MAD MARKETING TACTICS™ !: Branding

Showing posts with label Branding. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Worst Product Name... Ever!

Share this ARTICLE with your colleagues on LinkedIn .

Why on Earth would anyone choose (assuming no torture by a sadist from one of the former Eastern Bloc nations [i.e., Turdistan], or the promise of a hunting trip with Dick Cheney) to name a product or service Monitis? It sounds like a disease. It rhymes with Colitis, Bursitis, Arthritis and a whole host of __itises.

As the author (having destroyed all of the opposition) of The Mad Marketing Tactics Blog, I have to go on the record as saying that that name will most definitely hurt the sales of the product. Names are critically important in marketing and branding -- especially if they are either favorably or unfavorably associated with other product names or words in common usage. If you name a product (with due credit to Piriform) something like CCleaner, it sounds wholesome, useful and efficient. It is a clever hybrid of C drive and Cleaner. It actually describes what it does.

But then there's Monitis.

Here's what WebProNews had to say in a brief advertisement of Monitis (you can try it for free!), which sounded to me, and perhaps to other people, like getting a chance to audition herpes -- or worse. It even has a "moan" in it. Yet, the way the product is described, perhaps it is something great that just happens to have a horrible name; sort of like Smuckers jam. But then, they had an excuse, because it was a family name. And they even promoted a mildly self-deprecating campaign -- "With a name like Smuckers, it has to be good." It helped to boost sales, and once people tried it, they continued to be loyal customers. Let's see how Monitis fares:

======================================================================

This is a WebProNews Sponsor Update
======================================================================

Simplify your Life with cloud-based monitoring

> Improve uptime - check availability and response time of your
websites and applications.
> In just 3 mins - set up your all-in-one dashboard.
> Stay on top of issues - get instant failure alerts.
> Simplify your life - view your entire web and cloud systems
from anywhere, at any time.

Based in the Cloud, we eliminate the need for you to update or
maintain any monitoring software or hardware - ever.

Fantastic Features:

> 24/7 website uptime & performance
> Full page load
> Real time web server monitoring
> Cloud monitoring
> Mobile Applications

Try Monitis FREE Today!
http://aj.600z.com/aj/138656/0/cc?z=1&b=138651&c=138653

---------------

Please remember that I do not endorse the product. Nor do I seek to defame it. It might be good, it might be bad. But none of that matters. The only thing that matters to a marketing and branding professional is that the name stinks. Period.

Thank you as always for reading me, and for sharing my articles with your colleagues, cohorts, comrades, co-conspirators and connections through your ever-increasing use of the various social media platforms. And when I say thank you, I mean it sincerely.

Douglas E. Castle for The Mad Marketing Tactics Blog and for CFI Business Growth

I'm actually a very friendly, approachable, engaging fellow. I don't have Monitis, either.

Labels, Tags, Keywords, Categories And Search Terms For This Article:

marketing, names, branding, sales, web products, C-drive cleaners, cloud computing, Monitis, hepatitis, crowdfunding, CFI, business, growth, humor, memes, impressions, LinkedIn, Douglas E. Castle, WebProNews, CCleaner, naming things, associations...

Sponsored By:
CFI - CrowdFunding Incubator LLC
ICS - International Connection Services
Global Edge Technologies Group LLC
CFI Business Growth
Douglas E. Castle On LinkedIn - Join Me!

#MadMarketing

***

Monday, May 6, 2013

Emotions Rule Our Audience - Branding And Imprinting

Share this ARTICLE with your colleagues on LinkedIn .

Emotions rule us. We make emotional decisions, and then we justify them after the fact with intellectualized rationalizations. Sometimes our emotions are the key to a deeper, more sensitive and fast-working consciousness [our instincts are hard-wired into our genetic code, and our intuition is not merely a "sense" -- it is an evaluation, made through all of our senses, both acknowledged and theorized -- which is so rapid that we do not consciously know that we are thinking or processing.

But in any case, especially when it comes to "deepening" branding by message imprinting, your objective is to create a profound, powerful almost religious or spiritual resonance or feeling of identification within the prospect, or potential consumer. It might be compassion (in the case of a charity), it might be lust and fantasy (perfumes, colognes, beverages...), it might be anger, or it might be envy. An elaborate branding imprinting statement is usually a lengthy meme -- profound words and a picture that draw forth a visceral, basic emotional response from every viewer. Our product or company name must remain small, while the meme carries the day.

Imprinting, in the sense that it is used here is not exactly the way that Konrad Lorenz would have defined it in psychological study of how newborns think that the first creature they see is mama -- it is more aligned with the term "anchoring, as this term is used in hypnosis, neuro-linguistic programming and in subliminal messaging

Imprinting helps to anchor emotional associations with a brand, whether that brand is established or whether it is just beginning to get into the public's eye. And this deepening of the brand through a deep emotional resonance is very, very important.

In my pedestrian terms, if I don't get a lump in my throat, and feel tears beginning to well up in my eyes, I will walk away from what you are selling (if it is not an immediate necessity) and find a competitor's brand with better, deeper, richer imprinting.

As always, thank you for reading me, and for sharing my articles with your connections, comrades and colleagues through your social media

#MadMarketing

***

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Know Your Brand And Why It Works; Then Stick With It!

Share this ARTICLE with your colleagues on LinkedIn .

Know your brand and why it works (assuming that it does). Then stay on target with that brand and use it as an established formula and consistent platform for all that you choose to market going forward. Your brand is your identity - put simply, when you change your brand, you lose your established identity and have to start building credibility, consistency and a reputation for quality with a new one. You may lose a tremendous intangible but income-producing asset in the re-branding process. This is not merely a superficial change -- it is a change which can make you virtually unrecognizable to your loyal audience, subscribers and customers.

The Mad Marketing Tactics Blog is part of a brand -- there is a style; there is a substance; there is an ugly red button; there is a subject matter focus; there is a sardonic presentation; there is a guy sitting in the pilot seat.

A case-in-point discusses how Oprah Winfrey started losing her audience, influence and traction when she all-too-radically changed her brand to the OWN Network. This article brief appears courtesy of SmartBrief and The SmartBrief Blog:

Where Oprah went wrong with her brand
Oprah Winfrey's brand has slumped since the media mogul ditched her network TV show to launch the OWN cable channel, Henna Inam writes. Things have started to pick up, though, since Winfrey went back to basics, using the channel to host book clubs and celebrity interviews. "Bottom line: Know your brand. Your authenticity is what creates connection -- and authenticity and connection never go out of style -- even if the world around us changes," Inam writes. SmartBrief/SmartBlog on Leadership (1/22)

---------------
The stronger your brand, the more you stand to lose by altering it. Be cognizant: Your brand is the thread that ties your client base to you.

Take Away List: What YOUR BRAND Consists Of:

1) Your name.
2) What you do, and how you do it differently from others.
3) Your Logotype, trademarks and other intellectual property.
4) Your catchphrase or slogan.
5) Your theme song (jingle) if you have one.
6) Those things (tangible and intangible) associated with your name.
7) The toughie: What Your Audience, Admirers, Followers Or Clients Have Come To Expect Of You -- that undefinable "magic" that makes them comfortable with you and all that you do, represent and endorse.

Be careful to build on a brand -- your brand -- without changing its time-honored, valuable stabilizing and comforting elements.

Thank you, as always for reading me, sharing my articles on your social media, and for making me feel useful.

Douglas E. Castle for The Mad Marketing Tactics Blog, The Business And Project Planning And Management Blog and for all of the blogs (losing track of em!) associated with
CFI - CrowdFunding Incubator LLC

#MadMarketing