Should Brand Strategy be Actual or Aspirational?

During our Distiliy 1day1brand events, participants ask: “When we are developing our brand strategy today, should we be thinking of the brand we are now? Or the brand we aspire to be?” For instance, one client has a multimillion dollar capitol project that won’t be completed for three years. Should that be factored into the [Read more...]

How to use your Brand Strategy in your Brand Advertising

The Distility Brand Strategy Model Diagram Don’t begin creating your brand advertising until you are clear on your brand strategy. Your brand strategy — brand promise, brand position, brand personality — is your strategy for being known in the mind of your customer. When it comes time to create brand advertising campaigns, it is important [Read more...]

How Often Should a Company Rebrand?

A company should strive to rebrand as infrequently as possible. By doing a rock-solid job on brand strategy and brand systems, your brand should be vibrant for at least ten years or more. After that time, your strategy may be the same but your systems (logo, tagline, colours, fonts, imagery) may require a refresh. Even [Read more...]

When is it Time to Rebrand?

Is a corporate rebrand in your future? If you are reading this, then your brand, or the brand of someone you know, is on your mind. You may be thinking: “Our brand looks dated, at a time when we need to look current.” If this is you, you need to consider a product or corporate [Read more...]

Tim Hortons Branding: Sizing Up the Customer Experience

Canadians love coffee. Coffee is the #1 beverage for adults in Canada. The average Canadian drinks almost 50% more coffee than their U.S. neighbours. Most Canadians also love Tim Hortons. It is arguably Canada’s most beloved brand. Tim Hortons has built its brand on a well executed brand strategy. Tim Hortons promises freshness. Their personality [Read more...]

Best of Brand Marketing Distilled – 1/17/12 – Viral Videos

Best of Brand Marketing Distilled is our reoccurring series of posts featuring distillations of the best of brand marketing and business intelligence. We hope the ideas and articles are fuel for your organization’s planning and success. This week’s edition looks at two marketing videos that poke fun at the brand’s target audience – and went [Read more...]

Make Your Branding Resolutions Stick

The new year is a great time for goal setting. There are a number of schools of thought on goal setting and how to track and measure your progress. Whatever your goal setting and tracking paradigm, if increasing brand awareness or building your brand is one of your goals, then we offer the following tips [Read more...]

Steve Jobs’ Buddhist Branding Secret

The real secret to Steve Jobs’ branding success stems from his time spent studying Buddhism in India. It was there that he learned the importance Buddhism places on intuition. Here is what Jobs told his biographer Walter Isaacson: The people in the Indian countryside don’t use their intellect like we do, they use their intuition [Read more...]

Best of Brand Marketing Distilled – 12/21/11 – Advertising with Personality

Best of Brand Marketing Distilled is our reoccurring series of posts featuring distillations of the best of brand marketing and business intelligence. We hope the ideas and articles are fuel for your organization’s planning and success. This week’s edition provides a distillation of a video advertising series that delivers its messages using a consistent brand [Read more...]

Has Price Competition Become Your Brand Strategy?

Last year at this time we wrote a blog post titled “When Promotions Kill Your Brand Strategy” outlining our concerns that, while brand promotions may drive traffic to a retailer, retailers need to be careful that their promotions aren’t out of sync with their customers’ need and enduring qualities of their brand. This year retailers [Read more...]