Archive for ‘Business’
This is the final in our series on business branding. Thank you for your patience waiting for this post - its been a long time coming. (The 'ol shoemakers kids and their shoes story!)
As a business builds and manages its brand, setting a budget is paramount. This would avoid unnecessary expenses and helps to prioritize branding spending. The brand should encompass most areas of a business, from stationery all...
More →The brand and the customer
Knowing what the customer wants and how to deliver this is a big key to the branding process. A business needs to know what drives their customers, and what makes them buy. And it's not always about price or performance.
Researching what the customer wants
Quite simply, a business should know what existing customers like about doing business with them, and what potential customers are...
More →This article is the fourth in our series on business branding.
Once a business has established what its brand identity will be, it needs to decide how to get the message across. This is most commonly done through advertising, events and staff training, but the following techniques are also worth considering:
Storytelling - telling the business' story through corporate identity, marketing materials, packaging, stationery etc. Credibility - the business' brand claims... More →The question of proprietary versus open source for a website CMS platform sometimes comes up when planning a new site, so we thought we'd look at this briefly.
Besides open-source providing a client with the freedom and peace of mind to move to other designers/developers should they choose, and the fact that it is far less costly (read free) perhaps of greater significance is the fact that an open-source platform...
More →Each December, Pantone selects a “colour of the year.” Since the Pantone Matching System is used across all creative industries as a colour standard, this annual selection has come to be quite influential for many designers and is chosen with careful consideration to the marketplace and overall present consumer culture.
The colour for 2012? Tangerine Tango!
Pantone says this vibrant colour “provide(s) the energy boost we need to recharge and...
More →There are four main ingredients that make up a successful branding project:
The idea
The "idea" is the starting point for any branding project. It is a summary of a business' or product's 'personality', its character - what makes the business or product different. Looking carefully at the business and the marketplace it operates in, one should ask the following questions:
What does the business offer? What makes the business different? How... More →We occasionally have clients who are not clear on the issue of licensing, particularly when it comes to photographic image usage, and many times we've referred to an article written by San Francisco-based photographer Frédéric Neema for help in explaining the point.
We figure that part of this article as a blog post might help further in clarifying what can often be a very misunderstood issue. In fact an...
More →Does your business need branding?
Branding done right can elevate a product or business into something unique, standing it apart from just another among many. In competitive markets, recognition from competitors is particularly important.
There are many methods one can use to ensure a product stands out. These can run the full gamut from as simple as using a distinctive colour in your design or presentation which your competitors are not using,...
More →We're regular reader's of Seth Godin. His books and his blog. Who best to describe Seth but the man himself: ". . . bestselling author, entrepreneur and agent of change." Ever heard of the book "Purple Cow"?
A recent post of Seth's was titled "Six questions for analyzing a website" and we thought we might share with you. Well, most of it. If you'd like to finish reading, you'll need...
More →Branding, branding, branding. You hear it all the time! Everywhere you look, someone is offering branding services. Your web designer, your graphic artist, the corner quickie-print shop. Are you branded if your business has a decent logo? Is branding the same as marketing? Are you done if your business card looks sharp?
Business branding is a passion of ours. At WhatBox we pride ourselves in our ability to help our...
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