Consistency in Branding and Marketing materials is quite coming to see in most big corporations (well, also in the small ones I might add here), as they might be managed by different sources, and are not always being revised on a regular basis.

“Doh! That’s my brand” you might think here, but don’t worry, there are several ways to get around this issue. One of the more effective ways is conducting a Brand Audit. The idea about doing periodic audits might seem overwhelming in todays hectic business environment, but it’s necessary, and important, to create consistency, and send aligned messages to your target clients. This ensures that you help them keep you ‘top-of-mind’, as you’re easy to recall, and this is obviously a great benefit for your brand.

By Brand Audit I refer to doing a systematic screening of the current state of your brand, or brands if working with portfolios, and review several brand elements. Let’s look at some of them:

Name, logo and other brand elements: These are important factors as inconsistency might ruin your brand equity, and create confusion among consumers. Imagine a brand that has had its logo and tagline updated during the years. Sometimes several elements might have been mixed up, to form a mixed identity. If this falls into the hands of Production, the employees there might not see the difference and create different presentations. This can be bad if not taken care of fast, and a Brand Audit can help identify flaws and differences. What’s important is to identify all types of brand elements and presentation to see where we’re not being consistent. After this is done an action plan can be created to correct this.

Use of sounds and music: Again these are important factors that are sometimes overseen (or simply not managed for optimal brand equity exposure), as people don’t see the importance. Take Microsoft as an example. Over the years the company has used sounds to identify certain actions within its graphic interface (eg. on startup, error messages etc.), but these sounds have changed from one version to another. On the other end of the spectrum we have Nokia, who has been pushing the famous Nokia Tuna (ring tone) to the world through cellphones. A truly amazing job has been done to ensure consistency and it’s no surprise that Nokia is ranked among some of the worlds most valuable brands.

Other important factors to explore are the sources of brand equity (what elements create value for my brand) and Customer Knowledge. Both of these tell us a lot about what we’re doing good, and what needs to be improved. Make sure that what you believe is consistent with what your clients tell you, and close the gap when you see any major differences.

In short; Let’s not be so inconsistent, ok? Start running regular Brand Audits and you’ll avoid these equity killing gaps.

Recently I did a short presentation to a small group of entrepreneurs in Guatemala. Every each one of them had their own businesses and faced the normal challenges. These include logistics, finance, strategy, and even some times they would have to clean the toilet. Oh that wonderful life as an entrepreneur - very hands on - with every little goal being the result of your own actions.

I met the group to talk branding. Why we brand. Why people pay more for brands. And of course, why they should start to think branding into their startups. Sometime it’s hard to keep the eye on the ball when you are juggling several of them, but I wanted to show these hardworking individuals more about the importance of brand management for entrepreneurs.

Brand architecture, management and measuring are key activities as brands help companies. “Brands help companies - I thought companies where brands?” someone could have asked me. Well, that could be the case. A company can be the brand. Take Virgin. Take Coca-Cola. Take Google. But sometimes companies manage brands, and some do it very well. These companies know the importance and understand the value they add by having something easily recognizable, something the consumer can identify with.

Let me ask you a question: “have you every wandered around at the supermarket shopping and picked a bottle of Tide detergent, without really knowing why?” Maybe you didn’t pick Tide, but everyday you make choices like this one, choosing between a variety of option - brands offering different types of value to you. Some might connect emotionally. Think about Disney and how everything the company does is clearly focused on magic and happiness. The brand offers you a world of joy, full of happy endings and pleasant experiences. You know Disney, and you certainly wouldn’t forget about Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.

Brands like Disney connect with the consumer, and consumers are willing to pay more for this. Let’s go back to the Tide example. Probably you could have found another product that was just as good, but you still picked Tide. If I asked you, you might not be able to tell me exactly why, but don’t worry. Emotions are not rational, and therefore we don’t always act rational.

So that’s why we brand. We brand to connect. We brand to engage emotions and create a sense of ‘being part of something’. We brand to engage consumers and we use stories to create mystery and emotions. And consumers do pay more for brands. We don’t just do it for fun. Do you think a Louis Vuitton bag is really worth a $1000 in materials? Think not. But that’s not the point because you would still want one. The brand has a history. The brands tells a story. And we like these stories, and we like to be part of them and identify with them.

Now take a second and think about the brands you know, and what you think about them? Positive? Negative? Why? Sometimes you might not be able to identify the answer, but don’t worry about that. It doesn’t have to be all rational. That’s why we brand….

We’ve all tried being late for personal events or meetings. We’ve all had meetings that just seem to take forever, where people eventually start doing other things because the content is simply not organized and planned for concrete actions to be the end product.

Why are we late? And why do we have these meetings if we don’t really get the desired result?

The answer is: we don’t plan ahead and take our time to clear our minds, making the objectives stand out clearly, being ready for the task.

This happens to all of us. Eventually we might start planning the day, but urgent phone calls, emails and last-minute meetings can make the plan evaporate and at the same time make our effectiveness decline. Another point is rushing from one thing to another, for example when having two meetings at the office with different people. 

