Posted on December 11, 2007 by Steve Woodruff

When you’re a solo entrepreneur or a small-business marketer, you can’t afford to blanket the airwaves with advertising, casting a huge net with the hopes of landing some fish.
Your outreach to potential customers has to be count. It has to be focused, well-targeted, and efficient.
Therefore, when determining your target audience, you should ask yourself a [...]

Posted on November 22, 2007 by Steve Woodruff

While killing time in a Chicago-area mall last week, I saw a large floor display for Discover Card (Discover Financial is based in Chicago, I believe) with a new branding approach. The solid orange letter “O” in the Discover logo was now lit up, and the one word tagline being featured was the word Brighter.
Not [...]

Posted on November 06, 2007 by Steve Woodruff

Today, I was driving behind a car that had a bumper sticker advertising some company (name will be withheld pending notification of next of kin). This company had a tagline of parallel statements that stated…well, precisely nothing.
Built on Product. Powered by People.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t go through life thinking about [...]

Posted on September 20, 2007 by Steve Woodruff

I flew into Chicago recently, which is a hub for United Airlines. There were loads and loads of United planes there, of every size and shape…the ideal place for a unified, “united” brand image.
But that wasn’t the case. Because the planes also were of every branding scheme.
Once upon a time, when you saw United airplanes, [...]

Posted on August 29, 2007 by Steve Woodruff

In the most recent edition of Inc. magazine, which arrived in my mailbox this week, I noticed a review of new video projectors (the on-line article is here). Now I like technology and gadgets, but I simply do not understand what thought process – if any – goes into the naming of many of these [...]

Posted on August 14, 2007 by Steve Woodruff

One of the first bridges to be crossed when launching or building a brand is advertising. How much time and money and effort do I spend “reaching” my target audience with advertising? What is the “ad value” – what’s the ROI?
Advertising certainly has its place in building brand awareness. But perhaps, first and foremost, you [...]