Against the Grain: Branding

In the past few months, group buying power has become a hot trend in Central Iowa. Groupon® deals have filled our e-mail inboxes and many people have been persuaded to try new restaurants, stores and events. The deep discounts pull you in and it’s hard to resist a good deal.

Are you curious if Groupon would work for your company? Trilix’s Account Director Brett Adams and his wife Dawn own and operate Signature Massage by Dawn in Ankeny. After analyzing their budget and business goals, they determined that running a Groupon deal was a great way to get more people in the door and raise awareness about their business. Getting in front of Groupon’s more than 40,000 eager-to-buy subscribers was extremely intriguing.

Brett and Dawn set two goals: to increase their customer base and to enhance the lifetime value of their clientele. To meet these goals, they ran a Groupon Daily Deal offering a one-hour massage for $30 ($55 value) or a multi-service massage package for $50 ($100 value). The deal launched on Friday, December 3, 2010 and “tipped” by 6:30 a.m. The promotion was scheduled to run throughout the weekend, but sold out by 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, December 4, once sales hit 625 massages. To date, more than 30% of the Signature Massage by Dawn Groupons have been redeemed, representing a steady flow of new business and more word-of-mouth.

But, is Groupon an economical choice for all small business owners?  With no upfront costs, it would appear to be a no-brainer at first glance. But, it’s important to understand that Groupon’s success relies on your ability to sell products/services since they share in the sales-up to as much as 50%. Their team will work with each business to ensure that the right deal(s) are being offered and for a price point that they believe will intrigue their captive audience (generally 40-60% off). By the time your business actually sees a sale, the price has been cut in half not once, but twice. If the deal is extremely successful, your investment could be very large in comparison to the regular price of your product or service. At the end of the day, each business must be willing to take the risk in order to reap the reward. If a small business is looking for an innovative way to kick-start their new business efforts, Groupon or other daily-deal sites may be the perfect fit.

According to Brett, Groupon was a great investment for their small business. It not only created an immediate spike in business, but also created a buzz through other outlets such as social media and word-of-mouth.  He’s excited to see how the promotion will affect short- and long-term sales. Groupon provides analytics on the people who buy-in to each deal. The data provides demographics on age, gender and location (by ZIP code). The seller is also able to track the number of Groupons redeemed and is then able to see which Groupon customers return for future business.

Groupon was a smart decision for Signature Massage by Dawn, but it may not be a good fit for every business. Want to learn more? Public Relations Director Keely Pearson gives you some things to consider before running a daily deal in this blog post.

Want to get more daily deals? Check out group-buying sites Living Social and Plum District.

Humans are creatures of habit. By nature, we resist change so re-vamping a cherished brand can be very challenging. It’s difficult to please everyone, but taking the time to listen to your target audience can help you retain the elements that make your brand unique and appealing to consumers, while refreshing your image to meet your marketing objectives.

It’s important to solicit feedback from your target audience before you make any drastic changes to your brand. You can use traditional research methods like focus groups, e-mail and telephone surveys to gain insight into consumers’ opinions, or you can use social media to engage in conversations with brand influencers. If your company is contemplating a new look, take some time to monitor the conversations happening about your brand in the social media space. You’ll gain valuable insight and be able to incorporate constructive criticism into your re-brand.

Doing some research before you reveal your new look will help ensure that consumers are more receptive to your company’s logo, packaging or slogan. Unfortunately, some brands have learned this lesson the hard way. A few months ago, Gap was the victim of social media backlash after they unveiled their new logo to the Twitterverse. Due to the negative feedback, Gap decided to stick with their tried-and-true navy blue logo.

Yesterday, sports fans voiced their disappointment about the Big Ten Conference’s new logo and division names all over Facebook, Twitter and ESPN.com. Trilix Research developed a short web survey and distributed it via Facebook and Twitter to gauge sports aficionados’ reactions to the Big Ten’s re-brand. In less than two hours, more than 50 people responded to the survey. The results showed that 39 percent of respondents “hate” the new logo and 68 percent “hate the names” of the divisions. These statistics may not have swayed the Big Ten’s decision, but it would have been helpful to know before they made the announcement.

If your brand is ready for a make-over, Trilix offers a complete line of creative, social media and research services to help guide your company through the re-branding process. To learn more, visit www.trilixgroup.com.

