Small Business Today Magazine OCT 2014 THE EFFORT COMPANIES | Page 34
EDITORIALFEATURE
Branding
Rebranded
By Aimee Woodall
I
n my office, we put a lot of effort into words.
Words are precision; they are the difference in
being retweeted once or several hundreds of
times. Words cause a guest to RSVP yes or a
journalist to hit “reply” when we email them.
It should come as no surprise, then, that our
office had a roiling debate over how to describe
ourselves.Yes, in the fashion of the mechanic with
a clunker or the famed shoeless cobbler, we were
looking to abandon the outdated tag proclaiming
us “a marketing and publicity rebellion.” For, while
this one thing is true, we’ve grown up a little since
then and we’ve expanded our vocabulary, so to
speak.
Finally, we settled on “A Strategic Branding
Agency”. That prompted an idea for a piece on
how the word “branding” is inaccurately and inexplicably used to describe the strictly visual portion of a brand and how we should do something
about it. As a result, this is that article:
In its more traditional, designer-y sense, “branding” is a combination of permanent visuals that accompany a business or organization — the logo,
the type treatments, the color choices, treatment
of photography, graphics, and any combination
thereof. In reality, however, branding is any feature
of a business or organization that makes it different from all the others.
Think about Target, or TOMS, or Warby Parker. They didn’t stop with a color palette. Heck,
these brands haven’t stopped for a second. They
travel; they support; and they have friends, fans,
and followers.
But you don’t have to be worldwide to have
a great and effective brand. If you support children’s charities in a monthly fundraiser at your
restaurant, that’s part of your brand. If you distinguish your cleaning service from other cleaning
services by only hiring staff who sing opera while
they vacuum, that’s branding. If your tweets come
32 SMALL BUSINESS TODAY MAGAZINE [ OCTOBER 2014 ]
In its more traditional,
designer-y sense, “branding”
is a combination of
permanent visuals that
accompany a business
or organization
— the logo, the type
treatments, the color
choices, treatment of
photography, graphics,
and any combination thereof.
In reality, however, branding
is any feature of
a business or organization
that makes it different
from all the others.
from the point of view of a delightfully sassy jelly
donut named Marisol, that’s hilarious. And that’s
branding!
The new “branding” isn’t a logo or even a
graphic design. The new branding is strategy. The
new branding is the owning of your company’s
presence online and offline. It’s a force of personality that shows up everywhere your audience
is. It’s being memorable. It’s relating inward and
reaching outward. It’s inclusive and aware and all
about doing good things.
And if it isn’t, you need to find someone fast to
fix that for you!
Aimee Woodall is the owner of the Black Sheep Agency, a Houston-based “Strategic Branding Agency” specializing in non-traditional public relations, social media, and experiential marketing.
Contact Amy by phone at 832-971-7725, by email at aimee@
theblacksheepagency.com, or visit the website at www.theblacksheepagency.com.