Author Archives: Fabian Geyrhalter
How To Win The Numbers Game With Your Brand Name
There are far more than 101 ways to use numbers in your brand name and end up with a name that no one but affiliates will easily remember. You fail before you even launch your product or service. Most numeric brand names see the light of day because someone is either lazy or tries to be overly smart. Both are not case studies for delivering a timeless and memorable brand name. The lazies pick inspiration from immediate surroundings such as the corporation’s address, area code or adjacent freeway, in which case they hit rock bottom. Besides the missing message or depth in the name, needless to say this is a short term strategy until the company moves or expands. The more creative kind utilizes the area’s sights, attractions or even weather, as was the case with the highly respected Venice, CA based agency 72andSunny, who since expanded to Amsterdam, where it is more often 52andCloudy. The overly smart create an arbitrary number based on the founders birthdays or other personal anecdotes or fun facts. 37signals (The company behind collaboration tools such as Basecamp) falls into this category as the name is derived from the 37 radio telescope signals identified by astronomer Paul Horowitz as potential messages from extraterrestrial intelligence (Source: Wiki). Those numbers (hence your brand name) mean nothing to the target audience, until they happen to read your About section on your web site, hoping to learn more about the reasoning behind the name (which is not the case …
Maximize Your Tagline When Introducing a New Product or Service
Just Do It? Not so fast we say. When introducing a disruptive, innovative or different type of product or service to the market, your tagline presents a huge opportunity to convey not how the new brand makes you feel, but instead what it actually does. Using a descriptor in place of a traditional tagline can get you further, faster at the time of your launch. You can, and should, over time transition into a tagline that dives deeper into the emotions consumers should feel when using your product or service. For Nike, a descriptor may have been something along the lines of “Peak Performance Running Shoes Driven by Design,” and as the brand gained traction, it would have eventually changed to the famous three words “Just do it.” Our brand consultancy nearly launched with the tagline “We know brands before they exist” (which I felt was clever), but decided to hold off and use it only in company presentations instead. As our offering is highly specialized and unique, we now clearly spell out what we are in business for: “Naming, Identity, and Digital Design for Brand Launches.” It enables us to immediately set expectations with our target audience whereas a clever tagline would have been just another piece leading to the actual answer your target is seeking: What is this new brand doing exactly and is it what I am in the market for? An additional startup benefit? If you choose the descriptor path, there is no need to get …
Why You Don’t Have To Make The Logo Bigger, Even During Your Brand Introduction
Granted, the subject of creative agency clients wanting to make their logos as large as possible to ‘get more bang for the buck’ and to ensure people ‘will notice’ their logo on their brand marketing efforts has been beaten to death and plentiful poked fun at (The Product, The Song, Etc). With new brand introductions this notion feels more in line with reality than any other marketing efforts as you have not only an urge to see your (often first, but definitely brand new) logo large, but you are also under a lot of pressure to ensure the customer notices and recalls your new identity design and brand name. Above: Still from the hilarious ‘Make Your Logo Bigger‘ ‘infomercial’ (2007) Instead of opting for the ginormous logo though, introduce your brand identity as part of a visually strong and unique design language. Brand is much more than a logo. Of course it is also much more than color and layout, but unique colors with specific application manners (Eg: a vertical bar or a cropped circle of consistently same proportions, within the same locations across all initial communications) not only creates brand design consistency but it makes your marketing efforts be truly your brand. More so than an existing brand you need to penetrate the market (however small that penetration effort is, may it only be an e-marketing campaign and your web site) with a very unique and consistent design and color approach to get your new brand into consumer’s minds. …
3 Ways to Create a Strong Brand Atmosphere From The Get-Go
