Branding, originally a practice for identifying cattle in large pastures, is now an integral and complex marketing concept. Your business’s brand is the base for people’s initial judgments and original connotations, which are established almost instantly. Brand impressions are like first impressions; they happen once and will set the path for future engagements.

Original branding went only as far as having a logo trademarked, which draws from burning cattle hinds with wrought-iron. Lyle’s Golden Syrup lays claim to being Britain’s oldest brand, with their packaging being unchanged since 1885. Around the turn of the  previous century, marketers attaching slogans and jingles noticed people developing relationships with products. This led to the building of a brand’s personality and identity; allowing consumers to have a more meaningful relationship with a brand rather than just being aware it existed.

In the time of social media, brands have once again evolved. Brands have the capability to further their personality and identity via direct interaction. The branding process has progressed from displaying your brand to allowing customers to directly interact with your brand.

The 2008 presidential race is a prime example of having a social brand presence. Barak Obama utilized social media to generate a brand for himself that people could interact with. Obama’s Facebook Page is a place for individuals to comment and share their thoughts on his announcements. His Twitter Page shares announcements, thoughts and updates from the 44th president. Obama successfully created a social brand for himself which others could interact with and relate to.

When extending you or your business’s brand to the internet it is important to create a consistent image through your various portals. You should think of your website as the home-base of your web-based brand efforts. Customized websites can be designed in any way you would like your brand to be presented. From there create your Facebook and Twitter pages to resemble your site. Repetition is the key to memory; a consistent brand image will increase people’s recollection of your brand.

With a consistent image; the next step is having a consistent message. Each portal will vary in the way you engage your customers; but all messages should be fueled by a general topic. Keep in mind, you’re not trying to force-feed information to generate sales; you are trying to engage and interact with people. Build a community people can be a part of – your brand acting as the glue binding the community together. Keep this in mind and your social branding efforts will go far. Bust out the wrought-iron: time to get branded!

Becoming a popular, widely-used tool takes time and a lot of public speculation.  Looking back through history,  some of the greatest inventions and innovations initially deemed useless have left significant impact on society.  Things like cell phones, Velcro, and the Internet.  These inventions all faced initial public apprehension and  criticism but have since proven to significantly improve society and its processes.

Twitter falls into this category of being extremely beneficial but facing public apprehension and criticism.   With over 40 million users since its 2006 birth, Twitter is one of the fastest growing forms of communication to date.  The services rapid growth has provided many potential benefits to business as well as personal use.  However, apprehension about using the service is excluding many from the benefits of having a Twitter account.

Branding / Marketing
Twitter has the potential to be an extension of your brand.  Through participation in Twitter conversations, your business has the opportunity to create a positive image in the customers’ minds.  Involvement generates awareness, which in turn, will bring your brand to the forefront of customers’ minds when they are in the marketplace making decisions.  Not only can Twitter build awareness, it also adds a personal level to your company and its brand.   Take a look at this list of companies who utilize Twitter to present a personal side of their business.  Most tweets are not specifically about selling a product or service, but rather focused on the idea and image behind the specific product and service.  Take for example, Starbucks’ Twitter feed which does not attempt to push the Venti Latte but rather captures the aura of Starbucks’ brand and identity.  Creating this identity makes your Twitter page interesting thus making your business interesting.

Communication
Furthermore, Twitter provides an extremely low-cost method of being directly involved with consumers’ communication.  First, Twitter can be used to target the users of your product.  After locating these users, you can become involved in their conversations through answering questions, providing insights or just providing general information about your business.  Take Kogi BBQ, a mobile Korean BBQ Taco Truck based out of Los Angeles, CA., as a an example of an information provider.  Kogi uses Twitter to inform customers of the locations of its various BBQ trucks.  Visit their Twitter page and you will see various tweets about each individual truck’s location and special lunch deals.  With 46,926 followers, Kogi has found an inexpensive way to keep its customers informed and interested in their service through Twitter.

