Moretti Beer

Sometimes you need to be transported back in time in order to fully appreciate a brand’s essence. Taking cues from an earlier era, we applied three period design treatments to high-end premiums within Italian restaurants. Each treatment conveyed a unique style reflecting Moretti’s long history of brewing quality and tradition. An inviting and romantic nod to a simpler time. Find out how we can build exposure for your brand…

Murphy’s Beer

St. Patrick’s day is all about celebrating the Irish in each of us. What better time for a brand with traditional Irish roots to gain awareness on and off-premise in America? By creating a campaign that infused Murphy’s heritage and cultural pride with the unique brand attitudes of Murphy’s Stout and Murphy’s Red we helped Murphy’s gain greater exposure and more enthusiastic fans. Find out how we can build exposure and sales around key holidays…

The Dannon Company

Building momentum around a regional new product launch requires capturing shopper attention on-shelf and providing a compelling reason to purchase. In an over crowded cooler environment this can prove challenging. For this task, we developed an attention grabbing, easy to execute, on-pack IRC, designed to complement the brand’s packaging and to encourage trial. Find out how we can help you design POS that is engaging and moves product…

Polymedco Company

Initial strategy sessions identified three distinct groups Polymedco needed to engage – doctors, patients and sales. Keeping this information top of mind early in the development cycle, we were able to design an interface that was contemporary and delivered targeted information to each unique visitor. Find out how we can help design a website that is both engaging and designed with everyones interest in mind…

In order to effectively rebrand it is important to fully understand what your brand stands for. To accurately get a consensus on how your brand is currently viewed you’ll need to employ an objective third party to poll and evaluate all stakeholders.After this discovery stage is complete, you’ll need guidance repositioning your brand and developing your new brand image.

For well established brands it can often be difficult to make changes that stray from the brand’s roots. This is the most difficult stage and will evoke the most passionate feelings of how the brand should be positioned. This is the heart of the rebranding stage where indecisiveness starts to cause progress to derail.

Below are three suggestions to keep the process flowing smoothly.

1. Establish brand objectives after the discovery stage is complete and make sure your new brand communication addresses all of them.
2. Apply timelines to all rebrand stages and stick to them. Missing deadlines is contagious.
3. Work with an agency that can bring an objective perspective and a strong brand development sense. They will help guide the process and ensure the final deliverables meet established objectives.

The process of rebranding may be at times daunting, but the results are well worth the journey. Most notably, a better positioned brand can command a premium in its respective marketplace. That, everyone can agree upon.

Here is a photo taken after the Quake – believed to have been caused by this past harsh winter or the roots from a tree located nearby the office.

We’re all okay here – just a little shaken!

Face it, most of a firm’s marketing communications efforts are focused on external audiences. We craft messages geared to build brand recognition and incite a response, all with the ultimate goal of selling a product or service to the end customer. However, these “outreach” efforts often ignore a critical component of your company’s success, your employees.

When done right, inward-facing communications reinforces the messaging that your company presents to the world. Consider the three C’s of corporate communications: Consistency, Constancy and Clarity. Like your outreach to external stakeholders, internal communications should have a unified appearance and presence that reinforces your internal brand. You should send them on a constant basis to keep employees current with the latest news and developments. Finally, all communications should clearly present the message to avoid the possibility of misinterpretation.

But how does marketing tie into internal communications, aren’t the two disciplines separate? Hardly, according to the American Marketing Association, “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large”. Product, price, place and promotion, known as the four P’s of marketing can give us further insight when applied to our internal “customers”.

