perception in people’s minds.

Iconic brands make the leap to new relevance only when they focus on the two-stage strategy — essentially leveraging the cash-generating strength of the iconic brand to fuel the innovation of a new brand, and then “killing the cash cow” as the new brand takes full advantage of the momentum of the first.

Enlightened management with the intestinal fortitude to stay the course can slingshot their iconic brands and pave the way for newer and more relevant expressions of the original value that people continue to care about.

No brand, however strong, can count on continued success: market dominance is only a snapshot in time.

When you think of a great company, most likely, its logo is one of the first things to come to mind. Think Apple, Nike, Coca-Cola and Target to name just a few.

The word “logo” is derived from ancient Greek and translates as “word” or “speech”. The word “icon” translates as “image” or “likeness”. Brand identities often incorporate a hybrid of these two. Though many designers use alternative names, the word “logo” is customarily synonymous to describe a mark of identity. Around 4100-3800 BC, tokens in Uruk, in Mesopotamia, began to utilize symbols that were impressed or inscribed in clay to represent a record of land, grain or cattle, and a written language was beginning to develop. Religious sects have used symbols for thousands of years to reach their “target audience”. Logos as trademarks for metal smiths and paper merchants go back to the Renaissance. In the last 100 years, we have witnessed a surge in what these all-important “graphic signs” communicate. Across the global scene and throughout our everyday life, logos have become one of the key, central elements to identify companies, institutions, products and services.

Steve Jobs called Paul Rand, “the greatest living graphic designer.” Though no longer alive, Rand’s legend and work is highly visible today, through identities that include logos for IBM, Westinghouse, ABC and UPS.

Rand stated: “A logo is a flag, a signature, an escutcheon, a street sign.
 A logo does not sell (directly), it identifies.
 A logo is rarely a description of a business.
 A logo derives meaning from the quality of the thing it symbolizes, not the other way around.”

A great logo packs more pound-for-pound power than any other single brand communication device. The logo is the fingerprint of a brand—and brands that come out of the gate with strong logo identities immediately yield positive visibility and their return is both measurable and meaningful. A great logo should deliver confidence and conviction of the brand it represents. One thing is certain, the power of a logo and its importance are more relevant and more important than ever. The world of logos is filled with incredible design.

What logos resonate with you? Comment here and let me know.

Looking for a partner to help you develop your brand identity? Visit RiechesBaird to learn about our many service offerings including brand identity development.

Looking for a related post? Check out How to Know a ‘Good’ Brand Logo When You See It

I often see executives baffled by the idea – many feel that they are already open with employees and point to specific emails, their employee intranet site, internal presentations or conference calls as evidence. Unfortunately, what may seem like a lot to leadership does not always meet the needs of the employees.

Your employees are your most important assets – they deliver your brand promise directly to your customers every day. They can also be ambassadors of the brand outside the walls of work. They need to understand their specific role in helping the company deliver the value proposition and achieve the long-term vision. Otherwise, employees will be left confused and disgruntled, and will fill in the blanks with their own ideas or rumors.

The lesson here is to communicate, communicate, communicate! If you send employees a message 10 times, expect it to be heard once. Frequent and open communications will help bring everyone onto the same team, moving in the same direction.

How does your company keep employees in the loop? How does your company live out the culture of its brand? Stay tuned – I will help you explore ways brands can engage their internal audiences in my next post.

Take a look at another post similar to this surrounding which audience matters most — your stakeholders, customers or employees?

It was another season of twists, turns, and almost the second coming of John Elway. But as we head into the decisive weekend leading up to the big one, only four remain…but I just couldn’t let Denver go quietly so they’re here too.

Did your favorite team (or brand) get overlooked? Who’s missing and why? As always, your suggestions and comments are welcome.

In our experience, it takes a good marriage and understanding between legal counsel and brand marketers to arrive at the right recommendations. Let’s face it, in todays over populated sea of commoditized brands, there’s an incredible amount of gray area in interpretation and differentiation.

To protect yourself and your brand, you need to have a little knowledge around the fundamentals of trademark law and brand management in order to arrive at the appropriate legal solution. Plus, with how rapid things are shared online, you need to have a grasp on how to protect your brand in the digital space. For these reasons, we have teamed up with Latham & Watkins, a leading global law firm, and LCX Digital, the leader in pay-for-performance marketing solutions, to bring you Brandjacked – a free, 45-minute webcast detailing how to protect your brand by understanding and employing best practices in trademark law, brand management and marketing. Join us as industry experts explore the ins and outs of producing brilliant brands without compromising legal boundaries.

