I have been reading ‘Zag’ by Neumeier-author of ‘The Brand Gap’ and will be sharing some key points from the book for individuals and entrepreneurs working on their brands.

The goal is to provide insights, process, and courage to build a high-performance brand for individuals or companies.

A cluttered world

• In today’s world of cell phones, tweets, and email, we are so connected that we risk becoming disconnected.
• Companies have cited Blackberrys under the table as “the biggest obstacle to coherent meetings”
• McDonald’s recently reduced avg-meal-delivery time to 121 secs.  They plan to shave off another 15secs by adding an RFID system.
• Today’s real competition is not from other competitors, its from the extreme clutter of the marketplace.
• 5 forms of marketplace clutter; Product clutter, Feature clutter, Advertising clutter, Message clutter, and media clutter.
• Clutter; Too many products, too many features in each product, too many media messages, too many elements per message, too many channels.
• When CEOs say half of ad money is wasted, but they just don’t know which half; it may be the half spent on message clutter
• Fighting clutter with more clutter is like trying to put out a fire with gasoline

Barriers to Competition

• Barriers to competition have changed over time.  At beginning of industrial revolution, it was ownership of the means of production.
• When most companies had machines, barrier to competition became the factory
• When more companies had factories, the barrier to competition became access to capital
• As manufacturing gave way to information economy, barrier moved from monetary capital to intellectual capital.
• With cracks in the intellectual capital barrier, newest barriers to competition are d mental walls erected by customers to keep out clutter.

Today, barriers to competition have moved from the physical to intellectual and from within company’s control to outside it.

What is Branding?

A company’s brand is just like a person’s reputation.  It’s not what you say it is – it’s what they say it is.  Your brand/reputation lies outside your control.  The best you can do is to INFLUENCE it!

Moving from Advertising to Branding

Traditional advertising is in death spiral because people don’t like 1-way conversations and people don’t trust advertising.  People are opting for web-based 2-way conversations rather than traditional intrusive one-way sales pitches . In addition,  the blurring of ‘church and state’ -content and advertising- by sneaking in ads into content is another reason for death spiral.

Marketing Defined-Guy says to Girl; I am a great lover.

TeleMarketing Defined-Guy calls Girl on phone and says : I am a great lover.

Public Relations Defined- Girl1 says to Girl2- Trust me. He is a great lover.

Advertising Defined- Guy says to Girl; I am a great lover.  I am a great lover.  I am a great lover.

Graphic Design Defined; Guy does not say any words to girl.  Instead he uses power of graphics to convey message.

Branding Defined: Girl says to Guy; “I understand you are a great lover “.

To be continued!