Bassman's Radio Blog

I grew up with two great loves - radio and music. They were inter-related, but separate. The result of my misspent youth was a career spent around the dial, bouncing from AM to FM, small towns to real cities, living in four states - NC, CT, VA and PA. It was like a military career without the benefits.

That old medium I loved isn't what it used to be. It's death, apparently imminent, is completely self inflicted and still avoidable. Not by returning to the past - you can't go back - but learning from the past. What made radio thrive was it's unique, compelling stations. Stations that weren't mere music delivering commodities, but a pulse on their listener's lifestyle. If we can recapture that vibrancy, we'll recapture our life's blood. If not, we'll follow the daily newspaper (and the horse and buggy, the 8-track tape, muskets, suits of armor and togas) into oblivion. 'Ball's in our court.

Friday, September 25, 2009

HOW ABOUT A NICE HEAPING BOWL OF LOGO SOUP?

(Reposted from Bassman's Blog http://basscave.blogspot.com/)


How often have you had some entity - charities are particular good for this - call you up, try to get you involved in some event, and offer as some great value to include your logo in the print ads, the t-shirt, the poster, whatever? It happens all the time, and most of us jump at the offer. Especially when it's an established, well-attended event? "You know how many people are going to see our logo? That's great branding!"

I believe there are two issues with being an ingredient in this logo soup. First, people seeing your logo IS NOT BRANDING! Branding is when you manage to associate your name with a word, an attribute, in people's minds. I say hamburgers, you say Mcdonalds; I say soda, you sayCoke; I say toothpaste, you say Crest; I say beer, you say Budweiser - that's branding! (and you have to ask the question that way - it's the first thing that comes to mind when you mention the service or attribute, not what service or attribute you associate with the business name. I could whip out most any fast food joint and you'd associate them with hamburgers, but when you just say hamburgers, it's amazing how many people's instintive response is "McDonalds".

The other issue is, even if being part of the soup was branding (and it isn't!), how valuable is it. When your logo is spotlighted it may stand out. Many who look will actually see it. But the last time you had a piping hot bowl of seafood gumbo, did you notice all the ingredients - every single one? Or did you just see the soup as a single entity, noticing a couple of key ingredients (hard to miss the jumbo shrimp, right?) but instinctively letting the bulk of the "stuff" blur into one?

So the next time someone pitches including you in the print ad, the t-shirt, the poster for their big event and you excitedly state to your peers "You know how many people are going to see our logo?" the answer well may be darn near zero, and, futhermore, so what if they do?

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