My husband and I went to a Korean BBQ restaurant in our neighborhood last night. It’s been through several management changes almost every year. What’s funny is each time it changes, they change a few things about the décor. Usually it’s the paint color and some light fixtures. This time, they removed some booths and added some condiment shelves to make more room for the slew of Korean side dishes that always accompany Korean BBQ.

What was more interesting was the branding. They renamed the restaurant with a catchy American name and mascot, along with the traditional Korean name to appeal to both locals and Koreans. They had it plastered everywhere and it still sticks in my head. I couldn’t even come close to what the other names of this restaurant were in past years as they were Korean names that I could barely pronounce.

They also had reminders painted on the wall in huge letters that took up an entire wall at the entrance: “Don’t forget to check-in on Facebook, Like us on Facebook, Follow us on Twitter,” and more. I’ve seen the same stuff at other places, usually on a business card, but not pushed in this way. Right when we walked in the door, that’s the first thing I saw, not the hostess or seating area, just their social media marketing. Those little reminders to customers seemed to be working. The restaurant was packed by the time we left.

If you are using social media, make sure it’s visible where your customers can see it. And think outside the box so that it’s memorable.

Is texting becoming cumbersome? Is your nose buried in your phone at the dinner table? Google Glasses is the newest and coolest product to come out of the ever-inventive R&D department at Google. The idea behind it is to project your updates in a transparent icon that you would view in wearable glasses and keep your hands free to interact with the world around you.

Google X Labs has been the think tank behind many other innovative but not-yet-to-market ideas such as the Driver-less car and Space Elevators. Google is known not only for their search engine but also for their innovation within the advertising space. They transformed online marketing with their idea for AdWords in 2000 that was based off the original yellow pages model and grossed Google over $43 billion in 2012. With this innovation comes conflict. A few years ago, Google settled a class action click fraud case for $90 million, a small price to pay when making $14 billion in profit a year. The concept for Google Glasses incorporates a large ad platform where consumers shopping for cars at one dealership may see an ad in their glasses for the dealership across the street.

Google Glasses is estimated to go to market in 12-24 months and significantly shake up the way users interact with their mobile content. Would this product make or break your day to day life?

As we begin 2013, let’s look at the 6 Steps to Brand Success in the new year.

1) Know What You’re Trying to Accomplish for the Year
Make sure you have a well thought out brand and marketing goals for you and the rest of the company. This is the year that you can strive towards achieving specific things you want to get accomplished.

2) Be the Best in Your Space
You have to know how you and your company stack up to the competition. You have to be able to identify how and why you are the best company, product, and/or service in your space. You have to be able to effectively communicate what those differentiators are that separate you from the competition.

3) Have a Brand Promise People Can Understand & Believe In
Make sure you have a message that differentiates you from the competition, that is clear, concise and your target markets can put their arms around and believe in.

4) Look & Be the Best
Once you have your message clear and concise on how and why you are better, it’s time to package it into the best brand possible. Your brand has to look and be the best in your space. It has to look professional, while also being clean and tight so that it appeals to your target market.

5) Execute, Touch Your Targets & Produce Real Results
You have a tight message of how you are better, now you have to get that message out to your target customers. You have to touch them regularly and stay in front of them. When the time is right you are their #1 choice to do business with, whether it be a product, service or other.

6) Continue to Evolve Your Brand & Stay Ahead of the Competition
Just because you have gone through a branding process, doesn’t mean you’re done. In fact most times, once a company raises the bar in their space it usually will have followers that try and keep up. You have to continue to evolve and stay ahead of your competition and be the best brand possible.

Resolve to do these things and you will achieve Brand Success in 2013!

After the re-election of Obama, I can’t help but ask the question, is President Obama really that appealing, or does it come down to the fact that the Republican party needs to change their brand? My vote is that it’s time for the GOP to take a hard look at their brand and implement a re-brand strategy in order to take back the power in the White House and the nation. Let’s take a look at the seven secrets for the new Republican brand.

