Made in … More Than a Manufacturing Statement

Written by Martin Lindstrom


Imagine that I told you of a product, but that it was one about which I knew nearly nothing: I didn't know what its price was, what any of its unique features were or even what type of product it was. But imagine I did knowrepparttar product's country of origin.

Let's, just for fun, sayrepparttar 121744 product was from Switzerland. Now, what would your impression of this product be? I bet, even now, as part of this hypothetical situation I'm posing, be able to tell me somethingrepparttar 121745 mystery product's likely price level, its probable quality andrepparttar 121746 reputation it most likely enjoyed. Such assumptions would be inspired byrepparttar 121747 preconceptions you, as a consumer, hold aboutrepparttar 121748 country in question. Country branding means much more than adhering a "Made in XXX" label to a product. Origin constitutes an important piece of branding which, in many cases, can be so influential that it overtakesrepparttar 121749 brand's other reputation builders.

If I were to tell you thatrepparttar 121750 next supercar were to come from Germany, you probably wouldn't be surprised. You would probably be immediately curious about it, expectingrepparttar 121751 fictional vehicle to be of high engineering and design quality, expensive and solid. Now imagine I did surprise you by revealing thatrepparttar 121752 forthcoming supercar was actually to be a product of Greece. Your impressions ofrepparttar 121753 likely product would be totally changed, your assumptions inspired byrepparttar 121754 apparent personalityrepparttar 121755 country of origin communicates to your perceptions.

Have you ever wondered why every perfume bottle is accompanied by packaging that bearsrepparttar 121756 banner "Paris, Milan, New York, Rome, London"? I'm sure you don't really expectrepparttar 121757 perfume to be produced all those places. Now imaginerepparttar 121758 perfume's catalogue of cities read something like "Prague, Helsinki, Melbourne, Seattle, Oslo, Auckland". I guarantee your first impressions of both versions ofrepparttar 121759 same article would be coloured byrepparttar 121760 suppositions you made about their two proclamations of notional affiliation. Quite ironic when none of us believe for a minute that any ofrepparttar 121761 cited locales have anything to do withrepparttar 121762 product's manufacture.

Branding on the Web is like Mining for Fools Gold

Written by Lee Traupel


I am sick and tired of marketing geeks toutingrepparttar beauty of branding, brand building and just spouting branding in any context, especially whenrepparttar 121743 term is used with "internet" or "web" or "digital!" You can't have a conversation today for more than five minutes without some marketing type throwing in a line about brand building!

Branding doesn't work withrepparttar 121744 net's warp speed - look at some ofrepparttar 121745 leading online brand builders, including a certain big three TV network here inrepparttar 121746 states and a book seller in Seattle trying to do classic brand extension, from books to barbecues.

We tell our B2B clients to build a revenue-producing online brand by developing a campaign that sellsrepparttar 121747 value of their goods or services! Forgetrepparttar 121748 esoteric, very expensive brand building campaigns that have no measurable impact! Here are my ten "cliff notes" to building an effective B2B Brand Online, B2C coming next article.

1)Do a careful Competitive Web Analysis of your competitors – you can't build a unique brand without knowingrepparttar 121749 lay ofrepparttar 121750 digital and realworld land! The beauty ofrepparttar 121751 web is that it is a 247/365 resource for analysis and you can find out quite a lot from your competitor's web sites. We've created a comprehensive matrix of 75-200 items to assess when preparing a competitive analysis report for a client.

2)Identify your target audience early on as everything flows from this. You can't conceptualize your creative, graphical imagery, content or what type of online media you want to deploy until you knowrepparttar 121752 size and characteristics of your target audience.

3)Think revenue producing branding – this translates to marketing campaigns that deliver sales (the goal of all good marketing campaigns) by customer acquisition. Meaning, develop messages that speak to your audience. B2B customers typically want referenceable data that addresses their needs. "Our xyz services help you leverage your IT resources by…." Think providing tactical information to enhance their decision-making!

4)If your early to market or just plain old early stage then you may want to develop some branding with other complementary partners who have established names (brands) in your market segment. This can include joint announcements, co-branded pages; direct marketing or opt-in e-mail pieces, etc. Here's an example of a co-branded page we did for an existing client, PolyServe, Inc. http://www.polyserve.com/partners.html

Cont'd on page 2 ==>
 
ImproveHomeLife.com © 2005
Terms of Use