Creating Beneficial Relationships
Creating a brand and successful communication on Twitter can lead to the building of a successful business relationship.  Having the successful business relationship involves a combination of sharing information and handling customer’s inquiries and complaints.  Local cable provider, Comcast, has excelled at using Twitter as a hub for customer service.  Senior Director of Comcast’s National Customer Service, Frank Eliason, uses his Twitter account to field customer complaints, comments and service issues.  By using Twitter, Eliason has made providing cable, a very impersonal service, personal through Twitter.  Check out Comcast’s Twitter page to see Elison in action, handling questions and creating goodwill for Comcast’s customers.

These three examples scratch the surface of how Twitter can be utilized.  With a growing base of users, Twitter’s potential for business grows daily.  Becoming involved with the service now will generate more opportunities for your business in the future.  Take the leap and get involved with the new wave of communication at http://www.twitter.com.  Now is the perfect time to sign up and follow VQC Designs because we are giving away a brand new Acer Netbook!  Visit VQC Designs’ Twitter-Hunt page for more details.

“I view ceramics in two ways. First as a bold and even subtle expression of form and second as a canvas that gives the form its final statement of expression.”

-Tim Hoover

Tim Hoover is the next artist we will be featuring during the 2009 Gallery Walk. Don’t forget to check out the other artists and we hope to see you on September 13th!

Tim was born on May 12, 1965 in Boise, Idaho. He moved to Carlisle in 1973 and attended Big Spring High School, where Tim’s appreciation of art began. In the summer of 1983, he was accepted into the summer session of the Pennsylvania Governor’s School of Arts Program. He went on to further study art and ceramics at Kutztown University. In 1991, sponsored by the American Crafts Council, Tim went to Japan where he studied with several potters. He attended Kutztown University as an art major, specializing in ceramics, wood and painting.

In addition to his paintings, he continues to push ceramics with visual imagery of 2-D designs onto a 3-D format.  Tim’s work can be found in the Perry County council of the Arts Gallery, and in Carlisle at The Garden Gallery and the Carlisle Arts Learning Center. Tim’s work is also owned by a  number of private collections overseas and the state headquarters for the Comanche Tribe, in Lawton Oklahoma.
Tim resides in Carlisle where he maintains a studio and continues to work in ceramics and painting.

Special thanks to:

James Krabiel – Game On

Our next featured artist is James Krabiel.  James work will be on display on September 13th during the 21st Annual Art Association of Harrisburg Gallery Walk.  Be sure to visit VQC Designs during the walk to enter a chance to win Jame’s art.

It was at the age of eight when James gained an interest in art, first through comics, and cartoons. It was then that he began attending the Old Donation Center for the Gifted and Talented and upon completion of that program in 1997; he began attending the Governors School for the Arts in Norfolk Virginia. He finished the Governors program upon graduating from high school in 2001.  James was featured in Who’s Who of American High School Students of 2001. And held a successful show at the Kane Marie fine arts gallery in Virginia Beach.

Shortly after graduating high school James relocated to Carlisle Pennsylvania where he began working for Ron Stinson, a metal sculptor in Carlisle, at Ron’s Metal Expressions studio. In 2001, James began attending the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, graduating with honors in May of, 2005 with a bachelor’s degree in fine art. In 2009, he accepted a position in the Dickinson College Art Department as an art lab technician.

James now resides in Carlisle were he maintains a studio at the Haverstick Gallery & Studios and continues to work in diverse media such as ceramics, paints and metal.

“Pastel is my preferred medium. To be able to have no tool i.e. brush or palette knife between my hand and the working surface gives me great satisfaction. Touching the surface and blending the pastels with my hand feels natural and gives me a sense that I am literally ‘IN’ the painting”

-Chris Mackie

This September 13, VQC Designs will be hosting gallery space in the 21st Annual Art Association of Harrisburg’s Gallery Walk.  For this year we wanted to amp things up a bit and really show the Harrisburg locals a good time.  We decided to team up with one of our favorite galleries to visit: The Garden Gallery and host an art raffle from local artist’s work.  The proceeds from this event will be donated to the Cultural Enrichment Fund to help promote the local arts in the Harrisburg Region.  Over the following days leading up to the event we will be posting the work and bios of the artists who will be participating.