1) Define the Brand. One of the main problems for the Republican Party today is that society doesn’t understand the brand. There are many factions in the party, from Tea Party, Religious Conservatives, Financial Conservatives and Ron Paul and his Libertarian followers, it is nearly impossible to have a simple clear and concise brand among all those groups. Another hurdle the Republicans need to get over is allowing the Democrats to negatively define the party and what it stands for. The brand has been defined as the Democrats as “extreme”, “out of touch”, and “only the top one-percent.” The Republicans have to make their brand simple, concise and easy for people grasp on to and work to define and utilize three to six simple brand values that the party can stand on.

2) Get Media Trained. Today’s Republicans are stagnant. Thanks to the Democrats messaging and the portrayal in the majority of media, the GOP is stuck with a negative label and seen as “old-fashioned.” Republicans have been forced to succumb to the divisions within their own party; the religious right and the tea partiers. Both unfortunately are seen as extreme freak factions. More often than not we witness far right-wingers that can’t keep their feet out of their mouth as they continue to fall into traps set by the media. The Republicans need to wake up and give their spokes people proper media training. The public relies on the media to deliver each party’s message and it’s time to Republicans learn how to speak to the media.

3) Be Inclusive & Appealing. The Democrats have clearly won over Middle America and successful forced the Republicans into a small and exclusive part of the population. In order to regain national prominence and gain credibility among the current Democratic vital blocks of voters, the GOP needs to expand. The appeal needs to grow within younger voters, minorities and women in order to regain power. It is blatant that Republican Party needs to open their arms and start to address the needs of these individual groups needs to win their votes. As Middle America gets more and more diverse, it’s going to be imperative for the party to be accepting, inclusive and appealing to all and create a base that appeals to a majority of the population.

4) Reinvent The Party. There are many innovative ways that the Republicans could re-invent themselves and the platforms they stand on. By re-inventing the party, new combinations and platforms of Republicans could be formed. The party could match up a financial conservative with a social moderate; represent a party of freedom that allows individuals to be who they are; encourage hard work and avoid judgment; represent fiscal responsibility and work to a balance budget; decrease our debt and create more jobs; utilize a small government and stay out of the social realm; include special interest groups; and most importantly, stay with the core messages of the brand.

5) Promote The Brand. After the new brand has been defined it is time to package it. The brand needs to be put into a branding campaign that clearly defines the new platforms of the GOP and makes it come alive. Over time, many groups have fought to overcome a bad name, it’s time for the Republicans to put a stake in the ground and dispel the mislabeling. Mitt Romney had a golden opportunity to brand and broadcast the new Republican brand through traditional media, online and social media and most importantly grass roots. Now is more vital than ever to develop a ground game that can effectively convert the masses to the new Republican brand and create a whole new generation of true believers.

6) Choose Brand Champion. Let’s face it; the new Republicans need a new face. They need somebody that represents the new and inclusive brand much like Obama represents the Democrats. This new face must have great appeal, strengths in communication and the ability to embrace key voters. We would have hoped that the Republicans could have learned from the John McCain and actually chosen a true Brand Champion this time around, but that wasn’t the case. It’s time to find a true Brand Champion of the new Republican brand.

7) Champion the Brand, Track Results, Adjust and Win. It’s time for the new Republicans to take this most recent loss to heart. Things just are not working any longer. Once the new brand is implemented, the party can track results and outreach efforts to ensure that the new brand is resonating and working. This process will be slow and could take some adjustment to ensure that the message is appealing to the newly expanded key blocs of voters. With a new simple clear, concise, inclusive and appealing brand, the GOP and drive it home for the victory in the next general and presidential elections.

The time is now to reshape and change the brand for not only the betterment of the party, but for the country. America needs two strong parties in order to have the check and balances, but unless the Republicans change their brand and how they take it to market, their time may be a time of the past.

For more on this topic, check out Fast Company’s article, Rebranding The GOP: Can A Marketing Facelift Overhaul The Republican Party?

