How to develop a Creative Theme for better Brand Positioning

by | Jan 20, 2012 | Blog, Promotion, Strategy

To develop an effective creative theme, your brand positioning needs to be different from what is prevalent in your industry segment. One way of doing this is staying away from standard photography stock photos. Not only will this not provide your business with the necessary point of difference but will play into the hands of the category leader, who is most likely already using the “typical” stock shots.

Here are some examples of effectively used creative themes:

A Gambling theme was used for a management consulting member organisation to communicate with both prospective members and encourage membership and potential clients, with the main messages being:

  • don’t gamble with your career / business
  • get the unfair advantage

A Cartoon theme for an accounting practice and a different cartoon theme for a management consulting firm both poking fun at their own practice were used to differentiate these companies from their competition that uses traditional and boring “corporate” photos of “smiling people in the office”

A visual Illusion theme for a marketing consultancy was used to deliver the message that things aren’t always what they seem and that Perception is Reality!

A theme of the world’s most famous Man-Made Landmarks was developed for a translation company to differentiate them and make their offer more memorable than their competitors.

A Car theme was designed for a web marketing company that was at the time an early developer of an easy to use web Content Management System:

  • the brochure looked like a car brochure with all of the “driving analogies” being used to appeal to the mainly middle aged male business audience
  • direct mail campaign using a “test drive” invitation, with keys and one pair of a glove, etc
  • a user manual that resembled closely a car manual
  • a license for clients completing the training course

A Medical theme was developed for an I.T. company. Most I.T. companies can’t get beyond the now “typical” I.T. Health Check. This I.T. company was able to develop a campaignable and timeless theme which was intrinsically linked to its Positioning Statement / slogan which was “taking care of I.T.”

  • Mints in a medicine bottle could be used as promotional items for “pain relief”
  • Different levels of I.T. Support were marketed like health insurance
  • Invoices could be made to look like medical scripts
  • Client files and proposals could be made to look like medical patient histories.
  • Staff could dress up as doctors

Wild West theme was used by a design firm, with all the shoot outs, outlaws, sheriff and wanted posters to create a fun approach to selling this firm’s point of difference.

As you can see the creative theme for your business is only limited by your imagination. From police or detectives, to aliens and UFO’s, from tailoring to sailing, from army to mythology, the critical things to remember are:

  1. Making sure that your creative theme is clearly communicating and reinforcing either your brand name or your positioning statement
  2. That your creative theme is immediately comprehensible and doesn’t take too long for the prospective target audience to “get it”, otherwise you are just confusing them rather than helping them remember you and what makes you special
  3. Your creative theme is different to the themes being used in your industry segment
  4. Your creative theme provides you with a never ending well of ideas.
Brand Positioning to Win Clients

Brand Positioning to Win Clients

by | Jan 9, 2012 | Blog, Promotion, Strategy

Why is it that some of our society’s brightest minds have no idea how to translate their “no holds barred” skills from the courtroom to the public domain of marketing communication in a battle to win more clients?

Maybe they just don’t need the extra business, maybe they don’t know how, or maybe the truth is a combination of arrogance and ignorance steeped in tradition! If you want to know the historical reasons why the legal profession is the way it is when it comes to brand positioning in marketing and advertising, then you’ll see an excellent exposé here:

http://www.law.com/jsp/llf/PubArticleLLF.jsp?id=1181207138051 by the (American) National Law Journal.

Should you give away your IP?

by | Dec 13, 2011 | Blog, Content, Promotion

I say you should. In fact you should make every effort to do so! In general, the better your idea or Intellectual Property (IP), the harder it is to sell it, to get people to believe in it.

Your so called IP is already ‘on Google’ and if you think your IP will somehow protect your business, you’re sadly mistaken. Today anyone can learn how to do anything simply by going onto Google, YouTube, or in any of the social media channels.

