BrightBox is a small yet rapidly growing business focused on branding. Because of this unusual combination of qualities, we are in a position to see unusual qualities that set apart companies like ours.

To some marketing groups, a brand is merely a bottom line. While ROI and sales methods are important, we know that we can not only improve sales but add far more important, even essential, elements to your business by equipping you with all of the strengths of an airtight brand. While evaluation is important, we bring to the table the most important element of design by creating meaning.

Brands have to evolve and grow. Rather than periodically tinker with your brand and risk the possibility of dilution, you should grow outward in a way that matches what it does best. Brands change to keep up with times, but the changes are usually slight.

Coca Cola still has its classic bottle.

McDonald’s still has the arches.

Nike still has the swoosh.

We’re seeing brand evolution in every industry.

Disney? They have the ultimate brand ambassador in Mickey Mouse. Mickey has an entire world of friends, all characters that any animator can train to make statements that reinforce the Disney brand on a daily basis.

Mickey doesn’t look exactly the same from one generation to the next. He changes with the times because that’s what Disney needs him to do to stay relevant. What they haven’t done is throw out Mickey and his buddies and hire a whole new cast of main characters. Rather, Disney builds the brand with other casts that are similar to but divergent from Mickey and friends.

Nickelodeon has SpongeBob Squarepants, a character that lives in a pineapple under the sea and has the catchiest theme song on television. SpongeBob is in the clear opposite direction from Disney programming. Because there is a Disney crowd, there is room for a SpongeBob crowd. Plenty of kids like both.

Nickelodeon’s first ambassadors were the rather grotesque Ren and Stimpy, characters that didn’t work when the network attempted to clean up their personas and the plots of the episodes. They have evolved and signed on SpongeBob to save the day.

Musicians have to evolve to survive.  Most people have had the experience of turning on the radio and hearing a song that sounds… dated. Most musicians aren’t really looking to sound that dated the year that their singles are released.

Some musicians step out of the limelight and become producers so they can work with artists. Jay-Z does all of it and invests money and time  into the New Jersey Nets, owns restaurants, clothing lines… etc.

Give your brand a quick evolution test to see where you are headed next. Your brand is going to change, and because you are such a fabulous business owner, you are going to anticipate change to the best of your abilities and try to help it evolve in a natural way.

Aim to create meaning.

Many BrightBox clients ask us where to spend the majority of their concentration on their brand. To answer that question, we have developed a broad range of reasons for how you might assess the focus of your energy. One way to view your company is to divide up your branding process into three parts: short, medium and long.

This is not an article referencing the timeline of your goals. Rather, by short, medium and long, we mean to prioritize what should be the focus of your efforts in what order you engineer your brand.

In a company, some things should be short, some should be medium and some should be long.

SHORT

Your name should probably be on the small side. Some names are able to float in spite of a healthy amount of length. “Jimmy’s Bait Shop” is much friendlier than “James Jeremiah Belvedere’s Place to Buy Fishing Stuff.”

Nike, Geico, Fubu, Dockers, Levi’s, Pepsi, Miller and Blue Bell all seem to have short names with two syllables.

When names get too long, companies compensate by using symbols, initials or both:

IBM, GE, NTB, and AT&T. CNN. ABC.

TGIF.

Initials can be a bit confusing if you have never heard of what they represent, but they are acceptable once the brand is known. Unfortunately, in an ever-crowded marketplace of business ideas, a generic or overly long name will kill your brand.

In addition to your name, keep your brand concept small. Your brand concept is even more compact than your slogan. Slogans can describe a lot in a short amount of time, but slogans can also be explicit. They can tell you to “save 15% or more on your car insurance in less than 15 minutes”, or that the product is “always the real thing.”

You want to represent small, compact, powerful ideas. Whether your product is different because it’s sharp, sleek, multicolored, American, light, fast, expensive, innovative or whatever other concept you are looking to own in the mind, you want to be able to drive that point home quickly. Don’t ramble.

MEDIUM

Your slogan is a medium length supporter for your brand. Slogans are a quick description of what the brand does. They are its bio and first impression.

You know what the say about first impressions.

