The BIG Kahuna

I know I call out some people on my blog with a?BIG dose of my opinion?but there are a few blogs I really, really?dig (in no particular order).

1. Dim Bulb: Jonathan Salem Baskin is one smart, witty guy. If you haven’t found his blog yet click here. Although we?sometimes have different opinions his thinking is really great and unique. I look forward to his daily read in my Google reader.

2. Brand Mix: Martin Bishop is a true branding guy (even if he does have a funny accent). He works for that little up and coming company….Landor. Check out his site here.

3. Brandflakes For Breakfast: Darryl Ohrt writes a very witty blog and has quickly become one of my favorites. Check out their site here.

So far I haven’t picked on everybody, just ask these guys. Thought it might be?time for some positive vibrations!?Otherwise my wife and mother would be the only people to?still love me!

p.s. Go visit these blogs I’m sure you’ll like them.

Man,?I never thought I’d see the day when my FAVORITE band of all time would be doing social marketing but…

Check it out, click here:?AC/DC Rocks

They’re requesting that you upload a video greeting on YouTube, or you playing air guitar to Back in Black (I kick serious tush at that). I’m the svelt guy on the left.

When you upload your vid they want you to include the tag: ACDCBlowUpYourVideo. They got a button to “spread the word” and sign up for their e-newsletter as well. You can download their banners to help spread the word here.

How freakin cool is that? I can’t wait for their new CD, coming soon.

A bunch of rockin’ mo-fo’s with a new kick ass website: AC/DC.com

Let me tell you something Angus, get me some ticks and some backstage passes when you come to Boston or Puerto Rico and I’ll spread the word like you’ve never seen! I’m the branding guru my man…

Here’s my story of how to tie, search engine optimization, branding, service, blogging?and word of mouth into any business.

I’m going to share a bit now. About 6 months ago I was diagnosed with an umbilical hernia. I was out of the country and decided to wait until I got back to Boston.

So here’s how it all unfolded.

1. Search Engine Optimization: I went onto Google and did a search for “Umbilical Hernia Repair”. Doctors who perform this procedure may want to consider being in Google’s top ten. I used the information for educating myself about what needed to be done. Then I refined my search to “Boston Umbilical?Hernia Repair”. Surprisingly no adult doctors came up. Imagine all the business that these doctors are missing out on?? What to do now?

2. Branding:?I reverted to thinking of what are considered the best Boston Hospitals (brand image). Boston is arguably the best city for medical care. Beth Israel Hospital?immediately came to mind. So, back to Google.

3. I found Beth Israel’s website and went onto their “find a doctor” feature. But surprisingly they don’t have anything listed for hernia doctors. Now what?

4. Phone call: Yup, I actually called. And I because I did my research on Google I asked for a Laparoscopic Hernia Doctor. Presto, there are only two. I got their names and went back to Beth Israel’s website where I did a search. I finally got to Dr. Benjamin Schneider‘s main page

http://www.bidmc.harvard.edu/sites/bidmc/Find_a_Doc/doc_detail.asp?sid=41414942494543

Wow, Beth Israel really needs to get up to speed on this stuff. But I persevered because of their brand image. Ultimately it was Beth Israel’s brand image that lead me to Doctor Schneider.

5. Service: I met with Dr. Schneider and my number one priority was how I was treated? Was he going to care about me as a patient/client or was I another surgery in his rotation. I must say that he was really patient and caring. He answered all my questions, gave me recommendations and we scheduled the surgery for July 2nd.

6. Blogging: I just had my follow-up visit today?with Dr. Schneider. Once again he took the time, explained what he had done and looked after me. Now, did he know that I’m a branding guru with a pretty good size blog readership? No, not when we scheduled my surgery. But you see in today’s Internet world anyone can be a blogger and everyone can therefore share their experiences.

Doctors need to realize that a post on a blog positive or negative can affect their business, brand image and overall career. In Dr. Schneider’s case it’s a very positive experience.

7. Word of Mouth: My friend Ken and I spoke about my surgery. Unfortunately he also has an umbilical hernia. I strongly recommended Dr. Schneider. I explained the entire process to him as if it were coming directly from Dr. Schneider.