Topics explored during the Brandjacked webcast will include:

• What is a brand and why is it so valuable?
• What can be trademarked?
• What constitutes trademark infringement or dilution?
• International trademark laws and owner’s rights in each country
• Remedies for trademark infringement and suggested action
• Cybersquatting/Domain name infringement

Brandjacked will take place on Jan. 25, 2012 at 9 a.m. PST (12 p.m. EST).

Register for Brandjacked today.

Recently, a client asked me an unnervingly pertinent question: ‘What makes for a good mark?’ We were working on a new identity for his company and as he and his colleagues were adjudicating among design options, they found themselves foundering on the rocks of subjectivity. They couldn’t forge consensus—and thus make a decision and proceed—on the basis of what were essentially a contest of ‘likes’ versus ‘dislikes’. In a word, they lacked criteria.

At that point in the process, things had degenerated into a random set of solicitations—‘shopping it around’ is the catchphrase—that violated the closed circle and sanctum of corporate decision making. Now, spouses, neighbors, the FedEx courier and the ubiquitous ‘Man on the Street’ had been encouraged to weigh-in in hopes of stumbling upon an insight of surpassing power, something irresistible and conclusive—a trump card. No such luck.

This led me—scratch that—forced me to develop an overt evaluative system; to reflect on and make explicit what had been a matter of tacit understandings, implicit assumptions, even instincts. What I came up with was six or seven (admittedly imperfect) criteria by which a ‘strong’ brand logo or mark can (and ought) be judged—and, indeed, from which it should ‘spring’:

1. Distinctiveness: The design idea need not be unique in the world, just distinctive enough to own in your market, against your competitors.
2. Practicality/Adaptability: The mark has to be one that can be printed at very small scale, in ink or pixels, while remaining recognizable and/or legible; it has to work in black and white, in gray scale, as well as color; it must perform in reverse-out and in both vertical and horizontal configurations; and must also perform consistently across a variety of physical substrates and media (e.g., papers, electronic screens, metal, cloth, glass).
3. Simplicity: The mark should contain or ‘sum up’ a single visual gimmick or graphic idea, such that it could be described in a word or short phrase (e.g., a chevron, a shield, a swoosh).
4. Appropriateness: At its best, the mark should transparently and immediately express something about the brand’s meaning or the company’s persona, reputation, or aspirations. Shy of that, it should not conflict with any of these, nor come across simply as an enigma.
5. Expressiveness: A person can intuit, relatively unaided, the personality of the brand (e.g., intelligence, warmth, agility, gravitas).
6. Rationality: Its introduction and application needs to be synched with and ‘justified’ by some significant strategic business milestone or inflection point in the company’s business narrative (e.g., change of leadership, merger or acquisition, repositioning, etc.).
7. Story-telling Potential: This could actually be the most important criterion of all and is one that I bring to bear on virtually every tactical application—visual or verbal—of a brand vocabulary. Is there some short explanatory story behind the image that delivers an ‘ah-ha!’ moment and serves as a key to the underlying business narrative?*

accenture | a case in point

First, the story behind the name: Anderson Consultants, under pressure of litigation from Anderson Accounting to relinquish their claim to the Anderson name, were forced to create a new moniker. As part of the name-development exercise, a worldwide employee-naming contest was initiated. The winner, ‘accenture,’ is a scrunched up version of the tagline-like statement, ‘accent on the future.’

Then, the story behind the symbol: the accenture visual symbol—a simple punctuation mark ‘>’ — is actually an elegant pretext for story-telling. It is situated above the ‘t’ in the name, literally like an accent mark, and thus becomes an explanatory device that unlocks the meaning of an otherwise exotic name, with no immediate meaning (it ‘falls’ on and marks the divide between the meaningful word ‘accent’ and the ‘-ure’ suffix).

In addition, its left-to-right directional orientation suggests spatial ideas like ‘ahead’ and ‘forward’ and thus the temporal ideas like ‘future’. In sum, the symbol is not only an explanatory key to the name and the company’s underlying strategic business orientation: it can also be repurposed to support different ideas, messages, and campaign slogans, going forward. This, in term, gives name, identity, and brand ‘shelf life’.

While these criterion are not ironclad in their objectivity, they do form the basis of an evaluative system that is superior to a contest of mere opinions. Moreover, they can serve as an orderly process that usefully informs and guides design, before evaluation even comes into the picture (or, rather, before the picture comes in for evaluation!)

* Story-telling Potential is a more abiding form of the Rationality criterion (No. 6), which is really specific to new brand or new ID introductions and their justification.

