Is your department, division, or team chronically looked down upon by others in your organization? Sure, some of it might be your primary function (i.e. if you’re responsible for performance improvement plans, discipline, or firing, you’re probably not very popular). Similarly, it could be the amount of time it takes you to complete your dutiesRead… Read more »
Troy Mathis knows how to talk. And he speaks in a way that makes you want to listen. His session -Make It Matter: Personal Professional Branding, at the Next Generation of Government Training Summit was high-energy, engaging, and inspiring. After listening to his presentation and going through the steps, I’ve come away with the realizationRead… Read more »
Brand Essence: Noun. A feeling. The instinctive, unconscious emotional reaction people have whenever they encounter you. Today I learned that Oreos are going on a diet. Despite the fact that 50% of Oreo consumers split the cookie apart before eating it, the Associated Press reports, there will soon be a new version called “Oreo Thins”Read… Read more »
Some communication tasks are highly valuable. For those you really need to pay what they’re worth. Take branding for example. Many people pass themselves off as brand strategists, brand gurus, brand visionaries, brand designers, brand ideationists, brand creatives, brand disruptors, brand innovators, and on and on. Most of them are not good at what they do. BecauseRead… Read more »
There are two ways to deal with anti-brand communities, or simply opponents. 1. Negative Ignore – don’t respond in any way Respond – sharply and directly take them on – e.g., argue point by point why they are incorrect Attack – e.g. go further than #2 – try to take them down, through threat, marginalization,Read… Read more »
At the end of the day a good brand continuously builds its own equity – that is, a price differential between itself and its competitors – by doing three things well. They can be summarized by the following imperatives: 1. “Choose Me”: Help the customer make a decision quickly. 2. “Be Me”: Provide the customerRead… Read more »
I get it. I finally, finally get it. Brand does not live in the artifacts of the brand. The symbols. Brand does not live in the brain of the consumer. Nor in his or her heart. The brand does live in the human interactions that surround it. We have been thinking the wrong way for soRead… Read more »
Someone asked me today, “Isn’t a brand a mark of quality?”Hearing that, I realized (once again) the importance of defining our terminology – preferably before we start talking to one another. So here is a suggested common definition of brand. With the idea that newer thinking builds upon the old. “A brand is a co-createdRead… Read more »
It’s sort of funny that authenticity would be a strategy for social media, since authenticity is supposed to be the reason social media exists and the purpose of doing it. Just goes to show how the values of a culture interrupt genuine expression and contort them toward whatever the dominant value system is. In America,Read… Read more »
You have to understand that a brand is way beyond a logo now. You do understand that, because the Mad Men paradigm where we cook up Frankenstein in the lab and serve it up to you has been destroyed. In its place is an open kitchen where you can see me cooking, and if IRead… Read more »