The success of Obama’s 2012 re-election branding strategy was clear. The President and his campaign advisor, David Axelrod knew what they had to do to win, it wasn’t luck. His team successfully developed a strategy to brand and position Obama to take office once again. Here are the 7 Brand Secrets utilized by the Obama campaign:

1) Have A Strategy: The Obama campaign started off early in a proactive manner a strategy for success. While watching election results roll in, it was very clear that Obama’s strategy was to strongly target the battle ground states. One by one, the swing states fell off of the map as they turned blue (with the exception of North Carolina and Florida.) Team Obama went into those swing states knowing who they had to appeal to and how to appeal to them. They nailed it. Just like in politics, you have to have a strategy and be proactive in order to succeed in business; you have to know your strategy and how to follow it.

2) Brand Your Opponent Before They Brand Themselves: Before we all knew who Mitt Romney was, Obama and his team had already branded him. The Democrats had negatively branded Romney as the epitome of the one percent of the upper class. Obama had won over Romney’s brand showcasing him as a vulture capitalist candidate who was out of touch with the public, didn’t care about the common man and had an agenda strictly dedicated to the wealthy and big business. This was one of the biggest mistakes made by the Republicans; you can’t let your competition determine your brand. You have to be proactive and beat the competition to it.

3) Steer Clear Of Traps: Another successful branding secret utilized by the Obama campaign was the art of avoiding the pitfalls, traps and potential problems that could have derailed their success. The branding messages that the Obama campaign relied on were “Forward” and “There’s More Work To Do.” Yes, these branding messages were somewhat vague but they garnered a strong following and created the notion to focus on the future and what else can be done in the next four years. The Republicans can learn a lot from the Democrats with this branding strategy secret.

4) Know Your Target Audience: Obama and his team knew their target audience and tailored messages that appealed to them individually. He utilized a laser focus that went after women, seniors, minorities, union members, the disenfranchised and the youth of America. The Obama campaign also developed scare tactic messaging targeted those specific groups. Some examples of the successful scare tactics were that Romney and the GOP were going to take away women’s rights, students loans, union jobs and even take away Medicare. Obama knew the issues that his target audience cared about and this strategy is what ultimately pushed him to victory.

5) Ground Game Plan: Team Obama had a high level strategy as well as a ground game plan to get their votes out and they executed to a tee. They were way ahead in establishing not only a strong branding plan that worked but also a ground game that motivated the troops into faithful action. Through phone calls, online social media and canvassing, Obama had identified all of the outlets possible to reach his target audience.

6) Execute, Execute, Execute: Team Obama had a high level strategy as well as a ground game plan to get their votes out and they executed to a tee. They were way ahead of the game on establishing not only an advertising plan that worked but a ground game and motivating the troops into faithful action. They didn’t let up; they didn’t rest until the victory was in the bag. Many people and companies have great ideas but the winners know how to execute and get the job done.

7) Be A Brand Champion: Obama did not only rely on his natural talent as a charismatic speaker, he was also surrounded by a very talented team. He knew how to win the hearts and minds of his supporters in order to grow his campaign and get people embrace him and his message as a Brand Champion. Great leaders aren’t a given, they work hard to be a Brand Champion of their cause, company or country, Obama did just that.

Putting politics aside, hats off to the Obama team for developing a winning brand and positioning the brand to take the win. Valuable lessons can be taken from political campaigns and those lessons can be directly applied to business. From creating a brand, to the developing an effective strategy to promote your brand, the steps to achieve success in politics and business are one of the same.

Following Tuesday’s Presidential election, there was a lot of ‘Monday Morning Quarterbacking’ sweeping the nation as to what happened to Mitt Romney and his campaign to become our next President. Let’s take a look at the top seven branding mistakes made by his campaign.

1) A Reactive Brand Champion. Romney’s failure to be proactive about his brand was evident. His brand and the brand of the GOP was not defined or promoted until the first debate. He failed to make his brand value proposition known to the people prior to asking for their support. Proactive Brand Champions take charge to ensure that their target audience knows who they are and what they stand for. If Romney had utilized a brand value proposition, his values and goals would have been clear and supported much earlier in the game.

