Does “It’s all about you!” really work?
You’re on a blind date. You: “So, where do you want to go?” Date: “Wherever you want to go.” You: “Maybe dinner? What kind of food do you want?” Date: “I want to eat whatever kind of food you like.” …
Crowdsourcing your brand design: the math just doesn’t work out
As much as our work at Forty is about “touchy-feely” stuff (psychology, emotion, metaphor, experiences, etc.), I’m still a numbers guy at heart. That’s why I get so frustrated every time I hear someone recommending crowdsourced design services like 99designs. …
Why are logos getting simpler?
When designing a logo, it’s easy to go overboard. There are so many great elements you can work with (colors, textures, patterns, shapes, borders, typography, gradients, icons, etc.) that it’s tempting to include a little bit of everything to get …
Why do successful companies keep investing in ongoing marketing?
Seasoned Fortune 500 companies have a deep understanding and appreciation for marketing. Coca-Cola may already one of the most recognized brands in the world, but they nevertheless spend billions of dollars every year on their marketing efforts. (And you can …
Dealing with your customers’ Friend-or-Foe response
Let’s skip all the high-concept marketing talk, and get back to basics for a few minutes here. Branding and marketing isn’t about fluff, or trickery, or opinions, or manipulation, or creativity, or preferences, or fanciness. It’s not a layer of …
Inside the Inc. 5000: what it takes to be a high-growth company
Every year, Inc. magazine ranks the 5,000 fastest-growing companies (privately held) in the United States. They just recently released their 2011 list, providing a fresh set of data on the movers and shakers across all industries. We’ve compiled and analyzed …
Marketing ideas: make friends with other companies
You have to admit, you come across some amazing companies each and every day. Taking the time to mention them in a blog post or on Twitter, or even writing an entire article about their company not only makes them …
Marketing ideas: get a mascot or spokesperson
It’s easy to create an icon or character associated with your company, typically found in or near your logo. So why not go a step further and bring this character life by creating a mascot for your company as well? …
How to keep your SEO juice while overhauling your website
The biggest mistake people make with website redesigns is thinking that it’s just a website redesign. They see the new site, everything seems to work, and they call it done. Meanwhile, their SEO juice is leaking all over the floor. …
The 3 essential elements of a rock-solid brand
Over the years, we’ve found that there are three foundational elements to almost any brand: purpose, values, and style. BRAND PURPOSE Research cited in Built to Last (by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras) indicates that purpose-driven companies can outperform the general market …
Tribal marketing: sacred things
Every brand tribe has sacred things that help its members relate to the abstract concepts of the archetypes and the doctrine. They can be symbolic representations, memory triggers, evocative themes, or components of the brand tribe’s mythology. ICONS Icons are …
Special K and Wheaties: lessons in positioning
Cereal is great. You throw some milk on it, and you’ve got a tasty and relatively nutritious breakfast. Theoretically, cereals–at least the basic, unadorned ones–should be relatively universal. There’s not much about them that predisposes them to any particular demographic …
Is your company’s power structure killing your marketing efforts?
Geert Hofstede’s research into national cultures from the 1960s onward has identified five primary dimensions of culture: Individualism, Masculinity, Uncertainty Avoidance, Long-Term Orientation, and Power Distance. This research has proven useful in a variety of contexts, from setting national policy …
Brand naming is the extreme sports of marketing
A brand name is the first one on the scene in a marketing situation. You typically know the name before you know much else. You see it in when you’re scanning search engine results, or hear it when getting a …
Marketing ideas: say something nobody else will
Every industry has norms about the content in sales materials, and it’s often the case that companies imitate each other instead of thinking about what customers really want to know. If you’re a service firm, for example, try posting your …
Every document is a positioning document
Want to strengthen your position in the market and reinforce your internal brand alignment? One helpful step is to stop thinking about your company’s operational documents as, well, merely documents. Every document your company produces is an opportunity to emphasize …
Tribal marketing: brand rituals
In tribal marketing, “rituals” are physical actions or processes that evoke, represent, or recreate aspects of the tribe’s beliefs and values. These rituals can be small, simple actions, such as breaking a Kit-Kat candy in half, twisting apart an Oreo …
The subtle secret of modern marketing: humans crave humanity
One of the most common themes in popular science fiction is the feeling of technology and/or corporations squeezing the humanity out of the human race. It’s easy to find examples of dehumanized futures in film: The Matrix, Equilibrium, Brazil, A Clockwork …