Your slogan should reinforce your particular niche or division of the always evolving market. Your market will always gain, lose, or hold customers. A good slogan should keep people in the market and keep your concept connected to the market.

Right now, Altoids are known as the “curiously strong mints.” Should someone come up with a more fitting concept for mints than “strength”, Altoids would hold a much weaker position in the marketplace. As of now, they’re #1.

That slogan has some substance to it. They’re unusually strong, to the point that you are wondering how they got that way.

By connecting the concept to the brand through a medium length or heavily implied slogan, you reinforce the core concepts of the brand.

LONG

The following should be long:

-The list of people in your phone book.

-The amount of books you read each month.

-The amount of books you write in your life.

-Your client list

-Your schedule

-Your list of future projects

-The list of digits on your paychecks

-The list of digits in your revenue and profits results

-Your vision for the future.

-Your staying power as a brand.

BrightBox clients are usually very good at the textbook concept of business but miss out on the important psychological factors related to enhancing the reputation of the product. Because of the usefulness and value of their products, these clients tend to overlook the fact that they have to get others to see what they’re seeing.

BrightBox knows that you can’t market without a brand, and understands that branding is applying your name to everything.

BRANDING IS THE HEAD OF YOUR BUSINESS

Branding is psychology applied to business.

As important as reading a balance sheet, raising revenues and performing a few algorithms may be to your business- and that sort of thing is more important in some fields than others- business requires branding because understanding your objectives and achieving them socially, emotionally and psychologically is the only way to create a powerful, adaptable, results-driven organization.

Anything connecting people and emanating a positive and powerful aura in the name of building your business into a powerful, well-known, flexible, adaptable, intelligent, robust, money-making endeavor is branding.

BRANDS ARE AN AMBIENCE

Your brand has the power to single-handedly save or destroy any quest related to your business, be it a specific sales pitch, the usefulness of your website or even the actual quality of your service. A positive enough image and reputation will wipe away many problems that cripple the modern business, including nagging public relations issues and crises.

When Johnson and Johnson was recently found to have accidentally mixed up different flavors of Tylenol in the drug’s production phase, the company was given the benefit of the doubt. The major media didn’t play the story too much, and Johnson and Johnson’s stock barely dipped before roaring back for a clean gain during a time period when the stock market was choppily underperforming. Why?

Johnson and Johnson is known for its history of swift crisis response because of the famous Tylenol murders of 1982, when seven Chicago area consumers died from the drug. Because of the company’s swift response- The Washington Post actually wrote, “Johnson & Johnson has effectively demonstrated how a major business ought to handle a disaster”- Johnson and Johnson took on a reputation as not only powerful in the financial department and good at business but also excellent at handling public relations issues.

ON THE OTHER HAND…

Modern companies often fail to control their public images or invest in brand support, thus making life incredibly difficult when problems arise. As perhaps the most recent major corporate example in the American mind, BP’s renewed image problem was a PR nightmare last year just as much as a result of its ongoing failure to stop the Gulf Oil Spill as it was an extension of past failure to keep its wells clean. We also see the brand aura issue expanded to personal brands. More politicians, athletes and TV and radio personalities have been repeatedly punished for a series of ongoing incidents than those that have only been involved in isolated events

ARE YOU A BRAND OR A DINOSAUR?

At this point, you probably can guess which category you’re in. Either you have a brand or you don’t. If you don’t have one, get one. If you have one, keep, grow, strengthen and maintain it, because you’ll always need it.

Every day in America, an entrepreneur gets a new idea. That means great things for BrightBox. We thrive on helping people with new ideas achieve their dreams. Clients are the key for BrightBox branding efforts. Because we specialize in branding, we know the cost of the tools necessary for individualized branding efforts.

Sometimes, we hear horror stories that come with branding efforts prior to meeting our clients. Branding difficulty comes in many packages, all dealing with different parts of your business.

Try to avoid these five branding horrors.

#1 NO PR TEAM

There’s a big world out there, full of fast, high-flying information in a cluttered mess of static and noise with an endless number of ways to monitor it. You’re focused on helming your main operation: coordinating the behaviors of the people who keep your business moving. Your graphic designers You need press releases, blog posts and media calls made all at the same time, NOW, and you’re the only one in the office.