Our first featured Artist is Chris Mackie.  Chris Mackie grew up in the working class village of Gawthorpe, England. He developed an interest in art from an early age drawing on anything he could find such as old newspapers, his parents old cigarette boxes, or scrap pieces of paper. In his early school years he would produce pencil sketches of super heroes and icons from the big screen and later took an interest in Hip Hop graffiti art.

At the age of 20 Chris decided to join the Military. He joined the Elite Parachute Regiment of the British Armed Forces, serving for 5 years including a 3-year tour of duty in Northern Ireland. He then transferred to the Royal Air Force, becoming a Physical Training and Adventure Training Instructor, serving for another 10 years. In 2006 Chris was recruited into the Royal New Zealand Air Force.

During his time in the military, Chris continued drawing and painting, and in 2004 was being represented at The Coppergate Gallery in York, England and The Jay Senior Contemporary Art Studio in Wakefield, England.

In 2006, Chris switched from painting with acrylics to pastels, and his work took on an entirely new direction. He began painting inspirational images that were much more meaningful with emotional content. To Chris this was real art. Chris went back to his working class roots and looked to British Master painter L.S. Lowry, his favorite childhood artist for further inspiration. He loved the simplicity and the power of his works. Lowry’s industrial images with the working class folk in their big shoes and plain clothes evoked memories of his own childhood.

Today Chris’s subject is his journey through life.  His work expresses an array of human emotion and the importance of self-reflection. Love is a theme that you’ll often see as a recurring symbol in Chris’s work – “The Love Heart.”

He now lives in Carlisle, PA where he continues to paint. Chris’s work can be seen at The Garden Gallery and the Haverstick Gallery & Studios in Carlisle, PA.  Chris’s work can also be found across Europe, Australasia and the US.

Proceeds Benefit:

When you chose your last personal email address how much thought did you put into it? Did you sit down and try to incorporate your interests or perhaps you just made a scrambled variation of your name and your birth date.  Or perhaps you jammed the keys and chose a randomized email like aljdfd@hotmail.com.  Obviously, most people want emails to be a digital extension of themselves just as with screen names and avatars.

This concept of personalized email addresses may also be applied in the business world.  Email in current times is as necessary for a business’s success as oxygen is necessary for life on Earth.  Multitudes of options exist for the type of email service and account, however that is beyond the scope of this post. For more information on email provider and their services check out www.emailaddresses.com, which has a comprehensive review of most email providers on the web.

Choosing the right domain name is beneficial for multiple reasons.  First, brand recognition can be generated through your email address.  Having your brand represented in your email address is like handing out business cards each time you email.  Customers see your brand name and through repetition remember your business.  Including your business name in the domain name is the most common way to do this:  service@business.com.

Which leads to our next point, having a memorable email address puts your business in the foreground of customer’s minds.  Having a creative and personalized email address will help your brand stand out even more.  Personalize the address based on how the account services the customer.  For example, a pizza delivery email address might be something like hotpies@pizza.com.  The key is to be unique and relative to your business’s service to the customer.

Lastly, the more viable and creative your email address the less likely your emails will be viewed as spam.  According to Jason Baer of Convince & Convert, 43% of email users use the “From” part of an email to judge emails as spam or not.  Spam, if you are unaware, is not the delicious deli meat but, rather, the devil in terms of emailing marketing.  Being labeled as spam is like having a rough break up.  The spam label totally shuts your business out of the customer’s inbox and puts your emails on a straight track to the trash bin.  Personalizing your email address and building rapport with customers can avoid having your emails labeled as spam.  Also be sure to check out this list of keywords that spam filters look for to avoid the pitfalls of spam.

