Brand Design Blog, News and Ideas

I recently sent a question regarding Effective Business Promotion to the Mind Your Own Business Podcast and was fortunate enough to have it featured as the topic for the day.

Mind Your Own Business is a great Podcast which talks about business issues relating to the entrepreneur. The podcast is paneled by Guy Kingston and John Richards, two successful business entrepreneurs from the UK.

My question to them was to discuss what are the most effective forms of business promotion.

It’s a broad question and being in promotion myself, I expected the same old answers.

Answers such as, it depends on your unique business area and your unique target market.

Which of course it does.

But the question was asked to prompt some discussion on the subject, which may reveal a few different ideas on the topic. Which it certainly did.

So make sure to have a listen to their podcast on effective promotion which you can find here.

It’s definitely worth a listen to hear their perspective.You’ll find some great information on general marketing topics, but also some real nuggets of information about topics such as strategic alliances.

Thanks to Guy and John for featuring Crimson Fox on their show.

This week Australia elected a new Prime Minister. Kevin Rudd has now replaced John Howard after an 11 year elect as the head of Australian politics.

I’m not going to comment on who should lead Australia or whether Australia’s election decision was right or wrong. But what I am going to talk about is how big a part, ‘BRAND’ played in this 2007 election.

Both political camps, Howard’s Liberal and Rudd’s Labor parties, made use of the media as the front line in their campaigns. But it clearly showed that Labor had the upper hand with their media strategy.

Labor looked at their campaign from a branding point of view. They promoted to sell their product. The product in this case being Kevin Rudd himself.

While the Liberals seemed to apply a ‘don’t vote for them’ mentality, Labor applied a ‘What we are going to do for you’ style solution.

The Liberal messages were negative. Labor’s were positive. People are attached to the positive and repelled by negative. People also want to hear the ‘What’s in it for me?’ statements.

There were also a few notable advertising slip ups based on this principle. One Liberal ad tried to convince us to vote Liberal to avoid the return of unions. But the methods used fell well short. Let me point out a few errors.

• ‘We’re coming back’ was the message repeated throughout the advertisement. The comment was voiced by a jovial unionist happy about the idea of ‘Coming Back’. This put a positive spin to the statement, which in turn, effected negatively on the Liberals.
• The ad then used the original backing sound which included unionist cheers. Again, this added more positive spin to the ‘We’re coming back’ statement. The sound was later changed to jeers in the last week of the campaign but was too little, too late, to repair the damage.

The Labor party then came up with a slogan. Slogans can often appear cheesy or cliché, but they do work. Why would huge brands like Coke, MacDonalds and Nike use them if they didn’t.

Good slogans stick in the mind. Millions of voters often don’t know who they are going to vote for until they have pencil and voting form in hand. A slogan running through their thoughts can often push them to vote for the person who just came to mind.

Of course, both parties had various sub slogans. But it was the ‘KEVIN 07′ slogan, seen across the nation, on tshirts and television, that really stuck in the minds of voters.

But is doesn’t say anything about the candidate?

True, but it is a call to action. That’s the true trigger in this situation. Relating the name to the action to vote. It’s the trigger you want released with those undecided voters standing at a polling booth scratching their heads.

Were there real issues involved in this campaign? Sure there were.

Couldn’t they, combined with candidate history, be the real reason for the victory? Of course, and it probably is.

But what we saw last weekend was a landslide. Not only that, but Kevin Rudd has only been leader of the Labor party for little over 12 months. Without a brand style campaign, the country would never have had the chance to learn who Kevin Rudd was and what he stood for.

We can safely say that the advertising, brand development and positive media saturation played a major part in the Labor victory. Brand Design has now changed the landscape of Australian Politics.

This is only a brief discussion on how ‘brand’ played a major part in recent Australian politics. The issue could be reviewed in far greater detail.

So if you’d like to hear more or if you have a different point of view, drop me a comment on the blog or contact me via email. I’d be interested to hear your point of view.

While normally I speak about design and business related issues – today I’m going to have my say about business ethics.

SPAM emails have become common place in my day to day dealings with the internet, but today I received one that frankly, pissed me off.

The title: Four-year-old Madeleine disappeared from Portuguese holiday resort in May

We all know the story of little Madeleine. I’ve been closely following the story myself, because my daughter carries the same name.

But the email wasn’t a chain letter referring to donations, or an email prompting me to visit a website…no.

This email was promoting VIAGRA.

How the hell does a business think, for a second, that by tricking me into looking at an email that I’ll suddenly go out and buy their product.

Let alone the disgusting tactic of connecting VIAGRA to the story of a missing 4 year old girl.

So the email was able to get through my SPAM filter…Congratulations!

You’ve succeeded in making sure I never buy the product.

I would think that the makers of VIAGRA would be doing everything in their power to stop this sort of situation.

Or does the money they make from using affiliates such as this outweigh a moral sense of evil.

For everyone else…

…If you have a business. Be careful how far you’ll go to make a buck. Simply being being in business doesn’t not give people the right to leave their conscience at the door.

The Smart Business Brief is a great resource website which I’ve been frequenting over the last year.

I’ve also just become a moderator on their forum so I thought I’d give everyone a heads up as to what you can find there.

If you are thinking of starting or are currently running a small business you’ll find the articles and networking opportunities on the site to be invaluable. While the quality of articles varies greatly from one writer to the next, I find that having a broad range of ideas and topics really helps to keep up to date with todays small business issues.

