Anthology

Posted by Dustin Britt on May 27, 2011 Share

A collection of some of our favorite self-created infographics from months past.

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"great work guys!"

- Tiago

Ode to a Mouse

Posted by admin on May 26, 2011 Share

It seems a little silly to say, but the Apple Magic Mouse may just be my favorite piece of technology in the past couple years.

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"I really wish I could've witnessed this Oprah moment!"

- Cory McCollum

3 lessons from the new Moscow Identity

Posted by Craig Johnson on May 25, 2011 Share

Yesterday the story broke about a new identity for the city of Moscow, and it sparked several different thoughts on what I think we can learn from it.

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"Of course it defies your expectations, that's why it's called rebranding"

- Dani R

Matchstic Flags

Posted by Jason on May 24, 2011 Share

How can you combine company culture with into a functional tool of productivity? These desk topper flags function as a symbol of our values as well as a stop light.

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"Love the system, those little flags are super cute. The value system Matchstic has in place is very inspiring making it sound like an amazing place to work!"

- C_Rocka

Truth in Branding

Posted by John Bowles on May 22, 2011 Share

Love this poster about the progression of truth in branding. It illustrates how brand identity ideals have become less concerned with preserving brand distinctives and more about keeping up with industry trends.

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"[...] Match Blog, Gavin Potenza GA_googleAddAttr("AdOpt", "1"); GA_googleAddAttr("Origin", "other"); [...]"

- Brand Building | How brand value evolves | IDEAS INSPIRING INNOVATION

Narrowing the Field

Posted by Dustin Britt on May 20, 2011 Share

Branding and Marketing are often lumped together. The two are related, but quite distinct. And the order they are executed in can make an enormous difference in effectiveness of time, energy, and dollars spent.

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"So easily forgotten, but such ancient wisdom. It all comes down the time-honored maxim, "know thyself.""

- Reid Davis

Made

Posted by admin on May 19, 2011 Share

Made pays tribute to artisanship by upsetting its assumptions and de facto aesthetic.

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Know Thy Customer

Posted by Craig Johnson on May 18, 2011 Share

Knowing your customer well and communicating the right message about your brand to them is a key component of building a smart brand strategy.

We recently worked with Centurion Systems, who provides eLearning solutions to Tier 1 retailers like Starbucks, Tiffany's, and Godiva, to help them better build their brand in the mind of their customers.  I asked one of the principals, Corey Leverette, to share some of his thoughts on what he learned through the process and what results they saw from the work.

Craig: Where was your business when it first came to Matchstic.

Corey: For the last 17 years Centurion has been uniquely focused on serving the Tier 1 retail space by providing custom, branded eLearning solutions and services.  We have a very specific target market.  We know Who they are, Where to reach them, Why they need us and in many cases What they need.  We have been modestly successful and over the years we have formed very deep and lasting partnerships with our customers.  In 2010 we felt like there was a great opportunity to grow our business and to truly dominate our market.  But we felt like we just didn’t know How to best tactically market our solutions to have the greatest impact on and penetration into our target market.  We came to Matchstic with the specific intent of walking away with a detailed tactical marketing plan to reach our growth goals.

Craig: What did you learn about your customer?

Corey: We learned that even though we know Who they are, Where to reach them and Why they need us, we were not effectively communicating our unique capabilities, and in some cases, communicating the wrong message to the right person, or communicating the right message to the wrong person.  We even discovered that some of our existing customers had misconceptions about our true capabilities and a fundamental misunderstanding of the services we provide.  This really highlighted our problem, poor messaging.  We were not effectively communicating our true brand.

Craig: How did that change the way you approached new customers?

Corey: The process that we stepped through with Matchstic really helped us link the message we wanted to communicate with the right person each time inside our customer.  It crystallized our message and molded it into a tight, concise, accurate message that resonates with the customer.

Craig: What is the result of this new way of thinking?

Corey: The results were immediate.  Even before we completed our initial engagement with Matchstic we began to reach out to prospects that we had been unsuccessful working with in the past.  Our refined message hit home and we now have a brand new retail partner.  This work has also allowed us to reconnect with customers that we had not effectively communicated our full service capabilities to, even though we were already developing successful learning programs to their associates.

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"Good question Ray! Tell Britley we need another project to come up for :)"

- Craig Johnson

True Meaning

Posted by Blake Howard on May 17, 2011 Share

Don't work too hard explaining a logo's meaning. Consumers don't care and neither should you, because true meaning is only assigned with the proper time and context.

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Sick Days

Posted by John Bowles on May 16, 2011 Share

Are you worth more than your work? Thoughts on designing company culture. Just as you wouldn't underfund or oversimplify a complex IT system that is integral to a company's bottom line, so we shouldn't reduce ourselves as workers to the mere physical needs of our well being. Doing so shows a lack of understanding or value of the complex nature of each.

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