Don't Waste Your Hard-Earned Cash on Irrelevant Company Swag - Create Gifts Instead

Just about every company that manages to get off the ground for a few years at some point makes the decision to acquire ad specialty items or swag. But many don't take the time to consider the intended effect they are hoping to create with their customers before forking over hundreds of dollars for these promotional products. Instead, with no real strategy at play, a logo that has no business being there, is slapped on a random object and passed out to customers with the hope it will create a sale. I mean just how many company logo branded pens, calendars, koozies or stress balls can you have? Are these things really so compelling that you are immediately going to start buying from the person who sent it to you?

When swag serves no purpose, it truly falls into the category of trinkets and trash (with an emphasis on the trash part). And the trash continues to pollute the world when marketers fail to address the most critical component of a promotional product buy - that the swag must create an emotional connection to the user for it to be effective. When that happens, it's no longer just swag, it becomes a gift.

Think about one of the most successful swag items of all time: the Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt. The Hard Rock Cafe is a themed, rock-n-roll, museum-like experience with memorabilia on display throughout. But at the end of the day it's still just a restaurant. I mean doesn't your local Italian restaurant have Italian-themed pictures and paintings on the wall? So why don't you go buy their t-shirt? You don't buy that t-shirt because more than likely it creates no logical or emotional connection.  

What the Hard Rock Cafe does that makes their promotional product so successful is that it puts the city name underneath the Hard Rock Cafe logo on the t-shirt. And because there is only one Hard Rock Cafe in every city, the location is able to create a meaningful connection to that place. I mean come on, do you really go on vacation to New York City to dine at the Hard Rock Cafe? No, but I bet you want the cool t-shirt that says you went to New York City!

To create gifts of value (not useless swag), you need to be thoughtful. To be thoughtful with any marketing simply means you are able to connect your company, idea or product in a meaningful way to the needs of your prospective customer. Really, that is the magic formula, and it doesn't matter what industry you are in, you can create a connection to your customers with swag and immediately start to earn brand loyalty. But you'll actually have to do some critical thinking first to accomplish this feat. To identify the appropriate promotional product, you must completely understand when your customers want to see you, where they want to spend time with you, and of course, why they want to interact with you. 

When Do Your Customers See You?

Do your customers see you in the morning or afternoon, when it's cold or hot, night or day, etc. - you catch my drift? When you think about the timing of when your customers interact with you, is there swag that can help facilitate that interaction? A common promotional item you see are branded coffee mugs and tumblers. Half the time you see these branded coffee cups, they have some random logo of a manufacturing company or consultancy who has nothing to do with coffee or when people drink coffee - no connection. But say you are trying to promote a morning radio program or T.V. show. I can think of no better giveaway than a coffee mug or tumbler as it immediately helps prompt the recipient to tune in while they enjoy their morning coffee. Timing of course is everything, even with promotional products.

Where Do Your Customers Spend Time With You?

As we previously touched on, are customers spending time with the Hard Rock Cafe in just the restaurant or is it really the city that they're visiting for the first time? The affiliation with each city that the Hard Rock Cafe has is what makes the experience extra unique. So a t-shirt that says you've been to New York City, Chicago or Nashville is extremely appropriate. That's an instant connection. So of course, thinking about the right promotional product must take location into account, and it doesn't just have to be in the geographic definition of location. For instance, would the creator of the latest popular app really make a connection to their customers with branded notepads or t-shirts? Probably not. Those items don't connect to the customer's location. Rather with an app, your customers are of course spending time with you on their phones (think screen cleaners, pens with an end for touch screens, etc.).

Why Do Your Customers Interact With You?

The last and most critical consideration of an effective swag piece is to think about why customers interact with your brand. This can be the trickiest concept to identify but once you clearly understand why your customers interact with you, you'll immediately be able to come up with promotional gifts that help to strengthen that interaction. For my printing business, many of our long-term customers choose to interact with us because we've developed deep personal relationships. When it's personal, you can reflect this relationship in your gifts, and that simply means choosing gifts that you know the customer will personally enjoy (branded golf balls for the golfer, food and gift baskets for the foodie, etc.). It works because you know them on a personal level. However, a brand new customer, one where the relationship hasn't yet developed beyond simple professional interactions, might be turned off by a gift basket as it's a little more personal (I emphasize might as everyone loves free food!). Instead, for the professional-only relationship, you should focus on gifts that reinforce how your business can help them (ex - a personalized Yankee Candle given to businesses by a cleaning company might help to reinforce a cleaner, better smelling environment).

When choosing swag, the careful consideration of the when, where and why of customer interactions can't be understated. So if your next promotional product doesn't cover at least one of these points, don't be disappointed when your customer trashes it! Buying swag can be one of the best ways in the world to promote your business, but like any gift, if you don't thoughtfully spend the time necessary to make it great, it won't be memorable.