Colors for 2010

In the movie The Devil Wears Prada, there’s a scene where Anne Hathaway’s character Andrea Sachs, the frumpy assistant to Runway fashion magazine editor Miranda Priestly, scoffs at the fashion team when they struggle to choose between two seemingly identical blue belts for the magazine’s cover shoot. An irritated Priestly schools Sachs with a lecture about the fashion industry’s influence on seasonal color trends. Priestly explains how the shades used by top clothing designers trickle down through the rest of the industry and quickly infiltrate home design and retail stores.

But that’s just a scene from a chick flick. That’s not how color trends really begin, right? Wrong.

Each spring and fall, Pantone®, the company that sets the design industry’s professional color standards, releases a report identifying the 10 most influential colors of the season. The hot new color trends are based on the results of a survey completed by fashion designers during New York Fashion Week.

Color trends typically reflect environmental and economical influences and evolve from year to year. The 2010 “color of the year” is Pantone 15-5519 which, roughly translated, is turquoise. This season’s color trends are brighter than in previous years to reflect people’s excitement about technology, less fear and nesting as memories of 9/11 begin to fade, optimism about an improving economy, embracing our multi-cultural society and eyes that are trained to look at bright colors on a computer screen.   

The next time you ask your creative team to come up with a new design concept for your marketing collateral or new product launch, rest assured that their color choices are not taken lightly. Designers take psychological influences, competitors’ brand strategies, size and strength of the market, usage adoption rate, product name, demographics of the target audience and other brand elements into consideration when they create a new look for your product. Balancing these factors helps ensure that your brand evokes the right emotional response and complements the hottest color trends on the market. 

I had been with the same car insurance company since I started driving at age 27 (but that’s another story). It was a well-branded company with a highly recognizable logo, a consistent use of a specific shade of red and a jingle I probably could sing long before I ever drove. But last month, they did not live up to their neighborly promise and I switched companies.

I did not select my new insurance company because of their great logo. It was simply their name set in an italics font. And I did not choose them because they consistently use blue and orange.  I certainly can’t sing you their jingle or quote their slogan because they have neither. Yet, I made the switch because they have a strong brand. And that’s my point; a brand is not a logo, a specific use of a color, a jingle or a slogan.

A brand is all about managing the experience, and the experience I had from the first call to this company through subsequent calls for clarifications and additional services was, to coin a phrase, very Flo-like. Regardless of the person I was talking with, I felt I was talking to Flo. They were casual yet down-to-business. I felt I could be myself with them, and they in turn demonstrated their Flo-like attitude with their often humorous, yet to-the-point responses. 

By now you know the company I switched to is Progressive, and I made the switch because of their brand. Not their logo. Not their slogan. Not their jingle. Not their graphic standards. But the experience. And that’s what branding it is all about.  

When you build a new website for your company, the process involves choosing a domain name, creating a concept and design, developing content and finally launching the website. Typically, companies pay a lot of attention to the design and content, but don’t spend enough time choosing a good, brandable domain name.

A brandable domain name is very important for several reasons. You can’t rely on users to bookmark or write down the domain name, or be able to recall an obscure address like stratuscompanydesmoines.com.  Often times, a domain name becomes the center piece for a brand, so you want it to be memorable and creative.

Websites like Godaddy.com and Namestation.com can help you in your quest to find that perfect brandable domain name.

Here are some tips to remember when choosing a domain name:

• Try to use a domain that includes the company or product name.

• Try to claim a “.com” address. It’s the most common ending for a website, and it’s what most people will try first. You should also purchase the variations like “.org” and “.net” and point them to your main site. You don’t want your competitors, or shady products and services, using your domain name brand. This could negatively affect your brand image.

• The shorter the name, the better. Eight characters or less is ideal. There’s a reason why some of the shortest domain names sell for thousands of dollars on domain auctions, they’re highly brandable and memorable.

• Stick to letters if possible.

• If you’re considering starting a company or launching a product in the future, register the domain name now. Don’t wait! It is a cheap investment and it will protect your brand.

• Avoid using hyphens, if at all possible. These domains are hard to use in audible mediums, like radio and television.

• Avoid challenging spellings and unfamiliar words. If your site is hard to find, customers will just move on.

The bottom line is that you should think about your target market, business, products and services, and choose a domain that will help drive traffic to your site and build your brand.