courtesy of NASA

You have a point of view; or you want to do something or have other people do something; or you produce something. Until you tell someone about it, it’s just a lonely idea floating in a limitless black void.

Once you decide to tell someone about it, you have to decide how you are going to tell her. There, in a nutshell, is selling. That is what we love to do.

Selling gets a bad rap because some people bend its tools to nefarious ends. We all sell. Get over it.

The space program needed to be sold; and nothing had a more profound affect on the public’s attitude towards NASA than this single, simple, powerful image.

If you can tell the right person the right thing about who you are or what you believe or what you have to offer – in the most honest, compelling, remarkable, way… you win.

Sold!

I salute the clients who make that leap of faith, and I am delighted (not surprised) when they are rewarded.

A couple of examples:

This past year, we launched a redesigned brand and website for Downeast Energy. In 2011, a challenging year for their industry, Downeast did well enough to fund profit sharing accounts and hand out bonuses and raises at a time when others were handing out pink slips.

We also launched a completely new branding and packaging for Gifford’s Ice Cream, and I was thrilled to see Lindsay Gifford-Skilling quoted in Inc Magazine noting that same store sales were up 19%. Woohoo!

Results. Tangible, quantifiable, and better than any trophy.

It’s always nice to receive awards. Recognition for the work we do is good for the clients, good for the ego, good for morale.

In the past month, we have received quite a bit of positive recognition: W3 Awards for NYA and Briggs websites, a Gold Broderson for the Gifford’s Ice Cream site, and the selection of several examples of our brand identity work for an AIGA Annual Exhibit in Portland. Kudos!

The real thrill, though, is less about that shiny heavy (sometimes expensive, sometimes ugly) trophy and more about the road that got us here.

Every day for almost 25 years we’ve been honing our craft, and every day we do our best to turn out exceptional, brand-focused work. So, here’s what I recognize: The true prize is just the simple act of coming to work at a job I love. I have the privilege of working with exceptional clients who trust us (and challenge us) to be brilliant and with a team that regularly renews that trust.

The rest is icing on the cake.

]]> http://www.briggsadv.com/2011/11/recognition-2/feed/ 0 http://www.briggsadv.com/2011/10/genius/ http://www.briggsadv.com/2011/10/genius/#comments Thu, 06 Oct 2011 12:34:10 +0000 Walter http://www.briggsadv.com/?p=1107 Continue reading →]]>

Steve Jobs taught me:
Genius is simple.
Genius is beautiful.
Genius is entertaining.
Genius looks easy. It isn’t.
Genius is active, not passive. It opens eyes. It challenges us.
Genius is unpredictable and obvious at the same time.
Genius changes everything and changes nothing.
It can change lives, but it can’t change life.
Genius is being aware of death, not afraid of death.
Genius is loving what you do.
Love is life’s greatest achievement.
Death is life’s greatest invention.

We were hired to rebrand the City of Bath and worked with city government, Main Street Bath, and stakeholders from the community to develop identity and marketing campaign materials. This was a part cash/part pro bono project, and aside from helping the community we live and work in and creating some beautiful work, it was fun. People were vocal, brought strong opinions to the project, collaborated remarkably well, and adopted the logo and campaign to great effect.

A key piece of the campaign was a 3 page spread – “LIVE. WORK. PLAY” – in Downeast Magazine.

In presenting the award, Maine Downtown Center Director Roxanne Eflin praised Main Street Bath for facilitating the campaign, which brought a measurable increase in the number of visitors to Bath’s historic downtown.  “The creative leadership and collaboration demonstrated by Main Street Bath made this extraordinary marketing effort happen.  Once again, Bath is modeling the way from which other downtown organizations will gain inspiration,” stated Eflin.

In case you haven’t visited, Bath is Maine’s cool little city, indeed.

I thought about trying to describe what it’s like to get on a boat, sail off the mooring,and stay “out there” for 2 weeks; but Wendy has done it better than I ever could, here and here. If there’s anything more soul satisfying than cruising the waters of Penobscot Bay with family, I’ve yet to discover it.