Now it would have been a whole lot easier if Beth Israel understood search engine optimization, or if doctors in private practice understood it. They could potentially increase their revenues exponentially. Furthermore internal search engines like the one Beth Israel has must work much better. I finally had to break down and call, which in my Internet world is nutty.

But if you apply a few solid tactics, you can really reap the benefits of a successful business:

1. Branding – Build a strong brand image

2. Search Engine Optimization – gets the customers to your virtual doorstep

3. Website – Professional, easy to navigate website is key

4. Service – Provide superior service

5. Blogging – ask your customers if they blog, if so ask them to blog about their experience with you

6. Word of mouth – If you came through for them this is your reward

Thank you for selecting the BIG logo as your favorite Business Blog?Logo Design:

It was very flattering that many of my readers took the time to click over and make a comment. It’s brand ambassadors like you that keep us Pumped Up!

I’ve been watching a lot of TV commercials for the Cancer Treatment Centers Of America?lately. I don’t usually watch commercials but I feel compelled to watch theirs. Why? Because they seem genuine. They have a message that’s different and I like it.

Their brand identity?is compassion. Unlike most physicians whose bedside manners aren’t so great these guys seemed to have built a model on compassion. They are dedicated to delivering that brand identity throughout their interaction with consumers.

They developed and branded Patient Empowerment Medicine. Smart stuff. Read about their philosophy here and promise here.

You can call them anytime:

Call 1-800-615-3055 anytime to discuss your treatment options (taken from their site). That’s pretty smart. Imagine getting the bad news from your local (most likely uncaring Doc) that you have some form of cancer. It’s nice to know that they are there for you.

The only thing I would have done different is developed a better brand?name. One that leveraged compassion. The current name is very sterile sounding and not at all compassionate. The tree logo is somewhat overdone as well:

But the messaging is right on point. Now of course they have to deliver on the brand promise (I’m assuming they do). So far a big thumbs up to Cancer Treatment Centers Of America!

… Alltop.com

Specifically you can find our top 5 branding blog postings at http://smallbusiness.alltop.com/. Here?s why this is a kick-ass idea from Guy. They take all the top stories from the web and put them in one place. It makes it so easy to find great articles, tips, advice, etc. ?

Some of the categories you can read from are small business (this is where we can be found), environment, photography, science, celebrity gossip, fashion, gaming, sports, politics, automobiles, and Macintosh. At each Alltop site, they display the latest five stories from thirty or more sites on a single page ? they call this ?single-page aggregation.??

What a great freakin idea. Why didn?t I think of this? ?

Now what do I have to do to get us moved up to the top of Alltop? Do me a favor, send an email to Guy, kawasaki@garage.com and ask him to move Brand Identity Guru up on the board! C?mon, help a brother out.

I would like to thank Joe Zuccaro for this guest blog. Check Joe?s blog out here The Marketing Consigliere Blog

Super Bowl XLII was definitely a nail-biter for both New York Giants and New England Patriots fans.? For the net-centric marketing and advertising crowd, IMHO it was bit of a disappointment compared to past Super Bowls; branding enthusiasts had a little better time though.

Most of the ads viewed can be seen on the NFL site. ?Unfortunately, each ad here has the same pre-roll from Planters, the game sponsor. ??They make you watch an ad to see and ad!?? R-R-R-R-R-R!

Many famous brands were long on creative but short on call-to-action.? At the end of some of the ads, the URLs were quite different from the intuitive name of the product.? For instance, the Taco Bell commercial flashed ?www.thinkoutsidethebun.com? so quickly I barely caught it ? and I was focusing on the ads for this blog.? AT&T Wireless wanted the viewer to get one of their red phones because of the proximity of St. Valentine?s Day ? that?s it ? appeal to my irrational affiliation of the color red and romance but don?t offer me a real value proposition.

On the other hand, Nationwide offered a toll-free number for a car insurance quote ? good call to action, but how about a web based approach?? Are you telling me that one of the largest insurance companies in the country still relies purely on a call center for sales when the most wired generation of viewers are watching?

