As important as a project road map is – things can, will, and should change.

The Struggle

I’ve been a homeowner for nearly 5 years now. I’ve done every massive remodeling project that one can do - kitchen, bath, landscaping - you name it. And, when I say I’ve “done it” that doesn’t mean that I bossed around some contractors (unless my husband counts). I spent hours on end in my “messy” clothes, painting, tiling, planting, laying stone, etc. Each project was vastly different, from its functionality to the materials used. But each project had these things in common: Deadlines came and went, and no matter how well we anticipated, planned, scheduled and prepared, something unexpected always came up.

Remodeling a brand isn’t much different – or any easier. To do it right you have to completely immerse yourself in the project, get your hands dirty, sweat a little. Evaluate your current state and determine:

1. What needs repair
2. What needs a makeover
3. What new elements will have to be utilized
   to make the remodel a success

Count the Cost

You’ll find some elements that appear salvageable – a simple coat of paint will save some dollars and seem good as new. Don’t be fooled and don’t make these decisions too quickly. Think it through and weigh the cost, both monetarily and mentally, of trying to refurbish that piece of your brand. You may find that it’s okay to let it go and begin anew. Or, you may find that there’s such a fond association and quick recognition with that element of your brand that giving it a face-lift, as badly as you think it’s needed, would jeopardize the very essence of what you’re working so hard to maintain.

Be Adaptable

Be patient and be flexible. As important as a project road map is – things can, will, and should change. Those things that “come-up” and throw you off track will make up for the derailment by teaching you a little something that you didn’t know before. Go with it and chances are your brand makeover will be more successful than you ever imagined.

Image: Jenni, of course

It’s about bringing content into the environment you’re already in, not creating an environment conducive to your content.

Introducing the iPad

The iPad has been highly successful since its recent introduction, selling 2 million units within 60 days. The iPad benefits from a growing base of Apple customers, software developers, partners and media relations, and builds on the functionality of Apple’s previous mobile devices, leading to their adage, “You already know how to use it.” It looks and feels like the iPhone with a larger screen. Apple has leveraged our familiarity with their existing products and added some innovative new steps. With a stunning design and an advanced multi-touch user interface, this larger-screen mobile device is hard to resist.

Balancing The Mobile Experience

The reach of mobile computing continues to expand as sleeker, more feature-rich devices enter the market. At the very least, these wireless smart devices serve as glorified PDAs that enable users to carry around their most important information wherever they go. At their best, they enhance and enrich the user’s lifestyle through a careful balance of convenience, transparency, relevance, connectivity, and flexibility.

Convenience

As mobile devices merged into smarter and more powerful devices they also got thinner, smaller and lighter and Apple is truly innovative in this area. But let’s face it, with the requisite learning curve, a new device can be anything but convenient. It has to be connected, configured, customized and protected. Data has to be transferred from the previous device and there’s usually some troubleshooting required, even for Apple’s easy-to-use products. And there’s the initial cost, too. But once those hurdles are cleared, we have a convenient device that simplifies and consolidates our personal effects.

Ease of use is also a must, because consumers will not use a product that’s difficult, unstable or uncomfortable to use, no matter how attractive it is. The device shouldn’t require the user to change their behavior in order to use it; it should adapt and complement the user’s existing lifestyle. It’s about bringing content into the environment you’re already in, not creating an environment conducive to your content.

Transparency

Of course, by transparent we’re not referring to a device that is actually invisible (or perhaps missing because it was left unattended a bit too long in a California pub), but transparent in that a user ‘forgets’ the device for the content it holds. Apple’s iPad and iPhone stay out of the way of the on-screen content. In fact, they are mostly screen—apart from a highly designed bezel and a few understated controls. The 9.7-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen dedicates much of the visible area to content, giving users a large frame for exploring and sharing their digital lives on the go.

Relevance

With the hardware and underlying software working in the background, content is the primary focus. What makes the iPad so desirable, like its iPhone and iPod Touch cousins, is the level of personal relevance for the user. There’s prestige in carrying a beautifully designed, cutting edge device, but even after the love affair over having the latest, greatest product fades by a few newer versions, it’s the ability to customize and fill the device with personalized content (photos, videos, music, contacts, files, apps, etc.) that makes it relevant, even essential, to our daily lives.

Connectivity

When you hold the iPad in your hands you’re actually holding the entire dynamic content of the Internet (minus the Flash bits, of course) and the bright, large display creates a rich, immersive experience. It gives users who spend time on social media sites the ability to update their status accordingly. Expect to see “Running on my treadmill with my iPad,” or “Laying on the beach with my iPad,” much like “Sent from my iPhone” email signoffs.

