Branding. Messing With Your Head?

Unfortunately for all you conspiracy mongers the answer is a resounding "no."  I don't buy off on that Big Brother, subliminal message business for a second.  That being said, I have yet to see whether or not my listening to the Beatles' Helter Skelter is going to evoke an uncontrollable urge to run out and get on a bad check writing jag.  I suspect, however, that if it's not happened yet, it probably won't.

A case in point.

Now, today's particular branding angle isn't going to be rocket science to any big-brained marketeers.  Far from it.  It does, on the other hand, provide a platform for the punch line I'm ultimately aimed at -- and that I think is a pretty clever snapshot of branding approaches.  And, yes, there are pictures.  So, press on…

And so, Branding 101.  What is it? 

In its simplest description, Brand is a contract or promise companies make to their target audiences. 

More to the point, a brand amounts to an image or feeling that worms its way into a company’s target audience’s heads with the ultimate aim of influencing their thoughts and / or purchasing decisions.  And – a bonus – if the host company keeps up their end of the bargain, targets will form desired opinions, and continue to apply those opinions each time they think of that company, see the company’s logo, hear of that company’s product, or any other means by which said company decides to proliferate its brand – automatic pilot style.

A perfect example of this phenomenon is Apple.  Just a few short years ago the CE industry was busy writing epitaphs and carving them into granite headstones as Apple came dangerously close to hitting the soup.  Today, under the guidance of you-know-who, some clever products, a unique look & feel, and a message that hammered the whole thing home, they are one of the biggest companies on the planet and can do no wrong in most people’s eyes. 

That being said, they will stumble.  Count on it.  But, personally, I am confident that when they hit that bump in the road they will have the contingencies in place to engage it with effective damage control, fix it, and move on.  (Fingers crossed… as this is being beamed to you now via a desktop-full of Macs).

Which brings up another important point.  Branding can seriously backfire if the promises made are empty, products are crap, or if the company assumes Dr. Jekyll's persona when they’re actually trapped in Mr. Hyde’s body.  Moral to the story… don’t go stomping through this minefield with your big feet if you’ve not seriously thought the whole exercise through. 

At its highest level, branding of a company or product can be fractured into two discrete, yet vitally related, camps:  Messaging / Intellectual and Visual / Emotional.  And, the cement that holds both together can come in any of a zillion convoluted brand lifecycles contingent on what the company’s talking about, who they’re talking to, and what they’re trying to accomplish.

The Messaging / Intellectual end of things is just what it suggests…

• Understanding your company or product
• Getting a grip on the competitive space being targeted
• Connecting the dots between the two to ensure the “play being run” is solvent
• Identifying competitive strengths and weakness for opportunities
• Developing messaging and posture that will create a defensible market position
• Ensuring the entire organization is onboard with a mandate that one drumbeat is being marched to by all, and
• Opening up a good ol’ fashioned can of whoop-ass (I know, a silly term) to bring it all home

I’m generalizing, of course.  But in a nutshell, this is the name of the game. 

The Boss

This “game” by the way is nothing new.  In fact, it predates what any of us would consider to be the genesis of modern marketing, full stop.  In short, I was fortunate enough to learn, way back when, that some of the most brilliant branding or market positioning lessons can be gleaned from Napoleonic battle strategy.  That is, until Napoleon ate shit at Waterloo.  Come to think of it, it didn’t work too well on his campaigns into Russia, either… but now I’m working against myself.  Besides, no one ever seems to learn that Russia lesson. 

To paraphrase a bit of his thought process when it came down to rambling into a confrontation (I’ll let you connect the dots in terms of how they apply to marketing)…

• DO NOT face an equally sized and equipped force head-to-head
• Identify and focus forces on a point of the opposition’s weakness
• Establish a defensible beachhead in that space
• Gain the support of the opposition’s supporters

And, as mentioned… it all worked pretty well until Waterloo.  So, I guess a 5^th point, that may have had something to do with that debacle, should be:

• Don’t declare yourself Emperor

All in all, however, pretty smart language coming from a brute-force 18^th / 19^th century marketing guy. 

But, for my purposes here, my concentration is really on the visual end of things that is undoubtedly more fun from a practitioner’s point-of-view.

And so, the Visual / Emotional thing. 

A company’s ID or logo is the graphical symbol that conveys a company’s brand name, posture, and character into the target audience’s brainpan -- hopefully evoking the emotion that ties it all together, if executed properly.  It should be painfully obvious that the visual element cannot survive and thrive without the intellectual… and visa versa.   

By far, the most effective logos are tight, simple, and unique reflections of the company in question and the message they are attempting to convey.  “Simple” is the key here, as this “mark” will live on all company collateral, business cards, letterhead, products, and whatnot.  It also goes without saying – but I shall anyway -- that the logo must resonate with target audiences.  Hence, you won’t be seeing Mother’s Against Drunk Driving (MADD) using a cocktail glass on their collateral any time soon. 

There are a few different approaches to developing a company’s visual ID as dictated by that company’s culture, objectives, target audiences, and key markets.  (i.e. Employing something like the Harvard Business Review’s logo isn’t going to sell a lot of soda pop.  At least, not to me.)

Basic logotypes can be synthesized down to a few buckets.

• Mark, or brand-mark, is a stand alone graphic
• Letter-mark integrates an acronym or letters in a company’s name into the logo
• Word-mark is a stylistic treatment of the company’s name so both are one in the same, or
• Combo-platter (my term) is a mix of any of the above and may even introduce another “tagline” element that will help target audiences further connect the dots.  I would refer to this as the “training wheels” approach. 

But I digress. 

All that being said... a company can pretty much Go For the Gold once they’ve laid all the aforementioned strategic pipe that gets them to this, the design phase.  To be clear, many logos are just as uninspired and boring as shit… But there are those – typically with a consumer focus – that are outright clever.  Which was the point of this whole diatribe to begin with. 

Peruse the following logos, or marks, which you probably see on a daily basis -- while probably missing some of the brilliant subtleties that some poor group of punters on a month-long ether binge taxed their grey matter to manufacture…

The moving stuff from here to there, and back again, guys.  And they are MOVING as reflected by the arrow between the second "E" and "X." 

 If you don't know who these guys are, hit yourself in the noggin with a hammer.  Now do you see it?  The "T's" form two people sharing chips & salsa.

A la our man, Lance Armstrong!  You've read the book.  You've seen the movie.  Now meet the man... You can see him in the "R" in "Tour”cycling his bad-ass off.

The granddaddy of the Internet.  From its beginnings as a meager book store, to now doing it ALL through near world domination.  And they're proud of it.  Follow the arrow - from A to Z!

Who doesn't love 'em in some way, shape, or form right?  They do too.  

See the sideways KISS between the "K" and "I?"

I know these little triangular beauties well.  Apparently it's crack for Bears too.  

See one in the graphic of the Matterhorn?  

Now, here's a real economy of scale... ie eating two birds with one spoon.  

31 flavours, right?  See it embedded in the "BR?"

Northwest Airlines may have gone South, but their logo will never let on.  Assuming the circle represents a compass, which direction do you suppose the arrow in the upper left is pointing?   

Never been there myself.  But apparently gorillas and lionesses are keen.  

They're hanging out under the tree.

It's all good... and they're happy.  Hence, their smiley face integrated into the "g" of "goodwill."

I must admit... if I'm in that part of the country, I'm Cubbies all the way.  Besides, I make it a point not travel to places I can't spell.  But... well done Milwaukee Brewers by forming their ball glove with a crafty "M" and "B!"

Any questions?  

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