Archive for the ‘Branding’ Category

Branding lessons from an old hometown

Two weeks ago I returned to my old hometown in Minnesota for the first time in 18 years. And I still can’t shake the obvious: change is constant. Whether we like it or are prepared for it or not.

I could only identify two stores along the three-block downtown that were there in my childhood. Most of the businesses appeared to be on life support. Further south from downtown a once modest commercial stretch reminded me of an abandoned cowboy town. Only the tumbleweed was missing. My high school had been leveled and rebuilt on the north edge of town. My parent’s last and once-proud home, across from the school, stood lifeless. And the downtown store my dad started in 1948 and sold in 1980 is teetering on the verge of going out of business. Perhaps the hardest change of all to swallow.

Hometown lake in Minnesota

Little about my hometown seemed as I remembered it, except the pretty lake at its center. It hadn’t died as a community. It only felt that way. So much that anchored my memories of growing up there has now disappeared, if not physically, then emotionally. I told my wife the last morning we were there, I’m not sure I will ever have the need or desire to return. (more…)

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Tapping into your brand’s bigger story

Five years ago this month I left the business I co-founded in 1993 — and started over. Some moments I think it was a reckless decision, leaving behind the security of a prospering business for an uncertain pursuit. Most of the time, it feels like the right decision, heeding a desire to reconnect to purpose and passion in my work.

Source Flickr: By koalazymonkey

This is the backdrop of R.Bruer Company, my bigger story, if you will. Yes, I provide branding, messaging and storytelling for businesses and nonprofits. Those are my services. My bigger story taps into what I believe matters most in our work as individuals and organizations: helping others add meaning to their lives while engaging them in a larger purpose.

Each of our organizations has a smaller story to tell. Unfortunately, it’s often the only one we share. (more…)

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10 steps to building a sustainable brand

An editor recently asked me to share how an organization could build a sustainable brand. I offered a 10-step approach for any business or nonprofit on the sustainability path. I’m curious what additions or changes you would make to this list: (more…)

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Don’t know your customer? Look in the mirror

After several hours of questions and conversation earlier this week, my clients and I seemed only somewhat closer to nailing down their target customer. Then the business development manager shared a customer profile they drafted a couple months earlier. Funny thing, he could have just as easily been describing the people in his company.

Could it be that to know thyself is to know thy customer? At the very least, it’s a great place to start when your profiling a target audience. (more…)

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Branding in world of monkey minds & popcorn brains

Anyone who’s meditated for even a minute knows the mind is in a habitual state of anarchy. A random thought arises, shouts for attention, only to be elbowed aside by another and another in rapid succession. This most human of conditions has been called monkey mind.

Now imagine our minds as we bury ourselves in social media, the Internet, smartphones, laptops, game consoles and televisions — often at the same time! This experience repeated often enough is producing what one University of Washington researcher calls “popcorn brain” — described as “a brain so accustomed to the constant stimulation of electronic multitasking that we’re unfit for life offline, where things pop at a much slower pace.”

So here’s something anyone with a brand, story or message might want to ponder: What happens when the monkey mind meets the popcorn brain?

Monkey mind on speed or monkey mind squared? Living life online has to be the best gift the monkey mind has ever received. The monkey is blissfully free to swing from tweet to video to blog to Like to text to app to TV to email to search to … you get the picture.

The monkey is in heaven. Businesses and nonprofits that want to capture someone’s attention, not so much. Even before “online” existed, organizations had their work cut out to get noticed. Humans are easily distracted. What’s changed – virtually overnight – is the breadth and depth of distraction made possible by new networking technology.

What’s an organization to do?

If you listen to the advice of social marketers, the answer is to move online where your audience is. Build your social media “presence”: your Facebook fan page, Twitter stream, smartphone app, YouTube uploads, search engine optimization, blog, sharable content and on and on. In other words, feed the monkey more popcorn. Everyone else is!

And therein lies the problem for marketers and storytellers.

Instead of slowing the world down so we can listen, be heard, build a relationship, create and keep a customer, we’re collectively speeding it up, threatening to create some mutant form of attention deficit disorder.

Still, we can’t ignore the staggering numbers of people and increasing amount of time spent online. As communicators, we have to be where our audience is, right?

The more pertinent question is how do we get someone’s attention once we’re fully online? A monkey mind on speed is not exactly an optimum candidate for engagement.

Building rest stops

Here are three suggestions for getting noticed and, even better, starting or deepening relationships with people who matter to you most:

  • Simplify your message. Maybe this was optional once upon a time. Today it’s an organizational imperative. Make our audience work to understand you and what you’re offering and they’ll be gone in a click or tap. Simplifying your message involves what authors Chip and Dan Heath call “finding your core.” I strongly recommend their book, “Made to Stick.” Their recipe for stickiness? Simple Concrete Credible Emotional Stories.
  • Build rest stops. Can you slow your audience down as they flit across the Internet? Give them reasons to hit the pause button, take a deep breath, maybe even engage you in conversation. Show them you’re not in a hurry and are genuinely interested in who they are and what they want. Maybe then they’ll be open to knowing more about you and what you have to offer.
  • Be generous. Once you slow your audience down, they’ll linger longer if you freely share valuable content. Valuable equates to meeting a need. Chilean Manfred Max-Neef defines nine fundamental human needs: subsistence, protection, affection, understanding, participation, leisure, creation, identity and freedom. Which among these needs can you meet with content that is also consistent with your core business and identity?
A world of monkey minds and popcorn brains begs for more discipline, concentration, calm. Organizations that can master these qualities are bound to draw an audience begging for a break, if only for a moment or two.
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How sustainability changes the rules of branding

Does sustainability change the rules of branding? I believe it does and describe why and how in a guest column today for Sustainable Business Oregon. Here’s an excerpt:

In branding, the job of connecting emotionally is typically left to marketing and advertising. History suggests that works for many product categories where competitive differentiation is scant and great advertising is their only hope of making consumers care.

Once a company starts hanging its hat on sustainability, however, the rules change. Branding is no longer a game of emotions alone. It becomes a game of facts and emotions. That takes the practice of branding outside the narrow zone of marketing and advertising and into the broad realm of operations and employee engagement to ensure sustainability practices are, in fact, implemented.

My piece also includes the 10 steps to building a sustainable brand. Check it all out and let me know what you think!

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