Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Free Thoughts While In Class


You do not sell the product itself, but the overall use for it. I sell a brand identity, I sell customer recognition, better marketing, and ultimately yourself to your customers. I am a means to an end: You do not see just a computer anymore, you see the brand (IBM, MAC). Apple has become more than a brand name, it’s a household word, started by a combination of Steve Jobs creating a device to fill a business need, and Paul Rand spinning it to become an icon. Few people realize that they want adhesive medical strips, or that they need facial tissues these days, because brand recognition has trained us to want a Band-Aid and a Kleenex, and that is my ultimate goal: to take my client’s concept or original idea about who they are or what their business is, and help them develop their identity to the point that it becomes synonymous with the service or product that they provide. In a world of less and less “disposable time”, my desire is to help my clients’ consumers recognize the visual brand of their product over their competitors.

Thanks for reading!

1 comment:

  1. One note on your mission there... While companies love to have their brand so universally recognized as Band-Aid or Kleenex, they LOATHE the notion that their brand may become synonymous with the product. That's because, once people start calling e product itself by the brand name, the brand becomes genericized, and the company loses its trademark rights. Think about aspirin.. It was originally a Beyer trademark, but now you can get Beyer brand aspirin, Life brand aspirin, etc. this is why Band-Aid commercials got awkward and changed their jingle to "I am stuck on Band-Aid Brand 'cause Band-Aid's stuck on me."

    My point: brand recognition is good, but becoming synonymous with the product creates a lot of headaches.

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