Stefan's Branding Blog

How Not to Name

Mr. Shore at Landor pens a brilliant article on how not to name brands, I feel like translating it into Romanian and giving it away freely to passers by in the street. Fortunately I have some IP grooming, so I know better. But the article still rocks, and it's written with plenty of gusto.

It basically gives six great tips: a) brand naming takes serious time; b) there is no stereotypical formula for success; c) intrinsic meaning is recommended; d) not anyone is a suitable source of name proposals--in fact, very few folks are; e) brand naming is not a democratic, consensual process--only give a say to those who really matter to the business; f) test carefully--focus groups may not be what you really want.

Go read it. Oh, and I got it via Landor's small yet formidable rivals on Post St.

Mission Statement Building

Just ran across a nice lesson on building a mission statement. Brilliantly taught by one of the most influential thinkers of our time (heh, heh), it shows how important it is to sniff the bull and keep it out of your brand.

Starting from this original statement (mission was for a subsidiary):

To provide [mother company] with profitable growth and related new business areas.

participating folks were led to produce this jewel:

To scout profitable growth opportunities in relationships, both internally and externally, in emerging, mission inclusive markets, and explore new paradigms and then filter and communicate and evangelize the findings.

Sounds oddly familiar? Then you got a serious problem on your hands.

Disclosure: I like many of Scott Adams's works, including Dilbert. So I may be subjective on this matter.

Read Management

As I like to say, "if you wanna learn branding, read management". Treat yourselves with a little (free) reading from MIT SMR, a prestigious (and deservedly so) source of business wisdom.

Internal Branding: Tactics

More precisely, recruitment tactics (yes, I equal HR and internal branding). Found some nice ones on an aptly named blog, since I'm in a small recruiting frenzy myself. You may want to read and compare them with your current employer's procedures. Let me know what you get.