To attract more clients
Some clients look for a well-defined company, and “look and feel” may be one of their criteria in making a purchasing decision.

To be more memorable
Forty percent of people better remember what they see than what they hear or read. So having an image associated with your business and having consistent graphics on your business materials make you more likely to come to the forefront of potential clients’ minds when they have a need for your goods or services. 

To increase your chance of getting venture capital or selling a business
If you present a well-rounded business package, including marketing materials and graphics, your business will look more complete. 

To stand out in your field
A well-designed logo and an identity system can put you far above the competition, especially if they are paired with a strong marketing program. 

To give clients a sense of stability
You may not have been in business “since 1908,” but if you have invested in a cohesive brand identity, you are much less likely to fold in the eyes of your customers. It goes a long way toward building that all-important “trust.” 

To look “bigger”
Home-printed business cards with perforated edges or cards printed with standard designs available through Microsoft software or online business card vendors scream “small-time vendor” to your potential clients — and that is how they will want to compensate you. 

To explain an unusual line of business
If your business is nontraditional or in a hard-to-explain industry, a clear brand can help to explain exactly what it is that you do. 

To show what makes you different from your competition
A well-designed brand can have many subtle meanings and can begin to tell the story of how you do business, including the special practices that make you stand apart from the competition. 

To comply with expectations
In some industries, a logo is just expected. In the creative services industry especially, having a logo is an industry standard. 

To show your commitment and for the sense of personal pride it will add to your business
In other words, do it for yourself. 

These benefits will boost your business and your confidence, so start thinking about developing a logo and identity as soon as possible. 

Although I strongly recommend reading the book, I’ve excerpted the basic principles here:

The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding

1. The Law of Expansion: The power of a brand is inversely proportional to its scope. Trying to be all things to all people undermines the power of the brand. The strength of brands lies in becoming synony-mous with a single category. Brands that spread themselves across categories lose brand focus, identity, and ultimately market share.
2. The Law of Contraction: A brand becomes stronger when you narrow its focus. By narrowing the focus to a single category, a brand can achieve extraordinary success. Starbucks, Subway and Dominos Pizza became category killers when they narrowed their focus.
3. The Law of Publicity: The birth of a brand is achieved with publicity, not advertising. A new brand must be capable of generating favorable public-ity in the media or it won’t have a chance in the marketplace. Anita Roddick built the Body Shop into a global brand with no advertising, but with massive amounts of publicity. On the other hand, Miller Brewing spent $50 million in advertising to launch a brand called Miller Regular. The brand generated no publicity and very little sales.
4. The Law of Advertising: Once born, a brand needs advertising to stay healthy. Sooner or later, a brand leader has to shift its branding strategy from publicity to advertising. By raising the price of admission, advertising makes it difficult for a competitor to carve out a substantial share of the market.
5. The Law of the Word: A brand should strive to own a word in the mind of the consumer. If you want to build a brand, you must focus your branding efforts on owning a word in the prospect’s mind. A word that nobody else owns. Kleenex owns “tissue,” Federal Express owns “overnight,” Volvo owns “safety.”
6. The Law of Credentials: The crucial ingredient in the success of any brand is its claim to authenticity. Coke is the real thing in the minds of many, even though the last “real thing” advertisement ran almost thirty years ago. A brand’s credentials in a category as authentic, real, original, or the leader are very powerful indeed.
7. The Law of Quality: Quality is important, but brands are not built by quality alone. Does a Rolex keep better time than a Timex? Does Hertz have better service than Alamo? Does a Montblanc pen write better than a Cross? Are you sure? The perception of quality, more than quality itself, is what builds a brand. And the best way to build a quality perception in the mind of consumers is by following the laws of branding.
8. The Law of the Category: A leading brand should promote the category, not the brand. The most efficient, most productive, most useful aspect of branding is creating a new category. Customers don’t really care about new brands, they care about new categories. What was the market for cheap cars before Volkswagen? What was the market for home pizza delivery before Dominos? What was the market for in-line skates before Rollerblade?
9. The Law of the Name: In the long run, a brand is nothing more than a name. In the short term, a brand needs a unique idea or concept to survive. But in the long term, all that is left is the difference between your brand name and the brand names of your competitors. Shorter names that are unique and memorable are far stronger than longer, vague or generic names.
10. The Law of Extensions: The easiest way to destroy a brand is to put its name on everything. More than 90% of all new product introductions in the U.S. are line extensions. Line extensions destroy brand value by weakening the brand. The effects can be felt in diminished market share of the core brand, a loss of brand identity, and a cannibalization of the one’s own sales. Often, the brand extension directly attacks the strength of the core brand. Does Extra Strength Tylenol imply that regular Tylenol isn’t strong enough?
11. The Law of Fellowship: In order to build the category, a brand should welcome other brands. Consumers want to have choices. Choice stimulates demand. Healthy competition helps to build the category. The competi-tion between Coke and Pepsi makes customers more cola conscious. Per capita consumption goes up.
12. The Law of the Generic: One of the fastest routes to failure is giving a brand a generic name. The problem with a generic brand name is its inability to differentiate the brand from the competition. At your local health food store, you’ll find Nature’s Resource, Nature’s Answer, Nature’s Bounty, Nature’s Secret, Nature’s Way, Nature’s Best, Nature’s Plus, etc. Will any of these generic brands break into the mind and become a major brand? Unlikely.
13. The Law of the Company: Brands are brands. Companies are companies. There is a difference. Customer’s think of brands, not companies. Procter and Gamble isn’t Tide. General Motors isn’t Cadillac. The brand itself should be the focus of your attention. Use the company name, if necessary, in a decidedly secondary way.
14. The Law of Subbrands: What branding builds, subbranding can destroy. Subbranding erodes the power of the core brand. Waterford is the leading Irish crystal maker. Introducing “cheap” Waterford as “Marquis by Waterford” only dilutes the Waterford brand. Subbranding attacks a brand’s place in he mind of the prospect.
15. The Law of Siblings: There is a time and place to launch a second brand. A second brand can be launched to focus on a new subcategory within the same product family. Toyota launched Lexus because the Toyota brand couldn’t fill the luxury ar category. The focus is on the brand, not the company. Customers buy a Lexus not because it’s made by Toyota, but in spite of it.
16. The Law of Shape: A brand’s logotype should be designed to fit the eyes. Both eyes. A customer sees the world through two horizontal-ly mounted eyes peering out of the head. For maximum visual impact, a logotype should have a horizontal shape. The ideal shape is 2 1 /4 units wide by 1 unit high.
17. The Law of Color: A brand should use a color that is the opposite of its major competitor. Coke is red, and Pepsi is Blue. Hertz is yellow, and Avis is Red. Color consistency over the long term can help a brand burn its way into the mind.
18. The Law of Borders: There are no barriers to global branding. A brand should know no borders. The perfect solution to growth in a competitive market is not line extensions, but building a global brand. A brand should have a consistent message globally, but must take into account the perceptions of its country of origin.
19. The Law of Consistency: A brand is not built overnight.
    Success is measured in decades, not years.This is the law which is violated most frequently. Once a brand occupies a position in the mind, the manufacturer often thinks of reasons to change. Markets may change, but brands shouldn’t. They may be bent slightly, or given a new slant, but their essential characteristics should never be changed. Long-term, consistent programs might be boring, but they are also immensely powerful.
20. The Law of Change: Brands can be changed, but only infrequently and only very carefully. Nothing is absolute and there are exceptions to every rule. There are three situations where changing your brand is feasible: When your brand is weak or non-existent in the mind, when you want to move your brand down the food chain to a lower price and perception point, or when your brand is in a slow-moving field and the change is going to take place over an extended period of time. Remember, changing your brand is a long and difficult process. Change at your own risk!
21. The Law of Mortality: No brand will live forever. Euthanasia is often thebest solution. While the laws of branding are immutable, brands themselves are not. They are born, grow up, mature, and eventually will die. Yet companies that are willing to spend millions to save a dying brand, won’t spend pennies to launch a new one. Opportunities for new brands and threats to old ones are constantly being created by the invention of new categories. The rise of personal computers created opportunities for Compaq, Dell and Gateway, but put pressure on Digital, Data General and Wang.
22. The Law of Singularity: The most important aspect of a brand is its single-mindedness. What is a brand? A singular idea or concept that you own inside the mind of the prospect. It’s as simple or as difficult as that.

