And so I was grateful for this comic from Chris at 9GAG.com for so simply illustrating the difference.

I think of branding as the message, while marketing/pr/advertising are the means of communicating it. Crafting that message using consistent language, graphics, photography, colors and experiences is what I do best.  Communicating that message via social media, editorial placement, ad placements, etc is what marketers do best. Without a consistent brand, what are you marketing?

What I like about this comic is the idea that your brand precedes you. It speaks for you. It warms up your audience. It draws out your customer from the rest of the crowd. It starts living in a customer’s mind before they’ve called you, before they’ve tried your product or service.

As long as you’ve built a brand that is authentic, you’ll have no problem meeting the expectations of those who are calling for more information, which in turn reinforces your brand.

In the context of this comic, if you’re branding yourself as a great lover, the only way to meet that expectation is to be one.

One way I like to think of branding is as a relationship between your business and your customers. So if we take on this model of a relationship, then a brand is about more than a logo. More than a “cool” business card. More than the bells and whistles of a website. A brand done well elicits an emotion… hopefully a positive emotion like loyalty, love, happiness.

It’s easy to see this with a well-established brand like Coca Cola, for example. Over the years, Coke has gotten us to feel warm and fuzzy using cute polar bears, great music, whimsical bubbles, etc. Every commercial, print ad, billboard, bottle and can is somehow about good times, being social and just plain fun. This commercial from 1971, is congruent with the Coca Cola we know today.

Great, so how do you do accomplish this when you’re starting your brand from scratch? Well, the same way you accomplish trust when you meet some one new. The same way you go from a passing glance to falling in love, moving in together, getting married, and staying in love. It happens in every little communication, and interaction. It happens with every choice you make. It happens when you, a business owner, meet some one for the first time. When you hand her your business card. When he visits your website. When she sees your ad in the program for her kids’ high school play.

Certainly your logo and website play a role in your branding, and they do not equal your branding. Branding is about consistency across everything to do with your business. Your graphics, your marketing materials, your language, your customers’ buying experience. If you’re a solo-prenuer, you are a part of your brand too. The way you dress and speak count.

The goal is for all these pieces, and the space between them, to have a consistent message that ellicits positive emotions in the people who you like to work with. That is what a brand is for.

It’s such a nice font
How ’bout we use Papyrus?
Actually, it’s not.

From a typography standpoint, it’s gimmick-y, poorly kerned, and the letterforms are un-impressive.  From a branding standpoint, Papyrus is so overused that it appears in print and online in everything from restaurant menus and homemade tri-fold brochures to travel websites and yoga dvds.

I think that maybe when it first came out, it may have been intended to have a middle-eastern/Egyptian feel to it. But since it’s been a standard font on every Mac and Windows computer since the mid-1980′s, it’s become the go-to typeface for someone who is trying to be creative. And I don’t mean to be harsh – recently Papyrus was used in the movie title and subtitles in Avatar – so I’m poking at professional designers and bootstrapping entrepreneurs equally. If you’d like to see more, check out Papyrus Watch.

And while Papyrus is probably the most recognizably over-used, abused and misused typeface, it’s not alone. Another one to avoid like the plague is Comic Sans. Originally intended for things like cartoon speech bubbles, it’s also now used in everything from medical services to “wet paint” signs. My point with all this is to steer anyone who makes any type decisions ever, away from those default fonts on your computer to the vast array of type available on the internet… much of it for free. Dafont is an excellent source of free fonts. Also try Urban Fonts and Acid Fonts.  Always check the fine print if you’re using it commercially.

Images from www.papyruswatch.com and the Flickr Comic Sans Pool

When I think about UPS’s rebranding, it occurs to me as brilliant.  I remember it being shiny and new, and loving how they embraced the whole “What can brown do for you?” thing. It came at a time when they were expanding their services from consumer package delivery to a vast range of global transportation solutions for businesses and regular people alike.  More on why I think their re-branding was brilliant later… that was idea A. Now, onto what I learned when I Google-d for the old logo…

The reviews and blog posts that came out in 2003, when UPS launched the new brand, were harshly critical. There was an uproar about some one daring to tinker with the genius that was the original logo by Paul Rand. Many designers LOVE Paul Rand, love his work and see him as one of the most brilliant logo designers of his time. And I totally agree.  At the time, his UPS branding was indeed brilliant. It spoke of what they did, which was delivering packages, usually tied up with string. And the fact that the branding lasted over 4 decades, during which UPS grew by leaps and bounds, proves that it was stellar. Hence, the criticism about how they went generic with their branding and that it lost all the iconic charm of the original.

Now, here’s the kicker… The web chatter I found that came out after 2008 feels the way I did; that it’s brilliant! The chatter-ers say that the new brand is updated, modern and representative of their wider capabilities. It took 5 years for a lot of people to settle in and get comfortable with the change. And this, finally, is the point of this blog post. Re-branding is often a painful process. For the business owner, it requires letting go of what’s “worked,” what’s become comfortable. And, there might even be a backlash on from the outside world.

So, how do you know if your rebranding is indeed, awful, or if it’s simply ahead of it’s time? Well, first, make sure you know WHY you’re re-branding. Ask yourself these questions:

1- Does your logo stand well with the current trend?

2- Does your logo still show the company’s trait or extended services?

3- Does your logo really stand-out in when put among other competitors’ logo?

4- Does your logo make a good impression when used in electronic mediums?

If the answers are all YES, then by all means, keep your current look. If there are some No’s in there, it might be time to revisit your look. And then, if you do re-brand, ask these questions of your new brand. If the answers are yes, then stand firm and wait for the world to catch up to your vision!

Almost everyone understands the effects of branding done well. We’ve all bought something without really knowing why, or have become loyal to a company for some reason or another. A brand done well almost goes unnoticed, because it just plain works and makes sense. It quietly becomes a household name, a part of your life you might take for granted.

I grew up with brands like Kraft, K-Mart, Schwinn, Atari, and Buick. They were characters in my childhood, as much as my dog or my friend down the street. I interacted with them daily, I depended on them to meet my expectations.

Those have been replaced with Whole Foods, The Gap, Honda, Apple Computer… still, I interact with them daily and depend on them to meet my expectations. The hows and whys of these relationships is what this blog is designed to explore. While I create and build brands for small business, I constantly study how other brands are created and built; what works, what doesn’t, and what blows us away.