July 2009 E-NEWS
from Steven Donaldson and Michael Zinke, the Brand Guys

Shaping customer experience in a multi-channel world — creative, print, web, new media Radiant sends these brand insights to help you build value, uniqueness and loyalty for your brand. In business, your brand's critical differentiation helps your customers find you, remember you and come back to you.

In this issue:

1. The NASA Logo: What People Love Really Sticks. The logo NASA started with in 1959 is still alive after a twenty-year detour. Some things can't change because …
2. SEO Your Brand: 10 Basics of Search Engine Optimization for Your Brand. There's no question that the Internet is now the primary channel for finding and promoting …
3. Radiant Work: Earthtone Construction — Practical, Sustainable, Mindful: Shaping the message and brand of a sustainable building company that does way more than build a house

The NASA Logo

The logo NASA started with in 1959 is still alive after a twenty-year detour. Some things can't change because the brand is very much owned by the customers.

With the 40th anniversary of the first manned space flight to the moon this month I thought it would be interesting to reflect on how the NASA brand and the space program has evolved in its symbolic representation to the American public and the world through an evolution and reincarnation of the NASA logo.

The original logo know affectionately as the "meat ball" was created a year after NASA's creation in 1959.

This was the beginning of the space race between the Russian and the U.S. The sense of purpose and urgency was part of the American psyche at the time. This symbol was designed internally at NASA and very much reflects the feeling of the time.

This mark had a human touch behind it, more like a boy scout patch than a logo---the dark blue field, the sparking stars, the orbiting ship and the red "V" shooting across the bold NASA initials and out of the image. It had a Buck Rogers meets the U.S. military look -action oriented, optimistic, and futuristic, but with the reference to classic government agencies in the serif type. A handmade quality sort of like the Coca Cola logo or other classic marks that last forever. NASA was all about space and as far as the American public was concerned, the logo represented this. There was pride in this mark, associated with all the programs NASA created (which each have their own mark).

By December of 1972 Apollo 17 became the last mission to the moon. That was the peak of NASA's achievements and focus. At this time, under the Nixon administration a new logo was created as part of program to update and unify the graphics and marks used by the Federal Government. A new logotype or monogram was created. The "worm", as it was called, was designed by a high-end New York design agency, Dianne & Blackburn. It's an elegant word mark of carefully crafted machine-like letters represented in dark red. No stars, no orbiting craft no space. It's actually a very good mark that could do well today for a tech company. I always thought it had an elegance that outlived time. Well it didn't.

Over the next 20 years NASA became less focused on going somewhere than creating something to go do - this is where the Space Shuttle program came from and the International Space Station, which has finally been completed this month. With fits and starts, NASA lost it's focus and Americans lost their passion for NASA. So, in 1992 NASA did something few big brands do. To stimulate public interest, bring back the passion of it's golden era they brought back the meatball logo. And, it's stuck. I personally think they could update it and keep the key elements. It seems that the general public likes it, the astronauts love it and over all, it really seems to stick but could we do more to symbolize where NASA is really going next?

On a final note, NASA also announced its ambitious plan to go back to the moon by 2020 with a permanent base. I wonder what logo will go on the space ship that goes to the moon this time?

SEO Your Brand

There's no question that the Internet is now the primary channel for finding and promoting many, if not most, most brands, products and services. Add in the use of mobile devices such as the iPhone (6 million sold in the last 3 months) search engine optimization (SEO) of a brand's web properties becomes a must in any brand-building effort.

As in branding, relevancy to your customer makes you attractive. Better visibility in search engine results comes from knowing what makes your brand visible in search and leveraging this on your site. Your web site efforts, like your brand, need to be consistent, focused and planned to get you to the top. Here are some basic recommendations that will help in positioning your brand to customers on the web.

Identify key words and phrases that are relevant to your market.

What make you relevant to the searcher is what will make you stand out. This is probably the most challenging aspect of using search to benefit your brand — the key is how your audience searches for you, your services, your products. It's critical to research usage and use those key words and phrases throughout your site. People use search engines to search for what they want on the web — they enter search terms based on their own terminology or concepts around what they want. Identify those words and phrases to achieve the best search engine results. These could be words referencing unique products, services or positioning — all keys to your brand. Key search terms, defined for specific pages in your brand's web site, are the foundation of the SEO process.