2) Lack Of Messaging. Romney failed to rely on a message that would resonate with the people. His campaign lacked consistency as it changed on a weekly basis. The messaging of Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan is a perfect example of a successful message. He jumped out of the gate promoting his 9-9-9 plan; it was simple, easy to understand and people got it. President Obama also had it right as he utilized clear, concise and timely messaging in both 2008 and 2012. “Hope” and “Forward” were tangible massages that connected with people and garnered significant supporters.

3) Allowing Competition To Define The Brand. Throughout the election season, Romney continually allowed the Obama campaign to define the GOP’s brand and position. This was a fatal flaw. Obama’s campaign took a fast lead in putting together commercials negatively defining Romney and in the end it was too much for Romney to overcome. Obama’s campaign also targeted all the battleground states portraying Romney with negative messages, making it almost impossible for Romney to change the perceived perceptions.

4) Leaving The Gloves On. Romney and his team unsuccessfully took the high road to avoid the fight with Obama and the Democrats. During the final debate, Romney had a real chance to counter and knock out Obama’s argument and didn’t. During the final debate, Romney could have and should have jumped all over the Benghazi matter, but he didn’t, he just let the golden opportunity to knock Obama slide right by. Romney let Obama run all over him. Rather than turn the negative issues from the last four years to be in his favor, he dug himself into a coulda, woulda, shoulda situation.

5) Narrow And Selective Audience. Romney failed to have the appeal broad enough to appeal to the masses. Traditionally, the Republican Party appeals to a small and niche crowd but those numbers are no longer working. This election, the Democrats, Tea Party and Religious Right successfully pinned Republicans into a corner with a dwindling target base. The GOP was outnumbered by a whopping 6%, making it next to impossible to overcome. Romney needed a message and strategy that would appeal to a broad audience and to fight the sinking pattern of the GOP.

6) No Charm, No Charisma. The success of Obama, Reagan and Clinton can be credited to their charm and charisma, two qualities that Romney failed to exemplify in this election. Charm and charisma enable a candidate to be embraced by their supporters and also become backed by influential members of the media. It’s evident that Romney and the Republicans have all but given up building the “mainstream media” into brand advocates, relying on selective small audience media outlets like Fox News and conservative talk radio host to advocate. Romney desperately needed to ramp up his appeal to the people and to his spheres of influence.

7) The Wrong Masses. Obama’s winning formula for this election was no secret. He created targeted key messages to specific audiences that resulted in a massive appeal. Obama had the ability to tie the right messaging to the right audience to create a winning package. Obama’s campaign focused on growing the core audience of all genders and minorities. Romney and Republicans needed figure out the right message that appeals to people in a proactive fashion.

Political candidates and businesses alike have to understand how to avoid these critical brand failures if they want to have a chance to win and succeed. Be proactive, put together a winning strategy, know why you are better, package it, communicate it, and win.

The folks over at Facebook are breathing a bit easier now after the social media giant
reported adjusted earnings of 12-cents-per-share on revenue of $1.26 billion in the third
quarter, exceeding analyst expectations of 11-cents-per-share earnings on $1.23 billion in revenue.

With investors watching closely to see if Facebook’s increasing mobile usage had slowed its revenue growth in the third quarter, founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was adamant about addressing concerns regarding mobile ads, which have played a significant role in keeping down the value of its stock.

“I believe that over the long run we’re going to see more monetization for time spent on mobile than on desktop,” said Zuckerberg, pointing out that desktop ads are mostly on the right rail of the Facebook interface, while mobile ads are integrated into their experience.

With mobile ads accounting for only 14% of total ad revenue, Facebook still has a way to go, but this growth is a step in the right direction.

The reason that the shift in consumption to mobile platforms is problematic is due to the fact that mobile advertisements are only shown on users’ news-feeds, limiting the total number of engagement opportunities when compared to Facebook’s desktop platform. That being said, Facebook does generate more clicks with their mobile device ads, thus earning the company money at a substantially higher CMP, making anywhere from twenty to forty times more money per impression with mobile ads than with desktop.