Book Review - The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding: How to Build a Product or Service into a World-Class Brand

The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding: How to Build a Product or Service into a World-Class Brand
by Al Ries and Laura Ries

I recently stumbled upon this book written almost ten years ago and after finishing it, I was amazed at how well these "22 laws" still hold true for modern day business. The common sense approach that this book takes to branding speaks more to the overall strategy and mission of a company as to the just the marketing side of things. Where as many people might identify branding as just some element of business that marketing controls, no bigger per say than manufacturing is to operations, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding shows us that the strength of your brand will ultimately be the single most important element in the success of your business. Whether you are starting a new business or looking to improve upon an existing one, these 22 laws are a guide and resource to successfully (or unsuccessfully) building a company.

The 22 laws are as follows (this list would make for a great print out and should be hanging on your wall):
1. The Law of Expansion - The power of a brand is inversely proportional to its scope.
2. The Law of Contraction - A brand becomes stronger when you narrow its focus.
3. The Law of Publicity - The birth of a brand is achieved with publicity, not advertising.
4. The Law of Advertising - Once born, a brand needs advertising to stay healthy.
5. The Law of the Word - A brand should strive to own a word in the mind of the customer.
6. The Law of Credentials - The crucial ingredient in the success of any brand is its claim to authenticity.
7. The Law of Quality - Quality is important, but brands are not built by quality alone.
8. The Law of the Category - A leading brand should promote the category, not the brand.
9. The Law of the Name - In the long run a brand is nothing more than a name.
10. The Law of Extensions - The easiest way to destroy a brand is to put its name on everything.
11. The Law of Fellowship - In order to build the category, a brand should welcome other brands.
12. The Law of the Generic - One of the fastest routes to failure is giving a brand a generic name.
13. The Law of the Company - Brands are brands. Companies are companies. There is a difference.
14. The Law of Subbrands - What branding builds, subbranding can destroy.
15. The Law of Siblings - There is a time and a place to launch a second brand.
16. The Law of Shape - A brand's logotype should be designed to fit the eyes.  Both eyes.
17. The Law of Color - A brand should use a color that is the opposite of its major competitor's.
18. The Law of Borders - There are no barriers to global branding. A brand should know no borders.
19. The Law of Consistency - A brand is not built overnight. Success is measured in decades, no years.
20. The Law of Change - Brands can be changed, but only infrequently and only very carefully.
21. The Law of Mortality - No brand will live forever. Euthanasia is often the best solutions.
22. The Law of Singularity - The most important aspect of a brand is its single-mindedness.

These 22 laws are the stuff that great companies are made of. Want to know how strong your own company's brand is? Get this book and go through each chapter one by one and point out how well your brand follows each law. It might even open your eyes to strategy faults in your own organization but it will also give you a clear understanding of the bigger picture of public perception.

A brand is everything. It is who you are. And knowing who you are, what you stand for and how you can make that extremely clear and known to the rest of the world is critical to building a powerful brand.

New Starbucks Logo Represents a Change in the Company's Focus

Starbucks recently launched a change in their logo to celebrate their 40th anniversary (see the new logo here). Whether you are a fan of the giant coffee chain or not, it seems that Starbucks has lost site of the power of their name.

By removing their name from the logo, they are removing the most important part of their business, their brand. For Starbucks, their brand is completely represented in their name. Maybe for a company like Nike, who specializes in a number of sports related products, the swoosh is all you need because when you think of Nike, you no longer think about just shoes. However, Starbucks is in the business coffee and their name so powerfully connects to the idea of coffee, that removing it from the logo doesn't make sense from a branding standpoint. Perhaps if Starbucks goal is to expand their services to the point that the company is not primarily associated with coffee anymore, then this is a great decision (Starbucks mulling wine, cheese move). If their goal though is to merely show a fresh look, not some complete shift in their businesses focus, then removing their name could be a disaster.

There is nothing wrong with a logo change. The reality is brands get stale. The mistake is found with removing your name from a logo, when your name is the product itself. Think about Coca-Cola. They have undergone numerous logo changes but they remain the superior soft drink company. Despite the many graphical changes in the Coca-Cola logo (see the Coca-Cola logo throughout the years), the one thing that has remained constant in the logo is the name Coca-Cola. This is because their name is the product, Coke, which is synonymous with a cola drink. Just as a Rolex is an expensive watch, a Kleenex is a tissue and Campbell's is soup, to many people Starbucks is coffee.

When you go to Starbucks, you may be thinking ahead of time that you want a Caramel Machiatto, but you are also thinking that you want a Starbucks. This holds true, despite the many types of drinks available at the store. When your name almost becomes the thing itself you have a powerful brand. By removing it from the product, they are saying Starbucks isn't coffee rather a company that just happens to sell coffee among other things. That is apparent as the number of products you can buy at Starbucks seems to increase every year to the point where they have over extended their brand. Starbucks seems to be on a mission to be the cafe that sells everything, not just the few things they are good at that make them who they are. This logo change is just another move by a company that from a branding standpoint, appears to be getting out of the coffee business.