• Home|
• Blog|
• About Us|
• Services|
  • Internet Solutions
  • Print Products
  • Video Products
  • Audio Products
• Our Work|

Breaking Down Branding – Part 1: What is a Brand?

June 29th, 2011

There have been many endless debates over what a brand entails.  Hundreds of books, articles and theses have been written on the subject.  There exist all kinds of groups that view branding in a variety of forms.  Most commonly, there is large group of people who view a brand as simply as a logo, some colors, a slogan and maybe the look of a stationery package.  But while those things do indeed fall under the category of branding, there are also those who see a brand as so much more.  In fact, as we see it, a brand isn’t necessarily something you can hold.  It’s what you feel.

No, really.  A brand can be described as the emotion one feels when recognizing or acknowledging your company.  For example, this could be a typical conversation:

JIM: “Hey Bob.  How’s that new truck working?  You know, I’m thinking about buying myself a Toyota…”

BOB: “Don’t do that, Jim.  Toyota sucks.”

The fact that our friend Bob doesn’t like Toyota means he doesn’t care for the Toyota brand.  There could be a variety of reasons.  Maybe he doesn’t like the look of their vehicles or the fuel mileage, or maybe he doesn’t like the service he gets at the dealership.  Maybe he’s a little paranoid about his car driving off a cliff and bursting into flames Bonnie & Clyde style because of that huge recall on brakes recently.  It’s likely not just because Jim hates the Toyota logo.

Any of these reasons are related to an overall brand.  It’s not just about the pretty pictures and taglines you see printed on brochures and the logos you see plastered on every second page of your daily newspaper.  A brand can’t be designed per se.  It’s the way you’re perceived by your audience.  In the end it’s the people who decide what your brand is, and in case you were passed out during Economics 101 in high school, making your customers happy is kind of important in business.  If you’ve ever wondered why corporations spend millions of dollars for what seems like an insignificant tweak to a logo for instance, it’s all because they want to keep that public image positive and if it keeps people coming back, it’s worth every penny.

In part two we’ll take a look at the visual aspects of a brand.

 

Posted in Branding Tips

Serving YouTube Videos Without the YouTube Brand

June 15th, 2011

You’ve likely heard us talk about the value of using YouTube to serve your video content before.  The advantages are numerous.  For one, you don’t need to worry about hefty bandwidth costs that come with hosting your own videos.  You can also take advantage of the extra SEO benefits that come along with posting videos on YouTube.  But YouTube announced on their blog recently yet another awesome feature that really makes YouTube and your video content a better match than Barbie and Ken.

YouTube now provides an option that allows users to remove the YouTube logo from embedded videos.  This means that you now have increasing control over the branding of your video content while serving it through the top video content producing site in the world.

If you were previously wary of hosting your video content with YouTube for whatever reason, perhaps due to the branding distraction it may have provided or the association of amateur or raunchy content that sometimes comes with having the YouTube brand associated with your video, you can now rest easy.

Contact Point Click Media today to begin serving video content on your website.

Posted in Tips and Tricks

Call of Duty: Double-Opts

May 25th, 2011

Most people see spam as simply receiving email from someone that is trying to sell them something, regardless of whether they know the sender or not. What this means is that even if you have a loyal customer base that you want to send out a sales pitch to, most of those customers will still consider you a spammer.

But don’t let that scare you away from email newsletter marketing. Opt-in list statistics continue to grow every year and newsletters can be a very cost effective way to reach your customer base en masse, if you can avoid making the common mistake make of not having your subscribers opt-in.

If you want to avoid getting backhanded across the chops with the Can Spam Act, it is imperative that you offer an opt-in list for your subscribers. Every one of your subscribers has to have indicated in some form that “Yes, I want to receive your newsletter”. This can be achieved through an online form or check box, or for example, through a survey sent through the mail. Regardless, you have to have proof that your subscribers have voluntarily signed up for your newsletter.

Don’t assume either. Ensure that your opt-in option is clearly indicated and also make sure to include in your newsletter an option for people to unsubscribe at any time. Once someone has unsubscribed, they need to be removed from your list to avoid potential accusations of abuse.

If you have more than one newsletter it is also a good idea to have separate opt-in lists for each type of newsletter. For example, you may have a newsletter strictly for sales pitches and another for news. Not everyone will necessarily want to receive both items in their inbox, so allowing them to pick and choose not only helps keep your subscribers happy in avoiding unsolicited email, but it also helps define your newsletter demographics.

The Double Opt-In: If you’re really paranoid about Big Brother following you through an alleyway and giving you a beat down with a sack full of lunch meat, you can protect yourself even further with a double opt-in. After someone signs up for your newsletter through the website for example, an email can be sent to the new subscriber’s e-mail address containing a confirmation link that activates the second opt-in.

