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Monday, November 10, 2008
Connect the Branding Dots
The look and feel of your logo and website can put lots of money in your pocket, but the way the dots connect may surprise
you.
Start with the idea that your potential customers don't really know you. They don't know if you're well-established
or fly-by-night. They don't know if you're honest or if you treat your customers well. They don't know if you're a solid professional.
People pick up clues from the way your logo, brochure and website look. It's human nature. Think about going to the office or to a party: You can tell at a glance if a new arrival is someone you'll want to get to know by his or her dress and body language. In an instant, you've formed your first impression.
This human habit evolved to let your human ancestors stay alive long enough to bear children. If you could tell predator from prey at a glance, you were more likely to eat and not be eaten. Today, this well-honed at-a-glance sense is used less for physical survival than for making purchase decisions.
Visual branding is about harnessing this at-a-glance sense to boost your business success. Its about using your businesss dress and body language to attract more customers. Think of an amateurish, overly complicated website for a used car lot as opposed to a clean-looking one that still gets the message across. What does each website tell you about the business? At a glance, you know where would you rather shop and which business you're more likely to trust.
Trust means your future customers believe you're likely to be honest and competent, and will deliver a good experience. Sometimes trust comes from friends telling friends they had a great experience. But most of your future customers wont have word-of-mouth to rely on. They have to decide on their own whom to trust. Thats the mission of your logo, website or brochure, to create your business dress and body language--your visual branding.
Now take it a step further. Gaining your potential customers' trust and belief can also be called credibility. The more credibility you build, the more likely they will buy from you. The word credibility comes from credo, Latin for "I believe." Not coincidentally, the word "credit" also comes from credo. You can obtain lots of credit when lenders believe in you and your ability to repay. Thats not all. The money in your wallet is backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. If it wasn't for this belief, greenbacks wouldn't be worth the high-tech paper they're printed on. So our entire economy--and your business in particular--are built on a foundation of credibility. That's how important visual branding is, and your expression of it in your logo, website and brochures.
Here are a few basics to help your business look credible:
- Go
for simplicity and lack of clutter. (Think Apple, the master of simplicity in branding.)
- Create or demand a
clean, well-balanced graphic design.
- Use one or two basic colors that go well together, not a hodgepodge.
- Choose one font and stick with it. You can express almost anything by using variations within a single font family:
size, weight (boldness), italics, etc. If you really must, choose a second font for major headlines. But first try it with
one font.
- Coordinate a single look--design, colors, etc.--across everything you do, including your logo, website, brochures, ads and signage.
Give your business the dress and body language that will tip off your future customers so they can believe in you. Harness their highly evolved, at-a-glance sense to build instant credibility. Credibility equals credit, and that can put lots of money in your wallet.
John Williams is founder ofLogoYes.com, the worlds first and largest DIY logo website. In his 25 years in advertising, he has created brand standards for Fortune 100 companies like Mitsubishi and won numerous international awards for his design work.
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It's time to let you in on a dirty little secret: You may not own the stock you own. That's right, if you invest with a brokerage firm, the shares you bought are almost certainly not held in your name. Technically, they're held in the name of the Wall Street firm you do business with, hence the term "street name."
No, you haven't been robbed. Ultimately, the decision to hold shares on the books under a different name doesn't affect the economic ramifications for you. You¿re listed as the "beneficial owner," even though the firm is the official owner of the shares. But, you are giving up some rights, and investors concerned about good corporate governance might want to get that stock back in their own names.
Here's the problem: If your stock is technically owned by, say, Merrill Lynch, then Merrill Lynch gets to do things with it that might work against your wishes. Take short selling. Investors who want to sell shares short need to first borrow those shares. The lenders are often the big Wall Street firms that are handing out Street-name shares. So, if you feel that a company you own is a victim of aggressive short selling, chances are your own shares are being used to fuel the shorting.
Also, your brokerage firm can cast ballots on some corporate matters affecting a company without getting your input. Technically, this can only happen in votes considered ¿routine¿ by securities regulators. But, there's a big catch: some big events, like board elections, are considered "routine" under law.
The good news is that you can easily fix the Street name problem: Just request that your brokerage firm makes you the listed owner of the shares. If they refuse, find a new firm.
