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The Seven Deadly Sins of Promotional Marketing
March 17, 2010
The Seven Deadly Sins of Promotional Marketing are the gravest of blunders committed in the name of branding. These sins are rarely forgiven by the marketplace and can lead down the painful path to brand extinction. Fear not! The repentant few can save their promotional marketing by partnering with a sincerely creative promotional marketing company.
Avoid these dangerous vices of the promo world by using the handy mnemonic “MULCHES” based on the first letters of the seven deadly sins: Muttony, Ugliness, Lackluster, Cloneliness, Hastiness, Egocentricity, Shoddiness.
1. Muttony – Sheepishly riding the brandwagon and following a gimmicky trend.
2. Ugliness – Tacky graphics and bad art. Paying for art is a wise investment.
3. Lackluster – Dullness, bland and lacking creative energy.
4. Cloneliness – Copying the image of your competitors. Your branded materials should reflect your differential.
5. Hastiness – Lawlessly shooting from the hip with no marketing plan. Untargeted advertising products that miss your demographic and don’t create an ROI.
6. Egocentric – Buying for you, not for others. Becoming one with your brand means losing yourself and moving from egocentric to promocentric.
7. Shoddiness – Buying cheap and tawdry trinkets. Go for efficient and effective rather than chintzy and cheap.
Stay away from recycled ideas and short-sighted strategies to make sure nobody MULCHES your brand.
By Glen Ronald
What is a Brand?
October 30, 2009
A brand is defined by Wikipedia as “a name or trademark connected with a product or producer.”
True, but brands are so much more. Brands have been around as long as human civilization and despite a little stumble during the height of the no name products craze, rumours of the death of branding have been greatly exaggerated. Some large companies (i.e. Kodak) place more value on their brand than on all their other assets combined.
Brands matter now more than ever. From Starbucks to Wal-mart, we are bombarded every day by brands that attract or repel us and guide our buying patterns while helping us define ourselves. Remember the old Marlboro Man? Today, consumers of all ages still identify themselves consciously and unconsciously with hundreds of brands.
To get an idea of how steeped we are in branding, tomorrow try to go a day without making any decisions based on brand loyalty but instead, only using logic and lowest price as your deciding factors. I’ll bet you won’t get far before being seduced back into the magic spell of brandland.
Al Ries defines it this way: “What’s a brand? A singular idea or concept that you own inside the mind of the prospect.” The strongest brands are a value statement that is permanently etched in our minds. They stand for something that we will sacrifice for: to be them, live them, own them and represent them.
"Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind."
Walter Landor
By Glen Ronald
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