How nice would it be to have just one PR staffer?

Even worse, if you EVER run into a crisis and don’t have anyone with PR sense on staff, you could face a scenario in which you are losing resources fast and have to either quickly perform on the job training for your whole team or outsource messaging to an agency immediately, thus further stressing your budget.

Brutal.

#2 BULL IN A CHINA SHOP

You know how some CEOs appear to run amok and mismanage their companies because they are unwilling to listen to the advice of their best employees? I’m willing to believe half of those people don’t even realizing they’re doing it.

To that extent, check yourself for possible biases. Then eliminate them. Your business is no place for stubborn leadership. Money may be green, but branding is color blind.

#3 MUDDLED MESSAGES

Conciseness is the key to describing yourself. You need to make a lasting first impression in a short amount of time if you want to stand out in an ever-crowded land of brands. As a precursor to any tactical decisions, decide what you are about. Don’t tell people you do everything. Even within specific disciplines niches have become the name of the game.

Business is a big landscape. What part do you represent?

#4 MESSY DESIGN

There is no quick fix for design decisions. You may need someone professional to put up your web site, or you may be able to get by with a GoDaddy template. It all depends on your brand.

However, keep two considerations in mind: Your brand must meet a certain standard of professionalism (whatever that means in your field) and it must match what you do, who you are and why you do it.

#5 BUDGET BUST

Marketing directors often taker jobs for $70,000 a year without first asking what the budget for the marketing department is at the company, then wind up out of work and upset in a year or less. Don’t put yourself or anyone you hire through that kind of stress. Budget properly. Leave plenty for branding.

BrightBox team members tend to focus on portraying an outward image on behalf of our clients by tying short, powerful characteristics to their brands. Sometimes, we like to use news and current events to our advantage by positioning brands against the world landscape.

Everything needs context.

Over the last few years, we have observed several important, undeniable trends that have affected American business.

#1 MONEY WORRIES

Retirement accounts have shrunken. Unemployment is a major story in both the news and around the water cooler. The value of property has nose-dived. The American dollar has lost value. The European Union is suffering massive debt problems in several of its member countries, thus affecting the entire European continental market. Wild swings in the stock market have left investors scrambling. Gas prices have been high and unstable. Travel fees have gone up as airlines have scrambled to cover their bottom line. There’s less money to go around.

#2 NEWS WARS

At one point in time, TV had only three stations: ABC, NBS and CBS.

In case you haven’t noticed, those days are over. All three of these stations still do news, but they also have separate cable news channels. Furthermore, talk radio has become a cornerstone of American political content. Bloggers have begun disseminating information at higher and higher rates through independent blogs, Twitter and Facebook. Anyone can become a citizen journalist, thus allowing for a wider breadth of stories, but also creating great verification difficulties. You no longer need high level sources or equipment to become a reporter.

Lesson? Be very careful what you say, and consider alternative press coverage.

#3 REALITY BITES

Television has taken a turn toward realism… sort of. Fiction shows can still become hits, but even some of the more successful shows based on fictional plots have a more realistic feel to them in that they include documentary style interviews and/or lack a laugh track (The Office, Parks and Recreation, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia). Some channels are full of reality programming, including shows about celebrities (Hulk Hogan, Ozzie Osbourne, the Kardashian Family) or cooking competitions involving real competitors (the Food Network) or fashion shows galore (Bravo!).

WHAT TO DO:

There is no magic bullet for how to respond to emerging trends of our time. The only definitively wrong way to respond is to do nothing. If you are a high end company, you may need to focus on the high end market and actually raise prices, or you may need to rework your brand to become more middle class. If you seek publicity, feel free to consider the citizen reporters and secondary trade media that now frequent the internet. As for reality, you may want to embrace the current trend by producing more realistic fiction, or you could instead bet on the idea that more obviously fictional material will yield your audience a breath of fresh air.

One way or another, your company should always stay in touch with the times.

A web site that can’t be seen can’t be used to build business.