Double opt-ins help ensure that your subscribers are authentic and genuinely interested in your service. With a single opt-in, any random royal hobo of Nigerian descent can sign up his entire tribe of hobo friends who couldn’t care less about your service. You can see where malicious intent by a third party could easily get you into some hot water. Also, you still have you pay for every address you send to, so those fraudulent subscriptions can add up fast. Not only will a double opt-in keep the haters out, but you also gain highly targeted consumers.

Now that you know how to avoid being squashed by spam laws like George “The Animal” Steele, contact Point Click Media to start accumulating those targeted subscribers properly and pumping out your own newsletters.

Posted in Tips and Tricks

Get Your Stealth On

May 11th, 2011

Depending on how much of a techno-newbie you might be, you may or may not be aware that all of your online activities are stored on your computer while you browse the internet. For example your browser keeps a history of websites you’ve visited and logs of usernames and passwords that you’d be totally screwed without.

Your browser history can be a handy little tool when you’re trying to remember a website that you forgot to bookmark, but it can also be used to track your online activities. Depending on what you’re doing at work or at home, this could certainly get you into some hot water. For example you probably wouldn’t want your employer knowing that you’ve been looking for a new job while at work. The same goes for your internet browsing at home… whatever THAT may be…

Of course, one way to get around this would be to just clear all of that data after you’ve done the deed, but the problem here is that you’re effectively deleting items that you may need later. Luckily for you, the nerds who create internet browsers needed a way to hide internet porn from their mothers, so they’re on your side. Privacy browsing is here!

Private Browsing makes sure that your browsing activities don’t leave any data trace on your own computer.  Pretty much every browser has some form of Private Browsing built in. It is extremely important to note however that Private Browsing does not keep you anonymous from websites or your internet service provider. It also can’t protect you from viruses or spyware applications.  Private Browsing is simply about making sure that you aren’t storing any data that could be used to track your online activities. You can turn it on when you start and turn it off when finished. You clever shrew, you…

For more information on how to use private browsing with your internet browser, see the links below.

Firefox

Chrome

Internet Explorer

Posted in Web Tools

Part 2: How Apple is Proving that Less is More

April 27th, 2011

In part one of this article we took a quick peek at how Apple looked on the web during the late 90′s and at the turn of the century. As you’ll see in part two, the KISS rule is certainly in effect at Apple.

So, a lot happened in 4 years since 2002, but you wouldn’t really know it from first glance at the Apple website (and that’s not a bad thing). In case you haven’t heard, those little mp3 players that Steve Jobs peddled as the future of music… well, it turns out that they kind of caught on. Apple sold like a couple kajillion or so.

But as the website continues to maintain the status quo, the product line keeps growing with the Macbook Pro and 30-inch Cinema Displays, all pushed by a brilliant marketing campaign that has devoured mainstream media from TV to radio to web: the Mac vs. PC ads. You remember the ones, with the uptight Microsoft corporate hack bantering with that kid who could barely keep up with a 50 year old John McClane in Live Free or Die Hard. The Mac vs. PC ads were widely popular and ran from 2006 to 2010 and no doubt helped Apple sell a few extra Macs.

Skip ahead 5 more years and you can’t even swing a sack of Palm Pilots without hitting someone with an Apple product. In fact, they’re probably so fixated on Angry Birds that they won’t even see it coming. So surely we’re due for the next great website redesign right? Not so fast Mr. Sulu…

And there she be… a sleek new menu and an even bigger showcase area for the newest product. There’s no question that Apple knows how to pimp their products. You’ll notice, though, that besides small tinkering like adopting a 1024×768 standard and other small graphical updates, the Apple website has kept pretty much the exact same layout for the past 10 years with a menu on top, a few badges on the bottom for various newsworthy items and a big honkin’ spot to plaster the newest and greatest product that will have you throwing your underwear on stage during Steve Jobs’ next keynote speech like you were at a Tom Jones concert.

So keep in mind that although it’s good to keep your brand fresh and in the spotlight, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to redesign yourself or your website every 6 months. Sometimes less is more and having a reliable identity that stands firm goes a long way in establishing your business. A company that can’t decide what it should be doesn’t leave a reassuring feeling to its customers. And hey, if you can take over the world while you’re at it… Bonus!

If you’re sick of trying to find your lasting identity, contact Point Click Media.

Posted in Branding Reviews, General News

Part 1: How Apple is Proving that Less is More

April 13th, 2011

You probably remember the iconic 1984 Superbowl ad with the young woman throwing the hammer at the giant TV screen representative of the large faceless corporations of the time *cough*IBM*cough*. Who would have thought that Apple itself would someday turn into the very dragon it had attempted to slay during the Reagan years?

It’s interesting, though, to watch Apple’s rebirth leading all the way to today that, although the company itself has undergone a massive facelift with its product line, the Apple website has remained virtually untouched during the entire post-1990’s evolution of Apple products.

Here is the Apple website in 1998. It is ultra clean (get used to it) and it certainly resembles the Apple website that we know today. We can see that Apple has always been great at producing clever marketing slogans (“Blows minds not budgets”). Apple isn’t resorting to flashy gimmicks or a bold, elaborate interface to knock your socks off. They’ve always been about letting the product do it for you. It’s nothing special, but it works. As you’ll see throughout our trip through time, this 1998 website still holds up well even today.

Don’t adjust your set folks!  Although we’ve eclipsed 4 years you’ll notice from here on out that there won’t be any drastic visual changes to the Apple website for the next decade. We’re not quite at the  ‘i’ age yet with iPods, iPads and iTunes, but the website gives us our first glimpses at the glassy-glossy ‘web 2.0’ style that has been widely adopted by web designers everywhere. This is the major change to the website in 4 years – adding a menu to the top of the page. They’ve kept the page clean as a showcase area for their products and main content.

In part 2 of this article, we’ll look at what kind of effect the world-wide boom of the  iPod has had on the Apple website.

Posted in Branding Reviews, General News

Referring the Competition… Has He Gone Mad?

March 23rd, 2011

At first glance, the idea of sending your customers to your direct competition may seem like the business equivalent of filling your underwear with ribeye and running across the African Savannah.  There are times however, when passing on a quick sale can pay dividends later.

Many smaller businesses run into the following problem all of the time:  a customer will argue over the cost of a product, saying that they can get the same item for less at another location.  Of course, this can often be a bargaining chip on behalf of the customer, but more often than not it’s a lack of perception on the value of what is being offered.

It’s important to educate your customer on what they are getting from you and clearly define the differences between yourself and competing products or services.  If your customer is still skeptical, an encouraging invitation to try the competition shows confidence in your business and also shows that you care more about satisfying their needs than making a quick buck.  Encourage them to shop around and always leave room to welcome the return of the customer if they don’t get their desired results elsewhere.

Rattling off a standard sales pitch in an infomercial of awesomeness is great to get people excited, but beyond the initial impulse buy – once common sense sets in – are your customers ready to return for repeat business or to offer a referral to someone else?  How many people do you know who bought a Slap Chop based on what they saw on TV, then once they opened up the box realized that you can’t chop more than a half a strawberry at a time?  Deception doesn’t lead to return business.

You will obviously get some who don’t return.  If this happens, don’t be discouraged about the loss of a sale.  That customer will still appreciate that you didn’t take them for a ride and that builds consumer loyalty.  Three referrals later can be better than a quick sale now.  Sometimes it pays to refer business to your competition and, at the very least, you’ve fulfilled that one customer’s needs to the best of your ability.

Looking for help in what distinguishes your business from your competition?  Contact Point Click Media.

Posted in Tips and Tricks

Do You Comply?

March 9th, 2011

A properly developed website should take into account the plethora of potential technological barriers that the design may face across a multitude of internet browsers – and there are plenty: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, Mobile Safari… and those are just the major browsers. There are still oodles of other browsers out there that people are using to view the web, and they all display web pages differently. The challenge that web developers face is to keep your magnificent website design from exploding in a supernova of jpeg-ized failsauce.

Due to the fact that every browser has particular features that it will or will not support, it’s a difficult balancing act to make them all play nice. This requires the developer to forgo proprietary code that may only be supported by one browser in favour of more recognized standards. Web standards are set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) made up of member organizations that set code standards for code. Of course, none of the standards are mandatory, so it’s up to each browser to adopt new standards as they come and not every browser is quick to the draw. Some may take several months or years to include newer standards, so in the meantime your website developer will need to include a mix of different code and different technologies to appease a variety of browsers.

So if not every browser is standards compliant, then why does my site need to be?

The answer is you’re staying ahead of the game by planning for the future. You don’t want to be stuck a few years down the road with a site that no longer works in newer, standards compliant browsers. Which standards you comply with should be a discussion between you and your web developer. There are many options and many factors to consider between browsers that include coding, styling, scripting and more. The more you discuss and plan with your developer even before the design phase of your website begins, it will help ensure that your website comes out looking like a million bucks no matter what browser chews it up and spits it out.

If you’re wondering how future-proof your website is, contact Point Click Media.

Posted in Web Tools

Rebranding Reviews: Tampa Bay Lightning

February 24th, 2011

Note: Point.Click Media was not involved with this project. This is merely a review for study purposes.

The Tampa Bay Lightning originated in 1992 as part of the NHL’s modern expansion era during the early 1990’s into the southern United States along with the San Jose Sharks (1991), Anaheim Mighty Ducks (1993) and Florida Panthers (1993). Relocated franchises to Dallas, Phoenix and Raleigh, NC and further southern expansion to include Atlanta and Nashville would soon set the table for the NHL landscape as we see it today. The Tampa Bay Lightning’s history is peaked by a Stanley Cup championship in 2004.

The Lightning have had a rather lengthy history of logo, uniform and overall identity changes since their inception. Most recently noted is a full rebranding when the NHL switched to a new jersey model provided by Reebok in 2007. The official press release on the change for the 2011-12 season states:

“The Lightning worked with SME, a strategic brand development firm servicing the sports and entertainment industries, to create the new logo. “Bold”, “classic”, “iconic” and “hockey-centric” were the words that inspired the new designs. The previous circular logo shape was evolved into a contemporary oval shape to better represent the speed and power of NHL hockey competition as well as the upward direction of the club. One color, Tampa Bay Blue, was retained to honor the past and represent leadership’s commitment to the area.  In order to create a more uplifting overall presentation – bright, wide white stripes replace the silver and black, providing a brighter presentation of the Tampa Bay brand.”

There’s always been a certain “crowdedness” to the Tampa Bay Lightning logo. I’ve always felt that the city name just looked like it was crammed in there for the sake of it. You can see it in the former logo and also past versions of the logo. Although they’ve moved it up above the lightning bolt itself, it still sticks out rather oddly. By eliminating the wordmark on the alternate logo (on the blue home jersey) they’ve restored balance and allowed the bolt to stand on its own as an iconic image for the team. It’s a bit strange to see different elements on each jersey, but the change isn’t drastic enough to overwhelm you. By removing the black and silver from the color scheme they’ve also restored a classic hockey look that fits in with the other classic franchises of the NHL. The one problem with removing the secondary colors however is that the icon loses some definition and combined with the new stylized oval it could be passed as a logo for a cartoon superhero.

Overall the change is an improvement, albeit not a dramatic one. The Lightning have accomplished what they set out to do as outlined in the press release. You can’t help but think however, that this certainly won’t be the last of the brand tinkering that we see from the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Let us know what you think.

Posted in Branding Reviews

Is Your Site Social Media Friendly?

February 9th, 2011

Our insatiable hunger for information has only grown exponentially with the advent and evolution of social media. It’s true, society has become the Blob – a giant Jello-like amoeba slurping through the streets feeding on any sort of information it can get from politics to sports to this. Quicker. Faster. More!

So how does your website fit into all of this social media buzz? Here are a few things to consider:

Content

How fresh is the content on your website? In order for there to be an interest from search engine or any form of social audience your site must be publishing new content on a regular basis. Your new content doesn’t need to be elaborate either. If you aren’t up to publishing regular blog style content, consider syndicated content or even simpler, a Twitter feed. Frequent updates encourages search engines to index your web pages and you’ll be keeping those ever-roaming web bots busy, improving the organic ranking of your website.

Interactivity

Social media is all about discussion, conversation and interaction between people.  Giving your customers the ability to create Facebook style profiles on your website might be a little over the top, but allowing simple interaction between business and client or client and client can help with the buzz surrounding your website. This can be achieved through the ability to review or rate your content, post comments, or even forum discussions.

Share This

How accessible is your content? Is it locked up like the Caramilk secret? Unless you’re trying to hide the launch codes for a nuclear submarine within the content of your website, you’ll want to make sure it’s easy to find and easy to share. You’ll notice that many websites have a “Share This” option that allows users to spread content via Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc. Remember, word of mouth is your friend, and when people are talking online it all gets indexed by search engines.

Social media has indeed changed the way that we absorb information online. The tools now exist for businesses to interact closely with client and prospects and give them the best opportunity to capitalize on their wants and needs. The greatest challenge for any business, however, is to figure out just how social media fits into their overall marketing and business goals.

Posted in Branding Tips

« Previous Page — Next Page »

News Features

• Archives

  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • December 2008
  • September 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • October 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006
  • July 2006

• Categories

  • Branding Reviews (15)
  • Branding Tips (29)
  • General News (46)
  • Latest News (2)
  • Point.Click News (16)
  • Product Reviews (7)
  • Projects (2)
  • Tips and Tricks (34)
  • Twitter Updates (52)
  • Web Tools (34)

Copyright © 2006 - 2012 Point.Click Media Productions