“The Cobbler’s Kids Have No Shoes”

You may have heard this one before, but this old adage essentially means that because the shoemaker is so busy making shoes for his customers they end up having no time for to make them for their own children. And so it often goes for marketing agencies and their own marketing collateral especially virtual agencies without a large staff.

We’re trying to buck that trend here at Spoke and you’re looking at phase one, a redesigned Spoken Whirred blog. The design of this caused me to reflect on how we got here and the branding process in general.

Defining Brand

Branding derives it’s meaning from ‘branding a mark onto something’ or what you would see cowboys do with a hot branding iron to cattle in older Westerns.¹ This term has evolved into modern marketing parlance to define how a business or product makes a mark on their target audiences mind. Today branding encompasses a wide variety of things including:

• the logo and type treatment.
• the key messaging you use to define your business and the voice you use to communicate to your audience.
• and of course the visual elements – color palettes, graphic design, illustration and photography you use in advertising, website and other marketing collateral.

Since your company’s brand includes all of these elements it evolves over time, usually starting with a logo and messaging and then bigger brand “anchor” pieces like your website, corporate brochures, trade show collateral and advertisements. Each subsequent marketing tactic is adding another layer to your brand, and contributing to what a potential customer will view, hear or read when making a purchasing decision about the business.

The Invisible or Inconsistent Brand

Problems with brands usually creep in as part of normal business operations:

• You do an one-off brochure before a big product launch or tradeshow
• You create your own PowerPoint design based on a template
• You let the magazine or newspaper take your logo and make an ad (with inconsistent fonts and messaging)

The next thing you know, you have a inconsistent brand. These inconsistencies aren’t things potential customers will consciously notice or point out, but taken together your inconsistent use of fonts & colors, the changing corporate tone and voice and having different version of your logo on each thing they see will give them a less favorable opinion of your business and can lead to lost opportunities or business.

Become a Brand Bully

How do you avoid this…? As a business owner you need to define your brand, know that it will change over time and remain vigilant about keeping strict standards about how your business is represented (or shameless plug time – better yet, outsource to an agency like Spoke to do it for you).

What does this have to do with this blog? Well, the design we originally used for this blog no longer fit Spoke’s brand as it evolved, so we decided to redesign it and get it back on track.  This is the first step in a brand refining process that every company needs to go through… Even cobbler’s occasionally need to make shoes for themselves.

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Author’s note: I will be recapping my daily experiences at SXSW interactive conference starting Friday, March 12. Follow me on twitter to get real time updates of SXSW as it occurs.

#SpokeFriday makes it’s way towards Spring. As usual drinks are provided and this month we have a special treat as food is provided by Sponsor West End Grill and Pub.

If you haven’t been to one before – SpokeFriday is our monthly happy hour to gather friends of the agency and to make new ones. As a virtual agency, the majority of our creatives work off-site so we use these happy hours as an opportunity to gather our creative teams, clients, friends of the agency and anyone else who is in St. Louis who would like to attend. Come for networking, drinks, appetizers or just to meet some friendly people in St. Louis.

And same as last month, we will have a business card drawing for two tickets to a St. Louis Blues game. (Congrats to Shem Tov Cohen for winning last month).

• RSVP on Facebook
• Tweet about this using #SpokeFriday tag

AdSaint had a nice profile on what Brian Schwartz, our Partner and Interactive Director does for our agency and our clients:

If you are in the ad or marketing industry you should be checking out AdSaint daily. They have a great deal of content about agency life, current trends and industry news.

#SpokeFriday rolls on in 2010. As usual drinks and snacks are provided and you are encouraged to invite your friends.

If you haven’t been to one before – SpokeFriday is our monthly happy hour to gather friends of the agency and to make new ones.

As a virtual agency, the majority of our creatives work off-site so we use these happy hours as an opportunity to gather our creative teams, clients, friends of the agency and anyone else who is in St. Louis who would like to attend. Come for networking, drinks, appetizers or just to meet some friendly people in St. Louis.

Update: Forgot to mention, we are giving away 2 all-inclusive tickets to a future St. Louis Blues game.

• RSVP on Facebook
• Tweet about this using #SpokeFriday tag

If you like fine print, you’re in luck. In the first major revision to product endorsement guidelines since 1980, the Federal Trade Commission now specifically requires online marketers to disclose any ‘material connection’ they have with a product or service they mention.

You’ve no doubt seen disclaimers in marketing efforts:

• not a real doctor

• past performance does not guarantee future results

• results not typical

Because social media, blogging, and word-of-mouth marketing make it especially difficult for consumers to identify paid endorsements, the new regulation requires that these relationships be made clear to the intended audience. If a company is providing free product or cash to someone to promote their product, the marketer must disclose it.

This is a good thing.

The FTC exists to (among other things) protect consumers and prevent fraudulent, deceptive and unfair business practices. By holding ‘mommy bloggers’ to the same standards as traditional sources of advertising, the FTC hopes to make consumers less susceptible to unsubstantiated or false claims (looks like the acai berry diet’s days are numbered).

In full disclosure: as a writer I love to use purple, extra fine point Sharpie pens. The Sanford corporation does not pay me to say this…but if they’d like to, I’m available (Wait!?! Is that Mont Blanc on the other line…?).