Eventually, your logo becomes
a touch point by which your audience
either recognizes or mocks your brand.

The Struggle

Many businesses struggle through the development of their business or product logo because they believe the logo is their brand rather than understanding it is but one representation of their brand. No logo can carry your brand without additional context and meaning.

The Context

Context is built in the way your brand conducts itself out in public—obviously frequent and consistent exposure in target-rich environments, but service, quality, aesthetics, ethics, price points, messaging and human and online interaction—in essence, everything defines your brand. That’s your logo’s context for representation.

The Paralysis

Often a sort of paralysis sets in as those uninitiated to the development process wrestle with how to cram an entire brand into a logo mark that has no brand yet. A common inclination is to use a design-by-committee approach and crowd source it by inviting the opinion of anyone and everyone.

Of course, if you ask fifty people for their opinion you’ll get fifty opinions. This method can further confuse and often derail the process resulting in delivery delays and unsatisfactory results as typically, elements from a number of logos are mashed together into one design to appease everyone’s input.

The Summation

A logo is one symbol of your brand, so it’s critical to get it right. Weigh, assess and classify your input, then discuss it with your design professional. If you’ve hired the right firm, they’ll have the demonstrated experience and expertise to take into account all the pragmatics and issues involved with properly deploying not just a logo, but an entire brand.

Eventually, your logo becomes a touch point by which your audience either recognizes or mocks your brand. It is important to get your logo right, but don’t expect it to be your brand from the outset.

We’ve identified five focal points of opportunity for 2010. They’re not an end-all priority list for brands, nor predictions, but rather initiatives, items born of trending behavior and emergent technologies being embraced by consumers.

1. Mobile-based marketing

Smartphones are fast becoming the center of consumer experience for work, home and play (see: Is Your Mobile Presence Brand Immobile?). A device capable of connecting people, places and things via text, voice, social networks, apps, tools, email, video, and images is a powerful medium. And the medium’s delivery mechanism is already in your audience’s hand, on their belt or in their purse. Smartphones are a direct way to connect with your audience and influence their behavior each time they use the device.

2. Location-based marketing

Aligning cultural trends and consumer behavior with location-based kiosks mobile and social apps can elevate your brand from relationship marketing to direct sales. Online and mobile apps such as foursquare combine locale, social game play and entertainment with information and tangible incentives. Geo-based marketing can deliver the closest, most highly-rated businesses, directions to get there and real-time incentives to entice a visit.

3. Brand design

Design continues to differentiate, now more so than ever. In a world deluged with cookie cutter applications and off-the-shelf adornments, consistent, appropriate and user-centric brand design compels and communicates amid the cacophony of visual noise.

4. Branded Edutainment

YouTube had more than 120 million viewers and 10 billion video views in August 2009 according to a September 2009 ComScore report. With the proliferation of on-hand, video-ready, mobile devices and a broad array of storage and sharing sites like Hulu and YouTube, online video is becoming ubiquitous.

Video is a powerful and potentially amplifying medium for your messaging when produced, integrated and distributed properly. But, it must be engaging, relevant, interactive, easily-consumed, readily-shareable, educational and/or entertaining for full effect.

5. Strategic Integration

There are many ways to reach and influence your audience—perhaps too many. Just because you have more options to extend your media mix doesn’t mean it needs to be less strategic. In fact, to penetrate the noise and stand out, strategy is more important than ever.

Facebook has hundreds of millions of subscribers. So what? Citing large numbers isn’t a strategy. And developing stand-alone initiatives without an integrated and targeted plan risks losing your message in a sea of irrelevant noise. Be it a person wearing a sandwich board on the sidewalk or an online video, your marketing efforts must be strategically integrated, well-planned, consistently branded, distinctively designed and metric-driven.

This year, don’t obsess over New Year predictions or resolutions. Assess, and act.

Related Reads:

Is Your Mobile Presence Brand Immobile? [.think]
Coca-Cola’s 100-Flavor Interactive Freestyle Soda Fountain
Shazam To ‘Tag’ Dockers’ Super Bowl Ad
Foursquare’s Marketing Potential

Voodoogoo Jam

Perfecting Good Taste

Friends from afar sent me not one but seven jars of assorted gelatinous delights for the holidays. Each homemade delectable is tastefully adorned with an elegant custom label and a short background regarding the origin of the harvested contents. Perfect.

I can barely wait to taste them all. But await I will.

The Assortment Include

Grape Jam · Wild Plum Jam · Apricot Peach Jam · Banana Butter
Chokecherry Jam · Black Raspberry Jam · Voodoogoo Jam

Panic room, interesting video

Our latest list of inane musings from the Brainstorm office white board:

Top 20 Favorite Friday Night Wind-Downs

1. A placid dip in the sensory deprivation tank
2. Appointment with my masseur
3. Brainstorming upcoming Top 20 board topics
4. Watching 4 episodes of “24” back 2 back
5. Pizza, wine, movie, couch
6. Dining out
7. Quiet room, good book
8. A nice relaxing mosh pit!
9. DANCE PAARTY!
10. Panic room, interesting video
11. I enjoying bathing in the blue glow of multiple computer screens.
12. Family movie night
13. A first class flight to a tropical island,
    or even a coach flight to a regular island.
14. Dress like a bear and hang out in the park
15. Yak Stew, read the health care bill, watch Enemy of the State, go to Don’s Guns
16. PJs & slippers & coffee with a little something extra
17. Firepit
18. Trip to the Wii Resort (or any resort)
19. A long drive through the country
20. Marching band practice

See the entire board

Image: Hotzeplotz

“The reactions I’ve experienced confirm
that it is a part of my personal brand.”

A Scent of Brand

Patchouli is my signature fragrance, it’s been my personal aromatherapy since I was a teenager. Visceral, exotic…not sure I can explain the magic it plays on me when I wear it. Of all the essential oil concoctions I’ve invented over the years, this distinctive scent is, at its base, ME. Ask anyone who knows me to shut their eyes, sniff an open vial of patchouli oil and say what comes to mind; I guarantee my name comes up every time.

There are some interesting studies on the science of smell and its link to memory, and I have first-hand experience proving the theories. More times than I could possibly count, a total stranger has stood next to me and asked, “Are you wearing patchouli?” The question isn’t as amusing as the way in which it is often asked, posed in a dreamy voice extending the last two syllables like this: “…patCH- OUUUUUU-LIII? [insert long sigh].”

A Brand Ascent

Sometimes their eyes will close while they smile and breathe deeply as they conjure up a wonderful memory of the scent. These strangers are often compelled to tell me exactly what their remembered visions entail. All ages approach me, yet boomers are usually the dreamiest, reminiscing of old loves, music, and recreational activities from days gone by. It takes a strong emotional connection to share memories—conjured from just a scent—with a complete stranger.

Run down a list of memory-evoked sensory experiences—songs, visual images, flavors—our sense of smell is the strongest link to memory. I never set out to draw attention with my fragrance, but the uniqueness it provides and the reactions I’ve experienced confirm that it is a part of my personal brand.

It all boils down to what “important stuff” echoes back about your personal or organization’s brand. It takes talent and creativity to pull together a branding strategy that gives you an identity worth remembering. Rarely is it as easy as finding a fragrance you enjoy.

Image: Divyanshs