The embrace of news-feed ads by American advertisers has benefitted Facebook as well, as these ads can run on both desktop and mobile and have higher click-through rates than right-rail ads. And with a rapidly expanding user base (61 million new monthly active users in just 3 months) advertisers are smart to get in on the action now.

When most people think of Halloween-related marketing campaigns, the candy industry is probably one of the first things that pops into mind. With a presence on television, social media and even on the radio, the candy industry’s campaigns are as ubiquitous as candy corn, and no wonder – Halloween is huge.

And with our nation’s economy  slowly staggering back to its feet, analysts predict that this year consumers will spend more in the weeks leading up to October 31^st than they have in a decade. According to the National Retail Federation’s 2012 Halloween Consumer Spending Survey, total US spending for the holiday is projected to increase to an unprecedented $8 billion, the largest amount since the survey was started 10 years ago.  The overall popularity of All Hallows Eve is supposed to rise this year as well, with a record-breaking 170 million Americans planning to celebrate in some way. Such enormous market participation presents extremely attractive opportunities that are too good to pass up. Not wanting to miss out on the action, other seemingly unrelated industries have begun to take advantage of the holiday over the past few years.  Progressive Auto insurance has launched a “Dress Like Flo” campaign, encouraging participants to don the bright red lipstick and retro hairstyle of the company’s infamous fictional character and submit their photos online.  And through prominent Facebook “Like” buttons and constant pop-up ads, the insurance company makes sure to keep current and potential customers engaged with their brand. The auto industry has also tried to get in on the action, Honda being one example. In years past, Honda has put the spotlight on their fans and customers by creating a Facebook album where they could upload photos of Honda-inspired jack-o’-lanterns and share them with the world.  From candy to cars, it just goes to show that marketers from all backgrounds are keen to capitalize on the Halloween spirit, and with the haunted holiday’s growing revenue and popularity, this is one trend that seems to be less trick and more treat.

Date:
Sep 18, 2012

Time:
7:30 – 9 a.m.

Price:
$15 (includes breakfast)

Location:
Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce
1445 Market St.
Denver CO, 80202

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

In today’s economy, it is imperative that you know how to create a strong “brand promise”
that resonates with your customers, employees and industry.  Because if you aren’t delivering an exceptional brand experience, someone else will. In this highly interactive, informative and content-rich presentation, marketing and branding expert, Michael Doyle, will share his branding knowledge and explain the seven steps to a successful brand. By transforming your brand, you can transform your business!  The seminar will provide you with the skills to create a unique value proposition so you can elevate your company’s brand to the next level!

How You Will Benefit:

• Understand how forging your brand will drive revenue.
• Create your value proposition and truly unique value drivers.
• Discover techniques to develop and implement memorable brand experiences.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER 

You’ve probably seen the commercials, and you probably remember the man. Whether he’s freeing an angry bear from a deadly trap, sinking a trick billiards shot out of a person’s mouth, or landing a trophy-sized marlin on a boat surrounded by beautiful women, he is The Most Interesting Man in the World – or so the folks over at Dos Equis, the beer company that runs the ads, want you to think. Yet, in spite of all of his bravado-filled experiences and accomplishments, the world’s most interesting man, played by actor Jonathan Goldsmith, does not tweet.

In a recent interview with Ad Age Magazine, Leysa Lysyi, the Chief Marketing Officer of Dos Equis importer Heineken USA, explained that the brand does not tweet in the popular character’s voice because “anything to do with technology is not something that seems like where he would be spending his time.” In other words, he’s too busy living life to be sitting behind a computer screen. Intentionally omitting one of the most popular and recognizable aspects of the brand is an interesting maneuver for Heineken USA, a company which has been a little more digitally aggressive than some of its peers in the alcohol industry. It seems to be working though – their Dos Equis brand is the fastest growing Mexican beer in the U.S market, a market which is increasingly driven by a young, upscale, socially connected male consumer, one who is easily influenced by a man of such great swagger, regardless of whether or not he tweets.