Branding used to be a fancy business word, but it is becoming more and more used in everyday business meetings. Finally! For decades, big corporations have used in-house, very well paid brand managers - someone in charge of managing everything that relates to the brand, including design, package and partnerships. You've heard enthusiastic talks about branding, but you are still not sure if you should get a brand management plan going for your business.
Do you need one? Any company with the intention and potential to become or to remain a top competitor in its field needs to develop a sound branding strategy. And that's where the brand agency comes in. If you have a small or medium size business, you may not be able to pay a high salary for a full-time brand manager. If that is your case, you can benefit from working with a brand agency, and gain access to brand management consultants, plus an entire creative team available to work in various projects - from graphic design to web design, Internet marketing, advertising, media planning. Instead of working with multiple vendors that are unaware of your branding needs, you work with one single partner dedicated to create a stronger, more valuable brand.
Can I fire my marketing team? No! Some people think a brand agency would do away with marketing jobs. In fact, your brand agency would not replace your marketing department, but work with your marketing and sales people to provide them the tools they need to market your services more successfully, while advancing your business image.
How much does it cost? Working with a branding agency is surprisingly affordable. Think of this: how much it would cost, per year, to have an in-house creative department, plus a well-paid brand manager? That could easily cost your business $200K and more in payroll, equipment and lease expenses. With an experienced branding agency you only pay a small fraction of the costs of maintaining such a high-level team, but you still have full-time assistance. Besides, a branding agency can save you thousands of dollars a year in printing and production costs, through its suppliers and partners.
To measure how strong your brand is copy and paste: (http://brandidentityguru.com/bightml/brandmasterpiece.html). Then click "Take the brand strength test". This is a short survey that measures the strength of any company's brand. It's a great tool to see where you are today.
Scott White is President of Brand Identity Guru (http://www.brandidentityguru.com), a leading brand consulting and market research firm located in Easton, Massachusetts, USA, near Boston.
Brand Identity Guru specializes in creating corporate and product brands that increase sales, market share, customer loyalty, and brand valuation. Over the course of his 15-year branding career, Scott White has worked in a wide variety of industries: high-tech, manufacturing, computer hardware and software, telecommunications, banking, restaurants, fashion, healthcare, Internet, retail, and service businesses, as well as numerous non-profit organizations.
Brand Identity Guru clients include: Sun Life Financial, Coca Cola, HP, Sun, Nordstrom, American Federal Mortgage, Simon (America's largest shopping mall manager) and many others, including numerous emerging growth companies. Scott White is a very enthusiastic speaker and has the gift of being able to explain the principles of branding in a compelling and entertaining manner so that people at all levels can understand.
AP - A Democratic Congress, unwilling or unable to approve a $25 billion bailout for Detroit's Big Three, appears ready to punt the automakers' fate to a lame-duck Republican president.
AP - Pounded by a fierce financial crisis, the country is sinking deeper into economic despair and is likely to be in the hole well into next year, forcing more Americans into the ranks of the unemployed.
AP - California's highest court agreed Wednesday to hear several legal challenges to the state's new ban on same-sex marriage but refused to allow gay couples to resume marrying before it rules.
AP - President-elect Barack Obama promised the voters change but has started his Cabinet selection process by naming several Washington insiders to top posts.
AP - Animals and plants in danger of becoming extinct could lose the protection of government experts who make sure that dams, highways and other projects don't pose a threat, under regulations the Bush administration is set to put in place before President-elect Obama can reverse them.
AP - A Texas judge has set a Friday arraignment for Vice President Dick Cheney, former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and others named in indictments accusing them of responsibility for prisoner abuse in a federal detention center.
AP - The astronaut who lost her tool bag on a spacewalk admitted Wednesday that she made a mistake by not checking to see if the sack was tied down, and said she's still smarting over the whole thing.
AP - King Herod may have been buried in a crypt with lavish Roman-style wall paintings of a kind previously unseen in the Middle East, Israeli archaeologists said Wednesday. The scientists found such paintings and signs of a regal two-story mausoleum, bolstering their conviction that the ancient Jewish monarch was buried there.
AP - The Dallas Mavericks didn't need Josh Howard as much as the Houston Rockets missed Yao Ming on Wednesday night.
Reuters - A 6 percent fall in Asia pushed world stocks to their lowest in 5- years on Thursday, while oil fell below $53 and safe havens such as the yen gained on fears the global recession and a financial crisis will get uglier.
Reuters - Japan's exports to Asia fell in October for the first time since 2002, showing that the fallout from the credit crisis has spread to neighbors such as China and adding momentum to investors' flight to the safety of cash.
Reuters - Chances dimmed that a last-minute plan being crafted by Republican senators, with White House support, to provide $25 billion to bail out U.S. automakers would receive enough backing from Democrats to pass before the end of this week.
Reuters - The U.S. financial system still needs at least $1 trillion to $1.2 trillion of tangible common equity to restore confidence and improve liquidity in the credit markets, Friedman Billings Ramsey analyst Paul Miller said.
Reuters - U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's top choice to lead the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, CNN reported on Wednesday, citing multiple sources.
Reuters - California's Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear a legal challenge against the state's voter-approved ban on gay marriage and let the ban stand in the meantime.
AFP - Asian stocks tumbled Thursday as global economic gloom deepened following a plunge in Japanese exports and a warning from the Federal Reserve that the United States could be in recession next year.
AFP - Russia announced Thursday it would send more warships to combat piracy in the waters around Somalia, as the Saudi owners of the Sirius Star negotiated with the pirates holding their oil tanker.
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