Build brand awareness to the right audience with the right brand - simple, clear, unique and defined around the desires of your customers. Ever-critical differentiation helps customers find and remember you. We can help you get there.

In this issue:

1. Branding the Revolution - Brand strategy drives the Ukrainian uprising
2. Building a Branded Web Site - Five Brand Essentials for your site
3. BGDI Case Study: Ask Jeeves - A Web Identity with Identity

BRANDING THE REVOLUTION: Brand strategy and the Ukrainian Uprising

We all saw it - several hundred thousand people in the streets of Kiev in subzero temperatures, declaring the elections fraudulent and that the standing government should step down. Did this happen by itself, spontaneously? No. A well-coordinated and compelling branding effort played a key role in galvanizing the movement.

In an interview on National Public Radio's On the Media, Ivan Marovic described how he and his original Serbian student group, Otpor, were key organizers in the development and coordination of events in the Ukraine. A veteran of the Serbian uprising and a participant and coordinator in similar events in Belarus and Georgia, Marovic has crafted powerful brand strategies to motivate groups in these movements. Marovic:

"Our inspiration came from multinational companies and things like Coca-Cola... or Levi's. What we needed was a simple message... a simple logo, so people could recognize it after one second. So that's why we picked a name Otpor, which means resistance, and also we picked a clenched fist. Our slogan was: Gotov je, which means "He is finished." And that was the most simple way to tell to the people that if they vote against Milosevic, he will be finished."

Marovic went on to say that although branding a movement is critical to focusing and motivating people to act, 95% of the effort came from people committed and ready to fight for their cause. No one could make 200,000 people stand out in the cold to bring change to their government without deep personal commitment.

The take away for branding professionals? Brands work best when they reflect the already strong motivations of their audiences.

Marovic and his organizers continue to work with groups fighting for democracy, human rights and a better society in their countries, and they use non-violent methods to bring their brand message home. We wish them well.

BUILDING A BRANDED WEB SITE: Five Brand Essentials for your site

Your brand should be a driving force in this vital communications medium - how you include it on your web site determines that critical first perception of who you are. Even the largest corporations can miss many of these key branding points, almost all of which need to be on the home page. You have seconds to capture the attention of any viewer- or lose them in a mouse click.

1. FEATURE YOUR BRAND IDENTITY CLEARLY - Be consistent in using your brand ID on your site - generally, viewers look for it at the left top side of the page. When customers or potential partners visit your site you have milliseconds to clue them in to who you are. Use your brand ID strategically to set your site apart.
2. WHAT INDUSTRY ARE YOU IN? - It sounds so simple, but a clear statement about this on the home page is IMPORTANT. Companies may think they are too big, don't need that, everyone knows us - wrong. You have to assume no one knows you.
3. WHAT DO YOU DO FOR CUSTOMERS? - Make it simple, strong, clear. Clarify the value of your product and company. A simple drop down menu, clear messaging on the home page, a bulleted list - use a variety of approaches to feature the solutions that resonate with them.
4. WHAT MAKES YOU DIFFERENT? - One of the most overlooked strategies. Develop a clear and differentiating message or tagline that says what you're not as much as what you are. Customers and partners are looking for your niche, your difference.
5. USE COLOR AND OTHER STRONG VISUAL ELEMENTS TO BRAND - Visual branding is more than a logo. It's how you use key brand elements, such as colors, typefaces and personality, that makes you stand out to the site visitor.

BGDI CASE STUDY: Ask Jeeves - a web identity with identity

When we initially engaged in the design of the Ask Jeeves brand, the company was on a fast track to an IPO. Although they had used Jeeves, the character, for three years, they needed to better define Jeeves as a consistent and useable brand symbol for print, advertising, web and television ads.

Jeeves was the first "web personality", personifying the ease of using this web search engine, based largely on natural language search capabilities, to ask questions and get easy to comprehend answers. Refining the Jeeves character and developing a broader visual brand identity would be critical to building the brand.

The use of red and black - colors that work in any environment, web or print - became a focus for us in the design process. We knew that this color combination on the web and in print would be consistent and recognizable, from 16x16 pixels up to an outdoor billboard.

So, the scope was more than just defining a logo. It was devising an identity system that at its heart was easily recognizable but could be flexible enough to use with or without the main character, Jeeves. Large and small brand symbols all reference the parent brand, and basic visual elements link together to allow easy recognition by the consumer looking for the source of their previous experience.

A key effort in this branding project was the development of the ASK button, symbolizing the central function of the brand - a place to get questions answered. The ASK button could be used both within the Jeeves site and on third party sites that were using the Ask Jeeves search function. This simple elliptical red button created a connection back to the Ask Jeeves parent brand while coexisting with the overall branding of a site.

This brand design challenge helped to evolve a classic online identity, representing the core of the Ask Jeeves brand - asking a question and getting an answer.

RECENT WORK

Investing in Dreams - BGDI developed promotional materials for a MicroFinance Conference held at the Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley. This conference, sponsored in part by the Clausen Center for International Business policy, focused on this rapidly expanding global program of small loans to individuals in developing nations.

NEXT ISSUE: The B2B Message - What matters in business to business brands?

Business to business branding? Some companies dismiss branding as something only for consumer and retail businesses. We contend that an active brand strategy to build equity behind a company and its products is absolutely necessary - we'll take a look at how to build the B2B message.