So business owners, be aware of your email addresses.  Remember how they may help or hurt your email marketing campaigns and keep the customer in mind.  Good luck and happy emailing!

Photo thanks to frankh.

 

Jenn, Q, Idris and I attended the Elizabethtown College Job and Internship Fair last month. We met a bunch of college kids, nearly all of whom were extremely bright and personable. While I was talking to these young people (who already had some killer, relevant experiences) I was reminded of my internship days.

 

I got to thinking, what has been the most valuable thing I got from my internships and first few jobs?

 

For me, it wasn’t the experience, a line on my résumé, or even the list of contacts I met.

 

The most important thing I learned from my first couple jobs is:

 

The best way to work.

 

It took me four years of college to figure out the most efficient way for me to write a paper (write for an hour, do something else, write for another hour). It’s taken me nearly as long to recognize my best working environment. It’s different for everyone:

 

• Are you happiest alone at your desk, plugging away at a task unbothered by others?

 

• Or maybe you like sitting calmly in a meeting, bouncing ideas off of your teammates?

 

• Maybe the highlight of your week being cooped up with 4 or 5 coworkers, in a room, with a deadline, pressed for time to come up with a complicated strategy for a picky client.

 

Whatever it is, figure it out and stick with it.

 

For me it comes as a mixture of a couple things. My best thinking comes in the planning stage with a deadline and a team around me. When it comes to actually sitting down and doing the work, as long as I have my headphones on and Pandora blasting I can work just about anywhere.

 

What’s the best way you work?

 

Photo thanks to orangeacid.

 

My friend Chris plays football for Monmouth University in New Jersey. I planned to attend his last game and went to the Monmouth Hawks Football website to find the schedule. The left-hand side menu bar has links like:

 

• Roster
• Hall of Fame
• Marketing

 

Under the marketing tab there’s information about “Promotional Events,” “Hawks in the Community,” and the student-generated “Shadow Nation” fan club.

 

Now I know most organizations (including VQC) do promotional events, most of which are geared to help the community in some way. But should they be marketed as marketing?

 

Granted,

 

• Their purpose IS marketing
• The funding comes from the marketing budget
• Marketing professionals probably oversee them.

 

But actually referring to the programs as marketing to the public?

 

It seems insincere. Marketing isn’t supposed to look like marketing. When it is, it comes across as disingenuous.

 

Marketing works best when called something else. Every action a business takes has the accepted benefit plus an ulterior motive, like

 

• Sales calls
  • Motive: add an account
  • Marketing: “Match your needs to our expertise”

   

• Charity work
  • Motive: get press
  • Marketing: “Improve society”

   

• Infomercial ads:
  • Motive: get you to buy cheap trinkets
  • Marketing: “SOLVE ALL YOUR PROBLEMS BY CALLING NOW!“

 

These exercises usually work because they massage people’s sensibilities. People like being catered to, appreciate when a business helps to improve society and want to do basic tasks more easily.

 

But when the groups offering these services come out and say “we’re doing this to market to you,” it breaks the illusion.

 

Imagine if a sales rep called and said, “Your name is on my list and I’d like to make some money off of you.” Or a company at a benefit had a sign saying “LOCAL NEWS! Interview us.” Or an infomercial: “We’ll tell you every possible way this thing can help you, but it’ll break in three months.”

 

Is any of your customer communication breaking the illusion?

 

Photo thanks to el copilot.

 

If you’ve ever watched COPS, you’ve seen it first hand.

 

If you’ve ever witnessed a crime, you’ve probably done it.

 

If you’ve ever been stopped randomly on the streets of New York, you’ve experienced it.

 

The weird way people act when they can help someone out.

 

People change when they have information for the cops. They act, for lack of a better word, weird. Not the criminals or the victims, but the witnesses. The bystanders. The onlookers. The people Dane Cook talks about in his classic bit about a car crash:

 

Officer, I’m sorry, yeah I just want you to know, if it helps in your investigation, I was in my kitchen, and I heard it, so I came out. I will testify in court I was cleaning a dish, I will bring the dish as exhibit A.

