How's your rep?

"The more complicated the world gets, the more comforting the familiar will seem, and the better it will get for brands."
-Fortune Magazine

Every company has a reputation.
Everyone you meet will form an opinion about your company ... even if they have not done business with you yet. The challenge is to manage your reputation so that the opinion that people have of you is positive. This is what creates a brand!

But Brand is not about slick ads ...
It's about getting your target market to see you as the preferred choice. It's not just about what you do ... it's about what you do differently from everyone else. To become a successful brand, you've got to be relentlessly focused on what you do that adds value ... and communicate that to your target markets ... the same way ... every time!

In an amazingly complex and competing world where it's increasingly hard to know what's real and what's not ...
Your customers want to be able to depend on your brand to deliver the same, familiar experience every time. This is what builds customer relationships and ultimately ... customer loyalty. The stronger the relationship ... the more business they will do with you and the more likely it will be that they will refer you to others. Having your customers not only acknowledge, but support the promise of your brand is the key to building a thriving business.

Ask yourself ...
Is my brand promise clear, distinctive and easily understood? Does it express a unique, compelling benefit that my customers and prospects can believe in and feel comfortable with?

Develop your Anti-Brand to help focus your creative.

As a brand developer or a brand manager, you tend to be concentrated on who you are and what you do. You create logos, guidelines, essence boards, brand promises and creative platforms but how much time have you spent on who you are not. Have you created your anti-brand?


Whether you use your in-house creative department or you have an agency or design firm it is vital that you give as much information pertaining to a project in order to develop on target, strategic and successful creative for you brand. And in this time of budget cuts and lost personnel it is vital that we have an established efficient processes that allows your creative team to find the most effective and creative solutions in the most timely fashion.

Basically, quit wasting time developing concepts that can never and will never be approved. Concepts that are not strategic or on brand. But generate more on target creative and do it in a timely manner. This is where establishing your anti-brand is vital.


When you make a creative or deign brief, it is like giving your creative team a map. A map to the creative solution based on your brand. Based on who you are. When you pair that with your anti-brand, it is like giving your team a GPS system. You are giving them the quickest route to find a creative solution.

What is your anti-brand? Specifically it is what you are not. It is the other side of your brand story.

1. EXAMINE: Revisit your Brand documents to make sure they are still accurate.

2. BUT NOT: Take words that describe your brand and define them further using "But not". Ex: Our brand is Modern looking but not technology oriented.

3. Gather images to create an anti-essence board of those things that do not, and can not ever define who you are. Visually describe those "But not" phrases.

4. Define your brand mentors and those who are not your mentors. (Go Daddy.com usually enters in the conversation here)

You anti-brand will cut the number of concepts you have to generate and the number of revisions on a project. It will give you better and more successful work.


Written by:
Matthew Blazer
VP Creative Director, Breehl, Traynor & Zehe

Non-Profit Fundraising

I Run Wild For A Cure, I Plan Wild For Cure, I Talk Wild For A Cure, I Fundraise Wild For A Cure. I do it all For A Cure, for Mitochondrial Disease. In July 1998 my son was born with Mitochondrial Disease, Mitochondria are responsible for creating more than 90% of the energy needed by the body to sustain life and support growth. When they fail, less and less energy is generated within the cell. Cell injury and even cell death follow. However, at that point we had no idea what we were dealing with. 18 months (and many tests) later he was diagnosed. I immediately jumped into action! I was not going to sit by and watch this disease take my son! Our Occupational Therapist put me in contact with the President of the Ohio Chapter of The United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation. That was the beginning of my non-profit fundraising journey.

The Ohio Chapter at the time was a support group for families who had affected loved ones, mostly children. Once I joined this group and started meeting the families we decided to host a 5K race 1-mile walk to raise money for Mitochondrial Disease. The first race held in June of 2001 raised over $110,000! Needless to say, we knew we had something.