Tom Asacker writes and teaches about radically new practices and ideas for marketplace success in times of uncertainty and change. He is the author of critically acclaimed books including his latest, Opportunity Screams, and A Clear Eye for Branding. He is a former General Electric executive, recipient of the George Land Innovator of the Year Award, and a former high-tech business owner. A popular speaker, Tom lectures to corporations, associations, and university audiences around the world, and works confidentially with executives and management teams at a number of top companies. Visit tomasacker.com to learn more.

“To use the same words is not a sufficient guarantee of understanding; one must use the same words for the same genus of inward experience; ultimately one must have one’s experiences in common.”
- Nietzsche

A few weeks ago, I had lunch with a friend prior to an evening speech. After some small talk about life, the universe and everything, our conversation naturally turned to the abysmal U.S. economy. “Things are really tough right now,” she explained. “I’ve tried to get everyone to understand the importance of branding in this very difficult environment, but I don’t think they get it. In fact,” she added. “Our customers hate that word.”

“What word?” I asked. “Brand?”
“Yeah.” she replied.

“The non-profits we work with have a real aversion to the whole notion of branding. I guess they don’t really understand the concept and how it applies to them.”

They’re not the only ones. I recently wrote a guest post for a Spanish blog, and I was shocked when one commenter compared branding to the notorious Nazi Joseph Goebbels’ propaganda principles. Talk about profane.

These sentiments about branding continue to baffle me. Individuals, schools, nonprofit groups, and small businesses tend to fall into a camp that believes that either branding is evil, or that it’s too commercial, too expensive, or otherwise not applicable to them. Those feelings may have been appropriate in the heydays of mass marketing, when “branding” was synonymous with image, spin, and mega spending on advertising. But that dog doesn’t hunt any longer.

Today’s message-saturated, multimedia and culturally astute and fragmented society has changed the very concept of the word “brand.”

It’s no longer a four-letter word which conjures up ideas of manipulation and in your face corporate propaganda. To the contrary, it’s an essential marketplace construct.

Today the word “brand” is shorthand for why you — or anything or anyone else — matters in a world inundated with similar products, similar services and a plethora of worthy causes all clamoring for our attention. It’s an abbreviated reference for the gut feeling or expectation people have about something, some group, or someone that helps them make meaning and save time.

It’s a kind of Platonic ideal, which stands for the essence of a business, school, organization, product, service, or even locale.

A brand is really nothing more than a metaphor, which began as a symbolic representation of creation and/or ownership, and has evolved to encompass traits like consistency, style and price, as well as more meaningful attributes like purpose, conscience and heritage. If you add up the tangible and intangible qualities of something — the gestalt — and wish to represent the meaning, value and distinctive character this greater whole conveys to its defined audience, today you refer to that something as “brand” i.e. iPhone, Twitter, PBS, ASPCA, TED, the Yankees, Zappos, Princeton, etc.

No matter what your passion is as an individual or an organization, you must make it come to life for the benefit of your customers and employees. That’s branding. It’s the act of doing meaningful things that help illuminate and enliven your brand’s significance and value.

It’s about developing and stimulating the choice of new products, services and experiences that bring excitement, joy and comfort to people’s lives. The resulting “brand” is the sum of what you do for the world, as well as how you uniquely go about doing it.

Branding is not about generating awareness to the masses (sorry strange balloon guy). It’s a framework for thinking about your reason for being. It’s a way of continuously sensing people’s desires and rapidly delivering compelling value to satisfy those desires. It’s about being constantly on the lookout for ways to connect with people and “go deep” into your relationship with them, and their relationship with you and each other. It’s about new processes, new business models, new ways of thinking, and new ways of interacting.

I’m well aware that words can, and frequently do, conjure up very strong emotions in people. But “brand” shouldn’t be one of them. The challenge for anyone in a leadership position in today’s torpid marketplace is to get over the aversion to the word, fully understand the concept, and make sure that their entire organization embraces and conveys the essence of their “brand” — who they are, why they do what they do, how they uniquely go about it, and why it matters to their audience — in every single word and action.

Like it or not, you cannot simply broadcast messages, stage stunts, cross your fingers, and expect your business or mission to thrive. It won’t. Not today. So throw away the old branding textbooks. Forget about trying to engineer your brand through creative messaging and associations. Instead, stay tuned in and connected to the living, breathing marketplace of your audience’s fears, challenges, and aspirations. Brand isn’t a four-letter word. It is not a noun to be promoted, nor one to be vilified. It’s a verb to be lived with integrity, imagination and passion.