The Brand Foundry is one of the top Branding firms in Utah. For the past 5 years, we’ve been serving small businesses in Salt Lake City, Provo, American Fork, Bountiful, Layton and Ogden.

These distribution flaws had led to many of Kmart’s most publicized ranges not being found by customers. For instance, when Martha Stewart launched her ‘Keeping’ line of brand merchandise exclusively for Kmart in June 2000 she had to tell customers: ‘If you’re frustrated, keep looking.’

While facing an uphill battle with distribution, Conaway embarked on a price war, challenging rival stores Wal-Mart and Target on price. The tactic failed. Wal-Mart fought back even more aggressively, Target sued, and Kmart sales remained disappointingly stagnant.

Conaway was also criticized for drastically cutting Kmart’s advertising spend. Analysts believe he should have used advertising to tell consumers about the expensive clean-up operation. Kurt Barnard, publisher of Barnard’s Retail Trend Report said:

I was very apprehensive when Chuck inherited Kmart and its creaky operations. But he did the right thing by diverting hundreds of millions to the stores in cleaning them up. Trouble was, he failed to let 270 million shoppers know that Kmart is a new store for the American family. Meanwhile, 270 million American shoppers kept nursing the image that Kmart was a dirty place and had too much stock.

Whether or not Kmart will be able to recover from bankruptcy and take on its stronger-than-ever rivals remains to be seen.

Lessons from Kmart

• Realize that price gimmicks won’t win long-term customers. ‘The problem was that Wal-Mart and Target were out there pitching low prices, broad inventories, hip products, and pleasant shopping experiences while Kmart was banking everything on random in-store discounts,’ reported Business 2.0 magazine. Kmart needed to communicate a reason for consumers to shop there – and shop often.
• Don’t neglect advertising. A retailer undergoing a great deal of change needs to tell the public about it on a regular basis. Instead, Kmart cut its newspaper advertising.
• Be better than the competition. This is a tough challenge. Wal-Mart is a retailing giant, while Target has been called ‘quite possibly the best run company in the world,’ in Sam Hill’s book on branding, The Infinite Asset.

As Barnard indicated, it doesn’t really matter how good you are if nobody knows it. Make sure you spend the necessary time, energy and resources to be a player in your market, but be willing to spend the time, energy and resources to make sure your market knows you’re a player!

From the book Brand Failures: The Truth about the 100 Biggest Branding Mistakes of All Time by Matt Haig, as it appears on the Branding Strategy Insider blog 

By definition, a brand is not for everyone – therein lies its power.

The more specific your brand’s promise is, the stronger your brand’s equity will be.

Ideally, the brand tells a story that is unique to its organization.

Make your brand different in ways that are real and compelling to your target market.

Number 2 brands should never try to emulate market leaders. Their power (as is true of all brands) lies in promoting their differences.

Whenever possible, a brand should try to own the “next big thing”

Here’s the thing, a good brand promises clear benefits to its target customers. Carefully choosing the most powerful benefits not only results in brand preference, but brand insistence. In other words, your brand is perceived to be the only viable solution for the customer’s need, and the customer will not pursue or accept substitutes.

Ideally, a brand should try to ‘own’ only one or two key benefits, as that is all a customer will remember. The benefits should be understandable, believable, unique and compelling.

Here’s a quick test for your brand and its promise. Can you fill in the blanks with honest and compelling words?

Only [your brand] delivers [unique benefit] to [target customer].

I’ve heard people say ‘our product is a commodity’ or ‘price is all that matters in our category’ or ‘all of the viable positions in our market have been taken.’ Don’t let anyone convince you that your brand can not be focused and differentiated. After all, chicken, bananas, vodka and even water have been branded successfully.

As one of the top brand design firms in utah, Brand Foundry can help you develop focused and differentiated brands, logos, marketing materials, corporate identities and more.

One Mission. Your Image.

The fact is, most small businesses do not have a recognizeable and memorbale presence. In their book The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding, Al and Laura Ries write

“One of the fastest routes to failure is giving a brand a generic name. The problem with a generic brand name is its inability to differentiate the brand from the competition. At your local health food store, you’ll find Nature’s Resource, Nature’s Answer, Nature’s Bounty, Nature’s Secret, Nature’s Way, Nature’s Best, Nature’s Plus, etc. Will any of these generic brands break into the mind and become a major brand? Unlikely.”

