Award-winning branding, rebranding and package design
How brands outshine, outlast and outperform their competition
There are so many awesome products out there waiting to get noticed. With so many small businesses and a dream, few ever graduate to become a true successful brand (or rise to the level of Anne Hathaway, more on that below). Yet, like so many prom dates gone wrong, it was left standing there, waiting …
The Winter Fancy Food Show has been on full display this week. Per their own site, “17,000+ Winter Fancy Food Show attendees discover more than 80,000 products featuring the world’s finest foods and beverages from more than 1,300 exhibitors representing 35+ countries.” Whoa. And one of the most competitive and shameless categories is chocolate. (And …
“Let’s get @#$%&*! creative!” screamed the CEO. Hey, innocent lives are at stake, and all the usual thinking has failed to result in any breakthrough. After all, creativity is the cure-all to everything, right? Dear CEO, I disagree. Collecting the Dots vs.Connecting the Dots Most of us have it backwards: Creativity isn’t the outcome or …
You knock yourself out to close that client. They close. You’re pumped. Yet, once the project ends, you never hear from them again. So you rinse and repeat: Close. Deliver. Sell more. Month after month. Year after year. Never gaining the traction or brand recognition you rightfully deserve. There are various possible scenarios why. But …
I was reading a good article in the Huffington Post that explains in understandable English what’s meant by the term “fiscal cliff.” It is explained this way: “This whole situation is the result of an ongoing fight in Washington over how to improve the economy (in the short term) and bring down the national debt …
“You can’t save souls in an empty church…. And you can’t bore people into buying your product.” David Oglivy. (This slightly embellished but true story exposes a tale about a love triangle involving lust, branding and logo design.) “It’s true. Don’t get me wrong, if it wasn’t the logo that had me pissing and moaning, …
“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.” Stephen Hawking Can every brand grow explosively when others (that could be thriving) die a lonely and forgettable death? Interesting question. Some companies think it’s how deep one’s pockets are. But Microsoft, with its deep pockets, has proven time and again that …
“We’re here tonight with two world-class opponents. “In this corner is the current champion, Social Media, the reigning and defending Champion holding the professional world record for endless wins (and numerous controversial losses) standing at 6-feet-2-inches tall, weighing in at 225 pounds. The Challenger and former World Champion is Branding from the East Coast, standing …
Companies will at some point come to that milestone known as “the rebrand.” For some, it happens early on once they’ve discovered who they really are while with others, it occurs after many years of having grown (or outgrown) their brand. Then and Now You’ll discover that some brands go along an evolutionary track that …
Content Marketing. A modern marketing term almost as popular as Social Media (and we see the trouble many companies got into over that). Then, there’s the other big word: Strategy. Longer term, bigger picture solutions versus the day-to-day tactical actions taken by companies to achieve short-term goals (e.g., drive sales) and handle more immediate issues. …
In a video I recently saw by James Wedmore, he reported that every single minute, there are: 2.8 million videos viewed on YouTube 277,000 logins on Facebook 100,000 tweets sent on Twitter 100 new accounts created on LinkedIn On top of that, there’s a reported 550,000 new businesses started in the US alone, each and …
The sheer volume of impractical business solutions you can find are nearly endless. Too often, I overhear some stupidly shallow conversation or ridiculously useless blog opinion that tries to separate two key functions of business: marketing and sales. They are inherently intertwined. Yes, sometimes, there will be a rainmaker with the Midas touch but even …
A brand has a dialog with the world. Some of these dialogs are smart with excellent ROI while others are fruitless wastes of time and money. Yet brand development is a vital key to establishing a brand’s vocabulary in its ongoing dialog with the world. Brands are known for what they don’t say as much …
Smart business people are great to have on your side to help isolate and eliminate fundamental branding mistakes. Why else do you think business line up and volunteer to swim in the potentially scathing and sometimes brutal Shark Tank? It’s to get h-e-l-p from people who k-n-o-w. Here are some facts: I would put this …
Last week, Daymond John of Shark Tank shared some love by tweeting about my latest Fast Company post, “Best article ever written about Shark Tank…” He didn’t say “Best.” No. He wrote, “BEST article EVER written….” as in…. EVER. Now that’s some LOVE. And for any who think I might be embellishing this, here is …
“Consumers today have become a cynical mob of buyers who believe the reviews and ratings of complete strangers much more readily than your brand’s promises and distinctions.” The marketing landscape is a consumers’ hell. Rampant in the marketplace, we have ordinary brands parading around and sounding like something special — the next greatest thing — …
“A great brand is a necessity, not a luxury,” stated Scott Bedbury, the brand guru whose work with Nike and Starbucks is legendary. Brands need to—and must—thrive. If for no other reason than it’s the proper reward for when a brand is done well. That reward comes in the form of loyalty, sales, growth, good …
Many entrepreneurs have asked me how I increased sales 300% of Legacy Chocolates. I had to ask myself, “With all the decades of chocolate marketing, how do you attempt to rise above the noise?” The only options I came up with were: Add to the noise, or rise above it. There was no third option, …
The Wisconsin Department of Tourism announced that in 2010, Wisconsin tourism generated $12.3 billion in revenue. This is a story of how one Midwest city took advantage of this profit center to grab its slice of the tourism pie. Learning To See Again Before I was able to help the town of Osceola rebrand itself …