Once you have established a solid brand platform, name, and identity design, you are ready to breathe life into your brand by expanding it through tangible materials and experiences. At FINIEN, we call these your Brand Atmosphere® Touch Points. Each company has unique needs in terms of developing branded elements for print, display, digital, and environment. Regardless of which ones your strategy calls for, remember that all brands should focus on how their Brand Platform is integrated into each touch point through consistency in visual cues and messaging. Seemingly small details in layout and design can have a huge impact on your brand’s cohesiveness and success. “Design choices like color, layout, and font, can compel the right audience to buy when they are used correctly—or repel your audience from buying when they are not,” states Maria Ross, author of Branding Basics (2010). Furthermore, these design choices will speak volumes about the values of your brand. “Visual expression often reveals the unspoken intentions behind corporate strategy” (2007) confirm both Uli Mayor-johanssen and Klaus-peter Johanssen in World Branding. How do your business cards, storefronts, and social media outlets harmonize to tell a larger story about your brand? Here are 3 points to pin to your desk (standing desk, I hope!) and to follow religiously when at this stage in your (next) brand launch process: 1. Be Consistent Cohesive/Holistic/Systematic: Call it what you want. Your brand and all of the elements that make up your brand need to visually speak the same language …
Brand Identity For Hispanics in 2013: How Current Cultural Values Affect Your Brand Launch
Catering this post to those of you who target a new brand launch towards the Hispanic segment makes me aware that you will likely assume you know your niche audience. True that. But what I have deciphered for you are nuances and slight shifts in behavioral patterns based on Thinknow’s U.S. Hispanic Cultural Values 2013 study that, when applied to specific brand identity tasks, can make a big difference in your approach and the success of your next brand identity project launch. Naming Brand tonality is where you have to read between the lines when it comes to understanding the new Hispanic audience. If you craft a brand name for the 18-34 audience, be aware that they seek community with other Hispanics more than the above 35 group. Launching a brand for that group lends itself to creating a ‘spanglish’ name as the preferred language (especially amongst males) is English. The need for family unity and Hispanic community is also high on their list, so a Latin touch would go a long way for your brand name. Creating a name for male Hispanics (of all ages) can drift into English as they emphasize the aspiration of living the American dream and your new brand would piggy back on that aspirational connotation. With about 40% of surveyed Hispanics speaking primarily or only Spanish, a nod to both languages recognizes their multicultural experience and is the advised way to creating a new brand name for the Hispanic of 2013. Above: Branding project …
If Your New Brand Lacks Soul, It Lacks Voice (Which Makes It Rather Difficult To Be Heard)
I have a ritual where I take a bath Wednesday nights (there may be a glass of wine involved, yes) to ponder what I will write about in the New Brand Post the following day. I have a flexible editorial calendar I work with, but it has holes and can be arranged to my liking or to encompass spontaneous thoughts. Last night I realized how insane and equally wonderful it is to write what hundreds of people expect in their mailboxes every Friday morning (sign up if you haven’t) just the day before. As daring as it may sound, strangely I never encounter “writer’s block.” If you can not find the soul of your new brand, don’t launch it. [Tweet] When a dear friend of mine first convinced me to start using Twitter, I told him that I was not sure I had enough brand-related content to share with the world. 3,654 tweets later (follow our new account) I realize I have a lot to share. If you create a brand that has soul, it will have a voice. If you are passionate about the subject, you will always have something to say. If you create a new brand and feel like you might not have enough content, analyze your Brand Platform and go soul searching again. If you can not find the soul of your new brand, don’t launch it. It’s that simple. Today’s consumer listens, absorbs, and responds. You will be part of an open conversation and as …
How Do You Measure Brand & Design ROI On A New Brand Launch?
We get asked this question a lot. The simple answer is: You can’t. Will a strategic and design-driven brand launch generate ROI? Definitely. As you have no before/after metrics and are dealing with a new, often innovative and disruptive brand, this is a tough nut to crack. Yesterday, FINIEN client Martian Ranch & Vineyard sent us above reprint of a New York Times article that ran a couple of weeks ago, entitled “California Wines Score Style Points.” We were grateful and proud of our collaborative achievements. Their wines are truly other worldly so it comes as no surprise that the winery receives praise on the highest media levels. But as one of ten featured wineries, their product is the one that has been picked by the editors to be featured with a rather large photo of the product packaging, including…the cork. Now that is true ROI on a strategic and design driven brand launch. Seeing the wine brand rather than just reading about it creates immediate product recognition, leading to impulse buys and elevated brand perception. Most wineries make their branding effort the last agenda item with the smallest piece of the overall budget left over and they wing it days prior to bottling their wines. Martian hired us to create a brand with a focus on product packaging that stands out on the shelves and has a cohesive brand story to tell that is unique and interesting. It showed…and now it sells.
