Re-Branding SF, CT And U.A.E.
Branding is commonly associated with consumer products, corporate images and even personalities (e.g. Trump), but this discipline is also essential for creating an identity for a geographic location. The basic positioning approach is the same – define your target audience, identify your unique strengths, develop a compelling promise based on these strengths, and ideally create a name and/or a catchy slogan that communicates this promise and emotionally captivates your customers. Here are three different situations, a city, state and country, that all involve a branding effort to address...
Read MorePerception Is Reality: Branding And Politics
In any communications, it is essential to first understand fully everything about the other person (e.g. a customer or voter), especially their perceptions and emotional biases. Their attitudes may be based on doggedness or falsehoods, but they exist and cannot be ignored. Whether it involves brand marketing or political campaigning, it will ultimately be perceptions and human feelings that will determine a purchase or a vote. Unfortunately our society and political climate has devolved into a divisive culture highlighted by extensive vitriol and misinformation. Trust in our institutions...
Read MoreIs The Republican Brand In Trouble?
Winston Churchill supposedly said: “If you are not a Liberal when you are 20, you have no heart, and if you are not a Conservative when you are 40, you have no brain”. The assumption is that as you get older and gain income, buy property and start a family, preferences for security and stability become more dominant. Personal values and attitudes do change over time, and strategic brands must adapt to these evolving desires by fine tuning their promises, especially for their primary customers. The risks of not staying current with the values of a brand’s core customer base can be...
Read MoreWhy Friendship Is Also Essential For Good Branding
Successful branding is all about connecting to your customer. A brand must make a promise to a person that is relevant, credible and emotionally inspiring. It is a highly personal process. People respond to people, not things. This is why a brand must define itself like a human personality with personal traits and values that also mirror those of the targeted customer. Basically branding is like developing and sustaining trustful friendships, and this requires ongoing support. How Friendships Evolve and then Dissolve In September David French wrote an insightful article in the NY...
Read MoreIs It Time For New Guardrails On Social Media Algorithms?
A key reason for the rise of advertising on social media is the ability of algorithms to identify priority customers, message them with more relevant content and ultimately build a strong, emotional bond with them. Good marketing starts with in-depth research on the customer to ideally find those “hot emotional buttons” that excite them and sustain their loyalty to a brand. Nothing is more effective for learning more about customer nuances and behavior than what these algorithms can uncover, although privacy has become a big issue, especially in Europe and with Facebook. . Unlike...
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