Hello Brand Iron Friends!

Posted on March 15, 2010 by Heather Sundell

My name is Heather Sundell and I am the newbie here at Brand Iron, it’s been almost a month since I started here as an Intern. I clock in at about 25 unpaid hours a week. Why? Because it’s awesome place to work.

A little over a year ago I became an economic cliché and was let go from my job. (Let the somber violin concerto commence.) After a few months of frantic job hunting and questioning my entire past 23 years of existence, I decided that a change was in order so I picked up my entire life and moved from the only home I had ever known, Los Angeles, to Denver.

Despite the change in location, I quickly started to realize that my English degree from the University of Southern California (no matter how prestigious the football team) was, as so many peers predicted, quasi-useless.

Apart from my education, my prior jobs in online marketing and web management weren’t exactly the directions I wanted to go. I began to rethink my strategy. I would have to go back to square one and offer my services as an unpaid intern.

So, here I am learning the agency business and I couldn’t be happier. Brand Iron is a wonderful company, and I feel so fortunate that I was given a chance to learn and grow in the branding and advertising industry with such friendly, knowledgeable co-workers.

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Secrets to Our Success

Posted on January 19, 2010 by Andrew Hoffman

The biggest challenge small businesses face today continues to be operating in a sluggish economy. As a small business ourselves, and despite economic conditions, Brand Iron continues to thrive. Last year was a record year for the company. We attribute our success partly to our willingness to face this challenge head on. Rather than cut back on sales and marketing efforts to save cash, we recognize that now is the best opportunity to market our business. It is a chance to separate ourselves from others, so we continue to be aggressive in its business development and marketing.

Brand Iron’s management philosophy centers around a team-oriented approach made up of individuals who understand and embrace an entrepreneurial spirit. Our firm is made up of individuals who subscribe to this approach. Inherently, this type of spirit produces strong accountability, team work, creative thinking, problem solving and a win-win attitude. This approach ultimately leads to producing outstanding results for our clients.

Exemplary customer service is another essential piece of the foundation for any successful business operation. It may sound obvious, but Brand Iron is committed to demonstrating outstanding customer service from the outset of every client relationship. You would be surprised at the number of businesses out there who don’t put much emphasis on customer service…they operate as though it is a given. Unless you focus on it, the concept gradually slips away. From our initial “Brandstorming” session with every client, we map out clearly defined goals and objectives, detailed time lines and create accountability methods (for both the agency and the client) to ensure success. The final step of our 7-Step Process — “Running the Ranch” – ensures that we monitor progress in all client relationships and demonstrate goal-oriented success. Internally, our Client Services team meets regularly to ensure client relationships stay strong and that we deliver a solid ROI.

-Jim Miller, Public Relations

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The Power of SEO

Posted on September 14, 2009 by Andrew Hoffman

If you’ve ever thought about whether or not SEO would be an effective tool for you or your business, take a look at how this powerful internet marketing strategy helped one of our clients boost sales and web presence.

We started doing Search Engine Optimization for our client, Columbine Label Company, in July. Since then, they have been experienced huge jumps in their web traffic. Traffic is great, but driving business through new leads is better.

This is the email I received from our client last week:

Brand Iron can help your business develop an effective SEO strategy. Every company has unique online goals, ie, 2nd handshake, resource for information, make online purchases, demonstrate expertise. A targeted SEO plan can be exactly the shot of adrenaline your company’s online presence needs. Learn more about our Web-O-Nanza™ program or call us today 303-534-1901.

Posted in Marketing, SEO, Uncategorized, Website | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Whose pronoun?

Posted on September 1, 2009 by Andrew Hoffman

“Mike and Jim walked to the car, and he drove.” In this sentence, it is unclear who drove, Mike or Jim. The reader will be unable to determine it based on this sentence alone. It is clear that this sentence needs reworking, but sometimes the problem is a little less clear.

In marketing, there is a need for information to be interpreted quickly and accurately. Thus, it is that much more important to double check the copy, or even to hire a professional to ensure accurate and clear copy.

“After Mike handed Jim a packet, he continued to work on the project.”

Here the correct interpretation of this sentence is that Mike worked on the project more since Mike is the subject of the last phrase. However, the brain often associates the most recent noun with the pronoun, so it is common to assume Jim worked on the project after receiving the packet. Still, it is really unclear who the author intended to say worked on the project more, Mike or Jim. Such a sentence often results in a reread for the careful reader, which may only lead to more ambiguity. The less careful reader will merely interpret it one way whether that is the intended interpretation or not.