How To Develop Corporate Core Statements

What are Core Statements?

• Purpose Statement: Why a company exists.
• Vision Statement: What a company aims to achieve.
• Mission Statement: How a company plans to achieve its vision.
• Value Statement: What a company stands for and how it behaves.
• Positioning Statement: How a brand differentiates from its competition.

What are the benefits to developing core statements?

• Strategic alignment at the executive level
• Clear direction to everyone throughout the entire company

Most companies do not have a clear vision. Most executives don’t understand the definitions of or difference between a corporate vision, mission or purpose. This overview provides a viewpoint on definitions and benefits but most importantly illustrates how core statements can work together to rationally and emotionally unite an organization and drive growth.

This slideshare presentation walks through developing corporate core statements and provides examples from recognized brands such as Google, Zappos, Wal-Mart, Nike and others.

Devin Hughes is a former college basketball player, sales and marketing aficionado, keynote speaker, part-time academic and frequent eclectic thinker. He draws on a variety of ideas, disciplines and trends to inspire Big Thoughts and facilitate conversations. He is best known for his expertise in personal branding, sales and marketing strategy, leadership development and sales coaching. He is an avid storyteller who has the unique ability to connect with audiences by inspiring them to be the change they wish to see in the world. Devin is a frequent contributor to two popular blogs: The Personal Branding Blog and Upstart Nation. Check out Devin’s site at devinchughes.com.

I am so very lucky. I have the opportunity to travel the country and speak about personal branding to a variety of people from various teams, groups and organizations. It’s a topic that I am passionate about and one that I can speak about based on my journey as well as others.

Invariably, one of the first questions asked during my presentations this past year was by someone looking for the “secret sauce” to enhancing their personal brand. What is that one thing that he/she can do to elevate their personal brand? The endless search for a key ingredient that will provide instant clarity, purpose and results is all that they need. I only wish it were that easy, as if a personal brand was a piece of software that could be downloaded, installed and run with just a few keystrokes. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there is no “secret sauce” when it comes to enhancing your personal brand. If your mission is to find the plug and play solution for a bulletproof personal brand, then I suggest you stop reading this post right now. It’s a grind and one that requires work, commitment, passion and courage to live on the edge sometimes. It often feels like you are standing in a strange room unable to find a light switch. It’s both scary and an exciting adventure all at the same time. I will serve as your cruise director for your maiden voyage in 2012 as you work on developing You Inc. across these choppy seas. Welcome to the Good Ship lollipop!

Now that I have stuck my finger in your Cheerios and have your attention, let us discuss what you can do in 2012.

1. First, make sure you are extremely comfortable in your own skin and are able to articulate what you do, how and why. Take some time to really think about this one, especially the “why you” piece. Ideally, you should be able to describe your personal value proposition in a tweet (140 characters). Longer than that and most people are bored and will begin to tune you out.
2. Second, people no longer have an interest in buying things, but do have an interest in joining things. Are you building a community that offers real value to people? You must bring others with you. If not, get a clue or do something else.
3. Third, I learned this one from fellow speaker, Scott Stratten, who shared with me one of the reasons for his meteoric rise in the social media universe. “Awesome spreads” — whether it be blog posts, videos, workshops, tweets, website giveaways, etc. If you can create an authentic experience, people will stand up and notice. Sit on the sidelines and regurgitate the same rhetoric as everyone else and you too can bite down on a sandwich filled with heartache, frustration and mediocrity.

Developing an authentic personal brand is not easy but it is possible! Spend less time selling and more time creating memories in the minds of your followers, teammates and customers. Your mission is to be different, talk different, ask different questions and be more prepared than anyone else in your space to create VALUE.

As a business leader, how do you foster the kind of community that can turn into greater awareness, preference, and enthusiasm?

The answer is disappointingly simple: USE IT.

If you follow the conversations around how to use social media for your business, you may have noticed that the trendy topic is quality over quantity. And we’re talking about quality in all forms – quality conversations, quality presence, and most importantly, quality followers.

In short, the concept is that there are a lot of passive online relationships out there – be it fans on Facebook, followers on Twitter or LinkedIn – but the only ones that truly translate into business opportunity are your active relationships, or those that regularly interact with you and actively follow your business/brand.

True, social media is a form of media and should be treated accordingly by incorporating it into your marketing plan. But there are some aspects of it that are inherently social – meaning personal – requiring everyone from leadership on to actually use it.

The funny thing about businesses in social media is that some seem to forget to include the social aspect of it. A synonym for social media is “social networking” – which is descriptive of its original intent. Social media is meant to connect individuals with common interests – and this is true for consumer goods and business brands.

