Marketing

How to Better Understand the Emotional Impact of Your Brand on its Customers

by Brad VanAuken

Today’s successful brands almost always deliver customer benefits that are more than just functional. To gain insight into your brand’s values and its emotional, experiential and self-expressive benefits as perceived by its customers, have its customers complete these sentences:

Google Authorship and SEO

You may have seen the ever-growing number of photos showing up in Google search results. Google is allowing you to claim ownership of a website, blog or guest blog post and they will display your Google+ profile photo within your link.

Top 15 Actions to Build your Brand Online

by Brad VanAuken

One can use the Internet to: • Increase brand awareness • Reinforce the brand’s unique value proposition • Tell the brand’s story • Identify customers and build lists • Create a dialog with customers and potential customers Here are the top 15 actions to take to build your brand online:

Creating an Emotional Connection

by Brad VanAuken

We have been hired by a number of companies to move them from a brand position based on unique product attributes and features to a brand that is highly emotionally connected to its customers based on aspirational qualities and shared values. Some of these companies have adept brand management functions with rigorous quantitative research and […]

Higher Education Branding

by Brad VanAuken

While higher education is a very crowded market, there are some colleges and universities that have differentiated themselves in highly compelling ways. Here are some of my favorite examples of this: Naropa University: Transform Yourself, Transform the World The Naropa Experience: Perform in an Indian classical music ensemble. Write a thesis on creativity and social […]

SEO Freelancer V. SEO Agency Outsourcing Partners

SEO has become a desirable services in the last decade, but also very difficult to find professionals that know how to successfully turn it into a revenue stream. Agencies and companies seem to be scratching their heads to integrate this services into their [digital] marketing program. It’s a very specialized field that many companies and

The Importance of Careful Customer Targeting

by Brad VanAuken

I have positioned five wealth management brands and over a dozen other financial service brands. Most people, when thinking about wealth management brands, think the target customer is fairly straightforward – anyone who has more than $250,000 or $500,000 of investable assets – individuals or institutions. And while most wealth management firms’ customers would meet […]

Making and Keeping Brand Promises

by Brad VanAuken

Brands make promises and then they must keep those promises. Making the promise is easy. Keeping it is the hard part. One can make a promise with words. But it can only be kept through actions. Consider BP repositioning itself as an environmentally friendly brand with the “Beyond Petroleum” slogan and the bright yellow and […]

Basic Human Needs and Branding

by Brad VanAuken

As branders, it is useful to understand the basic needs that drive human emotions and behaviors. Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs addresses this, as does Artur Manfred Max Neef’s classification of fundamental human needs. Albert T. Poffenberger, Ph.D. devotes an entire chapter to “An Inventory of Human Desires” in his book, Psychology in Advertising, published […]

Rochester Branding Survey Results

by Brad VanAuken

In branding themselves, municipalities should always play off of their strengths. In a recent online survey of 452 Rochester area residents, we discovered that Rochester has many strengths that can be used to develop a powerful brand position.

Tommaso Occhiuto

Mailing Tactics

by Tommaso Occhiuto

I’m sure anyone who has tried to figure out the best strategy/tactic to use in direct mail has left in frustration.

Branding and the Olympics

by Brad VanAuken

An interesting side story on the London Olympics (Games of the XXX Olympiad) is the power of brand sponsorships and the battle against ambush marketing. Olympic organizers have hired about 250 “brand police” to patrol the London streets to make sure brands that are not official sponsors of the Olympics are not presenting themselves in […]

Brand Values

by Brad VanAuken

Our research over the past twelve years has shown that brands whose values align with their customers’ values have much stronger brand equity as measured by brand preference, loyalty and emotional connection. I recently read Jim Stengel’s book, Grow: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the World’s Greatest Companies. He has come to a […]

Why Is There a QR Code on My Banana?

by Janice Hanson

I noticed a funny sticker on my banana one recent morning when I was making breakfast. You’ve probably seen them around – a small square with a bunch of squiggles, and then four smaller boxes within the image.

Women In Graphic Communication: A Comparison of Two Studies

by Twyla Cummings

ABSTRACT In 2000 a research study was conducted to determine the demographic and employment status of women in the Graphic Communication industry. In 2011 the research surrounding this study was revisited in an effort to determine if there were any significant trend changes over this eleven year span.

Tommaso Occhiuto

Continue Direct Mailings Even During Difficult Times

by Tommaso Occhiuto

You have heard the saying “Desperate times require desperate measures.” Unfortunately, there is no better, or worse, time than the present to do all you can to improve your direct mail response rates. With the economic climate declining as it has in the last few years, everything in its wake gets affected. From gas to […]

Marketing Communication Strategy is Not Brand Strategy

by Brad VanAuken

I have found that a common error advertising agencies commit is equating brand strategy with brand messaging and marketing communication. While brand messaging is an important part of brand strategy, it misses many other potential components of brand strategy.

What Can Kim Kardashin Teach You About Business?

by Alan Sartain

Today we’ll talk about shameless self-promotion. That’s right, I said it! Shameless! After all, we are learning from Kim Kardashian here.

10 Things To Look For In A Product

by Alan Sartain

I recently had an opportunity to meet Kevin Harrington at the EO (Entrepreneurs’ Organization) meeting in Buffalo. In 1984, Mr. Harrington produced one of the industry’s first 30 minute infomercials. Since then, he has helped produce over 500 product launches with over $4 Billion in global sales. Mr. Harrington was also selected as an inventor […]

Branding as a Solution to All Organizational Problems

by Brad VanAuken

As a branding consultant, I am the beneficiary of branding being a high profile area of focus for organizations. We have been invited into hundreds of organizations to help them improve their brand awareness, positioning and perceptions. However, perhaps one out of every five times we are contacted, the primary problem is not a branding […]

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