Put Your Brand On Display

Trade shows provide a great opportunity for potential buyers to actually get their hands on your products and meet your people. One recent Cornerstone project illustrates how to also display your product’s brand as well.

For the composite panel group at Temple-Inland, the International Woodworking Fair (IWF) represents an opportunity to influence OEM furniture and fixture designers, fabricators, specifiers and buyers from all over the world.

These potential customers attend the IWF show to get ideas and find new materials. That means Temple-Inland’s brand message of “Real Selection, Real Solutions” is perfectly suited for this audience. Our challenge was to bring this story to life in the environment the exhibit creates. To accomplish our task, we developed imagery and messaging to tell three vital stories.

Working from the outside in, we first featured the range of application options offered by our client’s particleboard and medium density fiberboard choices. Next we demonstrated how their products satisfied key customer performance requirements and important industry trends. Finally, in the back of the booth, was specific information about the technical properties and compliance standards that serious prospects would want to know.

This strong combination of intentional content design and striking visual presentation made Temple-Inland’s brand message the hero of the booth and a clear extension to their marketing messages delivered in other media. Download a pdf file illustrating some of the booth’s graphic panels. Review additional examples of our trade show experience.

To talk to someone about communicating a stronger brand message through your trade show displays, contact us today by e-mail or phone, 903-534-5220.

What Makes Apple So Successful?

Wherever Apple turns these days, it seems to turn into a bonanza. Whether it’s computers, music distribution, music players, telephones, physical retailing, online retailing, etc. What’s their secret?

In an article on BNET.com, Thomas Stewart suggests it is far more than the excellence of the products themselves or the innovations they introduce or even their astute marketing insight.

He suggests that Steve Jobs himself identified Apple’s greatest strength, it’s right to win, as Stewart puts it, as its relentless focus on their customer experience. It filters into everything from the way the products feel and look, to the way they work, the expectations they generate, the level of service you get from their people and the fun they bring to your life.

The article gives a great example about how AT&T’s wireless network was overwhelmed by the higher-than-expected bandwidth demands of Apple’s popular iPhone. Petitioning Apple time and time again to take action to restrict bandwidth demands, Apple refused to compromise the consumer experience.

On a personal level I have repeatedly heard the message of the importance of the Apple experience preached by my college-student daughter who works part-time as a customer chat associate answering questions in the online Apple store. Even in her limited role working for an outsourced service provider, Apple has clearly communicated the level of service they want their customers to receive.

And the bottom line is that this is exactly what a strong brand is all about. It touches everything a company does. It drives product development, sales, service and culture.

It defines who they are and how they operate. It gives them the capacity to win.

Read the full article.

If you want to talk to someone about helping you develop a brand like this, contact us today by e-mail or phone, 903-534-5220.

Lead Follow-Up Objective #2 – Highlight Your Advantages

The objective of your marketing communications strategy is to generate leads that will become new business. Sometimes that happens quickly, but not often. How do you get the most out of the leads that don’t buy immediately?

In our first post on this subject, we suggested initiating a follow-up communications program. This might be a blog, a direct mail campaign, an e-mail newsletter, a podcast, a social media program – whatever is most appropriate to periodically reconnect with the leads you have developed to accomplish three objectives. This time we’ll consider the second objective.

Highlighting your advantages

Slower developing leads take time to review the advantages each option offers. That gives you the opportunity to spread your benefits out over several communications instead of trying to convey everything in every message. You can explain them better and illustrate them better when you can cover fewer subjects at a time. Make it practical too. Whether your advantages relate to physical properties, operational functions, exceptional skill, expertise or whatever – explain clearly how that benefit improves results for the prospect rather than just describing the facts and letting them draw their own conclusions. This deliberate, thorough discussion produces a better understanding of your unique strengths in your prospects’ minds and ultimately a more confident buying decision.

Read more about the other two lead follow-up program objectives now.

If you want to talk to someone about a brand follow-up program for your leads, contact us today by e-mail or phone, 903-534-5220.

Who Wants To Be Popular?

If you had to choose your favorite peanut butter, what brand would you pick?  What type of tennis shoe? What car color? That subconscious choice makes a huge difference in revenue for the most popular brands.

Compare your favorites with the rest of America. In a fun feature on businessweek.com, 28 of the most popular choices in a range of products, locations, jobs, foods, etc., were presented for their reader’s entertainment.

