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Every cancer center has a mission, vision and core values. If you looked them all up, they are all pretty similar. It is tough to differentiate your brand. But the leading cancer center for 10 of the past 13 years according to the U.S. News & World Report’s annual survey, does a few things differently. Continue reading

As we celebrate the Fourth of July holiday here in the United States, I am reminded of the emotional power flags have. A flag can become powerful visual hammer for a country, company, idea or movement. Continue reading

What can a red nose do? It can build a brand. A red nose is the visual hammer for Red Nose Day, a campaign started in the U.K. and has now moved into America. The Red Nose Day fund is a program of Comic Relief, a non-profit that raises money for children living in poverty. Hundreds of charities do similar work, but most don’t become as well-known or raise as much money. The difference? A visual hammer that drives the brand into the mind. It might be a simple or silly thing like a pink ribbon, a yellow bracelet or a red nose. Three visuals that have built powerful, relatively-new non-profit giants. Continue reading

Hewlett-Packard is trying to become more focused by dividing itself in half. But dividing isn’t so easy. It is messy legally, corporately and mentally. The lawyers can separate the assets, but how to you separate the companies in the mind? One way is with the name, another way is with a visual. But the new logo for Hewlett Packard Enterprise is empty and boring. Is the rectangular shape supposed to be a server? If so, it would seems to position them as just another boring computer consulting company. Continue reading

Running for President of the United States means building a brand that at least 51% of the country is willing to buy on Election Day. Not an easy task in a country as large and diverse as America. Too narrow a focus and you won’t get a majority vote. The key to winning an election is to find a key issue narrow enough to stand for something but broad enough to be appeal to several constituencies. Continue reading

Starbucks, like most companies these days, is obsessed with buzz. Not the kind you get from a double-espresso but the kind you find online with tweets, hashtags and likes. It used to be that the major media outlets controlled the conversation. Today, consumers via social media have the power to start, join or change the conversation. The media covers the buzz instead of creating it. As a result, companies are trying harder than ever to encourage consumers to start conversations online with hashtag campaigns. Continue reading

We saw fewer special effects, sexy girls and kicks to the crotch this year. And the few that took that route fell flat. What did score big is what always scores big. Ads from brands that own strong positions in the mind, that dominate categories and that hammer us with a familiar theme and visual in a new and entertaining way. Budweiser, Snickers, Doritos and Always scored big. Continue reading

The Weed Wars are coming. As the legalization of marijuana continues to move forward, we will see hundreds of homegrown brands turn into a handful of big brands and eventually a couple of dominant brands. It happened with cars; it happened with beer; it happened with computers; it happened with energy drinks. It will happen with marijuana. Continue reading

What kills most marketing programs is “change.” When you keep changing your slogans, you confuse consumers and after a while they don’t attention to what you are trying to say. Over the years, Burger King has had a lot of slogans. Remember “Where is Herb?” Burger King spent over $40 million trying to find him. They never did! Continue reading

Unless you were a Seattle fan, the 2014 Super Bowl wasn’t a super game to watch. The puppy bowl was more competitive. So that left a lot of pressure on the commercials to deliver some much needed excitement and entertainment. A few spots delivered but most were not very memorable. One thing that continues to make the difference between failure and success is the use of a consistent visual hammer. Continue reading

Find out what the top things you need to do to make your brand the best it can be in 2014. Continue reading

Motorola invented the category of cellphones. Nokia brought cellphones to the masses. BlackBerry invented the keyboard phone for email. Samsung brought better designs. iPhone invented the touchscreen internet device. What is really striking about iPhone compared to other cellphone brands is the consistency in their design and simplicity of the naming. Each phone has the same look and each new model focused on one or two major improvements sure to generate lots of buzz. Continue reading

Yahoo took a memorable, unique logo and after 30 days and 30 designs ended up with a rather average, boring, uninspired one. Marissa Mayer was clearly trying to make her mark on the company by changing the logo and giving it her own personal touch. And while Yahoo succeeded in getting a lot of attention and PR. The 30 days of logos created a media frenzy for the big reveal. Yahoo’s redesign ultimately failed in my opinion because the big reveal wasn’t very exciting. (Reminded me of the Segway launch!) Continue reading

The brand with a generic name YouSendIt but a nice visual hammer (paper airplane) is now Hightail. A better brand name, but it sadly lacks a visual hammer. When picking a new name, what the visual will be is too... Continue reading

If the Super Bowl is about beer, chips and boobs, then this weekend’s Oscars ceremony is all about diet soda, yogurt and hunks. Continue reading

When it comes to Super Bowl ads you can always count on seeing several things: Celebrities, special effects, babies, animals, sexy girls and dudes getting hit in crotch. This year I expect nothing to be much different. But even in this social media obsessed world, success still comes down to producing a Super Bowl ad that is engaging, relevant, on message. And if it has a Visual Hammer too? Touchdown! Continue reading

When you combine a focus, name, verbal nail and visual hammer, you can build a brand that cuts through the mind and goes straight to the heart. Wounded Warrior Project does just that. Continue reading

I appoligize for not posting as often to this blog as I should. I have been writing it for almost 10 years now. And during that time I've published three books and given birth to two boys. It's been an... Continue reading

Obama's “forward” slogan won him four more years in the White House did what most slogans do not. It cut both ways. It said something positive about his brand while also saying something negative about the competition. That’s tough to do. Obama set up the election as a choice between going forward with him or going backwards with Romney. Continue reading

Frozen yogurt is a popular summertime treat and personal favorite of mine; it is also a category that has experienced tremendous growth with new brands branching out in all directions. Like a tree that branches out as it grows, categories grow and diverge over time. What was once one category ends up diverging into multiple categories. And many times the original leader fails to keep up. Here is my recap of the Fro-Yo wars. Continue reading

Happy Birthday America! We are celebrating the Fourth of July holiday in the United States today! I'm also using today to kick-off my new Visual Hammer of the Week series. It should be no surprise that this week's selection for Visual Hammer of the week is the Flag of the United States of America. Continue reading

Captcha boxes are annoying and customers hate them. But companies need them to stop the bad guys. Or do they? Could a branding and research opportunity replace captcha and still stop fraud? Continue reading

A company makes a major mistake when it develops a verbal strategy without considering what visual hammer might help hammer that idea into consumers' minds. Continue reading

In 1990, Audi hired my Dad to help them revive the brand in the U.S. after the 60 Minute segment that nearly destroyed the brand. I remember the case well and was curious about what his exact ideas for Audi were so I dug up a copy of his report. Al’s advice: "Don't try to fight a bad perception...... Continue reading