brand-schmand

Word on the street is you look outdated, confusing and you're missing the mark.  Are you a tech company but look like a fashion-designer label? 

whooooooooopsie! 

"Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't."

- Margaret Thatcher

Make it easy for people to just 'get' you at first glance.

But be careful!  Even a big company can phyk it up:: 

Gap's Logo Redesign Disaster

 

Gap messed with a brand that was working and greeted by backlash from thousands of angry customers in social media, who were attached to the recognizable blue box  "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" would've been sound advice. Its customers were already loyal to the original logo.


Here's a thought: include your customers in important decisions like changing your logo. 
Setting up a focus group can help companies view things from their customers; perspective and make more educated decisions. If Gap had taken some of these steps, they might have avoided the social media backlash.  If you're small business, reach out to a hand full of your clients for their feedback (also a good sales technique to lock in that relationship.)

Watergraphics was part of a crowdsourcing solution for this mess:

View entire story here:

watergraphics' redesigned gap logo --so much better!!! 

 
An example of branding that works::
Duh--call an apple an apple.  Radiant Life needed a name and branding for their technology arm.  Watergraphics suggested to use a part of radiant life's name and integrate into more of a technology title.  Company names that end in the hard 'k' sound are stronger and make impact (in English speaking countries) --something about that 'ACK' we like.  So, RADTEK was created.

First WATER asked Radiant Life to provide a creative brief of what they wanted their brand to say and here's what they provided:

    - we have a broad base of experience AND we are up to date on a wide range of technologies
    - our experience saves time and money on projects
    - we can help lead your whole team, and transfer techniques and strategies for long-term improvements
    - we can easily communicate and work with all levels and areas of your business
expertise * efficiency * effective, easy communications

TA-DA 


Watergraphics just finished this logo-type.  Guess what this company does.

Proper branding can result in higher sales of not only one product, but on other products associated with that brand. For example, if a customer loves Paul Newman's  salsa and trusts the brand, she is more likely to try other products offered by the company such as chocolate chip cookies. Brand is the personality that identifies a product, service or company (name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or combination of them) and how it relates to key constituencies: customers, staff, partners, investors etc.

It's not rocket-science, fo sho...  it's just my business.