One example documented was Jiff peanut butter, which has led the popularity vote and, not surprisingly, the sales curve over Skippy for 20 years. Another, the favorite breakfast cereal, has slowly shifted over time with changes in our culture and focused marketing.

But being the favorite doesn’t automatically equate to being loved. In fact, Facebook, the most popular social networking platform, has a popularity rating close to the IRS.

The bottom line though, is that just like back in high school, popularity has its benefits. And while there are a number of factors influencing popularity, good corporate behavior and smart marketing can certainly contribute to popularity improvement.

It’s also true that none of the most popular brands are hidden gems. They have all invested faithfully to be recognized and remembered by their audiences. That investment pays off every time a customer makes a purchase without a second thought because the decision is simply second nature.

Compare your own favorites to the published results.

If you want to talk to someone about improving the popularity of your brand, contact us today by e-mail or phone, 903-534-5220. 

Why Be Normal?

How many times has some brand’s newest feature caught your attention but failed to stick in your memory? And before long that feature is the norm for everyone. How does a marketer break this cycle and create sustainable differentiation? Not by being normal.

There’s an article on Businessweek.com that’s worth a few minutes of your time if you want a good explanation of the two-sided, emotional versus rational mental exercise of brand development.

Too often business decision makers believe that their advantage over their competitors can be boiled down to a measurement, a performance value or their price. But the hard fact is that the more mature a market is, the less real difference there is between any of the participants. Something else has to be considered to break out of this cycle.

The article describes this characteristic as “likeability”. Done successfully likeability combines some type of unique emotional appeal that is linked to the rational facts and features of its ongoing performance. It uses the Mini Cooper as an example.

The take away is that creating a unique emotional appeal produces a less cluttered mental space where your brand can be “liked”. And that process creates a less hostile environment where your brand’s rational characteristics carry a weighted advantage.

To separate yourself from the competition and do it sustainably, you can’t be normal.

Read the entire article.

To talk to someone about creating a more sustainable difference for your brand, contact us today by e-mail or phone, 903-534-5220.

Brand Benefit #4: It Increases Product Value And Price

There are many good reasons why brand development can be a difference maker for your business. This is the fourth of ten posts highlighting those reasons for your consideration. Read the previous post.

Over time a consistently communicated and reliably demonstrated brand increases in value. Not only as a marketing tool, but also as a measure of a business’s total financial value.

In fact, for the last 20 years Interbrand, an international brand consultancy, has published their annual listing of the top 100 brands based on a calculation of each brand’s contribution to its company’s earnings and future earnings potential. Their numbers represent real dollars attributable to the ability of the brand to attract business. See their latest report.

In addition, a strong brand allows a product to command a higher price. In an often-quoted study from international advertising agency BBDO, the leading brand in a category was found to command a 40% price premium over a generic brand and a 10% price premium over the number two brand.

Prove this yourself the next time you are in the grocery store.

But the takeaway isn’t about a specific price premium or dollar contribution; it’s that a strong brand delivers measurable financial benefits to both consumer- as well as business-focused companies.

Read about the other 9 brand development benefits now.

To talk to someone about the difference-making value of a brand for your business, contact us today by e-mail or phone, 903-534-5220.

Healthy Brand, Healthy Budget, Healthy Bottom Line.

Starbucks has done what many said they couldn’t do. Develop a successful revenue stream selling coffee outside the stronghold of their classic community coffee house locations.

And the big news isn’t that they just barely broke even or had a reasonable year in a bad economy. The product, brand-named VIA, built a 30% share in the premium single serve/pod category in one year, according to an article at Brandweek.com.

The story goes on to say this product has been in the works for almost 20 years and its launch was supported by the single-largest marketing push in company history. And while all this is truly amazing, I think a few other details are also quite telling.

The brand appeals to the same basic higher-end demographic as their stores serve. Its packaging is limited to just a few servings each to drive repeat demand. It’s priced to maintain a healthy margin. It was launched with in-store promotions and with trial sampling in chains such as Target served by Starbucks baristas.

All this is to say it doesn’t fight the established brand but extends it very effectively without cannibalizing their primary in-store business. And supported by a communications budget that allows them to maintain positive market pressure when others are retreating, it has been extremely successful to say the least.

Read the full article and a linked story about the launch last year.

To talk to someone about helping you build a more successful brand marketing program, contact us today by e-mail or phone, 903-534-5220.

