posted by admin on June 16th, 2010
Does this look familiar? Maybe a little bit like your brand?
Has your brand swelled so big that you’re now trying to offer everything to anyone? Businesses seem to be, more and more, adopting this “quantity” over “quality” idea (that they need to provide everything to their customers), but in essence they are diluting their brand. Because I’m seeing more and more of this in the businesses around town, I thought it was prime time to provide a helpful list of questions to help you determine if your brand is overweight. Here are the questions:
Do you keep adding new features, products and messages to your brand, but are you rarely cutting things out?
Are you in a market space that offers you no competitive advantage or ability to create value above and beyond the competition? Why do you stay in that space? What is occupying that space doing to your core business?
If you had to reduce your product line, your marketing copy, your team, your prospect list down to the 20% that generates 80% of your success, what would you chose to cut first, second?
When you answer these questions, write down what instantly comes to mind and share it with the rest of us. This way we can all learn and strengthen our branding initiatives together. I look forward to your insights.
~ Brenton Schmidt
Tags: brand advantage, brand identity, core marketing value, niche marketing, online marketing, web marketing
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posted by Anna Fleet on June 15th, 2010
Here at Design Changes, we love to brag about our friends. Well MFX Partners, our partner design agency has some exciting news about implementing a social media strategy that I think our non-for-profit and small business clients can take to “hart”…no really. MFX Partners’ own Creative Director’s, Brock Hart, was recently invited for a guest speaking engagement at Communitech on Social Media Marketing.
In his peer-to-peer talk, Brock spoke about the vital things to think about and the tools to use when developing a social media implementation for B2B, and also examples that have worked for him!
So check out the post, and if you get a chance, I encourage you to attend the next Business Development and Senior Sales peer-to-peer talk at Communitech (scheduled on the first Wednesday of each and every month).
Tags: Brock Hart, MFX Partners, peer-to-peer at Communitech, social media for B2B, social media marketing, social media strategy, social media tools, web 2.0, web marketing
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posted by Anna Fleet on June 14th, 2010
Are you a small business or not-for-profit organization that’s just started blogging? Well, I attended the Search Engine Strategies (SES) Conference in Toronto, Ontario this past Friday, lucky you, where I was introduced to four simple questions that you should ask yourself in order to help you determine exactly who your target blog audience is and what they will find valuable. The 4 questions are:
1) Who are you writing this blog for?
2) Will your readers understand the technicalities of your business?
3) Will they understand the jargon used in your industry?
4) Are your readers more likely to identify with the features or the benefits of your products or services?
These four little questions are meant to help you create an effective blog strategy—one that will resonate with your readers, and hopefully start some conversation around your industry, products or services and lend credibility to your blog and business.
Tags: blog strategy, blog tips and tricks, SES Conference, SES Toronto, social networking, target blog audience, web 2.0
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posted by admin on June 11th, 2010
Yesterday’s post introduced you to a powerful technique to help you instantly position your brand in the minds of your audience—making your brand more desirable through positive comparison. The idea is that the brain habitually seeks familiarity—and familiarity feels safe.
Today, as promised, I’ll share some easy fill-in-the-blank exercises to help you compare yourself (your company, product, offering etc.) to something your audience is familiar with. Please fill in the following blank…
We are the ______ in our category.
The blank should be another positive brand that you can compare yourself to. This brand should already be known for the positive associations that you want your brand to be known for—for example ‘We are the Cadillac in our industry’. For most people, the Cadillac brand equates to premium and stylish. By connecting your brand to another known brand instantly positions your brand in a clear and compelling light.
Another fill in the blank:
We are like _____ in these ways, but different in these ways _____.
This method compares your brand with a competitive offering, which your audience already understands, but also ensures you stand out. This technique reinforces familiarity to ease any concerns from the buyer, and then tells them how you are unique.
An example of this can be found on the website of a Credit Union based locally in Kitchener/Waterloo. See how they highlight how they’re similar to other financial institutions, but also highlight their differences?
Fill in the blanks and please share your insights.