Our race now will approach its 8th year with our next race on May 9th. To date, we have raised over $1.1 million dollars! Our chapter is the highest grossing chapter for fundraising in the United States for Mitochondrial Disease.

In March of 2008 I became president of the chapter and as the years have evolved we have really looked at what has made us successful. These are points to consider when fundraising:

- Host an event that will attract a wide variety of people

- Have attractions to accommodate everyone

- Secure solid corporate sponsors

- Secure a dedicated core group of people who will organize and participate. We only have about 7 people in our group. Make sure that their style suits the task they are responsible for.

- Recruit volunteers. Our race currently operates with about 170 volunteers

- Don't make it too complicated

- Once you figure out what works stick with it

- Don't be afraid to grow. We started off at a small park, and moved our event to the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo in 2007, it made a huge difference

- Each year, up the ante. Pick one new thing to add. For example, our attendance has reached over 3,000 people so we decided with every pre-registered paid admission (we established a cut-off date) packets were mailed to people's homes. That cut down on lines the day of the race

- And last but not least... Make sure that you contact everyone you know. The first year my friends and family only consisted of about 20 people, today it's over 200! Although corporate sponsors are important, our friends and family bring in the bulk of our $250,000 raised each year.

I admit, fundraising is a tedious job; it takes tenacity to come out on top, but remember EVERY cause is a great cause; you just need to recruit and attract people who believe in your cause. They will work for you, by bringing in more people and more money each year!

Darcy Zehe is the Vice-President of Brand Management & Operations for Breehl, Traynor & Zehe

Do small businesses really need strategic planning?

A couple of weeks ago, I spoke to a group of small business owners about business planning and marketing. The question they asked most was: "Do small businesses really need to do any kind of strategic planning?" The answer was "yes", but I understood why they groaned at the answer. In my experience, strategic planning is usually painful -- too long, too complicated and improperly executed -- if at all. But it doesn't have to be that way. At the risk of oversimplifying, strategic planning is just developing ways to build your organization and then actually doing those things. It's a roadmap to wherever you want your organization to go.

Another way to think about it is to answer these five questions:
- Where are we?
- What do we have to work with?
- Where do we want to be?
- How do we get there?
- How will we know we've succeeded?

In today's economy and fast-paced environment where short-term objectives become so demanding that it's difficult to think about your organization's long-term existence, strategic planning is more necessary than ever. It can help you anticipate change, identify areas where you may have issues or opportunities and do something about it. And it doesn't have to be a dreaded task. I've used a shortened version of the process with clients, and we've answered the questions and put together a workable plan without spending too much time or money and enduring a lot of pain. Was it hard work? Absolutely. Was it worth it? Definitely. If you haven't considered doing strategic planning, or if you've given up on it, give it a chance. It may be a cliche', but the old proverb still holds true: "He who fails to plan, plans to fail."

Cam Mordaunt is V.P. of Strategic Marketing & PR at Breehl, Traynor & Zehe.

Is your brand a House of Cards?

When you build a house, you start at the bottom. Because creating a good foundation is important to what comes next. Without it... everything else is on rocky ground. And no matter how good it looks, it will never last.

Building a brand is no different. But most companies do not get that. They want to start with the stuff you can see... the pretty pictures... the stuff they can mail to their customers... or put in a shiny magazine.

But if you do not first know... and most importantly are able to articulate who you are, creating a piece of communication will be a waste of valuable time... and certainly... valuable budget dollars.

We use this with our clients to focus them on what is important and what should come first... a strong brand foundation.

Most companies do not:
- Define their brand
- Communicate who they are
- Deliver what they promise

Can you? Or are you building a House of Cards?

Here is a checklist to help you define your brand:

- Who are you as a company?
- What exactly do you do?
- What makes you different than your competitors?
- Who cares about all this?
- Is your difference compelling enough to motivate action?
- What do you promise to your customers?
- Can you deliver it?
- Can you deliver it consistently?

Rosemary Breehl
President, Breehl Traynor & Zehe
www.btzbrand.com