Guy Richards / Ordinary Life with a Brand Strategist

Emotion and Innovation

Here is a desk we designed and built for my friend Bill Banks who specializes in wedding photography.

It’s not finished. It will be getting a black granite top. I just thought you would like to see how the ordinary can become an item of conversation.

Chances are, if a soon-to-be bride has a sit down in Bill’s office and two other photographers, Bill will get more conversation time than them because of his desk.

Which will create trust and preference.

Ok, then dress your baby boy in pink!

I sometimes find myself in debates about design and color with business owners that can’t seem to understand how it’s tied to emotion and can be harnessed to impact profitability.

I thought of this argument to illustrate the point.

Dear business owner and father, if color is meaningless, dress your baby boy in pink. If design is meaningless, dress your baby boy in a dress.

Brand Identity Life Cycle

The trendier your brand identity, clothes or stories the shorter the life cycle.

If you are looking for style longevity, it can be found between “old dated” and “trendy.” This space is called “relevant.”

Design without Value

I have had my hand in about 75 rebrands in the last 5 years. What I see time and time again is design without value.

Redesigning a brandmark (logo), marketing material, ad campaigns and website’s main purpose should be to catch the eye of the media and consumer to communicate value over the other competitors. It also reinvigorates employees to be proud of the place they work and sends the message that “yes, we are relevant and growing.” But if there is not a distinctive value being offered behind the hype then the product/service is still a commodity in a great wrapper.

Soon the buzz of the new design will fade and the company will be worse then when they started.

In the beginning of the year Tropicana, who has invested years into brand recognition redesigned their visual identity? The new brandmark was less readable. Consumers didn’t recognize it as Tropicana and sales fell. Soon they realized the redesign was a bad idea and scraped it.

They could of saved a lot of face plus millions in execution if they identified that their value was in product recognition.

People shopping for a product are likely to compare once. After that the buying decision becomes mindless and they “do what they have always done.”

Don’t skip discovery and strategy or execution will cost more than you want to pay.

AMI Rebrand

I have had a busy few weeks. Here are a few pictures of AMI's two 09' Mini Coopers that were apart of the rebrand we rolled out yesterday. Enjoy...

Checking in from the International Christian Retail Show

I’m sitting on a couch in my hotel in Florida super tied, joyful and over whelmed. God has done so much. Here is just a taste of what s going on here at the ICRS show.

We (Abiah) just rebranded the face of CBA and the International Christian Retail Show. This was a huge jump for them to position this 59 year old organization at a more relavant and younger mindset.

Here is the CBA booth on the trade show floor 

Jermery Camp

David Kinnaman (Wrote UnChristian) speaking in front of the new logo we (Abiah) designed.

PS. This is just a taste. When I can hold my eyes open a little more I will post more pictures and share the amazing testimonies God is doing here.

Mac Air

Last week we picked up a Mac Air for this project we are working on. I have to say they are light and thin. Very, very cool. But they don’t have a cd drive. Very, very annoying.

What do you think about the air?

Logo Reputation

On Saturday I was getting the oil changed in my wife’s van and found a Hyundai ad in Newsweek. The ad states “The truth is, logos don’t really do much of anything.” Then they go on to state “They don’t make you cooler. They don’t make the product better. In fact, a logo means nothing. Unless, of course, the company behind it means something.”

This sounds good, we all want to think this way as Christians, but this is not true. I have led rebrands that have sent companies and ministries intrigue levels through the roof. I have seen a start up company catch the eye of a large investment company and go global in under 18 months and I can go on and on. I do agree that an organization must be aligned with what it projects as an identity or it will eventual disappoint people.

But this Hyundai ad is trying something totally different here. Think about what Hyundai is known for, “inexpensive cars.” Well, in the last few years they have been trying hard to compete in the middle class market. But one problem they will always deal with is the former reputation they built. Chances are very likely that Hyundai will never compete against Honda and Toyota let alone BMW or Mercedes.

GMC did a focus group to see how adding a large SUV to their line would do. It failed, because people couldn’t believe GMC could pull it off. Well, they started another company and built the large SUV and it took off. It’s called Hummer. What we can learn here is that if your McDonalds don’t try to set up a high-end restaurant or if your Wal-Mart don’t try to sell designer clothes. It’s just doesn’t fit your reputation.

Well just thoughts. Here are some logo’s I’ve designed and directed.

To see what some of these companies looked like before, click here. Abiah case studies.

ENJOY!