~ Brenton Schmidt
Tags: brand association, brand marketing, building brand identity, positive brand building, web marketing
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posted by admin on June 10th, 2010
Here is a powerful technique you can put to use immediately to get the attention of your audience and make your small business brand more desirable. This technique ensures that the value of your product or service is understood.
The trick is to compare yourself—and by this I mean your company, product, offering, or whatever you’re marketing—with something your audience relates to. You can probably see the value of this when introducing new technologies or offerings that are unique to anything else on the market. This technique satisfies the brain, which habitually seeks familiarity because it feels safe.
Remember, you are being compared to someone or something in the mind of your customers and potential prospects, so it’s important to realize that is your opportunity and responsibility, as someone who cares about your brand perception, to actively position yourself the way that you desire.
If what you offer is unfamiliar, it’s perceived by your potential prospects as risky, so in all likelihood it will be rejected. And if you have ever had the pleasure of presenting a new concept to a corporate team, you’re already familiar with the eye rolling and blood pressure boiling reactions. This is a habitual reaction to what they recognize as unfamiliar—and thus, unsafe. However if you tie your brand to something positive and familiar, then you’ll get their approval.
In tomorrow’s post, I plan to introduce you to some techniques that will help you anchor your brand in a positive and familiar way. But in the meantime please share some comparisons that come to mind when you think of your brand. Remember, think of comparisons that your audience understands and has positive associate with.
~ Brenton Schmidt
Tags: brand association, brand techniques, brand tips, building brand identity, positive brand comparisons, positive brand identity, viral marketing, web 2.0, web marketing
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posted by Anna Fleet on June 9th, 2010
Yesterday my Twitter feed was a buzz with kudos for this lively RSA animated presentation, adapted from a Dan Pink talk on what motivates us (human beings) in the workplace. Pink points out that, surprisingly, it’s not money that motivates us, but the opportunity to work independently, masterfully and with purpose.
Check it out and let me know what you think?
Tags: animated presentation, Dan Pink, RSA Animate, social change, social motivation, social networking, workplace motivation
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posted by Anna Fleet on June 8th, 2010
Yesterday, I looked at a Wall Street Journal essay by Nicholas Carr, the author of “The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains” and his BIG question “Is the Internet Making Us Dumber?”
Now that you’ve had some time to sleep on it, Google it, Tweet your friends about it…let’s look at the flip side of that argument contributed by Clay Shirky (author of Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age), in his follow up essay, “Is the Internet Making Us Smarter?”
Shirky weeds through the juvenile videos, cheesy images and icons, grammatically incorrect text, and the spam—and even though he admits there’s little respect for the practices and standards of journalism or literary text online—he also points out a that generation after generation, and with every new media, the old guard will stand as judge and jury, blaming whatever new media as the downfall of our youth when the most valuable and commendable accomplishment of the Internet is overlooked.
Isn’t the Internet, after all, the reason why over a billion people are connected into the same network? And Shirky adds, “the trillion hours of free time the educated population of the planet has to spend doing things they care about”. Bottom line: the Internet is responsible for some seriously positive social change.
Take Wikipedia as an example—it’s the most utilized English educational reference tool available. It’s existence is proof that the Internet encourages the type of social collaboration responsible for creating some remarkable educational and medical references.
Sure, as any media grows, it’s average quality drops—but doesn’t society have the smarts to look at a bad blog and say “Now that’s a bunch of bull? I guess that’s the important question, isn’t it?
Why don’t you tell me what you think…Read Shirky’s essay and please share your thoughts.
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posted by Anna Fleet on June 7th, 2010
I love reading the Saturday essays in The Wall Street Journal—regardless of the topic. However, for the past two Saturday’s they have featured a real-treat for us tech-geeks. Nicholas Carr (the author or “The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains”) contributed an opinion piece on with an Internet focus that I found especially intriguing—“Does using the World Wide Web make us dumber?”
Even though it hurts me a bit to admit this (a person who uses the Web for, oh, approximately 85-percent of my day) but Carr’s got a point. Even though the Internet puts an enormous amount of information at our fingertips, the other side of that coin ain’t so shiny. Because as penance for the free entertainment, we get constant distractions—text jammed-full of links and icons, dizzying multimedia, constant email interruptions, etc.) that actually lend to ADD-style, fragmented thinking.
