Inside The Garage
As I read marketing articles, I look for and clip quotes about branding. I find it helpful to remember why what we do here in The Brand Garage is so vital to business success. So I thought I’d share a few of these quotes so you can see what leading thinkers, past and present, have had to say about brands and their power in the marketplace.
Branding
“With 35 varieties of bagels, 66 subbrands of GM cars, 52 versions of Crest toothpaste and more than 13,000 mutual funds, American consumers are suffering a severe case of brand overload.”
–Peter Sealey, Simplicity Marketing
“The amount of information doubles every 5 years.”
“39 of the top 50 US companies disappeared from 1989-1999.”
–Public Relations Guru in a speech to BMA
“Brands happen, with or without you.”
“The Value Proposition (why you’re different) is not
the Brand Promise (why you’re better).”
“Brand development is discovering your core brand values
and your customers’ inner needs and leveraging that value to meet
those needs.”
–Dave Roberts, Technology Branding Article
1. A great brand is in it for the long haul.
2. A great brand can be anything.
3. A great brand knows itself.
4. A great brand invents or reinvents an enttire category.
5. A great brand taps into emotions.
6. A great brand is a story that’s never completely told.
7. A great brand has design consistency.
8. A great brand is relevant.
–Scott Bedbury –VP Marketing, Starbucks
Emotional Branding
“We are not thinking machines. We are feeling machines that think”.
–PBS Special on the Brain ’02, (attributed to some notable psychologist)
“Purchasing decisions are not always based simply on cost, quality and service comparisons. Often customers buy products because they recognize and trust a particular brand.”
–Cisco Graphics Standards Manual
“Sensation Transference, emphasizes the importance of visual imagery in the marketing of products and services. Louis Cheskin, the first researcher to use the term ‘brand image’, sees the development of vsual elements as the most effective means of creating an identity or ‘personality’.”
-Cheskin Branding Website
“Plot your product on a love-respect axis. It used to be that a high respect rating would win. But these days, a high love rating wins. If I don’t love what you’re offering me, I’m not even interested.”
“Brands are obsessed with values. Brand values, company values — all crap. Who knows what the values of the Wild West were? Who cares? But we all know what the spirit of the Wild West was adventure, romanticism,. What we’re looking for are stories and characters that communicate the spirit of a trustmark, not the values of a brand. We’ve moved from a passive notion onto something that is much more expressive. To me, it’s all about spirit, not about values.”
“If you can capture the spirit of a trustmark in a single iconic character, you’ve got a huge head start. An iconic character is shorthand. When a company has an iconic character, and they flash it at you, they’re already inside, already talking to you. And they’re not talking to your head but to your heart.
–Kevin Robert, CEO Saatchi & Saatchi
That's easy: Over 3,000 projects and happy clients. I can look under the hood of your business and intuitively grasp what sets it apart, then craft a brand strategy with a clear corporate voice and lots of visual horsepower--one that grows more powerful with each assignment.
Maybe you've just got a quick project that needs to get handled. I'm fine with that! Usually after a couple small jobs, clients appreciate the quality of work and begin dreaming about taking their brand marketing to the next level. No worries, happy to jump in wherever I'm needed.
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