But just because your prospects know what to do they will not necessarily know the intricacies of how to do it. As a marketing company, qubePartners has made many marketing resources freely available for all to see and download – http://www.qubepartners.com/marketing-resources. These templates have taken us many years to develop and we believe they are the best free small business marketing and advertising resources available. We were at first hesitant just giving them away. But then we realised that it is not only the questions in these marketing templates that deliver the results but what you do with the answers that makes all the difference. Here is a blog on ‘Marketing Secrets’ that discusses this in detail: http://www.qubepartners.com/blog/beware-of-marketing-secrets-the-problem-with-sme-marketing

Furthermore your customers  may not have the patience or the skill to do so which is where you expertise comes in. By giving away your so-called IP you can exhibit thought leadership and you can provide your future customers with the confidence of knowing that you can help them, which will put your business in their “top of mind” for when the time comes to choose a provider of what ever it is you specialise in!

Here are a few examples of freely available IP and how this has not changed the market dynamics:

  1. Copywriting: It is a skill, there are many small players around the world all vying for SME business. There also just as many Copywriting practitioners teaching these skills in Copywriting courses, selling ebooks, e-learning, webinars etc. And there are many SME business owners using both of these types of services. Of course there are also many many books on the subject, ranging from the simple to complex. Now if you look at the standard of copywriting on most small business websites, you would be forgiven in forming an opinion that all this copywriting expertise and so called IP has not made any difference and the general standard today is just as bad as it was 5 or 10 years ago!
  2. For years most business owners were extremely frustrated about not being able to quickly, easily and freely or cheaply manage their own website. And then technology advanced and gave us CMS – Content Management System. Today 99% of all websites have an easy to use content management system yet probably less than 5% percent of SME website owners actually use the system properly or regularly to get any real benefit from it. Instead they use their website marketing or website design company to change the content for them and make sure the website look professional and is maintained correctly.
  3. Web Video is a reasonably new expertise, gaining great popularity as a marketing tool. Yet the principles of video production and engaging storytelling have not changed from those practiced by the Hollywood studios or advertising agencies. The only change has been in technology. So if you were a Video Production business specialising in video production and video promotion for small businesses would you and should you teach your customers and prospects how to D.I.Y and hence give away your I.P.? Once again I say absolutely!

Why?

  1. If you don’t, somebody else will! Your prospect will find someone who will do this for them or they’ll “learn it themselves for free” – although we all know it is not really free and the opportunity cost of their time is the greatest cost! So you end up losing incremental revenue if you don’t teach them, revenue you would not normally get a sniff at!
  2. By showing your customer how to film their own marketing web video, you will get your customer to understand the complexity of what is involved. And understanding means appreciation!
  3. Even showing a customer how to do it, does not mean that they can or will do this themselves! They probably don’t have your passion and enthusiasm, creativity and skill level to do a professional job then when compared to your standard! After all they are in the business of doing what they do best, which is NOT video script writing and story boarding, shooting, lighting, editing, uploading and promoting on the web, etc

You can now see the list of I.P. being given away or do-it-yourself advice is never ending…there is information on every topic imaginable and it is free! From SEO to Photography, Conveyancing and Plumbing you can get it all at a click of your mouse. Why does a UK Plumbing company have hundreds of Plumbing Video’s online for free? Because it understands that by doing so they will be seen as an expert which will help them win much better and more complex jobs, and they also understand that there will always be a segment of the market who will watch their YouTube video and say “it looks too hard, I’ll just call them!”

The Power of the Brand Positioning Statement

by | Oct 4, 2011 | Blog, Promotion, Strategy

According to a study by research company Millward Brown, slogan or brand positioning statement usage in advertising has been declining over the last 20 years.

The study found that slogans make a difference in advertisements, and generate more interest from the target audience. The Knowledge Point study, found that two-thirds of all ads actually included slogans.

Ads with slogans that part are of a jingle received higher enjoyment while slogans that have been used before also enjoyed better branding, confirming the importance of consistency and repetition.

The study provided the following advice to marketers and their brands:

  • Positioning Statements that are most likely to be remembered are included in a jingle.
  • Positioning Statements should be relevant and meaningful to the brand, its benefits or its history
  • Positioning Statements used to make sense of the whole communication are memorable because they bring about a resolution to the “question” being asked
  • Positioning Statements slogans that use rhyme or alliteration to associate with the brand are more easily remembered
  • Positioning Statements that evoke memorable images or stimulate thinking have more staying power
  • Distinct Positioning Statements, whether they contains an unusual word or are used in an unfamiliar context, were also found to be effective.