BRANDING-what's the big deal?

Before we start I'm just gonna throw in a disclaimer: Most of these ideas will be extracted from a book called "The Brand Gap" by Marty Neuimer (pick up a copy if you want the specifics) also browsing over "The Marketing Plan" by Malcom McDonald and Peter Morris as well as various other internet sources that I'll try to remember to refer to when I bring them into the mix....any hoo enough of the boring legalities lets discuss what brand is and how, why and where brand is used...

Branding is an identity; its more than a logo,more than a product,more than strategically chosen neon colours to attract consumer attention. It is "not what you say it is, it is what

A consumers choice to buy a product is led by their lifestyle and not necessarily by the one they own but perhaps by the one they wish to attain. We buy into an idea, we accumulate the things we associate with the life we want therefore buying into a brand is more than picking up a shiny product its choosing a representation of yourself.

So when it come to marketing and branding your product you need to think 'why me?'

What will set you apart from the competition?

What will make your customer trust your brand?

What will be the personality of your brand?

I personally think the best way is to create a character who represents your brand, discover what they do and like, learn more about them and their habits and then make your product something that they couldn't live without!

so...branding really is key to giving your product a place in the market....

Where do great ideas come from???

A golden question...any writer or indeed entrepreneur will concur with this....so where do we get them and how do we harness them?

Many a square-eyed, night has been spent in my boudoir (lovely pretentious word) staring blankly at my Mac (lovingly called Candy....Candy Apple....Apple Mac, judge me as you will) wondering what the hell is preventing my fingertips from producing the next big thing! 

So surely there is some strategy or format? Maybe Google has the answer....I was about to say something blasphemous but I'll desist...any way back to the brief, my "idols" such as Spielberg, Tarrantino and Hitchcock must have some clever thing to say about this topic so I'll do a lil web search and post some epic excerpts or speeches from the great men:

Spielberg:

 

(excerpt from Steven Spielberg: interviews - Google Books)

Tarrantino:         

"....almost entirely from elements of other films, mainly what Tarantino refers to as "grindhouse cinema": a catch-all term for movies that played in cheap US cinemas in the 1970s - Hong Kong martial arts flicks, Japanese samurai movies, blaxploitation films and spaghetti westerns."

(excerpt from The Guardian online newspaper)

Hitchcock: 

"Drama is like real life with the dull bits cut out."

(excerpt from www.goodreads.com)

And so you see ideas come from many different places, it's clearer to me now that a good idea doesn't come from one source, if it did we'd all be filthy rich. The last quote from the great Hitchcock caught my attention because after trawling through millions of quotes (slight hyperbole) I saw that in such a small sentence he was saying that the idea is the most natural of all, it comes from life and experience, then you make it a bit more colourful....apply this to a good idea, it starts off as some kind of basic, intrinsic need and then evolves into a useful device that fills an overlooked niche...long live the paper clip!

I was told to blog so blog i must....

So I'm finally here after much deliberation, apparently this will be the tool of dissecting media for entrepreneurial innovation.....something like that, well I should say something witty and interesting <here and end with ellipses...>