It is easy to write sentences like these, but it is difficult to spot the ambiguity. Often the author’s mind will simply supply the correct interpretation when the author proofreads the sentence. It may not be detrimental to interpret this sentence incorrectly, but sometimes the ambiguity can lead to problems. In writing, what is written is far more important that what is meant, since the author does not have the ability to clarify things for the reader, like one can do in speaking. Therefore, it is important to create copy that is clear and leaves little room for misinterpretation.

Even though this sentence can be interpreted correctly by following the grammar rules, one needs to consider, first, whether the reader will do that, and second, whether one wants to force the reader to stop reading in order to come to a correct interpretation of the sentence.

There are a couple solutions to fix sentences like these. Supply the proper noun in place of the ambiguous pronoun:

“After Mike handed Jim a packet, Mike continued to work on the project.”

To avoid redundancy, try using phrasing:

“After handing Jim a packet, Mike continued to work on the project.”

Or if Jim worked on the project:
“After receiving a packet from Mike, Jim continued to work on the project.”

-Tommy Hummel, Operations Intern

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Re-Birth of a Classic Surf Brand Icon

Posted on June 29, 2009 by Andrew Hoffman

As it officially becomes summer and the swimsuit suit season arrives, let’s look at a rebirth of a classic surf brand icon.

To begin, I must explain a little about my background. I grew up about a mile from the beach in Carlsbad, California. As far back as I can remember, we would ride our bikes down to the beach and spend the days of summer soaking up rays (pre-sunscreen days), catching waves, playing beach volleyball, tossing the Frisbee around and yes, girl-watching. I was a surf rat. I worked at a surf shop in Oceanside, California which was then called Hobie Oceanside, and has since been renamed Surfride. I grew up on brands such as O’Neil, Gotcha, Quicksilver, O.P. and Reef. My first job out of college was as a rep for several of these companies.

As a rep I learned early on that many of these brands were using sex to sell their products. Beautiful women in bikinis became a central feature of surf posters displayed in stores and on surfer boys’ walls. It had become a way for companies to make a name for their brand and to sell their product, and one of these famous surf companies did just that to stand out from the rest. Reef designed a marketing campaign that would change the face of “bikini girl marketing,” putting their models in tiny thong bikinis which they coined the “Reef Girl.” And what do you know; the idea of women in thongs was so outrageous that literally overnight this little flip-flop company became a world-wide brand. It catapulted them and their brand above the rest. From posters to calendars to bikini contests, Reef girls became the signature of the Reef brand.

After years of success in the surf company industry and wide spread popularity of the Reef brand they felt that Reef could survive without the marketing ploy of the
Reef Girl contest, and were confident that the Reef brand could stand on its own. Did they know they were cutting off their nose despite their face? The Reef Girls were such an important piece of the Reef brand, it had become their signature, and in a way it had become their brand. With the disappearance of the Reef Girls came the drop in sales for the company and Reefs marketing presence dissipated as other surf companies jumped at the opportunity to show off their own brands. Well, it wasn’t long before customers, dealers, and young boys came clamoring for their thong bikini babes to return on calendars, posters, and pictures on the website. And yes, for the Reef Girls and their bikini contests to return as well.

Following a two year hiatus, the Reef Girls returned. So is it coincidence? Could the brand and its products stand on their own without the wildly popular thong bikini stunt? Is it that the timing of repositioning their brand beyond a marketing stunt and the recession created a “perfect storm”? Is it because they listened to customers, dealers, and young boys around the world and relented to pressure? Or is it that this little marketing stunt which helped to propel their brand into a world wide recognizable one may have actually been a good idea in the first place?

Whatever the reason, they’re back and you can vote for your all-time favorite Miss Reef as well as enter to become a judge at the next Miss Reef bikini contest in Panama at http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/bikini-contest–win-reef-bikini-girl-trip_27263/. As for me, I am positive the return of the bikini thong girls will be driving tons and tons of traffic to their web site and creating quite a stir as well as helping to sell tons of flip flops. I’m also crossing my fingers that I win that contest!

by Michael Doyle, Brand Iron President

Posted in Brand, Brand Strength, Branding, Marketing | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

That is correct; I work here for FREE

Posted on June 10, 2009 by Andrew Hoffman

These tough economic times and rising number of jobs lost have left their mark on the interning world as well as the paid working world. Searching for jobs online, I have noticed that most places are looking for someone with “experience” but how do you get this experience without working? The answer seems to be, internships. I have found the world of interning to be more competitive this year than the two years before hand. When I think about it, it seems strange that people would be pretty much begging to work FOR FREE. But the more I think about it, it isn’t so much the working for free part we are begging for, it’s the experiences that come with it.

