Law 12 of The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding.

If you were to look throughout history, you might be lead to believe that some of the most successful brands had generic names. General Electric, National Biscuit Company, National Broadcasting Company and Aluminum Company of America. Funny thing is that those are the names they began with, but it seems that most shifted from those names to specifics: GE, Nabisco, NBC and Alcoa.

How were these brands successful when they first began you might ask? By being the first national biscuit company and first general electric company and other strategies.

A big mistake in picking brand names is that the process is usually visual. Most communication however is verbal, though and this creates the disconnect. You even give meaning to printed words by the sound generated in your mind. So when a graying gentleman hears a commercial for shampoo-in hair color, he might ask himself, “What’s the name of that hair coloring product that’s just for men?”

What I learned:

The time to sit back in the crowd and hope your product sells itself is over. Create a standout brand.

One of the speakers at the recent HOW conference was branding specialist Marcus Hewitt of Dragon Rouge. He led a session called “Branding Is Like Dating”. He went through a few points communicating the idea that branding is simply a relationship. So in the same ways you would try to impress your date, you should try to impress your customers. Minus you loading up on Abercrombie Woods cologne.

He also went through seven brand trends, essentially what people find attractive in a brand. The first was called Conscience. This is when a brand seems to have a global awareness of a broken world and wants to do its part to heal it. Currently this is best exemplified in brands that promote being “green”. Brands like Clorox have a completely different line of products called Green Works™ that tap into this trend.

It’s designed for those folks who want the cleaning chemicals they use to be envronmentaly friendly. Another brand is Pangea Organics. This is a line of organic soaps and body care products also tapping into the earth conscious and organic motivation.

We cant really let the cat out of the bag but Matchstic is currently working on several “green” initiatives for clients these days. I’ll let you in on the others trends soon.

If imitation is the greatest form of flattery, then Apple is receiving a lot of flattery these days. How many commercials, ads, products, etc have you seen that use a square item sitting in a field of black with a reflection below? Everywhere I see copycats of Apple ads, visuals, websites, and so on.

The reason so many people are copycatting? Apple’s brand has become more than just a “look”, its becomes a way of defining oneself. Even though Windows still wins in number of actual users, Apple definitely wins when it comes to the reach of their brand. Ever heard someone say, “I want this to look like Apple” or “That reminds me of Apple”. I’ve never heard someone say, “I want this to look like Window’s Vista”.

Apple’s brand has reached a cultural plateau that few visuals reach. Their brand does more than just define a company, it defines a whole set of qualities people want to be associated with – to be trendy, in-the-know, relevant, innovative, and the list goes on. This is branding at its best.

Congratulations to the Atlanta Dream and their SOLD OUT season opener! Matchstic was honored to help spread the word about Atlanta’s first WNBA team.

The goal was to recruit the already existing Atlanta WNBA fan base. The strategy was to focus on families with kids who play basketball. Kids whose “dream” might be to play professionally when they grow up. The design pairs players with kids as a duo, like Shaq and Kobe. This to go with the competitive headline “Game On” which suites the start of the season and team. There have been advertisements all over town. Here are some pieces from the campaign:

We are back from the How Conference now and along with that back to the office. With so many great sessions and speakers its hard to pick a highlight for me. After having a little bit of time to recover and think about all the great stuff that happened at the conference I’m not most excited about anything specific that I learned necessarily, but the fact that alot of the speakers and sessions reaffirmed that Matchstic as a company is doing it the right way. From hearing examples of how other successful design companies handle their design processes, to how they build a creative culture, and interact with clients, I was ecstatic to find out that here we do the same things. After a great reenergizing experience it’s back to doing what Matchstic does best.

This is my first time ever attending a conference of this sort and it’s blowing my mind. The fact that there are 4,000 other people that do what I do in one place is mind blowing.

Yesterday I went to a session about research for design. The topic seemed somewhat boring, but at the same time necessary, but I was pleasantly surprised by what was said.

Jenn and Ken Visocky O’Grady lead the session and had a great theory of how to handle the designer client relationship. The theory comes from a technique of introducing two cats to each other; “If it smells like me, it must be me.” A lot of times it seems that clients don’t know what exactly we do as designers and therefore they might miss the value of what we do. One thing that clients seem to understand and actively participate in is research. Therefore the more research we do to more understand our client and their customers, we can come to stand on common ground, and smell like the client.

HOW Conference – Day 1
We went to a few different sessions today on a variety of topics. Best one for me was listening to Joe Duffy of Duffy & Partners. The session was based around the idea of design needing to enrich peoples lives. A couple of points he made were how people now look to companies to provide an authentic experience not just some product or commodity. People buy products from companies that align with their own values, seem transparent and true and are worth talking about. He mentioned that design makes the world make sense. Therefore a designer must examine the overall experience and how it aligns with the needs, hopes and dreams of the customer. We are not just storytellers but creators of a better life experience.

Yesterday morning @ 5am the Matchstic Creative Team flew out to the HOW Design Conference in Boston. I’m uber excited. Its kind of like a Disneyland for designers; Its an Epcot of awesomeness. Congregating with 3,000 fellow designers, hearing from the legends in our field, learning a ton, getting lots of free goodies from the resource center, and traveling with 3 other nutty guys in Red Jumps reeks of a good time for me. I’m particularly looking forward to our sidetrack adventure to Fenway to see the Sox Play!

We’ll post more tomorrow! For now, Boston out.

Part of what we do here at Matchstic is tell a brand’s story. We are always trying to figure out the most effective way to tell a story. One thing I realized lately is that the best stories are timeless, memorable, and compelling. A few weeks ago I went and saw Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band play at Philips Arena here in Atlanta. One thing stuck out in my mind, Springsteen is an incredible storyteller and in my opinion there isn’t a better story than “Born To Run”. Everytime I hear it I am amazed at how timeless and memorable it is, for a song written in 1975, 7 years before I was even born, it still gives me chills everytime the last verse kicks in. And apparently I’m not the only one who feels this way, I was amazed by the capacity crowd singing along with every word to the song like it was their life story. If a brand can make their story as compelling as Springsteen made a story about 2 people getting out of New Jersey, then that brand will have true staying power.

I found this interesting site today called www.brandtags.net. On the site, you are shown a well known brand identity like say the Nike swoosh. You are asked to write the first thing that comes to mind. Kind of like flash cards or an ink blot test. The site compiles all the different responses from people to each brand and allows you to see what’s most common. Its apparent purpose is simply to inquire about brand perception. Essentially brands want to own A word or thought when you see their identity. If a brand is not what a company says it is but rather what its customers say it is…this a great way to find out.