GoDaddy.com had a call-to-action that was literally immediate ? go see the commercial that ?Fox rejected.?? OK, family values aside, that was brilliant.? Presidential candidate Barack Obama, the only politician with the obvious deep pockets and cojones to run a Super Bowl ad, asked the view to text message.? GoodDaddy.com, GoBarak.com?..

Doritos, which last year broke ground by leveraging user-generated content, repeated this good recipe by allowing its audience to vote on a music video which appeared as a commercial.?

Of the one hundred plus commercials, over ten percent of them were ?house? ads run by Fox for various shows, including the Nascar ?Sprint Cup? Daytona 500.? Talk about brand overload?.

The Super Bowl itself offered ample sponsoring opportunity, allowing brands solid visibility, obviously with Planters being the overall sponsor; however, their ?beauty? ad was in poor taste and may have tainted the brand. ?Other branding examples that seem to work well included Budweiser ?Aerial Coverage? and the Cadillac MVP Moments.?

B2B brands were conspicuously missing this year.? A Constellation Energy branding commercial may have been part of the local network commercials; I don?t know for sure.

What brand managers missed was an opportunity for more interactive engagement.? Considering BIGResearch?s Simultaneous Media Survey of this past year, 28.1% of respondents go online when watching TV.? True, the Super Bowl may be a ?group watch,? that commands more attention, there were probably a significant number of people with wifi enabled laptops and smartphones multi-tasking.? The chance to capture more data from the audience resulting from good ad or branding campaigns with compelling call-to-actions was squandered by most of the brands.

?I hope that the ability to immediately capture, analyze, and act upon data will be an objective that is part of next year?s Super Bowl ad strategy for more advertisers and brand managers.

To continue on with my series on ridiculous blog posts from Seth Godin I give you his latest blog post ?Tribe Management?.?Here?s an excerpt:

Brand management is so 1999.

Brand management was top down, internally focused, political and money based. It involved an MBA managing the brand, the ads, the shelf space, etc. The MBA argued with product development and manufacturing to get decent stuff, and with the CFO to get more cash to spend on ads.

Wow talk about stereotyping. I?ve worked with brand/marketing managers for 20 years now and I can tell you that this is not where it?s at. Just yesterday I spoke with a brand manager about setting up a blog and how they could leverage their brand identity through via internal and external branding strategies.

Let me tell you what brand managers really do and why Seth Godin is a Master Charlatan (in my humble opinion):

1.???? They develop a company?s brand identity, brand promise and brand strategy (still very chic as far as I know?so 2008).

2.???? They implement an internal branding program to get employees involved with the brand so they become brand ambassadors (probably still cool in 2008 as far as I know).

3.???? They choose the best strategies and tactics that obtain the greatest ROI and leverage their brand identity (I?ve personally never sold TV ads as we are a branding company not an ad agency). TV is so dead.

4.???? As far as I know hiring MBA?s is still a good thing. Smart people still count.

5.???? Brand Managers don?t have a predestined way of spending the budget. Maybe ads are the correct way to go or maybe search engine optimization is. They?re smart or at least should be.

The sad thing is Seth Godin doesn?t really know much about branding. He?s a word of mouth marketing guy. Don?t write about subjects that you are clearly misinformed with. Stick to your spiel about permission marketing, that?s not so bad.

Seth Godin is on a book tour right now. He makes money from selling books. Enough said.

A charlatan is a person practicing quackery or some similar confidence trick in order to obtain money or advantage via some form of pretence or deception.?

It’s the most important thing any company can do. Here’s a case study for one company’s quest for the perfect brand identity.?

Humboldt Storage and Moving decided to get into the moving, storing and protecting of fine art. They knew they needed a brand that reflected the type of service that hit their target market of very affluent clients.

They came to us and we conducted our brand-aid research. Ultimately the deliverable was a value proposition, positioning and brand identity. The new brand identity was to deliver customization through the client’s imagination. If they could imagine it Humboldt could deliver it.?

