Excuse Me. There’s a Pebble in My Coffee.

When I began grinding my coffee this morning, the grinder made an awful noise. I opened it up to find a small bean shaped stone mixed in with my semi-ground coffee.

Had I purchased this coffee at the supermarket or at a franchised coffee shop, I would have considered this to be an unacceptable lack of quality control. I would have taken it back to the store and demanded a refund. It would have felt dirty and I would have most likely switched brands of coffee. At least for a while. A negative experience all together, wouldn’t you agree?

Instead something quite different happened. I smiled. I didn’t get upset. I didn’t worry about the blades on my grinder. I just smiled, removed the tiny stone and proceeded to make a terrific cup of java. The reason I smiled was because of the original buying experience and the expectations that were created before I opened the bag.

This particular bag of coffee did not come from a factory. The packaging wasn’t sporting a famous brand name label. I bought it from a local roastery. The bag of beans was modestly labeled, “Fair Trade, Organic”. While standing in line at the counter, I remember looking at photos on display of Guatemalans hand sorting these coffee beans before export. I saw burlap bags of green coffee beans stacked in the corner. They were roasting espresso while I was there. I’ll never forget the aroma that followed me home. All of this leading to a positive buying experience that built trust. When I found this little stone, I completely understood how it found its way from a field to my coffee grinder.

Do your customers smile or frown when something unexpected comes up? If it’s the later, I invite you to add more transparency and authenticity to brand. It might be the difference between a happy pebble or a dirty rock.

{This article was written for the Shift+Refresh newletter, published every 2 weeks on topics of productivity, technology and design. If you like what you’ve read, subscribe here.}

Author: Arrick Garringer

Arrick Garringer is a Media Consultant at SpinWeb. background includes brand development, graphic design and creative consulting. In his spare time, Arrick enjoys his family, playing music and really strong coffee. Contact Arrick at arrick@spinweb.net or 317.324.1100.

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Effective Marketing Begins at the End

If you are like many marketers, your decisions are based on what you’ve done in the past, what your competition is doing, or worse yet – you advertise because you feel like you “…just have to advertise.” There is a better way.

Dr. Stephen R. Covey writes that the ability to “Begin with the End in Mind” is one of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Where his concepts can be applied to many aspects of our personal and business life, I think this is an important one to embrace when marketing our businesses. Try using this simple 3-step approach to a goal-centered marketing campaign.

• Identify a single goal. When planning your next campaign, be sure to ask, “What do we want to happen?” Some want the phone to ring. For someone in retail, it might be to get customers to the store. Regardless of the goal, you have to have one and it needs to be written down before any other work can begin. You only get one, so choose wisely. This will now become the focal point of the rest of your efforts.
• Plot the best course. Now that we know where we’re going, we just have to find a path to get there. Spend some time researching all of your different media options. Talk to your advertising sales-representatives. Ask them each to put together a plan that uses their product to reach your goal. Spend some time online and talking with peers searching for innovative marketing tactics. Try not to dip into your old bag-of-tricks. Just because something worked last year doesn’t mean you should stop looking for something better.
• Now go get it. Simply turn it on, sit back and most importantly, measure the results. You need to be able to report data with accuracy. Did you have an increase in sales? Did the phone ring more? How many new visitors came to your website? Use available technology and unique promotions to track behavior accurately. Ask your web developer for detailed reports to reinforce your findings.

Begin your next marketing adventure with the end in mind. You’ll find that starting with a clearly defined project goal will keep you on track and will lead you one step at a time toward marketing success.

Author: Arrick Garringer
Arrick Garringer is a Media Designer at SpinWeb. His background includes graphic design, brand development and marketing solutions. In his spare time, Arrick enjoys his family, playing music and really strong coffee. Contact Arrick at arrick@spinweb.net or 317.324.1100.

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Appropriate media.

I drove past a funeral home yesterday. It’s on a busy crowded highway. Someone had the idea to put a flashing LED sign out front. Even better, the message on the screen was a cute sunshine guy with sunglasses saying, “Get Checked for Skin Cancer”. That might have worked for a Dermatologist Office….but a funeral home?

It almost felt like a threat. Were they really saying, “Get Checked, or You’ll End Up Here.” Remember, I was driving down a highway. All most people would have seen is; Funeral Home-Sun-Cancer. Do you think that’s the message they wanted to share?

Perhaps more appropriate would have been to ditch the blinking sign and install a beautiful water feature or butterfly garden in plain sight. Label it and market it appropriately. What’s appropriate for your product or service?

Remember, it’s not just the message that needs to be appropriate. If the delivery vehicle is inappropriate, your message will either be missed, or worse yet, misinterpreted.

-Arrick
arrick@arrickdesign.com

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“Do you like the new Starbucks retro logo?”

I saw this question online and couldn’t resist. The word “like” is so vague. As a marketer, I’m trained to flush my own opinions aside to ask, “Why did they do that?”. You see, branding isn’t based on likes or dislikes. It’s a systematic process that builds the big picture.

I can tell you what I don’t like about the cup that sports the new logo; it’s a yucky brown color, doesn’t seem to match the store as well, doesn’t look as cool in my car’s cup holder, etc. You can see there’s not much there other than MY opinions.

The one thing I’ll say about the logo that I think is important is what they’ve done to their logo—THEY CHANGED IT! They took some liberties with the art that I think might be a mistake. They actually added 2 words. Not 2 valuable words, 2 expected words that don’t need to be said. They tried to take a logo {which, by the way, is already retro in style} and add more retro to it….?

A logo is the most precious piece of marketing real estate that you have. Please treat it as such. It’s not the place to play around, change for the sake of changing and definitely fight the urge to “add-to” it. It’s human nature, but it weakens and clutters the communication. I say, save the throw-back logo variations for Ford, Coke and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Theirs are authentic.

With that said, the amount of “buzz” that this change created has definitely had an impact on Starbucks. Google it. There are thousands of posts {like this one} that have people talking about their product. They most likely won’t stick with the new design, but will use it to boost short-term awareness. I’m sure Starbucks {one of the founders of the modern “brand age”} has a strategy behind this.

-Arrick
arrick@arrickdesign.com

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What’s the story behind your logo?

Take a look at this logo. Yeah, I know…pretty cool, huh? No really, did you know that there’s a story behind it?

Sure, it’s a palm leaf…but why? Chad Meacham actually brought this concept to the table. He told me that in his line of business, spirituality is on the surface and the palm leaf has several religious references. It is also globally symbolic of Victory, which is also appropriate.

“What’s with the square?” – The architecture of Mr. Meacham’s facility is based around a square motif. This is a very nice building that definitely stands out in his small town. The square in this logo is a window.

But wait…there’s more. Is there a light on in the window? What does a light mean to you in this context? Did the colors make you feel calm? Do you see an Angel’s wings?

Let’s talk type. MEACHAM is big, “Funeral Service” is little. No body “likes” the word Funeral. Isn’t “MEACHAM” the only thing that differentiates this one from all the other Funeral Homes?

I ask this question: “What’s the story behind your logo?” If you don’t have an answer that you’re proud to share, we should create one together.

-Arrick
arrick@arrickdesign.com

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