10 Things That Poke Holes in Your Brand
Martha Barlett Piland of MB Piland Advertising and Marketing in Topeka, KS published an article titled Bran-Damage: 10 sneaky things that poke holes in your brand in her blog, Inside-Out. It's wonderful and I totally agree with it; it hilights the absolute importance of thorough consistency in designing and implementing a company's identity. Below, she writes:
"Use our list below as a starting point, then get to work on making sure your brand is polished inside and out.
everyone is using a different email signature format
employment ads don't articulate your purpose or brand attributes
you don't pay attention or respond to comments on review websites and social media
uniforms or name badges aren't in tip-top shape
corporate events or retreats are at odds with your brand and purpose
the website isn't mobile-friendly
after-hours phone messages are sterile and at odds with the corporate image
employees don't follow graphic standards when they create PowerPoint presentations or handouts
the intranet hasn't been updated in months so employees don't know what's happening
corporate swag (pens, cups and tchotchkes) are low quality or downright cheap."
A friend emailed me the link to her blog and I highly recommend it to anyone who'd like a fresh angle on marketing and advertising mindsets/strategies.
I've seen ALL of these mistakes before, and even before I decided to go into Graphic Design, I noticed these little details that, for lack of a better word, cheapened the brands that I saw mistakes in. If a high school me can notice these kinds of things, they HAVE to matter (high school me didn't pay much attention to things like marketing and brand development).
Examples Prominent Brand Polishing I Noticed Last Week:
Example 1: I received an email from company that let the employees make and customize their own email signatures. Some of them were pretty rough... this was an intern's signature:
John Doe
Job Title
Name of company | Achievement 2014
Phone: (555) 264-5555 (6887) Ext. 900
Fax: (555) 555-1234
www.website.com
COMPANY SLOGAN HERE!
.... and this was the GM's signature: (it really was a 48-point signature)
John Doe
Position/Job Title
Name of Company
Achievement 2014
Phone: 555-264-6887
Fax: 555-264-2129
Email: name@thisemail.com
2009 Champion of a Competition
2011, 2012 & 2013 Competition Champtions
2010, 2011 & 2012 "Best Local Noun" Voted by Local Newspaper
2010 An Association "Organization Of The Year"
Their customer service was wonderful but the signatures were distracting and reminded me that they're not focused on their brand's image. Metaphorically, the candy was wonderful, but it was wrapped in a battered, puke-green wrapper.
Example 2: Social Media! Boulevard brewing company hosts a music festival every year, called Boulevardia, in Kansas City. It's a huge advertising and marketing event with beautiful design and you should check it out. They get a gold star for responding quickly to EVERYONE that posted on their facebook page. Having someone reply that quickly on social media is something that we expect so often from individuals, but businesses rarely give their accounts the constant attention we wish they would and we feel really special when they give us their immediate attention like that. You wanna build brand loyalty with millennials? Respond to their social media comments and tweets in 5 minutes or less.
Example 3: Uniforms!. This one is from the employee perspective. I worked for an ice cream chain in high school and I had the same 2 uniform T-shirts for 4 years. The owners were incredibly cheap and did not want to pay any more than absolutely necessary for employee uniforms. You want to make your employees feel cheap? Give them 2 shirts to last 4 years. Last week, I went to a different branch of the same chain where the employees wore relatively new Tshirts, along with visors, aprons, and were required to wear jeans. (I never saw an apron my entire high school career, and we were allowed to wear workout shorts if we wanted.) The way the employees dressed made me trust the establishment so much more! After leaving, I realized that their clean, put together uniforms had given me peace of mind about the cleanliness and legitimacy of the product I was eating.
