Are you showing a little SKIN?

Are you seeing red? How about orange?

These are just a few of the hot colors that the Color Marketing group is forecasting for 2005. Further, the color influences are by good design, cultural mosaics, and luxury splits. In turn, these allow an individual to discover and adapt to fit individual taste rather than mindlessly purchasing prepackaged sets no matter what the product.

What does this mean for you as an individual and as a business owner? If your designer has laid out the strong foundation for your ID & branding scheme, I wouldn't encourage you to touch or even modify it (see Research is Beauty and Importance of the Inukshuk) since this design research and effort is to provide you with a solid stance within your business community.

However, I would recommend adding a little punch & spice (see Flower Power) to your collateral. Only do this if your collateral is a short-lived entity that promotes an event being held once within this season. Perhaps a little zing of orange may be what our branding could use, for instance, but not on a take-away that we hope to reprint several times this year without modifications. Making modifications time and again only cost and don't serve well to your bottom line.

Design Thought Strategy
Strategy vs Tactical The strategists in us remember that we need to keep our business facade and messaging fresh but consistent through-out the long run.

The tactical advisor adds that when adding a splash of color, make sure:

1. It complements your branding scheme; and
   
2. It fits your demographic

I can't emphasize enough to please remember to be thoughtful of your audience (see Creative Thinking vs Productivity) -as you don't want to lose your message because you thought flamingos would be too cool on your business card.

Rules to Learn By

Seth Godin has a wonderful post on his blog about the dangers of playing by the rules. If you want to stand out in a crowd and win it is important to learn and understand the conventional approach. Once you know that, figure out how to NOT be like everyone else, how not to play the game by their rules.

What are you doing to NOT follow the rules of your industry? What are you doing to set your own agenda and change the game?

Brand Equity

I've been reading a number of things lately regarding the definition of "brand equity." I find it interesting that almost all of these definitions are couched in financial terms. This is the traditional way of looking at brand equity, but I'm not sure that it is a sufficient way of defining the term.

In most business schools and text books, brand equity is essentially defined as the amount of value a company can attribute to its brand. In other words the difference between the asset value of a company and its total market value. While it is a nice way to financially define brand value, I think it misses the emotional content that brand has with customers and consumers. Using this equation some companies with strong brands in the marketplace can have low brand value in financial terms and vice versa.

My refined definition of brand equity is:

Brand Equity = The level of market enthusiasm for your brand

By defining brand equity in terms of "enthusiasm" we are able to capture multiple aspects of equity beyond just a simple financial measure. For example, when Apple was going through its "lean years" in the 1990's it had very low brand equity in financial terms, but very high enthusiasm among believers. When the company rebounded, that market enthusiasm was once again translated into financial equity.

How much enthusiasm does the market have for your brand? Are your customers loyal even when your earnings are not what they should be? Is there enough enthusiasm in the marketplace for your brand that as your business grows you can translate it into financial success? Finally, how would you define your brand equity?

Branding the Inside of a Company

One of the areas I've been focusing on for the past several years is looking at how to communicate a company's brand most effectively to its employees. Many of the new tools and topics in the world of brands and branding focus on the emotional aspects of brand: how your customers "feel" about your company and the emotional connections you are making with them. Branding to employees deals with many of these same issues, but in some very different ways.

Over the next few weeks and months I am going to do my best to try and outline my view on how to communicate brand to employees most effectively. Today however, I want to concentrate on identifying three topics that I believe are very discrete, but often confused: Internal Branding, Employee Branding and Employer Branding.

Internal Branding is the general category within which we will talk about programs aimed at communicating a company's brand to its employees.

Both Employee and Employer Branding generally fall under the prevue of Human Resources.

Employee Branding is how companies define and discuss the kind of people who work for their company. Effective employee branding can be a significant weapon in the war to recruit the best talent. Good people generally want to work with other good people and employee branding helps "brand" the kind of people you can expect to find in any given organization.

Employer branding is similar to employee branding, but is aimed at branding the kind of workplace that a company has. It can be a very effective tool for HR in the recruiting and hiring process. One outstanding example of this is SAS Institute in Cary, North Carolina. SAS has spent years building a very nurturing work environment that makes it one of the most desirable work places anywhere. Seen as an employer of choice, the company has spent years building its reputation and now has one of the strongest employer brands in the world.

To build effective brand programs for both internal and external audiences all three of these areas must be taken into consideration and executed in conjunction with one another. With this in mind, in the upcoming articles we will primarily focus on the first area, Internal Branding, and the effects that it can have on your overall marketing strategy and customer success.

Definition of Brand

There's a great blog debate going on over at the Tom Peters site about the definition of brand. Christopher Kenton wrote a piece a few weeks back in Business Week Online about the definition of brand which I think significantly misses the mark. His thinking is very conventional and outwardly focused.

I believe that brands are a lot like art, their definitions are personal. Sort of, you know one when you see one. That's not to say that there are not some principles that apply to all brands (see Universal Brand Principles), but I do not believe there is a universal definition for "Brand."

When we allow brands to be personal things, it frees us a great deal to explore our own brands, whether they are corporate or personal, and decide the best way to develop, promote and engage with them. If you look at the great brands of the world, there is no standard manual they all followed to get to where they are today. Each followed its own, undefined path to success.

Ask yourself - What path is my brand on? Am I following the universal principles? How am I connecting with my customers? Is my brand a performance?