Re: Marketing Standards

Subject: Re: Marketing Standards
From: Dick Margulis <margulisd -at- comcast -dot- net>
To: Bill Swallow <techcommdood -at- gmail -dot- com>
Date: Mon, 08 May 2006 09:54:49 -0400

Bill Swallow wrote:

I am thinking of presenting literature from companies that produce a
range of diverse products and showing that they still have the same
overall style. Boeing seems to do that, but if anyone has any other
examples please pass them on.

How about Microsoft? It's something each one of them sees every day,
whether it be the Windows logo on screen or on their machines' cases,
in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, blah blah blah... Logos, colors,
placement, font face, etc... it's everywhere. Actually MS might be a
good example if you're looking for a consistent brand while allowing
the various product managers some leeway in creating a unique product
face... the corporate brand is propagated throughout all MS
technologies but each technology has its own identity as well.


I'd offer this caution: Procter & Gamble, the largest consumer products company in the US in terms of the advertising and marketing budget, takes the opposite approach: each brand stands on its own and succeeds or fails on its own. I don't mean that they hide the identity of the corporate parent; they don't. I just mean that they don't try to impose a top-down consistency across brands.

I think sophisticated marketing managers who have consciously taken this approach might find criticism coming from a "mere" tech writer to be impertinent and insubordinate. David should play this by ear, based on his understanding of who the players are. A strident presentation on corporate identity and consistent branding could rub some senior people very much the wrong way.

Dick, who is finally dipping his toes into the blogosphere, at http://ampersandvirgule.blogspot.com/

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Follow-Ups:

References:
Marketing Standards: From: David Tinsley
Re: Marketing Standards: From: Bill Swallow

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