September 29th, 2009
Regardless of the economy, not every transaction is right for you. Money is important but sometimes it’s more important to stand your ground and say no.
Your brand is your most important resource. Underselling it sends the wrong message to everyone out there. Remember, people are always looking.
Recently speaking with me at IOWAtasmic, Derek Johnson (CEO of Tatango) spoke about running a landscaping company that ran into this predicament. He ultimately didn’t say no and learned a valuable lesson from it. By cutting his price to do a partial job as a favor for a friend selling a house he misrepresented himself to the public’s perception. People driving by, the neighbors, the new owners, and even his friend’s partner all saw the job done and assumed that was the best work.
Learning the valuable lesson of when to say no has it’s benefits. Your brand image is all you have in the eyes of the public. If all they ever do is view you from afar all they will ever perceive is what they see. Make sure your best foot is always forward when representing yourself and your brand.
Tags: advice, benefit, brand, brand image, branding, business, communicating, communications, consumer, core values, economy, interaction, interactions, iowatasmic, job, knowledge, life, marketing, money, perception, predicament, productivity, selling
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September 16th, 2009
While most of you were obsessing over the Kanye West meme taking the internet by storm, Twitter quietly rolled out an update to their brand image. They killed off the Spam Owl and replaced him with their happy-go-lucky mascot Twitter bird. This comes right on the heels of an update to their TOS many of you have already received by now.
This most recent change is just an extension of their homepage image revamp that focuses more on search and trending topics now.
Of course this update comes amidst other high profile updates from major players such as Facebook (Facebook Lite, @ mentions, Application Prototypes), Google (Fast Flip, Public Sector, mysterious UFO logo saga) and Bing (image search). With the new TOS including references to advertising and Twitter.com traffic plateauing, could this new brand image update be Twitter solidifying it’s image to monetize soon?
One thing we know for sure with Twitter is that most of what they implement is done without fanfare in stages. Just as the TOS has been implemented over the course of the last week, the default avatar isn’t changing all at once. In fact, it’s changing over time into many different flavors: purple, dark blue, baby blue, lime green, dark green, orange, dark red so far.
Even with the staggered rollout, established users with their own custom avatars are already having issues:
We’ve already seen the Fail Whale go the way of the dodo in place of a generic 503-error page. Only time will tell what images will replace the other now iconic characters of Technically Wrong Robot, and Maintenance Caterpillar & Chill Ice Cream Cone. What other image changes and default avatar colors have you spotted?
Tags: 503 error, Bing, bing image search, brand, brand image, branding, business, caterpillar, core values, custom avatars, dark blue, default avatar, design, designers, dodo, Facebook, facebook application prototypes, facebook lite, fail whale, fanfare, flavors, functionality, goals, Google, google fast flip, google public sector, google ufo logo, image changes, image search, interaction, interactions, kanye west, mascot, media, monetize, mysterious ufo, network, profile updates, prototypes, social, social media, spam owl, technology, TOS, twitter, Twitter TOS, ufo logo
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April 17th, 2009
The core of an apple is a seed which bears the life-giving fruit.
This is essential to the final product.
Your brand’s core is the seed of your business. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Apple, brand, brand image, brand metaphor, branding, business, core values, green apple, poison apple, productivity, rotten to the core, snow white, Value, visual identity
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