Sugarpova VS. Hallmark
As we descend into a holiday weekend here in the US, we thought we’d keep this week’s New Brand Post on the light side. A great time for our second Punny Brand Name Showdown. This time we chose two brands named after their founders, with an added pun. An added pun with a dash of sugar in this case. Sugarpova is tennis star Maria Sharapova‘s step from endorsements into entrepreneurship with a line of gourmet candy. The 25-year old is targeting a market “that doesn’t have a premium segment” (Bloomberg Businessweek) and she has translated her own brand name into a sugary pun. (How they got away with using ‘Lips like sugar’ as a product name remains an open question. Did Echo & The Bunnymen receive tons of free sugar power to keep them awake at their age on stage when performing their biggest hit by the same name?) What you might not know is that the established greeting card company Hallmark was actually named for its founder, Joyce Hall. Hallmark also means a mark indicating quality or excellence (Wiki). Voila, an excellent punny brand name has been born. But there are winners and there are losers and you can’t be both, or can you? In our second Punny Brand Name Showdown we have two winners and two losers. Sugarpova is a great pun, leveraging the person behind the brand in a memorable and fun way. Yet, it does feel a bit bittersweet by elevating sugar to become the new …
What I Learned From Being A Mentor To Startups (And 3 Ways You Can Benefit From It)
Over the past 2 weeks I’ve given 4 presentations on ‘How to Launch a Brand‘, coinciding with our upcoming book release of the same title, which consisted of a combined 3 hours of Q&A with startup entrepreneurs ages 16 to approximately 54. I also conducted 12 one-on-one mentoring sessions. I felt it was time to reflect and share what I’ve learned through talking with these ambitious and energetic innovators and disruptors: 1. Pitch Perfect Heart & Soul When you have only 60 seconds to pitch – and there’s a whole lot to convey in that time – it seems to make sense to learn it by heart. Wrong. If you present your passion project it should not sound like it comes from an automated machine. It will lack heart and soul…and the most important asset: your pitch will be missing you. The same holds true for anyone giving any sort of presentation. Know your stuff and definitely prepare your speaking points, but don’t read it all off your notes or have it memorized sentence-by-sentence. You will never be able to truly connect with your audience that way. In whatever business presentation you find yourself in, your audience will always want to get to know a little bit about the person behind the speech. 2. Pretend You Know Nothing A defensive person in an advisory conversation is most unappealing. As a trained Graphic Designer, this lesson took me over a decade to learn and almost another one to perfect. If you …
3 Design Trend Predictions Based On Apple’s New iOS (And How It Will Affect Your Brand Design)
In case you were stuck in an all afternoon meeting, or took an afternoon off during yesterday’s WWDC 2013 announcement, Apple revealed its new Operating System design. Even if you are not an Apple Brand Advocate (anymore), your brand (launch) will be feeling the aftermath of the design language Apple just unleashed on millions of earthlings. Here is how I predict it will affect your brand design: 1. 2D is The New 3D Icons lost their 3D look and this will finally spill back into the design of corporate identities. Days of pricey re-designs of Fortune 500 logos that basically added a 3D effect (AT&T, Capital One, Etc) are finally gone and simplicity in identity design will reign once again. 2. 50 Shades of Transparency Apple’s use of transparency for navigational panels will trigger a move towards multiple translucent layers creating depth within digital interfaces. This would allow for multitasking and kill the traditional ‘top level navigation’ bar, allowing users to open multiple levels of navigational hierarchies based on transparency levels. Users will see the ‘page’ they are on while transparent layers will allow for unobtrusive ways of navigating down a couple of levels without ever leaving sight of your current ‘screen’. 3. White Is The New Black Long gone are the days of black being the go-to color to convey luxury and sophistication. I predict layers of transparency quickly moving off screen and popping up across all media from print to on-air commercials, making white the predominant …
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Fabian Geyrhalter is the Principal of FINIEN, creating clarity for brand transformations.
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