Guest post by Susan Daniels

When most people think of blogging, they don’t conjure up images of brand blogging. However, even Coca-cola has a blog to further empower its brand. Brand blogging helps your business out in two ways: it gives your customers a sense of community and it allows you to gain greater online visibility.

But starting a brand blog doesn’t simply mean writing an article every couple of days or so. To make your brand’s blog successful you need to incorporate the following into your every day posting: Continue reading

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Photo by Adam Crowe

Guest post by Jade Evans

It’s all about the brand. When you buy the premium product, the sleek design – say of the King of branding – Apple, you’re buying the projection of the brand and all the marketing that goes along with it. It’s like when you buy Nike shoes or those designer jeans – built into the price is their perception of you after you have ownership of that new, shiny, designer whatever.

What do you associate with Target? Most could come up with an answer on a dime. Who do you think of when you think of Patagonia? Pepsi?

These associations – I can tell you – they are not the byproduct of the environment of the company, or at least not solely. Companies work hard and put millions, hundreds of millions of dollars into creating that emotional and subtle immediate response when customers think of a brand. Emotional buying means impulse purchases. (Which is something that any heartbroken girl can tell you when all of those new shoes arrive at their door). Continue reading

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A few days ago, I was walking with my mom on the streets of my home town, Ploiesti. Out of nowhere, it poped in front of my eyes: QUICK! The name of a very particular shop that used to make all my money disappear since I was in 8th grade. They soled notebooks, pens, pencils, anything someone with a passion for writing would definitely be into. They retailed foreign brands that I was addicted to: Schneider, Parker, Staedtler, Rotring with their very suscessful Tikky pencils. I used to save everything I got from my parents and grandparents, along with the money I got from school for being such a good student, and spend it all to enlarge my pen, pencil, marker and notebook collection.

When I rediscovered it, I couldn’t help smiling and being extremely happy it was still in the market. They had changed locations a few times and I thought they had closed down years before. I did not love Quick just beacause of what they sold. I loved the shop’s smell, how the items were displayed, the fact that most of the staff was nice and probably the fact that I had to work hard for every little treasure I got from there.  Continue reading

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Guest post by Carol Wilson

One of the most important aspects of your company is its image in the public eye. Branding has become an integral part of marketing and public relations. Today, companies create brands through their social media and internet presence. Developing a brand that is both memorable and unique could become the key to your success as a small business or company. Any successful brand has a notable image associated with it. This image must be clear and simple, but also engaging and remarkable. Building a brand and image is a difficult process to master, particularly in a society completely driven by branding. Oftentimes, a brand will outgrow its image. In this case, an unsuccessful, misleading, or outdated brand image with bog down a company’s marketing strategy. While branding is all about consistency, the time may come that you’ll need to reinvent your brand image. Follow these three tips to creating a new and exciting image for your company or product that is fitting, current, and potentially profitable. Your image is your greatest asset. Use it right. Continue reading

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Photo credit: carolsg on Fotolia.com

Guest post by Mihaela Lica Butler

With the June ICANN announcement that the gTLDs spectrum  will be enriched with .brands, it became obvious that the Internet, as we know it, will soon change, and the war for relevant online real estate is afoot.  Verisign predicted 1,500+ New gTLD applications for the first window , between 12 January 2012 – 12 April 2012; but ICANN will only select 500 of them all – who will be the lucky few?

Considering the  it costs $185,000 to apply for a new gTLD extension and an additional $25,000 per year to keep it active, it’s easy to assume that the lucky few will also be the powerful few, namely, those companies that understand the branding value of such domain extensions, and in the end, the PR value. PR because a branded domain is a more reliable source for the customer, and also because brand value is a part of an integrated PR strategy, after all.

Many believe that ICANN’s near $200,000 price is too high, but the long term picture seems more than rewarding. A branded domain is a stronger domain, possibly ranking higher in search, particularly in Google – as the search engine giant is already giving priority placement to relevant brands. For instance, Hilton already ranks at the top for their own brand, and for Hilton hotel deals. But there are also other travel sites selling Hilton hotel deals – and for the traveler who wants to book a room with Hilton, the latest may not be as reliable. Only the original Hilton site offers the “trust” factor, but sometimes, finding these deals on the site is not the easiest thing to do. If Hilton would structure its offerings to something highly relevant, the users, and the company, can only benefit. A .brand gTLD could be used for this purpose, and the new URL could be www.deals.hilton. Continue reading

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