At BrightBox, we are often visited by prospective clients with web sites that are not only clunky and difficult to use, but actually impossible to see on the ever-expanding variety of mobile devices.

Which is a problem.

The lack of technological compatibility can be a death knell for a modern business because it sends the message that the business method and philosophy of the company are outdated and out of touch. Worse, mobile customers become impossible to reach, thus leaving a potential market forever untapped.

And mobile customers, especially the technologically inclined, are good consumers. They have money, and they’re clearly willing to spend.

MOBILE EXPLOSION

In the mid nineties, when the internet was just becoming a mainstream household item, the concept of displaying your web site to the internet masses was cut and dry. Aside from a few browser-based considerations, there was little in the way of businesses reaching consumers. Exposure had far less to do with compatibility than with the general ability to drive people toward your actual website.

Over the last ten years, the internet has entered the pocket of practically every man, woman and child in the United States, and not just on laptop computers. Phones and tablets have swept the country, and tablets may someday even replace laptops as the primary means of mobile website browsing. Experts expect mobile web users to reach almost a billion people by 2012.Technologies may integrate even more, out of convenience and market forces.

BE VISIBLE

Because of the changing landscape, BrightBox has built several effective packages for businesses looking for technology-focused compatibility solutions mean to reinforce brands in the minds of our customers. As a business, you now more than ever) need to make sure your message comes across on these mobile devices. By not having a website that can be seen by the local techie in his favorite coffee shop, you run the risk of losing potential customers and valuable, word of mouth marketing.

In addition, you should ensure that your website is not only viewable, but actually usable. Studies show that if the average website visitor can’t find the information they’re seeking within 8 seconds of arriving, they’ll leave. With the abundance of information bombarding the average consumer on a regular basis, you are in no position to make the life of your possible clients any more difficult than it already is. They will look elsewhere. In a world where people are reading your site content on miniscule screens, and interacting with blunt fingertips instead of a mouse cursor, usability becomes a major concern.

Don’t lose consumers for lack of compatibility. Make your site viewable and user-friendly.

(To get more information on elite mobile website design, contact BrightBox today).

BrightBox is, first and foremost, a branding operation. Our number one goal is to build, position and fortify powerful emotional connections between our clients and their customers bases.

Brands are like people: Even the best of them have problems. If branding were a simple and flawless process, everyone would be a well-known, successful businessperson with dollar signs for eyes and bank accounts with seven figure balances.

But, that’s not how business works. Because there are multitudes of people out there who want the same thing you do, some brands will survive and some will go the way of the dodo.

BrightBox is one of the best at taking flabby, drab, out of shape brands and turning them into lean, mean fighting machines. We pride ourselves on building brands that create instant impacts and command their own market. Some of our clients come to us with confusing, chaotic, nearly meaningless brand names that represent either nothing or the wrong thing in the public eye. Or worse, some of our clients have had names that represent the exact OPPOSITE of what their business SHOULD represent, something along the lines of “Anvil Skydiving Adventures” or “Welt’s Beauty Products”.

Like a dedicated ship captain, you should always keep an eye out to ensure that your brand isn’t headed toward an iceberg. Here are five factors to consider so your brand doesn’t become the business version of the Titanic.

#1 MELTING MARKET
The worst kind of collapse occurs when your market literally disappears. When the typewriter bit the dust in the name of the modern computer word processor, any company specializing in old school “click-tap-ding” typewriters found themselves out of luck.

The worst word that can be associated with your brand is OBSOLETE.

#2 WORKER WOES
Your employees are the lifeblood of your company. If they are not performing the way they should be, either you or they are making a mistake. If it’s you, stop it. Make sure to give them breaks, creative space, fair pay and management support. If it’s them, take action. Warn the masses, shake up the rotation, alter the boardroom or even change the roster.

Stay in touch with your employees so as to avoid having to do anything drastic.

#3 BUDGET BUST
Money is one of the world’s main sources of worry, and business seems to exponentially increase money concerns. Because of the overhead involved in running a business, your budget has to be airtight. Save where you without cutting so any corners that the foundation starts to crumble. When you overindulge, you put your whole operation at risk. However, when you start counting the number of pens used per employee each month, panicked whispers may arise in the industry crowd and in your own staff.

