How to Create an Unforgettable Brand

Written by Jillian Ogawa via UpCounsel.

Startups are known for having a “go big or go home” work ethic, but unfortunately, the same approach often backfires when applied toward marketing. Some startups spend too much too soon on big marketing initiatives that either prove ineffective or, at the other end of the spectrum, too successful to the point that they aren’t able to keep up with customer demand. Other common mistakes include focusing promotional efforts on marketing channels that are irrelevant to the target audience or copying the marketing efforts of competitors.

Startups can’t really afford to make these kind of mistakes. They only have a few months to make an impact on the minds of consumers, so it’s important to develop a strong brand will drive your marketing efforts toward platforms and methods that effectively communicate your brand ideals. 

The key to making your marketing efforts work smarter – not harder – is having a brand message powerful enough to guide your company through all stages of growth.

Likewise, a resonating brand message enables startups to quickly identify effective marketing opportunities that drive their brand forward.

Click here to read the full post on UpCounsel.

What Doesn't Get Measured...

... doesn't get managed.

This was too good to not share. Credit goes out to Tom Fishburne from the Marketoonist.

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When it comes to the marketing field, I've always found it quite interesting that to many people, the term "marketing" is synonymous with "advertising". In other words, these folks think marketing is all about coming up with a well-designed ad and spreading to the word about a business or brand.

Yes, advertising is an aspect of marketing communications. Yes, it's important to communicate your value proposition to drive short-term sales and build long-term brand equity, but if you're not measuring your marketing campaigns, how do you know if your marketing dollars are being utilized in an optimal way?

Unless you're living in a world where money grows on tress, there's normally a limit to your marketing budget. With that being the case, resources have to be used in the most effective manner possible. In order to increase the return of investment (ROI) of the marketing campaigns, marketers and marketing researchers utilize a variety of methodologies, from marketing mix modeling to brand equity trackers, to evaluate marketing effectiveness.

As useful as some of the above-mentioned methodologies are to help maximize your marketing ROI, you need to established what your current ROI is. To those aren't familiar with the concept of ROI, the essential ROI formula equals to net profit (from a certain marketing campaign) divided by investment amount (for said marketing campaign) multiplied by 100 (ROI's expressed as a percentage). An ROI of 0% is your break-even point and an ROI of 100% means that you doubled your money. I would suggest using Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets for the calculation and easily creating a chart to visualize the data.

While the idea of ROI starts to become a little fuzzy around branding, you want to keep your pre-established key performing indicators (KPIs) for the business in mind and work towards meeting the goals for these KPIs.

The moral of the story - marketing isn't just about creating pretty ads and promoting them.

Marketing's both a science and an art, requiring creativity in producing out-of-the-box strategies, but also analytical rigor to measure what works and what doesn't. Don't let your marketing dollars go to waste.

Debating Brand Valuation

... Now this was fascinating and quite entertaining to watch.

Being a religious Marketing Week subscriber, I've come across Mark Ritson's contrarian, but logically sound opinions before. While Mark make a valid points with the three sins addressed in his initial argument, Michael Rocha from Interbrand, Doreen Wang from BrandZ, and David Haigh from Brand Finance make solid rebuttals. A few things I took away from this were that:

• Valuations are subjective and can differ just like other parts of the industry, e.g. equity firms.
• As long as you can explain your valuation methodology, variations between different valuation assessments are understandable.
• Brand valuation is what brings branding and marketing to the boardroom.
• Marketing is the most important investment to ensure long-term and sustainable financial growth for companies.
• Brand valuation is not just about the number. What's more important are the reasons behind a companies growth or decline - the reasons behind the change when sticking to one valuation system.

I understand where Mark's coming from, but I would have casted a vote for brilliant.

The Seven Basic Stories in Marketing

I haven't been able to write on here since our second term started, but thought I'd post this video I came across lately.

"We’re Sorry For Sucking”

My fascination for branding stems from my photographic background. Yes, once upon a time, I pursued a career in the fine arts. What originally began with a passion for the still image shifted towards an all-encompassing enthusiasm for visual communication. I loved creating narratives with images and realized the importance of curation in order to reinforce the idea behind the narrative. 

I recently came across an article from Fast Company titled "Domino’s Instagram Is Gross. That’s By Design" that caught my attention. Having been previously commissioned to shoot product photography, I thought it'd be interesting to analyze the strategy behind the less-than-perfect photographic aesthetic.

"The Domino’s feed is not appetizing by any objective measure. But if you look at it long enough, over enough time, the cadence of grotesqueness begins to sink in. The studio lighting and Photoshop-enhanced pepperoni of Papa John’s and Pizza Hut start to look like the culinary equivalent of a French manicure and a spray tan. Fake."

After reading the article and checking out the Domino's Instagram account (as well as, Pizza Hut, Papa John's, and Little Cesar's), it was obvious to see that Domino's was putting an emphasis on the food. Front and center was pizza. Just pizza. The same kind of pizza you'd be looking at if having it delivered from Domino's. From a branding perspective, the visual identity of their Instagram account, through the photos they curated, depicts transparency & highlights one of their core values - authenticity.

In the late 2000's, Domino's gained a reputation for horrible pizza. In fact, research showed that if consumers knew the pizza was Domino’s, they liked it less than if they just thought it was a random unbranded pizza.

After improving their pizza recipe, the head honchos at Domino's decided to rebrand the company by setting off on advertising that depicted their transparency - their Instagram platform being one of many channels. Their "We're Sorry for Sucking" campaign led to Domino’s went having a 9% share of the pizza restaurant market in 2009 to 15 percent in 2016.

The less-manufactured, natural looking photos serve as a collection of brand elements that come together to create their brand identity. Domino's acknowledges how bad their pizza was, and through this visual medium, they're saying: our pizza's improved and we have nothing to hide by falsifying how our pizza looks.

At the end of the day, branding's about story-telling. Humans have been communicating with stories since prehistoric times, so I'd say this is a pretty important concept for companies to understand - which also brings me to my closing tip for entrepeneurs: good photography and design is worth the money. I understand that there are insurmountable expenses when running a business, but don't be cheap when it comes to extensions of your brand (unless you're in Domino's position). Photography's just another way to tell a story.

What Happens In Vegas...

Say it with a postcard. Or more importantly...don't say it until much much later. We're the official Las Vegas tourism page brought to you by the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority. Remember: "What happens here, stays here."

"Our current generation's idea of travel is very much centered around experience-first, and Vegas, thanks in large part to this ad campaign, has really driven that idea forward, and solidified it"