The Brand Foundry is one of the premier brand firms in Utah, located in Salt Lake City. We can help you define your image and stand out in your industry, whether you need a complete Branding Package, brand consulting for an existing brand, or development of marketing materials and collateral (like business cards and letterhead, brochures, and ad layouts), the Brand Foundry can make you look good and stand apart.

We have one mission. Your image.

You Must “Own” Your Category in the Minds of Your Customers
The absolute best way to create a brand is to invent a new product or service. Being first to market is a huge advantage. Coca-Cola has turned its “secret formula” into a 70% market share of cola drinks worldwide.

However, most of us run businesses in categories filled with competitors. What’s the best way for us to create a strong brand?

The secret lies in narrowing the focus of your business until you’ve created a new category you can be first in.

From Ford to BMW
Consider the auto industry. Henry Ford didn’t invent the automobile, but he was the first to combine it with an assembly line. That reduced his costs enough so that millions could afford a car. Being first with an affordable car allowed Ford to dominate the category, even though there were literally hundreds of car companies in the U.S. by 1910. That’s a powerful brand!

So how did other auto manufacturers develop successful brands? By creating new categories in the mind of the buying public. If you’re in the market for a “safe” car, Volvo is probably the first brand to pop into your mind. If you’re looking for the “ultimate driving machine,” BMW owns that category. Buyers shopping for a high-priced luxury car think Mercedes Benz.

Notice that none of these companies is trying to be all things to all people. They narrowed their focus until they had a new category they could be first in. Even though other car companies could make claims about the safety of their cars, it’s unlikely they’re going to supplant Volvo in the public’s mind. Volvo “owns” the safe car category.

Two Fast Food Examples
When Tom Monaghan owned a small pizza restaurant near a college campus, he started asking his customers what changes they would like to see in his business. Did they want a higher quality pizza? No, the quality was fine. Did they want a cheaper pizza? No, the price was fair. What they really wanted was a pizza that came to them. Thus, Domino’s Pizza created the new category of pizza delivery, and even though others offer the same service, being first allows Domino’s to enjoy a dominant share of the market.

Little Caesars saw another opportunity. If they focused on take-out pizza, they could save money on delivery and a large restaurant. That would allow them to make money even if they sold two pizzas for the price of one. Pizza. Pizza. Brilliant.

Apply These Ideas to Your Business
If you’re trying to grow your business, it might seem logical to expand your offerings, but that’s unlikely to be successful in the long run. As these few examples have shown, it’s often better to narrow your focus until you’ve created a new category you can be first in. If you’re a specialist, people will regard you as more of an expert in your field than a generalist.

Let’s say you’re a photographer. If you live in a town or city of any size, you no doubt have lots of competition. Look around for the opportunities to separate yourself from the herd. Maybe you could become known as the only one in town to call for action shots during kids’ athletic games. Or maybe you specialize in soft-focus sepia-toned photos of mother and child. Fly fishermen. Architectural details. Even though you’ve narrowed your pool of prospects, you’ve also eliminated most of your competition.

Our photographer could expand her business while maintaining focus by publishing a book, printing greeting cards and calendars, or teaching lessons, all in her specialized area.

She’ll know she’s created a powerful brand when her name is the first one to pop into a parent’s head when they want a “hero shot” of their young soccer player.

Publicity First, Advertising Later
One of the great benefits of being first in a new category is that you become newsworthy. Newspapers and magazines, TV and radio are always looking for “something new under the sun.”

Don’t wait for the news to find you, either. Submit pres releases when you have something noteworthy, help the media find you!

Remember Pet Rocks? This small outfit gained international coverage, all of it free, for their unique idea. Millions of Pet Rocks were sold with virtually no advertising costs.

Advertising alone is rarely enough to create a new brand, although lots of businesses try that route. Remember the Super Bowl of a few years ago when the media was filled with stories about the millions that were spent on 30-second ads? This was supposed to be the launching of several new dot com businesses and the amount of money spent to launch these brands was incredible. In spite of all that money and the creative efforts of Madison Avenue’s finest minds, those businesses failed quickly and are totally forgotten today.