Since my freshman year in college I have been immersing myself in the world of internships, from a radio station, to a music festival, and now to a small branding and consulting firm I’ve been building up my resume with so called “work experience.” There have been the days when my title of “Intern” has included making coffee, standing at the printer, and spending hours battling mail merge, but on the flip side to that are the days when being the intern has allowed me to get in on creative meetings, network with clients, and learn new programs and tools which has made all the hours of unpaid work pay off.

I have become used to being the new person in the office, and the person who gets stuck with some of the more boring tasks at work, but I’m also really grateful for the time and effort my superiors have spent teaching me valuable skills. Not only can I have “mail merge expert” on my resume but also social media enthusiast, digital marketing experience, event planning, and a whole host of other useful abilities.  Beginning my third internship, I continue to take steps in new directions and grab onto any projects I can get a hold of.

Now that I have a variety of internships to boost my resume, I wonder what work experience is enough work experience to launch me into the working world post college. For the time being my plan is not to stress out about the job market, but to continue to show up each day and take it all in, who knows where it may take me next (hopefully a real job).

Written by Kaitlyn Anderson, Marketing Intern

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“Staying Power” from the Great Depression to Today

Posted on June 3, 2009 by Andrew Hoffman

Every day we are reminded that we are in a recession…the countless news reports, articles and blogs remind us constantly about how to cut costs to assure survival during these tough economic times. As a struggling citizen of our latest societal problem, I couldn’t help but think “how did we get here?” In my lifetime as a working professional, I could never recall any economic times as tough as they are today. In fear that my generation may have to experience similar hardships as the Great Depression, I started to research more about how people (more specifically businesses) were able to prosper during that time. And what I started to discover was amidst all the negativity, we are forgetting what made some companies even more successful as a result of the Great Depression.

 

No doubt during “normal” economic conditions, companies wouldn’t dream about cutting their marketing budgets, so why should we stop now? In fact, since most companies are cutting their commercialization, wouldn’t now be the time to get your brand noticed while most of your competitors have gone silent? Additionally, wouldn’t you want your brand to be perceived as stronger than your competitors? Ironically the companies that advertised during the Great Depression became even more successful, once spending finally did increase. Their “staying power” actually gave the public a reason to be loyal to that brand and they came out on top while their competitors tried to gain lost ground. The common denominator among companies who persevered during the Great Depression: they did not decrease their ad spending. Therefore, those businesses who actually tried to save money and stop advertising, actually wasted the brand building dollars they had previously spent.

 

You could say I’m biased because I’m in marketing or perhaps that I’m overly optimistic, but with companies such as GE, Disney, HP and Microsoft all emerging out of recessions, perhaps we should all be reminded of the advertising and marketing history lessons of the past. What businesses fail to realize is, that even in recessions, people still spend money, they just look for better deals (and appreciate it more) when they do. Therefore saving money by cutting budgets in a down economy doesn’t automatically lead to successfully surviving a recession…especially if you’re not looking to stay top-of-mind of the consumer! 

Written by Rebecca Watry

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Rebranding

Posted on May 14, 2009 by Andrew Hoffman

I woke up the other day and was watching the news and I heard the newscasters talking about something called H1N1 and how it is spreading across the United States. My first thought was, “there another pandemic like virus in our country?” This new term caught my attention and I started to listen to what they were speaking about more closely. I quickly put two and two together and realized they were talking about “Swine Flu”.

So, why the new name? Right…

It turns out pig farmers of America have some media pull. Because of the uneducated general public’s fear for “Swine Flu” and the misconception you can get it from eating a pork product, people all but stopped buying pork products. The Swine Flu has been re-branded by name only to H1N1. I did look it up and it is a medical term for subtype form of influenza A better known as the “flu”. I still think H1N1 sounds just as scary.  Now I am not saying that H1N1 is something to not be worried about; it could still turn into a major pandemic.  I wanted to bring up that pig farmers in this country are seeing the effects of a branded name for a virus, which ultimately had an effect on sales.