Manage your budget with the right balance.

#4 OLD SCHOOL
Your industry is going to change. It’s inevitable. You may not see the incredibly severe melting market problem (#1 on this list), but that doesn’t mean that other sweeping, fundamental shifts won’t take place. If you’re delivering mail on horseback, Federal Express is going to kick your company’s butt in every market, every time. The feather boa was once the coolest fashion item in America, but any clothing line that carries it now better be selling stage clothes for B movie stars.

Don’t run a grainy movie theater when the guys down the street are in HD, or you’ll wind up on the junk heap.

#5 TINKER ADDICTION
Sometimes, the best way to avoid an iceberg is to do nothing. When the economy tanks, businesses often start scrambling to save money here and make more there. The problem is that these tactics often dilute the core nature of the business and spread the organization so thin that it falls apart even more precipitously.

Never trade a money tree for short term fruit.

When BrightBox first performs a brand analysis, it gets to the root of what companies want specific brands to represent. Our clients are in control of their own creative process. Our job is to get to the root of what they want for their brands, how they want them to grow and evolve.

Usually, we discover some very specific elements we can accentuate to really make their symbolism clear. By emphasizing a well-designed collection of business characteristics, BrightBox establishes proper plans to fit specific contexts.

Your first priority is to create an emotional connection with your customers. Marketing with singularity and classic leadership in a category helps you achieve that connection.

And once you do… don’t tinker your way out of it!

Here are three examples of brands that established great singularity and tinkered it away.

EXAMPLE #1: THE CAMARO
Chevy has taken a bit of a beating at the hands of its competitors in recent years, but it still owns the rather successful and sexy Camaro, complete with both muscle and shape. Camaros are favorites of gearheads and some businessmen.

So what has Camaro decided to do? Slice off the car’s legendary top.  Suddenly, they’re pitching a very different car, a convertible style that caused many people trouble in the 1980s and 90s.

While the jury is technically out on the decision, rest assured that the damage done to the brand is present. The big company basically cut off the thing’s head.

EXAMPLE #2: RED STRIPE
Red Stripe has done an excellent job establishing itself as the Jamaican beer. In America, Jamaican culture offers good a great space to occupy considering all of the awesome characteristics that come with that profile. Unfortunately, Red Stripe Light hit the shelves. All Red Stripe had to do was make a beer that looked similar in packaging and make it a Summer beer, called something like “Blue Breeze”. Instead it made a beer that will disappoint those that prefer the heaviness of the original and fail to attract the light beer drinkers guzzling down cheaper alternatives.

Oh, and don’t forget the negative perception that comes with a Red Stripe fan showing up to find that his favorite beer is sold out… but the stores are still shelved with something that looks almost the same but will taste totally different. The impression this gives off is that Diageo is trying to pull a fast one on loyal customers who have dutifully bought their beer for years.

Yikes.

EXAMPLE #3: TIDE
There should be an honorary plural status for the word “Tide”. Tide has seven traditional brands and seven high efficiency brands. The new “My Tide” commercials present more Tide types than anyone could ever keep track of.

YOUR PRODUCT IS NOT A TOY
If you are not a toy company, then your product is not a toy. Don’t take wild swings for the fences on silly ideas, thus forever altering the perception of your brand. If your marketing team feels the need to tinker away at your product, take them out for donuts or Chinese buffet instead. More often than not, fundamental changes to the root concept of a product have had a greatly negative impact in the past. Resist the urge to go to Tinkertown. If your brand isn’t broken, don’t fix it.

BrightBox has become accustomed to helping brands who once depended on long-term business models based on stable environments. While we encourage long-term perspective and managed outlook, we have also come to the conclusion that we have no way of knowing the future.

Our acknowledgement of our own inability to see what will happen next has given us great strength. Because we know that a solid brand is one of the only stable requirements in the business world, we have built our business surrounding a concept with great staying power. Branding is one of the only consistent protections against the grand uncertainty that dominates the business landscape.

In other words, branding helps survive black swans.