A better path is the one followed by Google, the world’s most popular search engine. Google wasn’t the first search engine, but they created a new way to rank web sites that garnered them huge amounts of free publicity. I’ve never seen an ad for Google, and yet just about everyone who has surfed the web has heard of it. Just this morning our local paper ran a large article about Google’s decision not to sell shares of stock in the company yet. More free publicity, which will further boost the strength of their brand.

Conclusion
Focusing your business until you’ve created your own category is just one step to branding your business. An excellent resource for learning more ways to create a strong brand is the book, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding by Al and Laura Ries. Next time I’ll have some specific ideas on how to brand yourself through your web site. Until then, stay focused!

1. The Brand Promise is a commitment you make to prospects and customers. It answers the question on every customer’s mind: “If I engage in a relationship with you, your product or your company, what can I expect?” In other words, “What’s in it for me?” The answer to this question must address the big problem solved or the compelling need fulfilled – in other words, the primary benefit of your product or service, your one key differentiator. Companies with the clearest brand promises have the strongest brands. And the simplest idea is often the most powerful.

2. The Brand Attributes include all the unique ways you deliver your brand promise. These comprise the feature set that describes the customer’s experience with your company. Common attributes might include your unique versions of quality, customer service, innovation and flexibility.

3. The Brand Personality describes the human characteristics people experience when they encounter your brand. It has by far the strongest influence on the emotional connection people feel toward your brand. Often a company’s brand personality matches the customer’s self-perception of their own personality or a personality they aspire to. Common brand personalities include ruggedness, sophistication, excitement, competence or sincerity.

Of these concepts, the brand promise leads the way because it is directly affected by the value proposition your company chooses. Your brand promise represents the core essence of your brand. It lays the foundation for your relationship with the customer. Take a look at these familiar brand promises and see if you can identify the companies that own them.

1. Focus on what your business achieves for its customers. Your brand is no good to you if it isn’t delivering what customers want.

2. Take ownership of your brand. Pay attention to customers’ needs, but you should still control what you want your brand to mean to them. Remeber, there’s no use in trying to be everything to everyone – be who you are and find your market niche.

3. Be honest. If you don’t believe in your brand, no one else will.

4. Keep your brand simple. By focusing on a small number of key brand values, you’ll naturally find the characteristics of your business that set you apart from your competitors.

5. Be consistent. Every aspect of your business should make customers feel the same way about you.

6. Be thorough. Look at everything you do to make sure it supports your brand. This includes telephone scripts, invoicing and accounts payable systems, and customer service processes in addition to the visible collateral like logos and letterhead.

7. Involve employees. Make sure they understand your brand and believe in it. After all, your customer’s will probably be interacting with your employees more than you. An employee with brand “buy-in” is a valuable assett.

8. Communicate your brand. Make sure every advertisement, brochure and letter helps reinforce the same message. If you have a logo, use it everywhere, but make sure the quality is consistent.

9. Do what you say you’ll do, keep ytour word. Meet and exceed what your brand promises. Failing, just once, will damage your brand.

10. Manage your brand. Continually look for opportunities to make improvements. And don’t be afraid to make changes to reflect shifts in the way you do business or new trends in your market.

Branding 101 – Why should I brand myself?

Forty percent of people better remember what they see than what they hear or read. So having graphics associated with your business and having consistent graphics on your business materials make you more likely to come to the forefront of potential clients’ minds when they have a need for your goods or services. It’s estimated that the average American is exposed to over 7,000 marketing or advertising messages a day! So, among all the junk mail, billboards, business cards and television commercials, how do you distinguish yourself, and how does your client remember you? Again, consistency in the look and feel of your company will go a long way towards your name being on the short list when the client makes a purchase decision.

Branding 101 – Why should I brand myself?

You may not have been in business “since 1908,” but if you have invested in a brand, you are much less likely to fold in the eyes of your customers. It goes a long way toward building that all-important “trust.” Think about it, if you trust a company, product, or service, you’re more likely to be forgiving of that brand should you have a bad experience, your more likely to be flexible with pricing, and your more likely to recommend that product, company, or service to others. Turning the tables, as the producer rather than the consumer, each one of those benefits carries tremendous value. Together, they can be the difference between a struggling business and a wildly successful one. In the words of Michael S. Clouse, knowing that people do business with you because they know you, like you, and trust you, branding to give clients a sense of stability and earn their trust, is clearly one of the keys to success.