brand management

branding fundamentals in the guitar guitar business

Branding Fundamentals – The ABCs of Branding are RCD

Relevance. Credibility. Differentiation. These are the universal branding fundamentals. When you look at companies — large and small — that have become successful brands, you’ll notice strength, consistency and often superiority in those three areas. Branding fundamentals begin with Relevance.   Brand relevance is closely related to specialization and niche marketing. Because you can’t be …

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What business owners can learn from political advertising

Every election year there’s a deluge of dumb, annoying political ads from both sides of the aisle. And as much as we love to hate them, there’s a lot that business owners can learn from political advertising. From a creative standpoint it’s rare to find any political ads that are noteworthy. As a genre, they …

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Air Jordan Nike's brand narrative

From underdog to big dog: Take-aways from the Nike brand narrative.

 There’s nothing like a good origin story to remind everyone what your brand’s really all about.  Phil Knight’s memoir, Shoe Dog, is an exceptional example. It spells out how the Nike brand narrative evolved as the company grew up. Like all good stories, it has plenty of interesting characters, plot twists and emotional ups and …

From underdog to big dog: Take-aways from the Nike brand narrative. Read More »

naming your company BN Branding

Naming your company – Why is it so dang hard to do well?

If you conducted a poll of 100 people like myself who develop brands for a living, 99 would tell you that naming your company is the hardest piece of the brand identity development process. Naming is way harder than designing logos or writing brand narratives. Naming a business is harder than naming a baby. Naming …

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Lessons learned from 30 years in a professional services business

  Professional services marketing is one of the toughest specialties in my line of work. First of all, marketing an intangible service is much harder than marketing a tangible product, like a tasty new food item. Second, it’s hard to know where to spend your money, and which tactics are appropriate for a professional services …

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Branding the Olympics – leading by example in sports marketing

  In the world of sports marketing one event rises above the competition in terms of branding and worldwide audience appeal… the Olympics. If you’re thinking of sponsoring a sporting event, signing an athlete as as spokesperson, or marketing your own sporting event, you can learn a lot by studying what the International Olympic Committee …

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Advertising in a crisis: Shit happens, but brands endure.

Every entrepreneur experiences setbacks… Markets crash. Key team members leave with your biggest accounts. There are supply-chain snaffus, natural disasters, and now, a novel virus that slams the door on a robust economy. It’s hard to know what to do when you’re advertising in a crisis, but this is when your branding efforts can really …

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brand credibility and bullshit article from BNBranding

Brand credibility killers — 5 things guaranteed to set off my BS detector

All great brands share three traits : Relevance, Credibility and Differentiation. It’s like a three-legged stool of success. Today we’re going to focus on credibility, or lack thereof. Many successful businesses are built around commodities or me-too products, with basically no differentiation. And you can build a trendy business on short-term relevance and one-time transactions. …

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bank branding on the Brand Insight Blog from BNBranding

Is “Inspiring Bank” an Oxymoron? The Branding of Umpqua Bank

It’s interesting, where people find business inspiration. For some, it’s the pages of Forbes or podcasts with big-name entrepreneurs. For me it’s the bookstore, or conversations with clients. I don’t think anyone looks at bank branding as a source of inspiration. Most banks are not known for their inspiring interiors or creative marketing practices. The …

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Take your next agency for a spin.

You wouldn’t buy a BMW without getting behind the wheel. You have no idea what it can do. Same with BN Branding. So let’s go for a test drive… just one small assignment to prove how well we handle whatever you throw at us.

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