brand identity

I originally wrote this piece for the Harvard Business Review. It was published on HRB.org on March 28, 2014.

As a member of a start-up advisory program, I regularly hear pitches from aspiring technology entrepreneurs. My job is to sort out the companies with potential from those that need to go back to the drawing board. One way I do this is to use what I call the “-er brand” filter.

Guest Post by: Laszlo Kövari

“Differentiate or die”. This is branding dogma.

Yet: the majority survives nicely without true differentiation.

So you want to start building your tree? Well, it is not an easy task. First, you must plant some roots. Then hammer some wood and bark on top of them. Tie on several branches and glue some blossom, for the bees to come over and pollinate them. Definitely glue some leaves to create a murmur in the air, so that the bees know you have a tree. Now wait for the bees, so that you can finally have fruit. Sometimes, to speed up the process, it helps to make a special offer for bees – e.g. “Pollinate 2 flowers, get honey from 3!”.

by: Karl Long

I was inspired to write this after seeing the amazing case study from the team that worked on the Obama identity, which could well become one of the most iconic identities in our time. What struck me was the approach was less like the classic ‘brand as a monolith’ strategy, and much more ‘brand as a canvas’. Deliberate or not, the brand gained it’s own life in social media as people took it and mashed it up.

by: Roger Dooley

Continuing our survey of neuromarketing books, we recently finished Brand Sense - Build Powerful Brands through Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight, and Sound, by Martin Lindstrom. This data-packed volume was published in 2005, and is based in part on a global research project by Millward Brown which studied the relationship between branding and sensory awareness.

by: Idris Mootee

by: Idris Mootee

This has been one busy week and I am back with
week six of our Advanced Brand Strategy Masterclass. We are continuing on the
second part of brand strategy development framework which focuses on brand
identity, brand images and brand delivery. The delivery one is probably the
most important and interesting aspect.

by: C. Sven Johnson