Bon Brand

South Riding must be a brand because it is not a place (there are only three Ridings in Yorkshire).
In charades South Riding could and should be a book and an audio CD (Mmmm) available from amazon

Winifred Holtby’s classic novel of 1930′s Yorkshire has Sarah Burton starting as the headmistress of Kiplington High School for Girls. For branding a school I doubt that would pass muster in the 21st Century.

Times and brand names change but the BBC needs series like this to sell abroad to pay for it’s pension fund deficit.

Plants are a bit of an obsession with Crocus the online garden nursery. A seasonal business it may be but the business model seems to be perfect for this type of digital brand.

They do not focus on the Crocus or even Croci but offer a wide range of plants garden tools and gifts.
Crocus have a link to ‘gonegardening.com’ which didn’t work for me so I suggest they stick organic growing not webmastering.

Marks & Spencer has been involved in legal action with Interflora since 2008 for bidding on the keyword “interflora” using Google AdWords.
Now as reported by Blogstorm SEO Blog ‘the Advocate General has issued his Opinion on the matter and found in favour of Interflora.’ Now we only need to see the Court of Justice of European Union show the same good sense.

A combination of increased bids for the brand pushing up advert costs and customer leakage to competitors means that the brand is always the loser and Google is the only real winner.

Read more about Advocate General Rules on Interflora vs M&S in Brand Bidding Case by 

A brand is a brand and a company is a company.

Brands and company names serve different purposes and should not be interchangeable.

Consumers buy brands they do not buy companies. Investors buy companies with assets that can include brands.

Brands often have different destinies to the destinies of the companies that own them. Either can out last or out live the other.

Horlicks is a brand within GlaxoSmithKlien but can stand on its own without parent endorsement. GSK has had many business iterations and gets no particular benefit from it’s link to Horlicks. Horlicks has been owned by four differently name legal entities since 1968 but the product was named and patented in 1873

Corporate endorsements are primarily for the trade although investors may be able to sleep easier at night with Horlicks.

Best of Both Worlds

• Brands should have precedence over company names.
• Ideally the brand and company name should be the same or inextricably linked. This goes to business focus and shows simple clarity. Coca-Cola or Xerox are clear about the product first and the corporate entity is secondary.
• One test to apply is to ask what is the name of the brand and what is the name of the stuff in the packaging. If the answer is not the same you create confusion for the consumers.
• In most battles over brand versus company the brand should be allowed or forced to win.
• Unless the brand wins you can’t have the best of both worlds. Coke will be coke and not Dasani or vitamin water.

Yorkshire has broader acres than just the Dales. That is one of the reasons Yorkshire is referred to as God’s Own County. This logo for the Dales Bus caught my eye and I caught the bus!

Public transport is greener than private vehicles so the colour scheme fits in a National Park environment. The swooshes reflect the hills and valleys of the dales and the shape of the logo reflects old fashioned transport signage. A1 for effort on this logo.

If green credentials are important to your business think how you can build an appropriate environmentally friendly reference into your brand.

For more info on the Dales Bus

Cyburbia: How Crackpots, Inventors and Visionaries Created Our New Life Online: The Dangerous Idea That’s Changing How We Live and Who We Are from James Harkin and amazon

‘The book portrays the hippies, geeks and geniuses and who made the Internet happen. ‘Cyburbia’ is peppered with colourful examples. A bracing, sharp-eyed examination of how technology and the ideas that drive it are reshaping every corner of our culture.’

Read also about James Harkin’s Niche

Business language keeps developing and lots of new words are created or mangled to look clever. In another book I refuse to promote they want you to spend $29.99 to learn how to ‘Build the flex-pon-sive* business’. Well we had one until the wheels fell off.

Brash Disrupter

A men’s network of media properties will be rolled out in the UK after last months US launch. Following the formula of parent Glam Media the intention is to offer ‘vertical integrated media‘ as a mass of web sites in one package.

Each industry has its own language – in their case study for Reebok ‘Viral seeding, Driving Buzz, On-line Chatter and Interactive Scarlett Content’ were all used in a hundred word puff piece. In my language ‘Brash’ is an eruption of fluid from the stomach (OED)

For some products the region or location of origin is crucial.
Where would ‘Champagne’ be without Champagne. Gorgonzola, Parmigiana, Roquefort, Camember and even Melton Mowbury pork pies are protected by Protected Designations of Origin, a Protected Geographical Indicator or Traditional Speciality Guarantee. A similar protection to a geographical indication could be obtained through a collective trade mark.

Yorkshire Tea seems to be pushing it a bit because as far as I know the Three Peaks do not grow tea bushes. Still many businesses add location to there name or brand without detriment.

Other drinks have there own system of brand protections including Appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC) in France, the Denominazione di origine controllata (DOC) in Italy, the Denominação de Origem Controlada (DOC) in Portugal, and the Denominación de Origen (DO) in Spain.
European rules and regulations also protect Greek Ouzo and Italian Grappa – It is all enough to drive anyone to drink.

There is a niche for all books and all businesses. The concept in James Harkin’s ‘Niche’ contains some interesting thoughts:

• To succeed in business you need your own specialism.
• The need to differentiate has been helped by the web.
• Doing one thing well brings focus and success.
• ‘Known by everyone but loved by no one’ is like being a Woolworths.
• HBO, Moleskine and specialist media like The Economist have all concentrated on being the best they can be – and customers have flocked to them as a result.
• A niche helps innovation flourish and sales and profits should follow.
• The middle ground is a dangerous place to be, driven by cost cutting and detailed market analysis.
• Social niches discourage diversity of opinion and you can use this in your niche business.

Subtitled ‘Why The Market No-longer Favours the Mainstream’ this new book is available from Amazon

Read our Riches in Niches

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Avis are remembered for the catchy tag line which has stood them in good stead for decades.

Have they achieved the status they strove for since adopting the slogan in the 1960′s. Well corporately they are dramatically larger and have over 2000 branches worldwide. Despite other operators in the field that still cling to a reputation made good by ‘ we may not be the largest but……

New businesses must live up to there tag lines or slogans or the negative connotations will damage the brand. Potentially this can be fatal.

With Avis ‘We try harder’ in mind Bonbrand must henceforth adopt a similar philosophy.

‘FairTrade’ is a worthy strategy for poverty alleviation and sustainable development. Its purpose is to create opportunities for producers and workers who have been economically disadvantaged or marginalized by the conventional trading system. Growers and producers can join Fair Trade which provides certification and use of the mark for products which comply.

FairTrade fortnight until 14th March 2011 should help boost sales using the theme Show Off Your Label. It pays to advertise in other words. In the same period last year sales soared 40%.

Composite products can be approved including four beers, two of which are from the Co-Op plus one from Hebden Bridge called Fair rade Ginger Pale Ale. A triple marketing wheeze for this micro brewery as they get a name check, box tick and are searched on the Fair Trade web site.

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