The Small Business Brief Forum is a great place to meet other business people, share ideas and ask questions about small business issues. The friendly atmosphere makes for a really accessible community. Even if you’re a novice to the business world you won’t feel excluded here.

While there if often some great heated debates on the forum, you’ll rarely find any nasty response or verbal bashing which makes for some really interesting discussions that cut to the heart of an issue.

The website has just implemented a digg like ranking system on articles which makes finding the great new business articles much easier. Articles including everything from SEO to through to tips on running a business franchise. No matter what small business you run, you’ll find something useful here.

So, if you have a business idea, have just started in the small business world, or have been a business person for years – whether you’re running an online business or a traditional brick and mortar, you’ll find something useful at the Small Business Brief Forums.

I may even see you there.

I travelled down to the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria over the weekend and took in a bit of relaxation time at the wineries down that way.

One thing I noticed as I spoke to the winery owners was their willingness to recommend their competition when speaking about certain wine varieties that they were lacking.

“‘So and so’, down at ‘what’s a name’ has a fantastic Pinot Noir that you just have to try”.

Thanks to the recommendation I had an even better day and I’m sure to be going back.

Often in business we are so busy competing against one another that we don’t stop to think how you could improve the reputation of our industry and therefore improving our business future.

The Mornington Peninsula wine district is still a young but extremely fast growing wine region and perhaps situations such as this that are part of the reason. Sure the wines good, but it’s the experience that I’ll remember.

I also noticed local sponsorship deals and cross promotion with local fruit growers. Everything working towards a better experience while helping to sustain the local market.

I think the lesson to take from this little story is that it’s better to recommend a competitor to do a job that you won’t do well rather than always chasing the sell and providing a crappy quality product or service.

Do what you do well and let a client know when they would be better suited using another service. Your industry and reputation with the customer won’t be tarnished by a bad experience.

Perhaps rather than simply redirecting a client you could partner with other business’ to fill the gaps in your own game.

The higher the quality of product or service delivered by the industry, the more customers will be willing to pay a little more. You’ll be working to create a sustainable and profitable industry for the future.

The idea may sound a little idealistic but I believe it to be true. The better the quality, the better the business for everyone. If you want to discuss the idea, leave a comment on the blog so i can read your thoughts.

While the design of this new airport is very impressive from an aesthetic point of view.

You have to ask yourself…Is the return on investment going to pay off on this one.

Every 4 years a country spends millions if not billions of dollars on impressing the world when holding the Olympic games.

I wonder if the return in tourism based on impressive visual effects would not be higher if the money was put towards service and staffing.

Let’s relate it back to business. Does great service or an impressive premise provide more referrals and increase your return on investment?

Check out more about China’s new airport here.

I’ve seen a lot of posts on forums and other blogs suggesting that business cards are no longer relevant in todays advertising.

Do I agree with this sort of statement?…Not at all.

Business cards are one of my most successful forms of marketing.

Other than referrals, business cards bring in the most new customers for my business.

Why do Business Cards Work?

The many reason is a simply one. You are attached to the business card when you hand it over.

A face to face conversation normally accompanies the presentation of a business card, meaning you’ve already had time to express to the prospective client your services, your sales messages, your personality and hopefully the reason you are giving the business card is because they have shown interest.

So is the business card really doing any work?

Yes. Once you’ve made a contact with a client in person they may not contact you straight away, so having your details on a memorial business card makes find your name and details straight forward.

I often have people contact me months later after a chance meeting at a BBQ or dinner party.

One point that comes up concerning the relevance of business cards in today’s age of communication technology.

Why not just add your details into the clients phone or PDA?

Sure, feel free to do this as well, BUT, a listing in a text based address book is going to be hard to find once a client has forgotten your name.

A business card carries branding as well as those precious contact details. The visual branding (logo, colours, company name and tag line) jog the memory and help your prospective client to place your name and phone number to what it is that you do.

But don’t people just throw business cards away?

People often throw business cards out as soon as they get home.

The trick is to design a business card that holds enough interest that the client thinks twice before throwing it in the bin.

Does the card look expensive? Does the card feel nice to hold? Is it interesting to look at? Is there something about this card that makes me want to hold onto it?

So, how do you create something of value in a business card?

Don’t use business card templates. If you want to make your card look and feel like everyone else, then go right ahead. Personally I want my business card to stand out in a clients mind. Using a template won’t give them the intensive to hold on to your details.

If you can’t do a brilliant design yourself hire someone to do it for you. Business cards have a very high return on investment when designed well. It’s worth spending a little extra to get it right.

Cheap printing will make you look cheap. The thickness and texture of the card. The colour. The clarity of the printing. All these things work towards making you look cheap or successful in the mind of a prospective client. You can still get great prices on printing that looks great, but make sure you do your research. The cheapest price is often the cheapest quality.

Make sure that your details are simple and easy to read. While it’s great to get creative with business cards and stationery. Make sure you always keep your eye on the point of creating a business card in the first place. A business card should always be about conveying your details. So, don’t make those details too small to read. Make sure you don’t have too much background interference, like photography, so the details become unreadable.

In keeping with the idea of making it easy to read. Don’t cram too much text onto one side of the card. This can also make it hard to read. Use both sides if necessary. Or, make firm decisions on whether your card really needs your home phone number, your entire service listing, does it even need your address. If a client can contact you successfully via, office phone, mobile, email and your website, that should be enough for them to get your postal address.

Business cards can be one of your most successful forms advertising and have fantastic return on investment.

Simply, take some time and create something of worth in a business card. You’ll come to see that even today, business cards are a relevant and powerful way to gain business.