John Deere apparel. CAT® footwear. Armor All™ vacuums. All highly recognized brand names, but who knew they made these types of products? Well, actually, they don’t. They are products of manufacturers who believe in the potential of brand licensing. With the right pairing of license and product offering, manufacturers can bypass entrance barriers in a crowded marketplace through higher brand recognition, stronger customer preference and a perceived quality differential. But, there are considerations when choosing such a strategy…

We have written about the importance of customer insight and unified marketing. For B2B and technology-oriented companies, it isn’t always easy to think beyond the product features. But here is one example of a marketer who is launching a new initiative to build the customer perspective into its global marketing organization.

Up until the end of the last century, most corporate identity guidelines were written like instruction manuals for minding the brand. Never do this; always do that. Use this grid and these colors (nothing else)...

How do companies go about creating a corporate social responsibility program? Here are a few simple steps.

The Public Relations Society of America recently unveiled their list of 12 trends that will change the PR industry in 2012. Noted on this list is the convergence of brand management and reputation management functions within organizations.

Your company has invested a great deal in the development of a strong brand identity system including a logo, color palette and fonts that capture the tone of your brand's voice. Using limited, "platform-friendly" fonts can weaken your brand personality and standards. Start using your corporate fonts online today!

I recently came across a print ad in an industry publication that caught my attention. The ad was for Kleenex® brand tissues. It stated that Kleenex is a branded term that is often misused as a generic term for "tissues." The main image of the ad was a registered mark ® partially erased by an eraser. The last line of copy, "Just pretend it's in permanent marker."

A recent article in Ad Age presents the social media dilemma expressed by many large, global B2B companies: not knowing what to Tweet about.

Big ideas are like sea turtles. About 1 in 100 make it out of the nest alive but only 1 in 40,000 survive to adulthood. That’s because truly original ideas sound strange at first. They are usually squashed as soon as they hatch. So, the success of a big idea depends on selling it from day one.

If the objective is to appeal to the audience, then why do so many B2B companies approach communications like a bad first date--only talking about themselves? There is a better way.

A recent survey of CEOs found a vast percentage were frustrated with their company’s marketers and felt they failed to provide useful information about the role marketing plays in achieving business success.

On its own, the Apple logo is really not that clever. The symbol is pretty obvious: an apple shape for a company named “Apple.” So why is the Apple logo one of the most recognizable in the world? Because a logo derives its meaning from the quality of the thing it symbolizes, not the other way around.

Successful brand communication should be able to evoke the same understanding across all cultures.  While this challenge may seem obvious, the realities of making this happen are far from simple.

In the wake of Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote presentation at the Facebook developer conference, f8, last week, there are a few new words you will need to add to your FB lexicon – real-time serendipity, open graph and timeline. In this article, we'll take a look at what each of these changes is and what it means for your business.

Building a solid, lasting perception of your company depends on how well you align short-term marketing initiatives with larger brand objectives and common-sense brand stewardship. As you battle to defend and grow your brand, keep these five basic tips in mind...

As of September 7, 2011, your company’s trademarks could become associated with an .xxx domain and website. There is opt-out period, but you must act quickly.

Thought leadership is a phrase that is thrown around a lot in strategy meetings and planning sessions, the idea being that you can build brand loyalty and active audience participation by sharing fresh insight that provides direction or even solutions to common challenges many of your customers face.

One of the staples of cause marketing is that in addition to doing good, the proposed cause marketing campaign should benefit the business. But I’d like to raise the bar.

"If you could say it in words, there'd be no reason to paint." Speaking to the value of artistic expression, American realist painter Edward Hopper would have most certainly extended his candor to the field of illustration.

Ten years ago if you wanted to find out more about a company or learn about its products or services, you would pick up the telephone and dial a number. After a few rings a customer service representative would pick up the phone and say, “Hi, thank you for calling [insert company name, typically followed by their slogan or catch-phrase], how may I help you today?”

If “B2B Branding” was a company, it would have a branding problem. Too many business-to-business marketers and senior managements think branding means logos, taglines, business cards and letterhead. It’s a lot more than that today.

As a marketing professional, I have learned over time that business is, unfortunately, not as simple and straight-forward as I may have perceived it to be when I was seven. Market dynamics, fierce competition and material pricing have a way of taking a fairly simple concept—selling product A to customer B—and adding just a few layers of complexity.

Looking for a clever or interesting way to communicate your brand message? Consider taking some risks. Experiment with crazy solutions. Even if your ideas don’t make it all the way to the audience, there is value in asking the questions. But when the they do work out, it’s the icing on the cake.

We are in the business of communication. So what happens when we don’t clearly communicate?

“Work smarter, not harder.” For brand managers caught between the time constraints and budgetary challenges of the present economic climate, this is sound advice. Another smart piece of advice is to revisit your marketing asset management (MAM) strategy.

Facebook may be catching on in B2B, but face-to-face still gets the lion’s share of funding and contributes more to the bottom line. While the news is dominated by the social media explosion, B2B marketers continue to find ROI in the “social” atmosphere provided by trade shows and conferences.

Three months after we helped one of our clients survive the upheaval of being acquired, I picked up The Wave by Susan Casey. In the book she explores the phenomenon of rogue waves. Still largely unexplained, there are at least two known causes:

This week, the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show provides a front-row seat to see how Foursquare is being used during a trade show promotion.

An integrated brand strategy is like a flock of geese. When flying in V-formation they cut through the wind, reduce drag and make more progress than when flying alone. It sounds simple but it requires hard choices.

In the 1994 movie, Babylon 5, one of the main characters, Ambassador Londo Mollari, makes the statement, "Only an idiot would fight a war on two fronts." (Blogger's note: I have never actually seen the movie.) This same notion - fighting a battle on multiple fronts - has also be attributed to the fall of the Germans in WW2, to the failure of the U.S. government of eliminating insurgents in rural Afghanistan, and - for the purposes of this post - to the ruination of many a reputation in the business community. If I may...

While this new "follow company" function can be a great prospecting, and job seeking tool, for some companies that like to keep a tight rein on corporate communications, this could be somewhat worrisome.

It's easy to find resources to help when you need to come up with a creative idea. But what about those times when you have the perfect idea but aren't sure what to do next?

True or False: Anyone can set up a social media account using your brand name. 

The answer is TRUE! We had our quarterly “Hot Topic” lunch discussion at Godfrey today. The discussion was focused on managing your online brand identity in this social media era.