So we named the new company “Mind’s Eye” and put that with the tagline “Imagine That”. ?

Our next step was logo development:

As you can see we played from the client’s use of their brain to imagine the possibilities.??

And finally the website was introduced:?

http://www.imaginemindseye.com/???

There is still a lot more to do. We’re currently performing search engine optimization on the website and we’ve developed a handout brochure. Next will come a blog and some social media. If they can imagine it we can help them build it.

Last year over 100 talented bloggers contributed chapters to The Age of Conversation. Unfortunately I did not contribute but I?m on the roster for the 2008 version! This year has a different theme – you get to select?via an online vote and, of course, there’s another chance to become a published author by contributing a chapter.

I?m ready to Pump Up?Your Brand!

Click here: Drew McLellan’s blog for more info.

I keep preaching in my branding?blog that trying to be everything to everyone is bad. Companies only see the ability to make as many sales as possible. Hey even though we?re an office supply company why not sell coffee? While we?re at it why not sell neck ties. People in offices wear ties don?t they? Stupid, stupid and more stupid.

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You need to develop a brand identity and positioning and then live it. I found a great little article from John over at Brand Autopsy which says it all.

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Think different, be different and be real.

Last night I attended the V.I.P. Party for the new St. Thomas Virgin Islands Hooters. As I walked through the Hooter pearly gates I came through a tunnel of Hooter girls cheering me on as I entered the restaurant. Sort of like when an NFL team runs onto the field and through the cheerleaders. As tacky as it was I felt special and I smiled.

Those that have any experience with the Caribbean know that things that work in the states don?t always work in St. Thomas. Many chain restaurants have died a quick death in St. Thomas (ask Cold Stone Creamery and Taco Bell). But Hooters will live, I hope.

Hooters understands branding. They know their restaurant isn?t right for everyone. They try to be different. After all they?re not going to win any food awards (although the wings kick butt). They sell sex and a fun atmosphere, and it works.

For this special night they literally flew in about 50 Hooter girls from all over the world. Some went from the airport right to the new location and were serving me wings within an hour of landing. All the girls were true Hooter clones. You may not like it but once again it works. Being a Hooter girl is an honor. How many of your employee?s feel that way about working for your company? That?s branding!

I was happy to see that Hooters is Hooters even in St. Thomas. Right down to the last call cheer from atop the bar to the way the food tasted and the girls acted. It was a true Hooter experience.

Gosh, I laugh hysterically when I see these new Mac versus PC commercials. They are just so well done and on point. The newest spot is with the PC guy at a podium looking like a politician.??

He says, ?some people are giving up on Vista because it doesn?t ?work? the way they want it to?.? And, ?other people are going back to XP?. ?Ask not what Vista can do for you, ask what you can buy for Vista?. Brilliant!?

I?m not sure if this is getting folks to consider buying a Mac or not but I know it sure is entertaining and memorable. So I would guess it?s doing a good job at building brand awareness for Mac.? I can see a nice young group of people 14-24ish starting to get Mac and what they?re all about.??

Kudos to Mac for putting out some good stuff in an era where TV advertising is almost always horrible.

For about 15 years now I?ve been telling clients that internal branding is as critical as external branding. Companies love the external branding. Why? Because it?s glitzy and fun.?

Internal branding takes thinking and strategy. How do we get our employees on board? How can we get them to promote the brand voluntarily? Well our friends over at Buzzoodle know all the answers and they want to share them with you.

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Buzzoodle is a recognized leader in creating employee evangelism. They wrote the book on it (Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing (Paperback).

Ron McDaniel is one of our very favorite blogs we read and expert on word of mouth marketing.? Check out Buzzoodle?s Employee Evangelism Everyone is a Buzz Marketer…

Click here:?

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Buzzoodle is 100% dedicated to helping organizations achieve:

• More Buzz & Word of Mouth generated by the workforce
• Better employee moral & stronger sense of ownership
• Higher employee enthusiasm
• Awareness of opportunities and pitfalls with new media when creating buzz
• Better and more frequent communications
• Personal Brand as an extension of the Business Brand

He?s having a seminar in Vegas for 2 days. If you?re serious about internal marketing you should really check this out.?

