Archive for the 'Branding' Category

Start your engines.

Published by Alan on June 26, 2010 in Branding, Design, Leadership and Strategy. 0 Comments

In an uncertain economy many businesses let their advertising efforts idle while waiting for the green flag to drop. I hate to say if that’s you, your competition has already passed you by. While you’ve saved gas others are revving up and getting their message in front of your audience, lap after lap.

Effective advertising doesn’t have to be expensive, but it does need to be consistent to build brand awareness. Explore ways to keep your message in front of your audience. Break through the clutter and tell your story in a way that is unique. Nearly everyone’s marketing budget is holding level or even decreasing to combat these financial times, so spend smart! Think outside the box and search for co-op dollar opportunities as we did for one of our clients.

Wichita Roofing & Remodeling is taking its new customer service program to the streets, literally. We designed a vehicle wrap for the marketing director’s car that would represent three different market areas—and more importantly strategically and effectively use their resources.

Today, the company name is reaching thousands of people daily as the director travels to meet one on one with insurance agents across the state. It’s not often you see a “Nascar” traveling down the Kansas turnpike. Is wrapping a vehicle original? No. But choosing an image of the number one spectator sport in America to carry your message across unexpected terrain is. It’s a conversation starter and it creates a memorable impression. And the best part is some of the client’s vendors are “car sponsors.” Their sponsorship dollars are helping pay for the vehicle wrap while our client’s message speeds across the state.

Get in the driver’s seat. The race is on! What are you doing to reach the checkered flag before your competition?

Sorry Tiger, but it’s my job.

Published by Jeff on December 11, 2009 in Branding. 0 Comments

I was doing some client billing the other day and stumbled across an email conversation between a client and Alan, one of our account executives. In short, the email volley pertained to the possibility of conflicting logos on a small brochure we were designing. The client told us to just do it and not worry about it. Alan’s response was direct, “Sorry, but that’s my job.”

Gate Keeper

We are brand gatekeepers. Without gatekeepers, brands crumble. Every single thing we do, every single thing we say and every single dollar we spend either builds equity in a brand or contributes to its dilution.

Right now we are witnessing the total annihilation of one of the world’s dominant brands. Make no mistake. Tiger Woods is not just a person. Tiger Woods is a brand. So I’m left to wonder, who was the gatekeeper of the Tiger Woods brand?

Sometimes our job is not easy. Sometimes we’re the bad guys. Sometimes “just do it” is just plain wrong. Wherever you go from this point forward Tiger, make certain you have an Alan in your life.

Cheers.

Of sticky logos and octopi.

Published by Scott on December 4, 2007 in Branding and Design. 0 Comments

Recently, SG was tasked with creating a fresh new identity for an established Wichita church. The client required a new logo that would support the new, unified direction in which the church was heading. Before coming to us, the church struggled with numerous, disconnected subministry identities and a logo that had morphed into a hybrid version of its original design.

Previous Eastminster Logo

To ensure that leaders’ voices were heard and opinions counted, we hosted a two-hour, guided ideation session. At the completion of the ideation, we knew that we needed to create an identity that was attractive to a younger crowd, while paying respect to and not offending an older audience.

We launched the logo design process. After a number of sketch rounds, we arrived at a logo that was both strongly progressive and rooted in tradition. By combining hand-lettered, modern type with the historic Celtic cross, we were able to create a look that appealed to a wide age spectrum.

New Eastminster Logo

Our work, however, was not done. We needed to devise a strategy that incorporated 18 distinct subministries into the at-large identity.

This might sound like a strange analogy, but this church identity needed to become a swimming octopus—I know, bear with me. The church’s many subminstries needed to become the tentacles and the logo the octopus’ head. As the octopus propels forward, the tentacles need to work in conjunction behind the head.

To create this swimming octopus, SG created a consistent format for the subministry names in combination with the logo, allowing the subministries to work with the main organizational identity rather than against it. This created a main-brand focus that allowed the smaller ministries to point back to the church’s main identity.

Subministry 1 Subministry 2

When building an identity for an organization that is made up of smaller entities, creating a concise, consolidated logo will help you build a sleek, sticky brand—your very own swimming octopus.

There’s something terribly wrong with the heavenly bed.

Published by Laurie on September 21, 2007 in Branding. 0 Comments

We just returned from delivering our daughter to a college in South Carolina and celebrating our son’s 16th birthday at TPC Sawgrass in Jacksonville. Tasked with booking hotels for the eight nights we were away I prescribed a nice balance of mid-priced hotels with a few affordable luxury nights to prevent the travel blahs. I was especially anticipating our return to a well-known hotel flag for its heavenly bed, a sleep experience that’s built on multiple layers of mattress, bedding and pillow bliss. At 11 p.m. on our first luxe night, I called to beg the night manager to strip our bed. An unheavenly odor permeated the sheets, making sleep impossible. The next day, we were moved to another room; regrettably, the not-so-sweet scent followed us across the hall. A self-professed cleanaholic with a sharp nose, I recognized the problem. It gets really warm inside a heavenly bed, with its thick duvet and many layers of upscale linens. The duvet traps perspiration. Follow that line and you begin to conclude that hotels can’t cost effectively launder a duvet on a daily basis as it does sheets and pillow linens.

The heavenly bed points to an important discipline for strategic marketers, brand managers and CEOs: calculating what can go wrong. It’s a marvelous thing to be a person of vision, even better to see the line to the finish. But after the first flush of a new vision passes, it’s time to start the homework—to count the costs, understand the risks, study the competitive environment, jog around the whole vision with a few experts to look for both opportunities and pitfalls, and then, most important, slow to walk a mile in the brand consumer’s shoes. What is the consumer experience? What will the consumer say is great about this new vision of product or service brilliance? What will diminish his experience or worse, cause his confidence in my company to falter?

Several weeks before our not-so-heavenly bed experience, I booked two more room nights at this same hotel for an end-October visit back to South Carolina. It really is a beautiful hotel, but now I’m torn: cancel the reservation or travel with a bottle of Febreeze.

Curiously enough, this particular “pea” in my sleep experience was hinted at as early as 1749. I found this on Wikipedia when I Googled “duvet”:

“In Westphalia, an English travel-writer observed with surprise in 1749,
“There is one thing very particular to them, that they do not cover themselves with bed-cloaths, but lay one feather-bed over, and another under. This is comfortable enough in winter, but how they can bear their feather-beds over them in summer, as is generally practised, I cannot conceive.” —Thomas Nugent, The Grand Tour 1749, vol II. p66 [1]

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