Common, think about it…the attention you pay to reading a book or a printed version of the morning paper. Now compare that to the focus you pay to your favorite Blog or Webcast. And consider that 95 percent of Internet users juggle more than one task as they do this. Did the Roman thinker, Seneca, have it bang on when he made the statement almost 2,000 years ago that “To be everywhere is to be nowhere”?
Or maybe your scattered brain sees the ray of sunshine past all the pretty links just like Patricia Greenfield, a developmental psychologist who pointed out that there are benefits to the scattered focus that the Internet offers. She points to computer tasks and video games that actually enhance our visual literacy skills, which are part of our cognitive abilities—in the end increasing the our speed of shift focus, or as Greenfield puts it, “every medium develops some cognitive skills at the expense of others.” Now, I bet she doesn’t spend 85% of her day on the Net now does she?
So what are your thoughts? Is the Internet making us dumber? Or did I loose you back at Wall Street Journal article? If so, Carr might have called the kettle black on this issue. But before I leave computer for a good ol hardcover encyclopedia, I promise to give a fair shot to other side of the argument tomorrow with Carr’s “Does the Internet Make You Smarter?”
So stay tuned, there’s hope for us yet…
Tags: Internet use, internet use positive benefits, Nicholas Carr, print use, the shallows: what the internet is doing to our brains, web use negative effects
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posted by Anna Fleet on June 4th, 2010
Join us in celebration of the most distinguished and inspiring artistic talents in Kitchener-Waterloo. This Sunday, June 26, 2010 marks the Arts Awards at The Centre in the Square at 6:30pm. Tickets can still be purchased at www.kwartsawards.ca, online through the Centre in the Square Box Office and also by calling 519-578-1570.
This year’s awards celebrate 22 years of artistic achievement in the Kitchener-Waterloo Region. Artists will be awarded in 12 award categories—including Literary, Visual Arts, Performing Arts, Music, Mentor, Festival and Volunteer Program, plus Lifetime Achievement and Corporate Arts Sponsor. Performances will feature Everett Smith (from So You Think You Can Dance fame), the DaCapo Chamber Choir directed by Leonard Enns, award-winning playwright Sunil Kuruvilla, and choreographer Laura Kappel will collaborate with multi-artist Samantha Ullyot and Jason White (on piano), plus many more!
Distinguished arts awards winners will receive the prestigious Denney statuette—crafted exclusively by local KW artist Alan Denney, plus a beautiful silver Denney pin, created by local business Knar Jewelry.
Tags: art kitchener waterloo, artistic lifetime achievement, centre in the square, festivals, kw arts awards, literary art, music, performing art, visual art
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posted by admin on June 3rd, 2010
Today is the final day of my 3 favorite and most (personally) impactful brand messages series. We looked at eHarmony yesterday, a brand that I feel cleverly marries (pun 
a clear brand message with credible brand proof that builds customer trust in the eHarmony brand and services.
Today, I’d like to end the series with another personal favorite—Geico. Now you probably best know Geico as the car insurance company with the cute gecko with even cuter accent. Well the gecko goes a long way to add personality to a brand that already had a pretty strong brand promise. The ads all state “15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance”, which increases the appeal of the insurance provider (it does for this guy at least) with the key—hard numbers.
The use of numbers is an often under utilized principle demonstrated by Geico. After all most insurance providers merely stated something like “we’ll save you money on your car insurance”. This is a very generic idea that generates a weak “same-old-same-old” response by viewers. However, Geico adds the hard numbers to that statement—“15 minutes can save you 15% on car insurance”—boosting the strength of the company’s brand and helping to differentiate them from a pack of other insurance providers who stick to general (and weaker) brand messaging.
~ Brenton Schmidt
Tags: brand essence, brand messaging, core brand messaging, geico marketing, online marketing, web 2.0
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One Calendar with Social Networking Powers
Does this look familiar? Maybe a little bit like your brand?
