Painting With Light

“The Old Door” © R.L. Herron

When I started this blog it was to talk about my writing and my photography and my views on those art forms as a means of social comment. I present an image with every post, and I’ve talked about a lot of things since I began.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the substantial changes in the advertising and marketing world. I grew up in that world and, not that long ago, marketing revolved around a mix of print and broadcast media.

However, the arrival of the Internet started a profound change. At first, everyone scrambled to build web sites, often without really understanding what they would do with them.

Not many asked themselves the fundamental question: Why?  A “presence” on the unique new venue was all that mattered.

Today, the exploding universe of social media has become a tool. The various online sites in existence (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, et al) are no longer venues belonging only to the young. People who still believe that are far behind the times.

Even the world’s largest marketer, Proctor & Gamble, has opened a California office primarily to develop its Facebook presence. But they haven’t abandoned traditional media.

P&G is learning how to balance the new technologies in their promotional mix to ensure the messages of their many brands are positioned to best advantage. Smart marketing.

Creating a place for people to come for information is good thing. But, in a setting of social media, the success of those messages depends on the perceived sincerity of the messenger. We’ve all seen those “try me” or “buy here” Tweets and blogs that hug the border of spam … and get treated that way.

Posts on a social media venue, such as this blog, are more of a one-on-one contact. People follow because of personal credibility, whether real or imagined. Posts that are hard-sell, or measured only for lead generation, don’t really communicate in such a setting, or open any doors.

Like the old door in the picture above, they become one-way portals that do little more than sit in a dark corner gathering dust, without establishing a relationship or cutting through any noise when it counts.

“Yellow Trees” © R.L. Herron

If it seems I’ve spent a lot of time talking about things very personal to me, there’s a reason.

I have.

But I began to think it was time I took a closer look at the brand called me. After all, regardless of what business we happen to be in, if we are in business, all of us need to understand the importance of branding.

Simply put, branding is what makes us believe one glass of water is better than the identical one next to it. We see it all the time, whether we realize it or not. “Choosy mothers choose Jif,” and “Things go better with Coke” are two excellent examples.

These days, everything is branded.

The distinctive swoosh on the side of your running shoes, or the name on the side of your disposable coffee cup, tells everyone who it is that has you branded, because the big companies understand this fundamental principle.

One of the truths of modern business is there is almost nothing your competitors can’t duplicate in short order. So the quintessential question becomes, what competitive edge do I have that cannot be easily copied?

This is where positioning comes in. It is the art of creating a brand image for your product or service that persuades customers it really is the best glass of water!

Such positioning can be influenced, but it is not created by the marketer. It is created by how others perceive it.

The characteristics that can work in creating such a perception:

• Relevance to the customer. Do you have the ability to produce or supply something they need?
• Promises backed by support. Does your product or expertise support your claims?
• Clear and focused messages. Are you consistent in what you say, and how you say it?
• Appropriate messages. Are your messages in line with the image you want to convey?

My messages, while clearly written (at least I hope they are), may sometimes be ambiguous in their intent…at least as far as business relationships are concerned.

However, one of the things I do claim to do well is write and edit, and those skills should be evident, even in personal essays.

So, just like the nondescript photo above, transformed to be something eye-catching and, hopefully, better than an ordinary photo of several trees (branding), my personal brand may need a better focus in order to have a competitive edge.

Now all I have to do is fine tune that focus and create the buzz.

Or forget about it, and just continue to have fun.