Learn the core concepts of brand strategy — the way to win space in the customer’s mind

It is our pleasure to announce that our new eLearning course, Distility Brand Strategy Fundamentals, has officially launched. This is another big milestone for the Distility team. With Distility Brand Strategy Fundamentals, it is our goal to help brand marketers and designers add even more value to their work. Our course offers a highly efficient method for understanding the core concepts of brand strategy — the way to win space in the customer’s mind.

Why Try Distility Brand Strategy Fundamentals eLearning?

Hosted by Distility CEO and brand strategy expert Axle Davids, Distility Brand Strategy Fundamentals gets you equipped with:

• The most practical way to understand the ground-level building blocks of brand strategy

• Back-pocket tools to learn how promise, position and personality work to enforce winning design and brand marketing

• An increased appreciation for quality brands, and a widened vocabulary on what makes brands strategically sharp

Register for Distility eLearning Today

For a full description of the Distility Brand Strategy Fundamentals eLearning course, please click here.

The post was published on Distility® blog at Distility Brand Strategy Fundamentals eLearning Available Now.

Every year, countless brands roll out elaborate ‘brand awareness’ pranks on April 1st, launching fake products or campaigns that are so hilariously off-point that consumers can’t seem to get enough. For us, there is nothing better on April Fools’ Day than a brand prank delivered well. So, without further ado, we give you our shortlist of this year’s most ridiculous April Fools’ Day brand hoaxes.

Scope Bacon Mouthwash

Yes. You read it right. Last week, oral hygiene giant Scope released a faux web commercial and mini-site for a new bacon flavoured mouthwash — Scope Bacon. The hoax spawned a huge amount of overwhelmingly positive social media interaction, with YouTube comments like “seriously? that exists?” and “Scope. There is a thin line between a joke, and a cruel lie. WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?”

Google Nose

Google really made a splash this year with a whole slew of hoax campaigns. But there was one clear winner. Piggybacking on the buzz garnered by Google Glass, Google decided to unveil its newest technology — Google Nose — to the masses, headed by the world-expanding rallying cry “Smelling is believing”.

Snickers Snickettes

In the realm of junk food, Snickers introduced their latest nugget of brand marketing gold — Snickettes. Leveraging various social media, this gem sparked a whole lot of user interaction on Facebook, and paved the way for a corporate announcement that a real new product is on the way. Could be quite a choco-haul for fans of the brand.

Twttr

Twitter hit the web this week with a stone-faced ruse, introducing a new two-tiered model in which users can opt to pay a monthly fee to use Twitter, or else continue using their newly levelled-down free product, Twttr, which restricts non-paying users to consonants only. If you ask us, this one was just wndrfl.

HootSuite HootFoil

Staying within the Twitterverse, HootSuite made Canadian brand-prankers proud with its introduction of a new, high-tech security product, impenetrable by even the most nefarious hackers and revolutionary in its simplicity…

To get the latest updates on Distility branding technologies, follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

The post was published on Distility® blog at April Fools Brand Hoaxes: Our Fave Five of 2013.

Image taken from the March 2013 issue of PROFIT Magazine

This week, PROFIT Magazine — one Canada’s leading business magazines — published a great article on the importance of pricing strategy for small businesses. Written by John Lorinc, the article illustrates why it’s so important for companies to be able to articulate the value of what they’re selling. It’s our pleasure to say that a case study on Distility is featured in this piece.

3 Pricing Strategy Tips Found in PROFIT Magazine

• Clearly articulating to customers the differences between your products and those of your competitors will help you price according to the true value of your products, and not according to your competitors’ pricing
• When using a value-pricing strategy, companies in the service, technology and B2B arenas need to be sure to ask themselves what their customers will save going with them, what the costs of delivering will be, and what customers are able to pay before setting their prices
• Smaller firms can often benefit from bundling products with service contracts

Why Branding Benefits From Concrete Pricing

Pricing branding with fixed numbers can be extremely important. The reason for this is that people often need a great deal of transparency when purchasing a service that requires consulting. In the case of branding, it’s crucial for customers to know exactly what they are getting for what they pay. To our delight, Distility has been featured in PROFIT for our ability to use a fixed-price model to help customers know the ins-and-outs of what they’re buying. Read the full article, or check out the Distility case study here.