You know yourself so well, you don’t know yourself at all.

It’s a mind bender, I know, but it’s pretty constant in the organizations we work with and, I believe, all organizations. On the one hand, no one knows your company better than you do. You create it, feel it in your bones, and live it every day. On the other hand, being that close makes it hard to see clearly in a way that makes it possible to articulate what the brand means – your true self – to others. Kind of like trying to take a picture of yourself in the mirror (at slow shutter speed, with shaky hands.)

Looked at from the other side, the paradox is:

A brand is known best on the inside, understood best from the outside.

That’s where Brand Discovery comes in.

When we work with people to help them understand their own brands better, what we’re really doing is helping them understand how to communicate their brands better. That way, we can all work together to help the world get a clear picture of the company. What makes you great? What is your fascinating story? Why does your customer want to have a relationship with you?

The logo and tagline are the sexy parts of branding. They get all the attention. But the most valuable component of a proper branding process is the work that goes into understanding (more about that process later) and the resulting Brand Essence (subject of another future  post.)

We are all moved by the world we live in, by our environments. Our surroundings inform how we feel and what we do every day. Right now, Maine is just bursting with life. Fruits, vegetables, trees, marsh grass, flowers… everywhere you look, smell, feel, taste, hear, it’s lush, green, sensuous, sweet, inspiring… it’s ecstasy.

We take our inspiration where ever it comes from, and inspiration is in abundance, all around us today.

Wendy, my favorite blogger, has been capturing the highlights as we try to take it all in, chronicling the season in garden, food, and song.

The State Theater in Portland, ME has brought so much great music to us lately that we revel in the excess. Not long ago we pondered driving to Boston to see a band we like. Now there are so many coming to Maine we have to pick and choose or we’d soon be broke (and forget what our children look like.) Avett Brothers, Michael Franti, Emmylou, Beirut, Elvis Costello… the list goes on.

We were lucky to catch The Decemberists w/Sara Watkins last week, and one of their new songs has a bead on summer’s onset. It’s called June Hymn (and it’s where I borrowed the title for my post today.)

June Hymn

Here’s a hymn to welcome in the day
Heralding a summer’s early sway
And all the bulbs all coming in
To begin
The thrushes bleating battle with the wrens
Disrupts my reverie again

Pegging clothing on the line
Training jasmine how to vine
Up the arbor to your door
And more
You’re standing on the landing with the war
You shouldered all the night before

And once upon it
The yellow bonnets
Garland all the lawn
And you were waking
And day was breaking
A panoply of song
And summer comes to Springville Hill

A barony of ivy in the trees
Expanding out its empire by degrees
And all the branches burst to bloom
In the boom
Heaven sent this cardinal maroon
To decorate our living room

Chorus

And years from now when this old light
Isn’t ambling anymore
Will I bring myself to write
“I give my best to Springville Hill”

Chorus

We recently worked with Liz Doucett, the woman who wrote the book on library branding (Creating Your Library Brand,) and I came away with a new understanding of this critical community center and a sense of urgency about how libraries can no longer take their continued existence for granted. Here are my top three reasons why your public library needs to pay attention to its brand:

1. Communication. Libraries are all about making information available to people. The way those people receive information – including how they perceive brands – is changing all the time. Why wouldn’t you change to connect with them?
2. Connection. If you want people to understand you and to love you, you’ve got to connect with them. Great brands give people a gut feeling, and using them consistently creates emotional bonds.
3. Survival. It’s sad to even consider this, but libraries are under tremendous financial pressure, and there are community leaders who wonder, what with the internet and all, if we even need libraries any more. A focused, thought-out brand just might make the difference.

Liz came to us having already done the hard work with her board. Our job was create a visual manifestation of their focused, brand vision.

The result is a brand/sub brand system that echoes historic, architectural elements and positions Curtis as a modern, vibrant information and community center.

Tune in later to find out how blowing up the logo led to an ingenious system for all of the library’s sub brands – Kids, Teens, Friends, etc.