More Than A Little Green

One of the most important things about any brand communications program is consistency. Cornerstone’s work to launch the GreenGlass brand of fiberglass-faced gypsum products is a good example of this principle.

Documented in a recently published electronic brochure, our development of a fully integrated communications program to introduce and establish the product’s “Tough as Expected, Green as it Gets” brand distinction is illustrated with many examples.

This year-long campaign incorporates a consistent primary message of high performance and high recycled content through all its visual and verbal components. Whether that includes traditional media like print, direct mail and trade show displays or newer tools like online web banners, opt-in email and streaming video.

The most ambitious communications program to date for any Temple-Inland gypsum product launch, awareness generated by this campaign has been strong. Not only did it qualify as one of the top 100 most requested products for the year in Architectural Products, a publication featuring thousands of new products, but several months into the launch the industry’s long-standing market leader adjusted production to meet the requests for greener options in their own product line.

Review our GreenGlass campaign brochure for yourself.

To talk to someone about developing a similar campaign for your brand, contact us today by e-mail or phone, 903-534-5220.

Wake Up And Use My Product

OK, I have to say that the promotion Axe body spray has developed for use in Japan is one of the most brilliant ideas I’ve read about in a long time. A perfect match of audience and appeal. A perfect blend of timing and technology.

What am I talking about? It’s Axe’s Wake-Up Call service, of course. Where young Japanese males (old too I guess) visit the Axe website, enter their cell number and get a daily wake-up call from a young, attractive woman who reminds the customer to remember to spray on some Axe and smell great.

I know this isn’t Japan, but this idea is just so good it would probably work anywhere. It just demonstrates again for the hundredth time how important it is to know your customer.

According to an article on the website of Direct Marketing News, Unilever discovered that 70% of Japanese consumers use their mobile phones as alarm clocks too. So they capitalized on their audience’s existing behavior and linked that with a way to help them do something they were already doing more enjoyably.

Plus, it is just a great way to dramatically boost product usage. What could be better than getting permission every day to call and remind the customer about your brand and tell them to use your product at a time and in a way that almost guarantees the reminder will be effective.

This is the perfect example of making the customer the focus of the brand and the brand communication. If you don’t engage the customer by appealing to his desire to do something better, your communications are just so much background noise.

To read the rest of the article at dmnews.com.

To talk to someone about helping your brand connect better with your customers, contact us today by e-mail or phone, 903-534-5220.

The Most Interesting Campaign In The World

By creating a no-name, silver haired mystery-man, Dos Equis’ branding has found a new genre of storytelling  that creates a following looking to jump on the bandwagon of the most interesting man in the world.

How often do we see AARP members hawking products with a target demo of 20- and 30-somethings?  Seems like an odd and misplaced strategy, but the now infamous and ongoing Dos Equis campaign has done just that.  ESPN Sportscenter talkies quote his heroic tales when colorfully giving us the days sports highlights.  One daily comment of his heroics on the Dos Equis Facebook page is quickly followed by hundreds of comments mimicking the “most interesting man in the world”, creating yet another platform for the brand to go viral within the exploding social media world.

The Dos Equis campaign began three years ago in a few regional markets mostly clustered in the southwest.  The message caught on so quickly that the Mexican-based beer company quickly gained distribution deals throughout the United States, with sales soaring month over month.  At the moment, there seems to be no end in sight to the tales of a man who, we are told, has a house that looks like the Myans built it, because they did.

Branding campaigns typically take more of a straight line between their product or service and the brand itself.  Dos Equis has set fire to that concept by creating a character who seems to have much more interesting things on his agenda but, after a day of swimming with the sharks, always seems to have time for a relaxing gathering with beautiful people hanging on his every word, and of course a Dos Equis.

While the campaign has certainly captivated millions, there is a great lesson in the genius of the campaign itself.  Branding messages typically stray very little from the simple message of the features and benefits of their products.  Dos Equis has discovered that by creating an enormously popular character who in turn prefers the Dos Equis brand, the tidal wave of people jumping on “the most interesting bandwagon” does the branding for them.  A recent article on Slate analyzes this campaign further and is well worth the read.  Branding can have a humorous edge and create a following in the most unexpected ways.

For more on this unique campaign, check out the May Slate article here.

To talk to someone about the difference-making value of a brand for your business, contact us today by e-mail or phone, 903-534-5220.