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The post was published on Distility® blog at Pricing Branding: Distility Featured in PROFIT Magazine.

Copywriting is your brand’s way of speaking to your customer. Think of your organization’s copy as a verbal version of a logo or colour palette. Just like these visual elements, the text you use in your touchpoints needs to have a consistent feel, underpinned by a clear strategy. It doesn’t make sense to print all of your key collateral with different logos, or in completely different colours, if you’re trying to focus consumer attention on one consistent brand image. For the same reason, your copy needs to consistently embody your brand strategy across all of your touchpoints.

This post outlines some ways you can keep an eye out for brand copywriting pitfalls, so that your copy can be a voice heard loud and clear, and not just words on a page.

Common Brand Copywriting Pitfalls

• Copy has no discernible tone of voice
• Copy is purely about features with nothing emotional that hooks into the audience’s need
• Copy is laid out in a way that is visually dense
• Copy uses needlessly complex language
• Copy lacks key messaging

Good copy verbalizes your ability to resolve your audience’s need in a way they can’t get anywhere else. Think about the following things before launching into a copywriting project, or while evaluating your current brand copywriting:

Does Your Brand Copywriting Adhere to a Clear Brand Strategy?

Your copywriting should be the best friend of your logo, colour palette and graphic design. And just like these visual devices, your text should communicate your brand promise and position in the style of your brand personality. Without a clear brand promise or position, your copy may lack strategic talking points. And without an authentic and compelling brand personality, your copy could be perceived as lacking a voice — its tone might even conflict with what your design elements are communicating.

Do You Know What Messaging You’re Leading With?

Is your copy driven by your brand promise, or your position against the competition? What is the most important thing to lead with given your audience need? Your verbal messaging will risk being passed over if you are not telling a story that hits close to home with your audience.

Do You Have a Basic Editorial Style Guide?

It’s critical to define — even in basic terms — how your brand copywriting will consistently embody your brand personality. Think about it: is your personality regal and sophisticated, kitschy and ironic, ingenious and savvy? Depending on what it is, you will have to define how your brand copywriting will use things like headings, italics, lists, and bullets so there is a consistent format to the text. As well, consider if your brand needs separate style guides for different contexts; will your white papers have the same style-musts as blog posts, or brochures? If not, why?

Does Your Brand Copywriting Work if Scaled to Different Media?

If you had to describe your company in a one-sentence tweet, could you do it as well as you could in 200 words? Your copy should always feel like the same person is speaking it, with key messaging that can be summed up in one sentence, or unpacked with quantifiable “reasons to believe” for more text-heavy touchpoints.

Remember: Your Copy Should Always Be On-Brand

Compelling brand copywriting is a crucial component of any organization’s brand marketing. It lets you speak directly to your customer’s need, in their language, through marketing collateral or digital media. If your copy isn’t underpinned by a clear, audience-centric strategy, it runs the risk of being passed over, and this leaves the door wide open for the competition to speak more directly to your customer’s need.

To learn more about brand copywriting, follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

The post was published on Distility® blog at Brand Copywriting: What is Your Brand’s Voice?.

Reality in Motion rebrands as BlackBerry — image via gizmodo.com

Waterloo-based tech firm Research in Motion has made a big leap this week, announcing a full corporate rebranding that will leave them as — very simply — BlackBerry. We applaud them for this decision to undergo a BlackBerry rebranding initiative, because it opens the gates to build a single, relevant brand image.

Why BlackBerry Rebranding is the Best Approach

The former RIM has committed to a masterbrand brand architecture in hopes of revitalizing its brand through BlackBerry rebranding. This means that, rather than having two distinct brand images — RIM and BlackBerry — competing for space in the customer’s mind, the once-ubiquitous smartphone giant can now work to focus consumer attention on the instantly recognizable BlackBerry brand.

A Masterbrand Can Win Space in the Customer’s Mind

We at Distility often recommend that our clients use a masterbrand brand architecture for many reasons. But mainly, we tend to suggest it because it enables the target customer to easily fix their attention on one high-level corporate brand, without forcing them to split attention on two or more brand images. This approach is ideal when looking to create brand awareness. And at this point, BlackBerry needs to make people sharply aware of its new message.

To learn more about brand architecture and rebranding, follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

The post was published on Distility® blog at BlackBerry Rebranding is Right for RIM.