BLACK SWANS

Black swans are a conception of Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who uses the term as a random, unforeseen event (low probability with high magnitude). Because of the hidden risk involved in the business environment, we try to incorporate techniques that help our clients and our own business survive.

Here are just a few of those techniques.

1) BRAND TIMELESSLY

Owning fads is one thing. You want to own the modern incarnation of a trend.
By pinpointing and owning ideas in the mind that are unlikely to go out of style, you set up your brand as an everlasting idea, complete with staying power. When a system collapses, brand longevity is key.

2) BUDGET PROPERLY

Mechanically hunting for leverage at times when borrowing rates are cheap and paying down debt when rates rise may seem like the only way to grow, but creating cash flow and maintaining intelligent savings is always the best way to do business. Revenue growth is stable, as is saving for the rainy market months. At the same time, spend on the stuff you need. Anything that helps you keep good clients and good employees goes on the top of the list.

3) OPEN ALL POLICIES TO CHANGE

One of the big killers of modern business are a lack of incoming ideas. Stagnant companies with never-evolving mission statements, budgets, brands and marketing plans face possible extinction upon running up against unforeseen problems. The conversation surrounding almost every business topic- including ethics, branding, finance, law and communications-should be fluid.

4) MAXIMIZE POSITIVE OPPORTUNITY

To overcome negative uncertainties, your brand should know how to cope with positive issues as well. If your company does something amazing, your public relations team should kick in and publicize it. Get credit when you earn it and people will remember it when fires break out.

5) REPUTATION

Reputation is flexible because it has staying power. Your word is as good as anything else you do. The way you present your company will serve as your best resource in solving difficult business puzzles because clients, partners, decision-makers and media gatekeepers are more willing to assist those with a good reputation.

Image: Paul:74 via Flickr, CC 2.0

BrightBox is known for its simple yet effective brand analysis. Three of the first questions we ask our clients are

-Who are you?

-What do you do?

-Who do you do it for?

Some of our clients have no answer to those questions, or worse, have long, winding, watered down answers:

“Well, we do lighting at parties but we also do acoustic sound for large arena shows, fix toilets for the city and deliver pizzas out of a cosmetics shop. Oh, and we do oil changes.”

Your brand should be something easily described in only a few words.

Brands are the reputation of your brand. Characteristics associated with your brand should work together rather than conflict. When the public has mixed signals about who you are and what you represent, it doesn’t know what to think.

Diluted brands are like diluted drinks. They’ve got no kick. In the current business environment, lacking a personality is walking on thin ice.

Presented here are the five most common methods of brand dilution.

#1 LINE EXTENSIONS

Stretching the line of your product as far as possible is a guaranteed way of confusing your audience and ruining your chance of ever specializing in specific language in the mind of your audience.

#2 “CLEVER” AD CAMPAIGNS

Some companies think that cracking a few jokes or using an eye-catching slogan is always good for business. The problem is that these gimmicky concepts have to accomplish something for the brand.

The only people who get paid solely for being clever are comedians.

#3 NAME DISEASE

If your name

-doesn’t fit what you do,

-confuses the public,

-is hard to spell, or

-sounds like a fake company, you’ve probably made a terrible mistake.

Over time, you will need your name to stand out as a preferable brand to the public. Calling your convenience store “The General Store” might have worked in 1850, but times have changed. There are enough brands on the market that far more will fail than succeed.

You want to be in the group that succeeds. Names matter.

#4 COUPONS

There’s nothing like handing out free stuff to tell people you’re worthless. There’s also nothing fundamentally wrong with coupons, as they have helped build many a business. However, slashing prices to the point where revenues suffer is never as good as improving service or throwing in add-ons to increase purchase.

#5 COMPETITION

Companies in the modern era don’t have the luxury of merely establishing a brand and letting it grow naturally. Markets change, and every day the way to success and the number of people trying to prevent you from dominance grows, morphs and learns even more information about you. The most strident competition to your brand is… your competitors.

IMAGES: Roadside Pictures, via Flickr; Doctor Paradox, via Flickr, hotcouponworld.com, via Flickr, Orobi, via Flickr, ScarlettRose9891, via Flickr, CC 2.0