• The Product we are promoting consists of the tangible goods and services of the firm plus the procedures and systems we have created to deliver them into the hands of our consumers. Our employees are not only brand ambassadors; they are also the facilitators who bring our products to market so it is vital that they fully invest in the process. Effective internal communications help promote alignment with company strategy and goals and essentially get everyone on the same page.
• In outbound marketing, Price is the amount that the consumer is willing to pay for your product for the benefits received. The call to action for internal communications does not require a financial expenditure; rather it requires a commitment to invest fully in the success of the enterprise. In other words, the price that we set in internal marketing is that employees not only “buy into” the firm’s objectives but that they also make a solid personal commitment to further those efforts.
• The Place where consumers may purchase our products depends on the distribution channels we employ and may include retail, B2B and online sales; the consumer selects the channel that is most convenient to him or her. Likewise, the “place” where employees will choose to engage with internal communications must also be convenient or they may ignore the message.
• Promotion refers to the various communication modes that we use in the both the external and internal marketplaces. Today’s corporate communicators employ numerous traditional and digital communication modes; the trend is away from one-way broadcasting towards greater engagement and dialog. The three C’s described above, consistency, constancy and clarity, must apply across all channels used.

Today, new technologies and management thinking have brought about the convergence of formerly separate communications disciplines. The Three C’s of internal communication, combined with the Four P’s of the traditional marketing mix, provide a powerful framework for an internal communications program.

The National Hockey League, not often recognized for its softer side, is trying to reduce water consumption. Recognizing that the professional hockey league uses an exorbitant amount of water just to resurface the its rinks – not to mention concession stands and bathroom usage – the NHL’s Public Affairs Department recently partnered with the Bonneville Environmental Foundation to help it manage water use.

The Oregon-based Foundation will provide initial water usage audits and sell Water Restoration Credit (WRC) certificates to arenas throughout the league. Similar to carbon credits, Bonneville issues these credits in 1,000-gallon increments, assigns serial numbers then offers them for sale to companies and individuals. If purchasers do not use the full value of their water credits, Bonneville agrees to reimburse the holder for the unused portion.

The NHL aims to reduce water consumption at its facilities by directly purchasing WRC’s from the group. This is a great move both for its public relations value and as a way to conserve this valuable natural resource.

Finally, something that people can digest… I noticed that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has replaced the antiquated food pyramid with a dinner plate illustrating food proportions. There is no scale to this plate but the new graphic is actually legible unlike the former food rainbow pyramid.

Not to get too off topic, but the former food pyramid was graphically illegible and contained “oils” as a food group. I could go on for hours about how the past pyramid has done an educational and informational disservice to the American people, but good riddance.

The new dietary graphic depicts a plate and portions which translate fluently to reality. This graphic will help people draw a more clear and direct correlation between their eating habits and the recommended healthy diet. Granted it is only the first step, and nutrition is more complicated then this simple graphic, but this simple graphic is an appealing icon. I think the strong visual appeal of this graphic will drive more interest to diet and nutrition.

For those unfamiliar with this technology, “QR” stands for “Quick Response” code. In 1994, Denso Wave of Japan created QR codes to track parts during automobile manufacturing. In recent years, use of QR codes has expanded to a variety of applications. These codes can store plain text, a web url, a telephone number, an email address, contact details or a host of other interactive data. Users can access information stored within a QR code using a camera-equipped smartphone loaded with an appropriate bar code scanning app.

Marketers are buzzing about these little data blocks but is all of the hype justified? Statistics provided by Jumpscan show a 1200% increase in QR scanning from July to December 2010 and that 57% of Facebook and Twitter users have scanned a QR code at least once in the past year. At face value, these stats seem impressive but on closer examination, they are inconclusive since we do not know the baseline for calculating growth or how many users scan on a regular basis.

What we do know is that, according to TelecomPaper, around 36% of US mobile customers currently use smartphones. Of this group, a significant percentage may use older phones (like my Palm Pre) that cannot reliably scan these codes. Based on these figures, it is reasonable to assume that less than one-third of mobile users today are able to scan QR codes reliably and, of those who can, few do.

Despite their ubiquity, QR codes are not yet an effective communications channel. A marketer should not be overly reliant on these codes to deliver messaging since most people will not be able to receive it. For example, I recently read an ad for a business event that provided only a QR code for registration and nothing else, no telephone number, no address and no web url. Apparently, users who cannot scan the QR code embedded in the ad are not welcome to attend!

This technology may one day reach its potential but it is not quite there yet. When using QR codes be sure to include alternate means to deliver your message. Otherwise the majority of your audience just wont get it.