 

Fact is, regular people LOVE talking to the police when they’re witnesses. So much so that they’ll drop whatever they’re doing (washing a dish, perhaps) to talk to the cops. They stand around talking amongst themselves, acting concerned, often until the police actually leave. They want the chance to speak their piece, to feel important.

 

And it’s not just talking to the cops. On the whole, people LOVE helping out. There’s no better example than Cash Cab. It’s a TV game show in a taxi cab, and one of the “lifelines” the contestants can use is the “Street Shoutout.”

 

They pull the cab over and literally ask the first person they see if they know the answer to the difficult trivia question. In New York City no less! The people on the street eat it up; they love helping out the complete stranger. Even if they have no idea about the answer, they’re still extremely eager to help.

 

Businesspeople aren’t any different. We love helping out others too. You meet someone new at a mixer, swap business cards, and get to talking. Pretty soon you mention that you’re having trouble with your widget production, and your new friend says

 

“O Wow! We had that same problem last year! Let me get the number for the widget consultant we used, she’s awesome!”

 

The added credibility that your new friend brings to the transaction will help you immensely with your problem. And she feels happy for setting up a deal between the two of you.

 

My point is that given the opportunity to help out someone else or give information, most people jump at the chance. It makes them feel good.

 

The trick?

 

Gathering enough information, talking to enough people, and connecting enough dots to figure out what everyone around you needs. If you make enough people feel good (through good business or referrals), they’ll feel good about mentioning your widget when they meet new contacts.

 

Photo thanks to dawnhops.

The Creative Meeting

 

All too often the people sitting around the table come up with awful solutions because they can’t separate themselves from their own perspective.

 

Say a friend has asked you to be a sponsor at his chicken barbecue. You say yes because you’re friends with him. You then call a meeting with your creative team to see how to get the most out of the event, nevermind that you’re a B2B business and most of the attendees at the barbecue will be consumers (and retired).

 

At the meeting you brainstorm ways to make the event a success: handing out cute pens, tote bags, T-shirts. Having a raffle for free USB drives, $25 gift certificates, free massages, etc. When each idea comes up, your people look on the bright side (”People would love_____!” “That’s perfect!”)

 

When they say “people” they really mean “I.” I like that, so other people will too. Because it appeals to me and I make the decisions, by default it’ll be a huge hit.

 

The Creative Fallacy

 

Here’s why this approach never works: everyone loves their own ideas. And they love the ideas of people they respect even more. Is Grandpa really going to use a USB drive? Or a furry pen? More than that, why is a B2B operation sponsoring a chicken barbecue anyway?

 

Instead of making decisions then finding ways to make them succeed, decide on the right channels up front so even if you have a subpar follow-through it won’t be a disaster.

 

Effective and Ineffective Creative Marketing

 

The best way to do avoid event catastrophe is to have an out-of-body experience. You and your team need to

 

• Remove yourselves mentally from the planning process
• Divorce yourselves from your ideas
• Think like the person you’re trying to reach.

 

Remember a time when you were marketed to inefficiently. It happens to me nearly everyday: I’ll be watching TV with my friends and after a particularly awful commercial that doesn’t relate to me I can’t help but say, “That was terrible.”

 

Now think of a time when exactly the right thing came along at exactly the right time. For me, that’s usually late-night fast-food commercials. It’s 11pm, I ate dinner an eternity ago, and that Crunchwrap Supreme just looks soooo cheesy and tempting. So I drive to Taco Bell and pick one up.

 

Succeeding Creatively

 

You have to recognize your audience and what they respond to. Once you understand that, you can pick and choose where you want your marketing to be. Don’t decide on the channel then try and make it work (like the chicken barbecue). Put being where your customers are the first priority.

 

Because if you do it right, they’ll appreciate hearing from you.