Great products sell themselves. No they don’t. But equally, people don’t just buy brands because they’re brands either.

Familiarity matters, but for the most part today’s customers are far too sophisticated to buy just anything with a nice or familiar name attached to it. Or rather to keep buying it without question.

A brand by itself doesn’t guarantee you anything.

Sometimes companies with brands that were once iconic forget that. They somehow believe that because the branding process can add margin, all brands must equal margin and presence must equal profit. Wrong. So wrong. Brands will only bring margin when everything else is right.

Right itself seems pretty straightforward. Make a really interesting brand promise. Deliver on it in really interesting ways. Do that, and the circle is seamless. Get it wrong and the circle is vicious.

When you don’t pay attention to the detail of your brand, there are consequences. The brand itself starts to break down. It degrades. To a name. And instead of a brand portfolio, all you’re really left with is a list masquerading as an asset base.

Making that list longer or wider doesn’t add to its value. It doesn’t mean you have diversified. It’s not a segmentation strategy. It just adds complexity, cost and confusion to what is now a catalog.

So what else can a brand do? Strategists tend to think of the other tools in the brand boosting toolbox in terms of repositioning or revamping the look and feel. But a question I’ve been pondering on for some time now is, “Could just the promise change?” If neither brands nor products can afford to remain static, it would make sense that promises can’t either. And yet the concept of re-promising (by itself and not necessarily accompanied by a fundamental shift in the brand positioning) doesn’t seem to come up that often in strategy conversations.

Maybe that’s the real lead-off question for brands looking to iterate effectively today. And it’s not about changing the promise for the sake of it. For this to work your brand will need to promise buyers something consumers will pay more for, or more often for, or both. (Coke did it beautifully with the shift from refreshment to happiness.) Because that’s the other simple human truth at play here of course: one that affects brands, products and promises alike. If you don’t give people valid reasons to pay more, they won’t.

The Blake Project Can Help: The Brand Positioning Workshop

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education

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New York Times columnist, Perri Klass, M.D, explains why it’s so important to continue teaching cursive writing to young children:

“As a pediatrician, I think this may be another case where we should be careful that the lure of the digital world doesn’t take away significant experiences that can have real impacts on children’s rapidly developing brains. Mastering handwriting, messy letters and all, is a way of making written language your own, in some profound ways.”

Klass quotes Dr. Virginia Berninger, professor of educational psychology at the University of Washington:

“This myth that handwriting is just a motor skill is just plain wrong. We use motor parts of our brain, motor planning, motor control, but what’s very critical is a region of our brain where the visual and language come together, the fusiform gyrus, where visual stimuli actually become letters and written words.”

“What we’re advocating is teaching children to be hybrid writers, manuscript first for reading—it transfers to better word recognition—then cursive for spelling and for composing. Then, starting in late elementary school, touch-typing.”

Source: The New York Times(Blog) 06/20/2016

The post Why handwriting is still essential in the keyboard age appeared first on The Good For You Network.

Cross-posted from TEDWomen curator Pat Mitchell’s blog on the Huffington Post.

I learned a ton of new things about myself, in the way you can only do if you are f—king up daily. I learned that I am defensive but trainable. That I have capacity for patience but that my immediate default is speed, bluntness and ironic distance. That although I am used to working alone, I will happily collaborate. And that I really like working with women, even if they cry more during the day.”

This installment in my blog post series on how to scale-up your brand introduces two brand tools.  Use them in your process of developing or refining the strategic platform of your brand.  They will help you identify and clearly articulate your brand purpose, values, and attributes.

Let’s begin with some definitions:

• brand purpose is your reason for being/what you stand for
• key brand values are the principles that guide the brand’s actions/your unique way of doing things
• defining brand attributes are the operating characteristics and personality traits that distinguish your brand

These three elements comprise your brand identity, which is one half of the strategic platform of your brand.  Your brand positioning is the other half of your strategic brand platform.  Together they form the building blocks that create a strong, differentiated, valuable brand.

Exercises like the ones I describe below are helpful in developing these brand building blocks because they cause participants to be more thoughtful about the brand they’re creating and why — and they help people be more articulate and specific as they describe their brand vision.

I recommend forming a team of 3-6 people to work through these exercises together.  Include key brand stakeholders — i.e., people who have a key stake in the success of your brand — such as the founders, executives, employees, investors, strategic partners, perhaps even a select customer or two.  Sometimes it’s helpful to include an objective facilitator to encourage open and active participation and/or an inspirational muse to contribute out-of-the box ideas.

The goal is to get everyone’s insights and input on the brand out on the table and to develop a clear shared vision for the strategic brand platform.  The process of doing the exercises together creates shared understanding and ensures that different perspectives are considered in the development of the platform.  One final note:  The exercises are simply tools to cultivate robust discussion.  If you find your group deviating from the exercise process but having a great discussion about the brand anyway, go with the flow — you’ll likely end up in the same place.   Likewise, don’t just go through the motion of the exercises without ensuring that they prompt productive conversation.

Brand Tools

Exercise #1:  The first exercise is called “THINK.  FEEL.  DO.”  It’s a Thematic Apperception “Test” (TAT) borrowed from the world of psychology.  It’s a projective exercise, meaning that it helps to reveal underlying motives, appeals, and concerns.  Most TATs use ambiguous pictures of people and ask participants to make up narratives about the images.

To help uncover a brand’s purpose and values, use stick figure pictures of a brand customer now and in the future.  Participants should make up narratives about the person’s thoughts, feelings, and actions before and after the brand launch (or before and after he becomes of aware of the brand and tries it) — i.e., what is he thinking, what is he feeling, and what is he doing.

Even though developing your brand platform should be a fun and creative process and the use of stick figures in this exercise specifically may seem playful, encourage participants to think deeply as they create the narratives.  You really want to get at the change in the world they see the brand making and how the brand makes it.   For example, in the post-launch “Do” section, get beyond the basic outcome that customers will go buy the brand once it’s available.  Consider how the brand might change their lives — how they might relate to themselves, people, and/or their environments differently; or what decisions they might make differently; how they might spend their time or money differently.

Look for similarities and differences among the narratives; discuss the appeal of the similarities and the reasons for the differences.  Extract from the discussion key themes that form the brand purpose.

Tips:

• As a warm–up or to get unstuck, you could ask participants to do a version for their favorite brand.
• To push the thinking, consider asking the group identify a brand that it wants to emulate and have everyone write narratives about it — then discuss how the themes relate to your brand.

Exercise #2:  The second exercise, IS/IS NOT, uses an adjective checklist to identify the values and attributes that define the way the brand behaves and distinguish the brand.

Participants are given a list of 50-75 descriptive adjectives and asked to circle up to 5 adjectives that describe what it IS and cross out up to 5 adjectives that it IS NOT.  You can also give them the option of writing in their own words, but they should do so only if they believe an important factor is not represented by any of the words on the page and they should use single-word, descriptive adjectives.

The effectiveness of this exercise depends on the list of adjectives given to participants.  Below is an example of a list I used for a new brand of healthful snacks.  Usually I select words that:

• are different from ones that describe primary competitors and the category in general
• would parse out nuanced but important ideas — e.g., comfortable, down-to-earth, earthy, and laid-back are similar terms but each connotes a slightly different feel
• are drivers that might speak to customers’ unmet and unfelt needs
• I have previously heard stakeholders use to describe the brand

I avoid words like “authentic” and “cool” for reasons that this post explains.  I also don’t include “fun” or “passionate” unless the degree to or nature with which the brand would embrace these ideas is particularly distinguishing.

As with Exercise #1, look for similarities and differences among people’s choices; discuss the relevance of the similarities and the subtleties for the differences.  Extract from the discussion key descriptors that make up the brand values and attributes.

Tip: 

• If you conduct this exercise before the brand exists in any form, ask participants to select words based on what they think the brand SHOULD/SHOULD NOT be.

Coming up next in the “Scale Up Your Brand” series is another brand tools.  If you want to mbe notified when I publish the post, consider subscribing to my feed.

previous posts:

• How to Conduct a Brand Diagnostic
• Assess Your Brand Power

The post scale-up your brand — set your brand purpose, values, and attributes appeared first on Denise Lee Yohn.

Creative Credits:
Ad Agency: TBWA Paris
Production: Moonwalk/ Knucklehead
Director: Ben Gregor
Executive Creative Director: Faustin Claverie, Benjamin Marchal
Copywriter: Nicolas Roncerel
Art Director: Jérémy Armand
Producer: Mathilde Nanot-Lachkar
Producer: Gaspard Chevance
DoP: Stuart Graham

The TED community has been very busy over the past few weeks. Below, some newsy highlights.

Crime forecasting in Rio. Before the 2016 Olympic Games, worries ran high that crime in Rio might affect the mega-event; one reported attack at the Games (which actually might not have happened) grabbed headlines around the world during the Games. But the longer-running news story is the way crime affects Rio’s locals every single day. How can residents stay safe? Together with Via Science and Mosaico Internet, Robert Muggah’s Igarapé Institute just launched CrimeRadar, a publicly available crime-prediction platform. CrimeRadar uses advanced machine learning to forecast future crime risk and track historical crime tends. The launch is focused on Rio de Janeiro, with plans to take the platform global. (Watch Robert’s TED Talk)

CrimeRadar, developed by Robert Muggah’s Igarapé Institute along with Via Science and Mosaico Internet, uses machine learning to forecast crime in Rio de Janeiro. The software runs on both mobile phones and desktops. Above, an example of the desktop version. Photo: courtesy of Robert Muggah

World of microbes. We’ve all heard some of the implications that microbes have for our health –from pandemic-level bad to the life-changing magic they perform in our guts– but Ed Yong is determined to show us how they influence everything in the world around us. Released August 9, his debut book I Contain Multitudes takes a “microbe’s-eye view of the world” to reveal their role in everything from deep oceans to forests, squid to worms. (Watch Ed’s TED Talk)

Breaking the silence. “We have in this country this dynamic where we really don’t like to talk about our problems. We don’t like to talk about our history. And because of that, we really haven’t understood what it’s meant to do the things we’ve done historically,” Bryan Stevenson said at TED2012. A desire to change that dynamic is behind his passionate and tireless work to create the first national memorial to victims of lynching. Designed by fellow TED speaker Michael Murphy of MASS Design Group, the memorial was officially announced on August 16. The memorial will be accompanied by a museum at Equal Justice Initiative’s headquarters in Montgomery, Alabama, and both plan to open in 2017. (Watch Bryan’s TED Talk)

A global warning. Close to 3.3 billion people tuned in to watch the Opening Ceremony of the 2016 Olympic Games, but along with the usual celebration and dazzle, viewers were warned about the dangers of climate change. Many performances in the multi-hour spectacle highlighted the crucial role forests have in absorbing greenhouse gases — along with a video describing how rising CO2 levels lead to climate change.  TED speaker, forester and sustainability activist Tasso Azevedo served as a consultant during development of the film, joining the elite club of TED speakers who’ve also appeared in Olympics opening ceremonies. (Watch Tasso’s TED Talk)

VR tech for paraplegics. Miguel Nicolelis is one of twenty scientists who published a paper in Scientific Reports detailing a new brain training approach that can induce partial neurological recovery in paraplegic patients. The sample size is small, eight patients, but all of them report being able to use their legs and feel sensation after sessions using an artificial exoskeleton, VR technology, and a brain-machine interface. Originally hoping to use the technique to help the patients regain a sense of control in their lives, the researchers stumbled upon its potential as a recovery tool. (Watch Miguel’s TED Talk)

Design for shared spaces. On August 2, Joe Gebbia announced the official launch of Samara, Airbnb’s own internal design studio, but the startup’s newest branch had already been hard at work designing a prototype home for the Japanese exhibition House Vision. The result, Yoshino Cedar House, houses a community center on its ground floor and accommodations beneath a gabled roof, exploring “how architectural features can engender a deeper relationship between hosts and guests.” But the idea doesn’t end there. Once the exhibition is over, the house will be moved to the rural town of Yoshino and become a bookable Airbnb rental. It will be maintained by the Yoshino community and proceeds will be used to benefit the area, which has been struggling since younger residents moved away. If Yoshino Cedar House is successful, the model may be used to rejuvenate rural communities elsewhere. However, Samara won’t just be involved in architecture; the design studio will work on service design and software engineering projects as well. (Watch Joe Gebbia’s TED Talk)

Women in the World of Wakanda. TED speaker and writer Roxane Gay and poet Yona Harvey, both first time comic writers, will pen a spinoff of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ popular Marvel Comic series Black Panther. The comic will also be set in the fictional African country of Wakanda and will follow Ayo and Aneka, two lovers and former members of the Dora Milaje, the Black Panther’s female security force. In an industry historically dominated by white male voices and characters, “the opportunity to write black women and queer black women into the Marvel universe, there’s no saying no to that,” Gay told The New York Times. (Watch Roxane’s TED Talk)

Advance prep. Jennifer Granholm, the former two-term Governor of Michigan, has been appointed to Hillary Clinton’s White House transition team. Both candidates are allotted offices in Washington and other resources to prepare for their potential administrations. (Watch Jennifer’s TED Talk)

Have a news item to share? Write us at [email protected] and you may see it included in this weekly round-up.

CNN reporter Kelly Wallace wrote this about the power of the ping:

“Our smartphones are affecting our brains without us even being aware of it. When we hear the ping of an incoming text, social media update or email, our brains get a hit of dopamine, a chemical that leads to an increase in arousal, energizing the reward circuitry in our brains. And that expectation of a reward — Who’s texting me? Who tagged me on social media? — leads to a higher burst of dopamine than the reward itself.”

Wallace interviewed Dr. David Greenfield, a psychiatrist and founder of the Center for Internet and Technology Addiction, which provides workshops on the abuse of technology. He explains why people would put their own lives and the lives of others in jeopardy–all because they feel this “compulsion” to immediately respond to a ping:

“The parts of the brain that say, ‘OK, how important is this text? Is this text worth dying for? Is this text worth killing somebody else for?’ The answer, of course, logically, would be ‘no,’ but if you have less access to that part of your brain when you’re in this state, which seems to be the case, then you’re not really using your judgment.”

Jennifer Smith knows only too well the heartbreak of losing a beloved parent. Her mother was killed by a distracted driver back in 2008. She founded StopDistractions.org to offer support to victims and their families and increase awareness of this growing problem. She recognizes the challenge of getting people to change their behavior:

“Because of the addictive nature of all of these things, people lack the self-control. I don’t know what the answer is, because our brain is craving this. Our brain is wanting this more than anything else, and it just disregards everything we know.”

“It’s like we need a mass education campaign, but I don’t even think that’s enough to beat out this reward system we’re getting in our brain when we’re like, ‘Ooh, something’s going on. I want to see what it is.’”

But taking your eye off the road for even a second can have lasting consequences. Matt Boeve was widowed in 2014.

His wife died because of a distracted driver. It’s well worth thinking about what he had to say:

“People respect that drinking and driving is dangerous. Now, we just have to know that phones are (dangerous) too. and take responsibility for our actions, just like we take responsibility for buckling in our kids and not getting behind the wheel impaired.”

CNN, 8/9/16

The post Driving while distracted: Why can’t we ignore the pings? appeared first on The Good For You Network.

That’s the finding from a University of British Columbia study recently published in the journal Social Science & Medicine.

The researchers further noted: “Considering that classroom teachers can take on many roles for elementary school students, including mentor, role model, and parental roles, it is possible that spending most of the school day in interaction with a stressed and burned out teacher is taxing for students and can affect their physiological stress profile.”

Back in 2012, Maurice Elias, Professor of Psychology at Rutgers University, wrote for Edutopia about the warning signs of teacher burnout and what can contribute to it: “Teacher burnout is most often an organizational problem and it is insidious because it can remove dedicated teachers from education, sometimes even before they physically leave their jobs. Its solution most often is in creating a positive, supportive school culture and climate where teachers are treated as professionals and given the opportunity to collaborate, problem solve, and get needed, reasonable supports in timely ways.”

“The students need their teachers to stay engaged and fight for them. When the conditions of teaching are bad, the conditions of learning tend to be worse, and children suffer in lasting ways. That’s why the collateral damage of burned-out teachers is burned-up students.”

Time, 6/27/16

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By Bob Jones, Chairman and CEO, Old National Bancorp and Alice Korngold, Co-Editor, Giving Thoughts, and author of A Better World, Inc.: How Companies Profit by Solving Global Problems…Where Governments Cannot Old National Bank launched its foundation a decade ago with the goal of strengthening communities and positively impacting lives throughout its footprint. Ten years, […]