TIP: find key words or phrases with less competition that your brand can own by creating targeted content and specific web pages. Example: HP has the top organic search result for "printable gift wrap", reflecting the unique use of HP printers for home projects and HP's optimization efforts to be relevant to these searchers.

Optimize page titles.

The title of each page in the web site should include target key words for that page.

TIP: Page titles should not be too long ‐ less than 10 words is good. Include your brand name if possible to build awareness, but the key search terms are primary.

Optimize each page URL and text link.

Search terms should appear in the text links and in the URL for each page. These key words will become associated with your brand, so you might consider using them in other communications.

TIP: a site map with links to all internal pages is a roadmap for easy indexing by search engines, and a page URL that consists of the exact search term will be positioned higher in search engine results.

Optimize meta description for each page.

The meta information in each page should contain the target key words for that page. The Description meta information for a page, for instance, is the description of your page that you see in the search engine result listing. The meta tags are not ranked as highly by search algorithms as real page content.

TIP: However, it does have some effect on the search engines — it's like more fingers pointing to you.

Review and optimize key word use in page content.

Content is king in SEO! Review the main headline and text in each page to make sure desired keywords occur at the "optimum" frequency, which really means that it should read naturally for your viewers, not like keyword spam.

TIP: Headlines should be searchable HTML text, not images. Remember, repetition is actually good for search. Again more search pointing to you. Websites that have very little content, no meta tags are not going to show up in search results.

Review and provide title tags for images.

Images in pages should be labeled with an ALT tag that uses key words for that page that are related to your products, your brand, your name.

TIP: Avoid generic terms like "Spring Special" — this is your internal term, not something that your customer is looking for.

Review page code and optimize if needed.

Code should be search-engine "friendly" to help search engine spiders find search terms more quickly in content.

TIP: Large amounts of JavaScript or other non-content code should not be placed above main searchable content.

Develop external links back to site.

Start a campaign to develop external links back to the site and your brand. Make sure your brand's site URL appears in high-quality directories, social media (forums, blogs, etc.) and in all press releases. Over time, you'll increase your site's visibility through additional back links, gaining brand recognition.

TIP: "Page Rank", a rating assigned by Google based on number of quality back links, is extremely important in search results position and is built organically over time through postings on other relevant sites.

Track traffic and adjust over a period of time.

Use metrics at the beginning and periodically during the SEO effort to track traffic patterns, search results position and page rank, and make adjustments in the site to improve results. Remember, this is an iterative process. It takes time for the search spiders to see changes and pick up your pages. The good part is you can actually see where you are making changes and where the improved results are coming from.

Expand on these basic recommendations to build a methodology for building your brand's web presence in key search engines. Create more awareness and equity for your products, your services and your brand.

TIP: Use Google Analytics to perform A/B tests of site changes.

Beware of SEO Experts.

Numerous companies and individuals claiming to be SEO experts will "guarantee" your position as the top search result if you hire them on a monthly retainer. There are not guarantees. As mentioned, there are measurable and gradual changes that can occur. If these consultants are using "black hat" techniques, recognized by Google as attempts to get around authentic search, they will block your site! This would be a disaster for any brand.

Radiant Work:
Earthtone Construction — Practical, Sustainable, Mindful

Challenge: RadiantBrands was engaged by Earthtone Construction, a residential and commercial "green" builder based in Sonoma County, California. They wanted their brand to highlight why they are unique, how they were different from their competitors.

Solution: The company has an exceptional reputation for responsive, knowledgeable building and has brought unique experience in project planning and the use of green building techniques to projects, attributes often lacking in builders of custom homes, remodels and commercial facilities. Radiant principals Steven Donaldson and Michael Zinke worked closely with Earthtone to understand their unique approach to construction projects and developed a new tagline, "Sustainable, Practical, Mindful", to portray this difference and represent the key values customers seek in a good builder. Earthtone's professional practices authentically reflect the meaning of these words, which are featured in all their communications. Radiant also reworked their logo and developed an ad campaign. Branding is now being applied to Earthtone's website. 

Result: They continue to gain new projects through the current economic climate, supported by this strong positioning.

Services:
Brand Assessment
Brand Strategy, Positioning, Messaging
Ad Campaign
Website Design

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