Flexibility

Software-based controls keep the device flexible and simplify the ability to adapt the controls for multilingual use. It allows Apple to dramatically improve the user experience through software-driven OS updates and has the ability to drive additional revenue-generation for content and software developers. As our world changes, the iPad will change and adapt to remain viable longer, making it a great investment.

It Just Fits

The iPad was released in January 2010 to mixed reactions. The biggest question revolved around whether there was a market for a touch-screen device that bridged the gap between Apple’s iPhone and laptops. The iPad’s early sales success can be attributed to the simplicity of use of other Apple products, or it could be that it’s a new kind of user experience that just fits.

In future articles we’ll look at some of the reasons that the iPad is destined to stand out and excel in an industry flooded with smart mobile devices.

Location, Location, Facebook.

Starbucks Facebook Coffeehouse

Starbucks introduced a Starbucks Card tab on its Facebook fan page today. Inside the tab is a new eCommerce destination, an embedded app that allows customers to manage card registration, check their balance and rewards, reload cards and edit profile information without ever leaving the Facebook environment—a virtual Starbucks coffee shop in a virtual Facebook strip mall.

1. Establish Differentiation

Starbucks’ new Facebook app mimics the basic functionality found on the Starbucks’ mobile app and their website. Applying the “Starbucks on every corner” model to the largest corner of the social media neighborhood differentiates the ubiquitous coffee merchant from wannabe competitors yet again.

2. Recognize Opportunities

Encouraging friends to share coffee and coffee gifts on a social exchange platform that boasts nearly half a billion potential customers is simply smart business. The numerous sharing mechanisms mean word of mouth (WOM) potential about product offerings is exponential.

“What’s even cooler is that come summer time, Starbucks will introduce functionality that will let users reload a Facebook friend’s Starbucks card as a gift through the application.” - Mashable.com

3. Keep Innovating

Starbucks didn’t develop deep and valuable brand equity by sitting idle. Their new Facebook app supports that brand essence by reinforcing Starbucks’ position as industry segment thought leaders, if not innovators. Utilizing the Facebook platform as a commerce platform didn’t require earth-shattering technology, but the application of the technology is groundbreaking.

4. Provide Ongoing Value

The ability to send a little swig of swag to a client, a pick-me-up to a hurting friend, or a bit of caffeinated cheer to your college son or daughter right from Facebook adds real value to the busy lives of Starbucks’ customers and further establishes Starbucks’ formidable brand value.

5. Deliver Convenience

Starbucks recognizes the value of location, location, location, which translates to convenience, convenience, convenience for their customers. Many Facebook subscribers search, exchange, post, view, listen, chat…in short, live, in a web browser tab or mobile device pointed at Facebook. What could be more convenient than never having to leave your chair, or Facebook?

If I were to pick one social network to which resources for inbound marketing and social media budgets were allotted, it would be Facebook. Basic math and most brand marketers would concur with me. It’s the new coffee house everyone’s talking about - and hanging out in.

Image: Poolie

Free to Brand Entertainment

Chanel tells a romantic tale in this 2:22 video entitled Night Train. It’s a familiar story, the same one Chanel’s been telling generation after generation.

No longer constrained by rigid 30 or 60-second ad models and fee-based, one-view, network television slots, Chanel is free to produce branded video content in various lengths and portable formats. They can post that content across an array of distribution channels on the Internet, free of charge—just like every other brand, large and small. And so can you.

There are a million ways to market a product. But I suggest you not try all of them.

-Tim Siedell Fuse Industries

What Price Value?

Quality content and production values still count if you hope to engage your audience and rise above the 10 billion monthly YouTube views. Expertly filmed, cast, scored and produced, the Chanel video is classic branding aimed at maximizing emotional engagement and memorability—right down to the final love-to-logo-to-product morph brand punctuation.

But proper distribution and promotion still rule the day. Television provided an expensive, reliable, direct and proprietary fee-based conduit to customers. And while today’s brand marketers are blessed with many relatively inexpensive options to reach their audience, they also shoulder all the responsibility and cost of standing out amid a crowded in-bound and social media marketing free-for-all.

What Price Strategy?

This multitude of options places a premium on integrated strategies even for the Chanel’s of the world as they compete with every brand under the sun, including yours. Of course, not every brand benefits from an opulent brand equity, a product men love to smell and women love to wear.

But Night Train’s nearly half a million YouTube views to-date proves proper product planning, positioning and promotion strategies are still the best way to create real value out of an ocean of on and offline marketing and medium options.

Videos, blogs, SEO, email, podcasts, microblogging, fan pages, micro-sites, proprietary online communities. As you plan your next marketing foray into these new frontiers, don’t neglect the benefits of integrated strategy, planning, content and production values.

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.