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2 Full Days
January 24th & 25th, 2008
The Hampton Inn Tropicana
Las Vegas, Nevada

BIG gives it our BrandStamp approval!

A new company came to us a few months back, Development Management Associates (DMA) and inquired about a new logo. DMA is a high end project management company guiding owners with new construction projects.?

After a long intimate conversation I convinced the owner to change the company name to a name that better suits their brand identity and positioning. The company was known for their creative thinking. Making quick decisions on the fly and providing out of the box solutions.

The name DMA might as well have been invisible.?So we went to work. Over 150 names were proposed with 25 names highlighted as homeruns. The client at first was nervous because the names weren?t typical by industry standards. I told him not to worry, being different is good!?

A name was selected and a company was born:

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The name LeftField represents the kind of solutions and creativity they come up with on their projects. Their solutions are out of the box, or from LeftField. Solutions you didn?t expect but make the difference.?

Next they hired us to develop the tagline:?The Right Choice In Project Management?

As you can see it all comes together nicely.?Now which would you prefer??

LeftField or Development Management Associates? ?It takes a lot of guts to differentiate your company but it?s well worth the risk.?

At BIG we?re deep into Social Media. As a matter of fact we believe it will change the scope of advertising, marketing and branding today.

But sometimes you just have to keep it real. Check out this great video on YouTube:

I was recently introduced to a company through another blog called momspit. Yup, the name is momspit??

And it rocks (I mean the name). What do you instantly think of when you hear the name momspit? I know what I think of and good or bad that name evokes a feeling deep inside of you. Some will think that name is gross. Others will think that name is totally great (like me).

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Sure you could be one of the millions of companies that sells a similar product and just blends into the crowd but there is only one momspit now isn?t there.?

momspit has clearly positioned themselves and differentiated all in one naming swoop. Kudos for having the balls to go out and do it right.

The only downfall is when I went to their website it was very sterile and bland looking. I really wanted to see them get into and live their brand. They?ve started something great but there is big time room for improvement.?

There are 3 ?Chief Executive Moms? that run the company:??

http://www.momspit.com/aboutUs/foundingTeam.aspx??

The titles are another step in the right direction.?

Kudos to momspit, keep up the good work! Great start to a positve branding strategy.

I found this great article at Qucik Sprout on the difference between PR, Branding, Marketing and Advertising and I think it really holds true:

As you can see, the message in marketing and advertising originates from you. However, the PR message comes from a third party. And PR leads to branding. In branding, the prospective customer/visitor is interested in you because of what someone else said.It?s much more effective when other people talk about you in a positive fashion compared to self-promotion.

I thought it was very interesting and right on point.

Greenwood and Brand Identity Guru Will Spearhead Awareness Efforts for Largest Independent Food Distributor in New England

Headquartered in Taunton, Massachusetts, Agar Supply is the leading provider of foodservice products to customers throughout New England. They are?New England’s largest foodservice supplier of meats, poultry, seafood and grocery items as well as non food items and janitorial supplies. Agar Supply has been supplying meat and seafood to New England food establishments since the 1940′s and has made their name as a full service foodservice distributor specializing in “Center of the Plate” solutions.

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“We are pleased to have David and BIG?s firm?s on board here at Agar,” stated Karen Bressler, Chief Executive Officer at Agar Supply. “We believe David and BIG have the skills, knowledge and experience to help raise our profile and promote the uniqueness of our company and we are confident he will bring about a new level of brand awareness around Agar.” ?

Greenwood and BIG will assist Agar Supply in promoting company news, significant business developments, positioning their expertise and help to raise the overall profile of the company in New England. David will work closely with leading branding?agency Brand Identity Guru? as well as key principals in charting a course to create substantial awareness for the company’s activities and brand.

“We?are thrilled that Agar Supply has placed their trust in our firms,” states David Greenwood and Scott White. “It will be an honor to represent a company that has such a rich history and we?re looking forward to telling their story.”