Bregman Partners CEO, Peter Bregman, commented on this in a recent blog post where he explained:

“If we took a few minutes before the meeting to really think about it, we could drastically shorten it.”

So why do we let this happen all the time? Maybe simply because we don’t realize the effect it’s having on our productivity. Start thinking about how you normally plan your day. Do you sit down and think about the tasks you have to do before you open your first emails? Do you take a moment to think about the day and your accomplishments, before even starting to work?

If not, you might let yourself slip away with the ‘current’, but if you do so the results will be visible right away. As Bregman notes:

“Even five or 10 minutes of that kind of planning can shave 30 minutes off a task. Think about your outcome. Think about what you really need from people. And then, in a move that will make everyone else in the room overjoyed, let them know you want to make the 60 minute meeting 30 minutes and tell them how you plan to do it.”

So what is there to learn from this?

1. Take time to plan your day.
2. Make time to clear your mind in between tasks.
3. Think about what your objectives are before you start working or start a meeting.

Cloud computing has been around for some time now, and a lot of persons have been using it for years without even knowing about it. Just think about services like Gmail and Hotmail. Both these take your information into the cloud, without you having to store anything on your personal computer. Of course you can sync the services to download to your Outlook/Thunderbird/mail client, but basically the services are hosted and maintained by a company - completely free of charge!

Obviously these services are not in it for some idealistic cause, and do make money on the traffic, but using these services raises a very interesting question. Should we really put all our trust in the cloud and let these companies manage all our email communications and personal information this way?

To get straight to the point; My answer is yes. Looking at it from a cost-benefit standpoint the services offer something you would have to pay for otherwise and are extremely well functioning. Just take Gmail. Google has perfected the service for years and as a user you get literally no spam at all, as their filters catch pretty much everything. For a comparison I receive somewhere between 5-10 spam mails daily in my personal email, so for a comparison this is pretty good.

The problem comes when the services stop working. We are starting to depend more and more on the cloud, mostly without even thinking about it or ‘planning’ to do so. On the personal level services include the above mentioned, but on a corporate level we are also seeing many companies use different tools such as Salesforce, Basecamp, Highrise, Google Aps etc. All these serve various functions, but equal for all is that they are hosted in the cloud, and companies don’t necessarily have all the information backed up locally (even though this is highly recommended, even in a digital world!). Merging data into the cloud takes a lot of trust and confidence that these services will remain intact for a long period of time. Nothing makes us think that we should worry about having Gmail around in a year, but we should consider the point.

Just think about the outages we have seen the past year in Gmail and other services. They have been few, but critical to companies using Google Aps to run their corporate email accounts. At the same time these services are completely free of charge, and we can’t really complain if we are not paying for it. That makes tools like these the ideal options for private users as well as start-ups, working on shoestring budgets.

So what’s important to remember?

1. Cloud computing and online services are extremely good value for money (especially when they’re free!), and as the companies use these to generate traffic and revenue, they’re well maintained and uptime is close to a 100%.
2. Services offer loads of functions designed to make your life easier (take Gmail as an example with functions that help you sort your email, and a great spam filter that helps you spend your time on other things)
3. DO remember to do backup of your stuff, and don’t leave your entire life floating in the cloud. As for emails this is done easily by using an email client on your computer, where you occasionally download your email and store it. This is important as we never know if the cloud services will be discontinued, and for most free services, the companies have no obligation whatsoever.

I love the cloud and I use it all the time, every single day. It’s just important to keep in mind that we are putting a lot of information out to third parties, and remember to keep our personal backups if something should occur!

Today the much awaited Windows 7 was officially launched and fanatics, critics and normal users have been waiting to see what this new system have to offer. As by far the largest percentage of the computers on this planet runs some sort of Windows, it is obvious that a large number of users have been curious to see the improvements.

Windows 7 is without any doubt built taking in to account all the problems that users experienced with Windows Vista. This operation system (OS) was set out to revolutionize the way we used computers, at the same time offering an amazing visual experience. Problem was that the OS required extreme computer power just to run fairly.

Leaving aside the actual features of the new Windows (which you can read about here), what’s really interesting about Windows 7 is the way the system was created. Microsoft have been known for keeping their R&D kept in secret until launching their products, and not always listening to partners and consumers. Having an almost monopolic status on the market for many years made this possible, but competitors are gaining market share, and I’m sure Microsoft figured that is was time to collaborate. This came out as a new development form where the company involved major PC producers to include their comments and suggestions.

According to CNET, Microsoft held regular meetings with big players in the PC industry and this way received valuable feedback and the possibility to streamline their product with new technologies in the pipeline. By working together the product have been designed to meet the customer’s current needs, and also take in to account future features. Hopefully what we’ll see this time is a product that works well, works with the applications most users require and have a simple and fast loading interface that allows fast data transactions.

Without saying that this was 100% open collaboration it was definitely a step in the right direction. Knowing what the PC producers can supply, and mixing that with Microsoft’s knowledge, and regular PC users’ needs, the products should be amazing. This is a lesson to be learned, and can be applied in many industries. Listen to the customer, work with your suppliers, and you’ll achieve things you never even imagined possible.

I’m looking forward to try it myself eventually.