When should you rebrand your company? Here are times when my company has been asked to lead the rebranding effort:
The company was sold
The company was getting ready to be sold
there was a significant change in management
Focus was shifted to a new product line or service
The sales channel shifted to a different way of interacting with [...]
Do you remember when food got lighter? Lite. Fat-Free. Fewer Carbs. It seemed like everywhere you turned there were alternatives that were better than the other stuff that had too much butter or cream or shortening. When you read the labels, things got confusing. Something that was supposed to be very healthy [...]
When is a Nissan, not a Nissan? When it’s a Chrysler…
Yesterday’s article in the Wall Street Journal has rebranding car story about Nissan and Chrysler teaming up to offer a midsize car. It was interesting to me on several levels:
I’ve test driven just about all the cars the article talks about
I currently drive the best selling car
I [...]
Interesting comments over at Alan Weiss’s Contranian Consulting site with lots of discussion following a controversial post. Alan is the consultant’s consultant, but he really hit a nerve with this one.
Reading the comments is a great example of web2.0 and social media in action! The comments start with Seth Godin jumping in first and [...]
This afternoon, when the day starts to slow down about 3 pm, grab your marketing materials and take an quick inventory of your tools:
brochures
power point presentation
business cards
letterhead/envelopes
flyers, rack cards
pocket folder
direct mail follow up letter template
holiday “thank you” letter
postcards
articles, press clippings
press releases
promo ad specialty give aways (pads of paper with your logo, pens, magnets, mugs)
print out [...]
New cars have it. New clothes usually do. New haircuts, sometimes. I’m sure you’ve noticed that some people get a new wardrobe every season, or at least every few years. (Maybe you’re one of them!) Others buy classic clothing that span many seasons. But almost everyone would agree that as time goes on and the [...]
Does your company work at increasing brand value?
Do you consistently and repeatedly communicate your message like a mantra?
Are you consistent in the use of the style of your logo? (don’t change colors, shape or style on a whim)
Do your customers get what they expect? Or do you often hear things like: “Oh, I didn’t know that’s what you [...]
Naming a new product is challenging. Consider:
Pronounciation
Meaning - both connotative (what the name conjures up in your mind!) & denotative (what the dictionary says it means)
The dot com you’ll use and is it available?
Easy to spell??!
Trademarkable?
Appeals in the right way to your target audience
International flair?
If you’re interested in reading other posts where I’ve discussed these [...]
Changing a company name often takes time. Don’t forget all the little details when you make the switch. Everyone remembers to design a new logo and print new stationery, but it’s all those little details that “getcha!”
Here’s a checklist to help. Although this doesn’t include everything, maybe it will include something you haven’t thought of [...]
Julia Stewart, the president of IHOP, is credited with a tremendous turn around there: marketing, advertising, remodel, prototype, new menu. She credits turnaround to the franchisees and the communication - collaboration - conversation with them.
Now she’ll have a new challenge: IHOP just bought Applebees. Stewart knows what the problems are, she was COO for [...]
Looks like AT&T can’t wait to make the switch. This from Alice Z. Cuneo at Ad Age:
Two rebranding campaignsTo back the changes, AT&T plans two rebranding campaigns. The first scales back the Cingular name from AT&T’s marketing vocabulary and carries the tagline “Wireless from AT&T, formerly Cingular.” That line replaces the phrase “Cingular is now [...]
What is Rebranding?
Rebranding is changing or reaffirming the existing marketing niche. It’s different than the initial launch because you usually don’t want to lose the existing brand equity that you have with your current customers and clients. In my experience the hardest group to influence and sway is the internal employees because they’ve been [...]
When a client asks me how branding can influence sales… or sales influence branding, I think about the goals:
1) the goal for branding is to become identified and stand for something.
2) the goal for sales is to exchange the product/service for money.
Where branding helps sales is at the intermediate steps of marketing and leading up [...]
Andrew Careaga’s blog talks about a recent name change at University of Missouri-Rolla:
{11 a.m. 3/23/07}… That’s when UMR Chancellor John F. Carney III plans to announce the recommended he has submitted to the University of Missouri and its board of curators. Since sending out a media advisory Thursday afternoon, the Name Change Conversations blog [...]
The rebranding efforts of Federated Department Stores, Inc. was recently spotlighted by Matthew Wurtzel of Dealscape in his post The rebranding bug spreads. The effort seems little more than swapping logos a la AT+T style. Most of the branding has occurred around the consumer, not at the corporate level. Flickr Photo courtesy of y entonces, [...]
