Rebranding Archives - Page 3 of 13 - Branding and Marketing

Reebok Re-Brands Itself with the Fitness Sport

It’s been said that it is much harder to rebrand and change the positioning in someone’s mind, than it is to start from scratch with a new brand. It’s expensive to say the least. All the packaging, product and collaterial. But even more expensive can be the miss-step. Just ask ask the brand managers of “new” Coke, or the folks at JCPenney.

Reebok is taking a stab at a new positioning and has developed a new mark. After 30 years of making products for elite athletes they are making a change.

The company uses a short branding video to launch it’s new brand mark and positioning… I like how they take their traditional icon that has been around “forever” and flip it to become the new mark of DELTA to symbolize change. Very timely and on target.

They insist their new brand mark is not a logo, but a symbol, a beacon - something for those who want to live a fit and healthy lifestyle. But when I saw that they have partnered with CrossFit, I thought hmmmm, isn’t that the group that’s a bit over the top with strenuous workouts?

While they say they want to appeal to “everyday people to fight against complacency… to be active and realize their potential,” somehow the extreme of CrossFit athletes is a disconnect with my perception of everyday people. It will be interesting to see how the launch progresses.

I’ve written before about how you know when it is time to rebrand.

By the way, can anyone explain to me what is a fitness sport? I usually think of a sport where you keep score. But casual running, biking and being active usually does not involve a stopwatch and score card. Or does it? I think of fitness as an ideal, but not as a sport. Please feel free to comment in the area below.

Updated and Refreshed, Superman Logo Through The Years

Superman logo refresh from 1938 to 2013 by Maurice Mitchell.
Subtle changes, but updates make a difference.

Found this info graph when I was reading an article comparing Tim Tebow to Superman. I don’t know why I was looking for this, but it really is interesting. It makes you realize just how iconic these symbols are for the characters, for their brand, their ideals, and their purpose. No wonder Superman is the favorite of the most amount of states, with such a wonderful and beautifully simple design and logo. As soon as that shape was set with his emblem, you can see just how striking and original it is.

The thing that’s different is the background color. When I checked Brands Of The World, I found this familiar logo. It’s easy to ignore the factor that the blue gives it, the way the red and yellow pop so beautifully against it makes it stand out much more than on its own. I think seeing it on the field of royal blue makes a difference. It just wouldn’t be the same without it, don’t you think? It makes a great example of how a brand is used, and how the context around a logo can change the feel of it so much. On its own, it almost seems alarming, but the blue grounds it back to the caring and protective, and noble, influence that the character is meant to show. There are lessons to learn from this logo when it comes to branding, that’s for sure.

What Key Points Business Owners Ought to Consider When Re-Naming and Re-Branding a Company

Renaming a company, product or service is extremely important to creating a brand or marketing. It can be more difficult than it looks on face value. Expensive, yes. But sometimes very necessary.

After you’ve brainstormed the lists of names, here are some of the considerations when evaluating the name:

Your customers, employees, and competitors
Positioning strategy
Getting found issues: alphabetical friendly for directories
Easy to spell for searching and if you have multi word domains, be careful.
Easy to pronounce: wii, yahoo, kazaa, hulu
Before you start, set some criteria so you know when you have the right new name (some people’s votes count more than others.)
Sometimes the favorite name doesn’t pass legal, so you should select several versions of the new name
Trademark issues

Refer to these helpful links from Branding & Marketing when you’re in the midst of a rebranding and re-naming exercise with your company:

Image credit: Dacky, used with permission: Dreamstime Stock Photos

5 Tips for Branding and Marketing in the New Year for 2013

Are you ready for 2013?

Do you have your marketing plan in place? Outlined your stair steps to sales for new clients to existing products or existing clients to new services?

What are the tools and tactics you’re going to use? Are they the most effective - both in results and cost? Easy enough to implement or easy to make a mistake?

Here’s my 5 tips for branding and marketing in the 2013:

1) Don’t give up on Direct Mail just yet: While no one can argue that print media has taken a nose dive, you may not want to discount all the “old school” direct marketing techniques just yet.

Don’t forget at the start of the new year, new US mail postcard rules go into effect with new postcard rules for smaller sizes and address orientation go into effect from the USPS. This is important information to have if you are thinking about using postcards as a marketing strategy. While using a postcard maker to make your marketing material you can use these new rules as a guideline.

2) Test something new: Do you have a new years resolution for marketing? I’ll bet that mobile is top of the list. However who really wants to see an “ad” on your little phone screen while you’re trying to reply to a text, an email or shoot out a photo for another post?

If you really wanted to advertise your brand and try something new, you could order some custom wristbands from a website like www.sleekwristbands.com to give out to clients and customers. Using a product like this will really increase your brand awareness so why not give it a try?

3) Media matching: Make sure you match the media with your target market.

Is it just me, or has some of the social media hype lost it’s shiny halo for marketing? I find that more and more, people are looking for something that works, not just the latest “cool” thing.

Facebook, while hitting 1 billion accounts, often still doesn’t deliver the marketing results that companies want… and can be confusing to implement — even to those in the know (like Mark Zuckerburg’s sister Randi!) with confusing settings.

4) Consider using PR over Ads: PR has the implied endorsement of the media vehicle. Getting free publicity that has some legs can be more cost effective than advertising and last longer too. Looking for some “free” publicity? I’m “regifting” Joan Stewart’s Best Tips of 2012: http://budurl.com/Bestof2012Tips.

5) Write down your marketing plan: It seems like a no-brainer, but written marketing plans have a much high opportunity for success. Even if it’s on the back of a napkin. Who’s your target market? What’s the message you want them to take away? How will you reach them? What’s the measure of success, so you know it was effective?

Bonus Ask for help! A lot of people don’t like to ask for help, but why wouldn’t you when there are so many specialist companies out there that can help with marketing strategies? They are easy to find - for example, if you are an interior design company then a simple search for ‘Marketing for Home Service Providers‘ will bring up a selection of companies that can specifically help you and your business. Something simple like this could really be the boost you need to take your business to the next level.

I’m looking forward to a great 2013 — it’s going to be a fantastic year.

What’s your branding and marketing tips for 2013?

University of California Rebrands with Attitude

The University of California has relaunched its brand with with a huge change to it’s logo. Watch this launch video to see the quick version. RSS readers click here for the link.

Click here for Logo Design Love’s take on it.

Although they’ve developed a complete brand style guide, if I needed to develop a licensed product using the brand execution guide, I’d find a lot of choices. They’ve created a huge brand promise to live up to:

The positioning

Boldly Californian.

UC embodies the ambition of California and ignites the potential of its people.

And I think they have a lot of attributes that may be difficult to contain…

Brand attributes

Visionary.
Experimental.
Optimistic.
Awe-Inspiring.
Essential.
Audacious.
Pioneering.
Proven.

Everything we say and do should embody these traits.

Although it is “different”, I do admire how they launched it. I like how they packaged their templates on their branding page, and provided easy access to their enormous photo library (all copyrighted of course!) I did notice that they didn’t completely throw away their old seal logo in favor of the new C logo. One of their guidelines “Hire the best photography you can afford” is a mantra that many organizations should aspire to but it’s not a phrase that is usually contained in a style guideline.

What are your thoughts about University of California’s branding/rebrand program?