So how do you create a social media presence that is both personal and consistent with your brand?

1. Who is your audience? The answer in most cases is current or prospective customers or partners. But what does this group want to hear from you? If your audience is CFOs in the construction industry, they may not want to hear about a new resort in Fiji you’re thinking of trying. But they may be very interested in articles about housing trends in your area, or Home Depot’s outstanding quarter.
2. Use your common sense. Social networking is like any other networking – so I like to adhere to the same kinds of rules. For example, never post anything political, religious, or sexual. End of story.
3. What interests you professionally? As a representative of your company, your interests probably reflect your audience’s interests. So if you find a particularly interesting article about banking regulations, post it! If a new Apple product is causing a lot of buzz, comment on it! If you find it interesting, your audience might too. (BUT keep rule #2 in mind.)
4. Self-promote. Did you post a new blog article? Send out a link. Did you just land a great sale? Brag about it! Part of the personal aspect of social media is sharing about yourself – that doesn’t necessarily mean posting a video of your dog’s new trick or your baby’s first steps (although depending on your personality or industry, this may be fine). Again, remember who your audience is. If your followers are C-level clients, the message you want to send is different from an audience of old high school buddies.
5. Pretend it’s real life. Again, I like the phrase “social networking” because it draws a really good parallel to what you’re trying to accomplish. If you were at an industry event or tradeshow, what would you say about yourself? What interesting stories from the news or industry magazine would you bring up?
6. Don’t talk – converse. As with all networking, people don’t appreciate being talked at – make it a conversation. Respond to customers who mention you – whether the comments are good or bad. Turn a contact into a relationship by listening and responding as much as you tell and share.

As you can see, developing a meaningful social media presence is time-consuming. My tip? Set aside 5-10 minutes per day (or week) to find interesting articles to share, or to respond to others’ comments. You may be surprised with the results!

If you were to stop by the offices of RiechesBaird this time of year, one would think Santa is outsourcing some of his holiday magic. Not only are the halls decked and the tree decorated to RiechesBaird’s branding standards, but our team members are hustling and bustling to churn out only top-quality work that will put a twinkle in anyone’s eyes. In between brainstorming sessions and strategy meetings, a few of our Branding Business contributors took time to tell Santa what they wish for this holiday season.

Ryan Rieches, CEO
A vacation with my family to the Amalfi Coast where we celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary and my 50th birthday together.

Tim Price, Vice President, Brand Strategist
I wish for world peace, but I’ll settle for this.

Justin Garvin, Brand Manager
All I want for Christmas is…a Canon EF 50mm f/1.2L. I promise not to shoot someone’s eye out.

Kristy Gulsvig, Brand Analyst
I love bright colors and I’m clumsy – which is why I’m hoping for a colorful iPad skin with a protective screen shield from Zagg. They have phone covers, too, which can come in handy if you’re like me and let your phone and keys duke it out in your purse/briefcase.

Alan Brew, Principal
Two tickets for Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre’s 2012 season in London. Mark Rylance will take on the title role in a new production of Richard III. Oh and first class plane tickets, a bottle of Domaine d’Espérance armangnac and a box of Montecristo Number 2 cigars.

Michael Dula, Creative Director
Four exact things…
1. My wife, forever.
2. Perpetual love and strength for my family and friends.
3. To be able to have a conversation with Shakespeare so that I can tell Alan Brew what he wrote.
4. Extra time to write my blogs.

From the team at RiechesBaird, we would like to wish you and your families a most treasured time of celebration and exaltation. Take in the sights and sounds of the season and enjoy quality time with loved ones and friends. Reflect on the year past and make way for new memories to be made in 2012. From all of us at RiechesBaird, happy holidays.

In recent years, many universities have taken the necessary steps to further define their brands in an effort to clarify who they are and prove the value they provide to their internal and external stakeholders. In this week’s episode of Branding Business, Ryan Rieches sits down with Gary Brahm, Chancellor and CEO of Brandman University, formerly Chapman University College, to discuss the process the educational institution took to differentiate itself amongst more nontraditional students yet still associate the brand with the established Chapman University system. From research to visual identity, Rieches and Brahm will talk to the steps the agency took to get Brandman University where it is today.

Find answers to:

• The process of changing an established organization’s name
• Trends in branding universities
• What is involved in defining a brand
• The importance of defining Purpose, Vision, Mission and Values
• How to roll out new branding statements and sentiments internally
• Who is responsible for the brand