This reminds me of a dietary supplement that was wildly successful in the 1970’s to mid 1980’s. The product was called “Ayds”. It was a supplement that was supposed to reduce your sense of taste to curb poor eating habits. Ironically around the same timeframe, just around the mid 1980’s the HIV virus and AIDs was largely becoming a social issue. The avid AIDs awareness in the media and public was the start of the down fall of the “Ayds” supplement. The company did not re-brand itself by name and clearly stating that this product is in no way related to the life threatening disease. So the Ayds product quickly stopped selling and eventually the product stopped being produced.

Luckily the pig farmers in this case spoke up to have the media change the name of Swine Flu. Now they should actively campaign through commercials and other media outlets to educate the public that pork could in fact help prevent H1N1 by keeping you level of protein up in your body keeping you healthy which in turns helps your immune system. Just a thought.

Written by Mike Slife

Posted in Brand, Brand Strategy, Brand Strength, Branding, Marketing, PR, Public Relations | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Branding – It’s Not About the Tactics, Part 1

Posted on May 5, 2009 by Chris Schindler

I admit it, it’s taken me a long time to REALLY understand how to brand and position a company and produce tangible marketing results. The best companies don’t just blast a message out without careful thought and consideration. First and foremost, they take a step back and look at things strategically.

One of my favorite sayings is the old, “ready, fire, aim” analogy, which I see all the time when it comes to branding and positioning. The best companies take the time to, “ready, aim and then fire” when approaching their branding, their position and their go-to-market strategy. They really understand the value they bring to the marketplace and how to effectively communicate it.

I can’t tell you how times I’ve heard, “we’re going to throw some stuff against the wall and see what sticks”. Bad idea. You will damage your brand by going straight to the market tactically without first figuring out strategically what you want your brand to be.

Why figuring things out strategically is so important:

  1. Throwing things at the wall and coming off half-cocked makes you look like you are still trying to figure out what you want to be when your company grows up.
  2. I would estimate 90 – 95% of companies say what they do but not why they do it or why their product is better then their competitors’ products.
  3. Do you really want to be just like everyone else? Or do you want to be original, unique and stand out from the crowd?
  4. Do you want to be a leader or a follower?
  5. Can you clearly and concisely communicate your value proposition in a compelling 30-second elevator pitch?
  6. Does your brand help position your company for where it wants to go in the future (i.e., acquiring funding, going public, selling the business, etc.)?
  7. Have you figured out how your brand is going to become a reality with a company-wide, holistic launch? What’s your plan to launch your brand internally and externally?
  8. Will your brand have legs and resonate for a period of time or is it just a one hit wonder?

If you are committed to getting your company to the next level, following these strategic guidelines will help you develop your company’s brand and position – and will greatly increase the chances of a successful implementation. Add that to a holistic, managed brand implementation while pro-actively getting your message out to your target audience – you have a winning recipe for success.

Written by Michael Doyle, President of Brand Iron

Posted in Brand, Brand Strategy, Brand Strength, Branding, Holistic, Internal Branding, Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Secret Sauce is Hard Work

Posted on April 9, 2009 by Andrew Hoffman

“Luck? I don’t know anything about luck. I’ve never banked on it, and I’m afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else: Hard work — and realizing what is opportunity and what isn’t.”
-Lucile Ball

You can’t avoid that these economic times are putting a lot of companies out of business. Here at Brand Iron, we have been constantly reminded of that; in the past 9 months, we’ve seen two, very local marketing companies close their doors.

We are happy to report that through a lot of hard work, our clients are going strong and Brand Iron is going strong. Everyone at Brand Iron is very excited that we are a finalist for the DMCC’s Small Business of the Year Award.

We wanted to pass on a few things that have helped us confront and dampen the economic blow:

  • Build you database – broaden your world of potential clients
  • Go to where the money is – focus on your most profitable vertical markets or geographic areas
  • Keep your brand message relevant to your target market – adapt to their pain points
  • Increase your sales and marketing activity levels – it is vital to “touch” your prospects

At Brand Iron, we don’t believe in luck – we believe in hard work, targeted work and working intelligently on the aspects of your brand strategy that make the biggest impact. Our goal is to help you keep your doors open, AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, to keep new clients and customers coming through them.

Please contact us today to learn more about how Brand Iron can help you develop a holistic brand plan that addresses your sales, marketing and operations.
Written by Josh Barker

Posted in Brand, Brand Strength, Clients, Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, Holistic Branding, Marketing, Operations, Sales | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment