There’s a common assumption that an organization’s brand resides in its traditional outward-facing marketing foundation: logo, tagline, positioning statement, advertising, and so on. However, companies often fail to recognize how much the brand actually resides in the unique experience they deliver to the customer and that marketing is only a fraction of that experience.

Simply put, a brand to an individual is the total sum of thoughts, feelings, and perceptions based on his or her interactions with the product or service. And a brand as a public entity is the aggregate perception of all those customers. This is evident more than ever since the advent of social media and review sites. A 4.5 star restaurant on yelp.com has way more brand equity than a 1.5 star restaurant. These ratings are largely based on the customer experience and far less on the marketing. You don’t read many yelp reviews that say, “Everything was amazing, but I’ll never go back because of that logo.”

I encourage clients to brand holistically – to not just evaluate outward-facing marketing tactics, but look inward at the culture, leadership, style, attitude, ambiance, and exchanges with the customer. One restaurant I worked with didn’t need a new logo. Instead its brand turned around on a suggestion that they switch the door used for their entrance, providing them with increased street visibility and a much warmer arrival for the diners.

Branding from the inside out can be a bit more complex than a conventional approach, but it’s also way more exciting. Creating powerful, memorable, and unique experiences for the customer is exhilarating. It gets people talking, it garners positive reviews, and it inspires people to come back. If you want to overhaul your brand, start by asking what your experience says about you.

Recently I ran across an article suggesting that marketers should switch from “I” marketing to “You” marketing in their communications. I Marketing is that narcissistic bore at the cocktail party stuck on monologue setting.

“I’m so smart. I’m so good-looking. I am totally and undeniably awesome.”

I agree that I Marketing is an ineffective communication strategy. Use that feature-based approach and you’ll lose your audience as often as the party bore hears, “Gosh, nice to meet you, but I’m gonna go check out the bean dip.”

As an alternative, the article suggested You Marketing; shut up about why your
company is so great and start talking about the customer. The author provided an example of You Marketing:

“After meeting you, it’s clear that your business is on the verge of tremendous
growth. You’re facing some challenges that many companies at this stage of
growth have faced before.”*

While I agree that I Marketing is a poor strategy, You Marketing isn’t the answer. If I received the message above, I’d be turned off. First, it’s presumptive of the writer to say they know about my business with authority. Second, the author claimed that You Marketing is not manipulation, but that’s exactly what this feels like. The marketer is leveraging information that I’ve shared or they’ve researched for their own personal gain.

I suggest we try a more elevated and progressive approach, We Marketing. “We” as in together or us. Instead of yammering on about ourselves or what the customer needs, let’s envision unique possibilities of working together and share those instead. An excellent example is Obama’s simple and inclusive, “Yes We Can,” 2008 campaign slogan. The creative magic happens in partnership, so let’s enroll and excite potential customers about the collaborative “We” and leave the divisive “I” and “You” pronouns behind.

*I didn’t credit the author of the article intentionally because I’m disputing
his/her theory. If you are the author and would like to be credited, please
contact me and I will happily do so.

For me, idea generation feels like those 3D optical illusion stereogram posters in the 80s. The trick is to look at the artwork, but allow your eyes to go out of focus so that the real artwork emerges from within. Ideas are the same. They can be shy. I have to focus attention when seeking them, but not too intently, otherwise they won’t appear.

When a client asks for a big idea – whether it be a new name, tagline, or concept – I get clear on the task, set an intention for the idea to come forth, and then shift my focus onto something else. When my husband first observed this technique, he thought it was procrastination re-branded as process, but he soon learned that indeed, the ideas come out of hiding.

Here are my nine favorite ways to unfocus and open the idea valve:

1.  Go For a Run – Runner’s World Guide to Running says that running helps you to reach creative breakthroughs (p.25). I believe it. Something about the rhythm of running eases my brain into ideation. I can’t write ideas down while in motion, yet this is a good test.  If I still remember an idea by the time I get home, it just might be the one.

2. Shower – Maybe the hot water relaxes me or my minty body wash perks me up,  whatever the case, some of my very best ideas have bubbled up while lathering. Like running, it’s tough to write things down in the shower, but an idea may be a keeper if it makes it to the rinse cycle.

3. Clean – I laugh with  my friend Darilyn, designer-extraordinaire of DK Design, about how we both break out the vacuum when we need to be creative. I think the sense of accomplishing something, even just clean floors, combined with a newly uncluttered space, gets the juices flowing.

4. Slow Down & Notice - Legend has it that Steve Jobs was inspired to design the curved necks of the first Apple flat screens by staring at sunflowers in his backyard. I like to sit on a bench and watch the world go by. It could be the fashion sense of a pedestrian, the bark of a dog, or the shape of a cloud that brings forth an idea. I just
have to slow down long enough to notice.

5. Eavesdrop – Yep, I’m that weirdo listening to your conversation. It’s just that you say really interesting things. I love eavesdropping in physical spaces like busses and cafes, as well as virtual spaces like Facebook, Twitter, and comment sections. Often I hear a word or phrase and voila, an idea is born.

6. Maker Muses - Some people get inspiration at tech or industrial design conferences where the creativity has a wow factor. When seeking my muses, it helps to have an element of “I could do that too,” and let’s face it, I’m not the designer of the next smartphone. I gravitate toward maker fairs or etsy.com. When perusing t shirts with cute slogans, a million versions of a hand-painted owl, or a terrarium gallery, my own ideas start to flow.

7.  Seek Art – While galleries and museums are obvious art havens, I also try to notice the art all around for inspiration. For example, someone has transformed a telephone pole in my hood into an incredible sculpture with keys, locks, and metal miscellanea. My very favorite place to get ideas from art is Burning Man where creative boundaries are challenged, pushed, and broken in the very best way.

8.  Travel - In our daily lives, we create mental models of our surroundings that serve as efficiency short-cuts.  It’s nice to not have to look for the coffee every time I need it, yet these mental models can be a real creativity killer. I stop noticing all the rich nuances of my experiences. My answer is to get out of town; even a one day trip helps to cleam my creative lens.

9. Hang With a Kid - There’s no better cure for idea constipation than my 5-year old son. He asks the questions others don’t think to ask. He makes few assumptions. He looks up and looks down. We walk around the hood and I’ll say, “Tell me what you see,” so that he can help me notice things that open my mind to new ideas.  I bet you can guess who spotted the telephone pole first.

If you’re looking for ideas, think about the ways you can unfocus a bit to allow them to come forward.  Ideas may be shy, but once you find them, they can be the life of the party.

I learned a powerful lesson on branding in the unlikeliest of places; in a class on early childhood development at my son’s preschool.

The course leader did a very interesting exercise. She gave each parent an apple and asked us to bite into it. After we did, she encouraged us to shout out words to describe the experience of eating the apple while she scribed them onto a large notepad. Descriptors like juicy, crunchy, snappy, tart, sweet, smooth, intense, tangy, fragrant, delicious, and succulent filled the page. Finally, we had to stop because the page ran out of room.

Then she asked us to forget about eating the apple and showed us a picture of a red apple. She inquired, “Now based on the drawing alone, what can you tell me about an apple?” Words were not flowing now, but trickling very slowly. Red, flat, green stem, and round-ish were pretty much the extent based on the illustration.

Finally she asked us to forget about eating the apple and the picture. She showed us a piece of paper with the letters, “APPLE,” on it. She asked, “What can you tell me about an apple from this alone if you had no experience with an apple?” Beyond apple being a five letter word, we came up with nothing.

Her demonstration was to describe the Three Stages of Learning

• Experiential Learning – eating the apple
• Symbolic Learning – interpreting the picture of the apple
• Abstract Learning – utilizing the code ‘APPLE’ to represent it

She explained that all three learning stages are ideally linear – that if we have the experience of something first, it deeply enhances our ability to relate to and connect with both its symbolic and abstract forms. When we experience something – we
build a Fund of Knowledge around that thing solidifying our relationship to it. When we jump to symbolic or abstract forms of a thing without this Fund of Knowledge, it’s meaning and emotional connection are diminished or perhaps non-existent.

How does this relate to branding? Well, a lot. So often I encounter clients who are consumed with their logo (symbolic) or the copy on their website (abstract) without a thought to the most powerful form of branding they do every day – the experience they deliver to their customer. Some companies are oblivious to the Funds of Knowledge they are building in consumer’s minds about their organization. Furthermore, if these Funds are negative, a logo refresh or copy rewrite won’t enhance the brand or turn-around customers.

That’s why my company, Slye Marketing, approaches branding experience-first. The fastest way to build customer affinity is to build positive Funds of Knowledge. In doing so, the symbolic and abstract representations of a brand come easy as (apple) pie.

Recently, I had a very fun assignment. I was asked by a client to help define creativity when he was invited to give a presentation on the subject.  What a cool opportunity to look scientifically at something that I do every day – generate ideas.

What is Creativity? What Are Good Ideas?

Defining creativity turned out to be harder than we anticipated. Former Supreme Court Justice, Potter Stewart, said of pornography, “I know it when I see it.” The same adage often applies to a good idea; it’s something we know or feel, but the why can be elusive. Furthermore, the label of “good” can depend on the context and/or the metric chosen to measure the idea’s success.

So, instead of trying to determine a universal definition for creativity, my client and I chose to examine the DNA of ideas instead.  We consulted a great book called, How to Get Ideas, by Jack Foster, and agreed upon two powerful characteristics of ideas that also serve as an effective launch point when brainstorming.

Great Ideas Redefine the Familiar

A creative idea is something universally known or accepted, but conveyed in a
novel, unique, or unexpected way.

Take something familiar, add a powerful twist, and voila – creative brilliance. At Smitten Ice Cream in Hayes Valley of San Francisco, customers are eponymously infatuated with its new spin on a traditional dessert. Smitten makes custom ice-cream from fresh ingredients in 60 seconds with a one-of-a-kind liquid nitrogen machine. The process ensures deliciously pure ice cream and people are literally lapping it up. Smitten takes something familiar and redefines it; even the tagline is, “New Old-Fashioned Ice Cream.”

Yet, sometimes creativity is not a makeover, but matchmaking between two familiar things. Diane von Furstenberg’s legendary wrap dress is a robe and dress united. If a laptop had a baby with an iPhone, you’d end up with an iPad. And the most popular new FiDi lunch spot in San Francisco is Sushirrito where diners savor sushi ingredients nestled conveniently in a tortilla. Sometimes a pair of things have the chemistry to become one new concept that’s far greater than its two parts. Or in the case of Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony, sometimes not – so the trick is to find the magic combination.

Great Ideas Make Things Simple

A creative idea synthesizes the complex into the startlingly simple. It ties up all the loose ends into one neat knot.

A big misnomer is that a great idea requires layers of complexity, when in fact, the best ideas simplify, not complicate. They have what I like to call the Duh Factor, as in, “Duh, why didn’t I think of that?” I have to look no further than my own floors for an example. Swiffer has to be the best housekeeping innovation of the last century. Replacing a mop, rags, and a pail of sloshing water, is one little disposable wipe that makes my hardwood floors sparkle. First runner-up to Swiffer in the Duh Factor Pageant is putting wheels on a suitcase. Duh, indeed.

Simplicity doesn’t just apply to tangible design, it extends to communications too. Simplify your message and people will more readily understand what your brand might mean to them. Take the Miller Lite tagline, “Tastes great, less filling.” What could be simpler than that?

To sum it up, if you’re daunted by brainstorming and ideation sessions, don’t be. As you and your respective organizations come up with creative ideas, streamline your process by redefining what’s already familiar to you and keeping it simple. In the end, you might ask, “But how will I recognize true creativity?” Like porn, you’ll know it when you see it.

Also known as  the Harvard or Oxford comma, the serial comma is used before a coordinating conjunction (and, or, and sometimes nor) linking a group of three or more items within a sentence. Let’s take a look at what a mess one keystroke can make.

Prior to an all-day meeting, an e-mail is sent to the attendees that trumps even the agenda in importance –  the sandwich order. It reads, “Place your lunch order by 9am. Choice of roast beef, BLT, turkey and cheese.” Mass sandwich chaos erupts. It’s unclear whether turkey and cheese are two different options or if one turkey and cheese sandwich is on the menu. The serial comma dilemma strikes again.

Those who snub the serial comma most likely come from a journalism or public relations background. Their bible, the Associated Press Stylebook, recommends that the serial comma be dropped. Interestingly, it’s a carry-over habit from when newspapers wanted to reduce typesetting. I once traveled to the Peruvian highlands and noticed that the Quechua people always whispered. Apparently Spaniards outlawed their language upon conquering Peru in the 1500s, so the Quechua began to whisper. 500 years later, this habit of self-preservation is still going strong despite it being totally unnecessary. Likewise, computers have made traditional typesetting obsolete. A serial comma is no more trouble than any other letter, but old habits die hard.

Those who root for the serial comma tend towards traditional publishing composition. They’re the folks in marketing who crank out brochures and website content while referring to their bible, the Chicago Manual of Style. It recommends that the serial comma be used, as does A Writer’s Reference by Diana Hacker.

If you haven’t guessed by now, I’m in the latter camp.  I see two reasons to befriend the old SC.  First, a sentence has a nicer rhythm to it when used. Absence of the serial comma feels like the drummer missed a beat. Second, it can’t hurt. If you don’t use it, you’re gambling that people will understand the sentence. But if you do, you’re taking an extra step to avert confusion and anxiety. I say help a reader out. Had the e-mail stated, “You have a choice of roast beef, BLT, turkey, and cheese,” placing a sandwich order would have been simple, clear, and efficient for all.

When I mention to a friend that I’m working on a naming project for a new company or product, they’ll invariably start to fire off ideas at machine gun pace. While I love their enthusiasm, naming is not so simple as generating the perfect moniker. Finding a name that will powerfully convey a brand’s personality, resist fatigue, and come to possess meaning greater than its original form, well that’s a bit more complicated.

In a typical naming project, I’ll first produce 50-100 names after studying the company or product. Sometimes the names are existing words, although that’s becoming less common. The internet has made it so that names need to be original worldwide and preliminary research will reveal that most common words are taken. The modern strategy for naming is to create new words or compounds like Solamar, a hotel I named in 2003 for its warm San Diego climate and proximity to the ocean.

From this list of 50-100 potential names, I’ll work with the client to narrow it down to 5-15  favorites based on feeling and intuition. Finally, setting aside attachments as best as possible, we filter the 5-15 finalists through the following eight considerations before shouting, “Eureka, that’s the one!”

Eight Name Creation Considerations

1. Memorable – Is it simple and does it stick? A good test for this is to let a group of people review the list of names for 60 seconds. Call them three days later and ask them which ones they remember.

2. Emotional Connection and Meaning - The potency of a name increases if it conjures up a strong emotion or visual. For example, Under Armour, the name of a fitness clothing company, not only describes what the product does, but it conveys a feeling of protection and power.

3. Availability – This can be the heartbreaker consideration. Preliminary research should have weeded out obviously taken names, however in depth legal investigation needs to be completed at this stage to ascertain whether the name been trademarked, copyrighted, or registered as a business or url. If so, there are two solutions. First, if the name is taken but not in use, consider tracking down the owner and purchasing it from them. The second solution is to tweak the name slightly with spelling or name order. If neither is workable, sadly that name needs to be scratched from the list.

4. Recall – Make sure the name is easy to find if relayed verbally. I have two examples of companies with cryptic names that forced the user work way too hard to find them (they’re no longer in business by the way). j3tlag.com used a number 3 for the letter “e” in its name. A design firm called attik intentionally misspelled their name to be unique. I wonder how many people futilely searched the internet for jetlag and attic. It’s okay to have a name that’s different, but you have to consider the potential loss if too unusual.

4. Story – Does the name have a story? It really helps customers to make an emotional connection with the brand if there’s some sort of a tale about how the name came to be. McKee Foods founder O.D. McKee was trying to come up with a catchy name for his Little Debbie snack cakes. He finally arrived at the name after spotting a photo of his 4-year-old granddaughter, Debbie, in her play clothes and favorite straw hat.

5. Mood – Each name conveys a mood and you want it to match that of your company or product. A good example is Shine nightclub in San Francisco. The uplifting name fits the uplifting customer experience. At the other end of the spectrum is Thirsty Bear Brewing Company. The name gives off a mood of masculine ruggedness rather than the reality which is a cosmopolitan tapas restaurant. A mood disconnect can cause a hiccup in brand continuity.

6. Curiosity – Does it invoke curiosity? Do people want to hear more? I’m signed up to do an obstacle race in the fall designed by the British Armed Forces called the Tough Mudder. Every time I say the name Tough Mudder, people ask, “What in the world is that? Tell me more.” Test your name on Facebook and Twitter by posting just the name in an update or Tweet and nothing more. See how many comments are posted and what people say.

7. Longevity – You want a name that won’t sound dated ten years from now. At the turn of the millennium, the style was to name hotels and restaurants with a location reference like 202 Restaurant in Chelsea or No. 5 Maddox Street in London. At the time, it was fashionable, but the relevance of location names will decrease each year as they begin to evoke a trend of the past.

Beyond all the above considerations, you’ll want a name that makes you feel good, plain and simple.  After all, you’re the one who’ll be answering your phones and passing out business cards with the moniker for years to come. Once you think you’ve arrived at the name, try this for a final test. Repeat the name 100 times out loud in succession and if you don’t feel like vomiting by the end of the exercise, you may be onto something.