September 1st, 2010
Everything that you say says something about you. Your brand narrative is how you tell your story. It runs deeper than a marketing rollout or an advertising campaign. Your brand narrative is told in and through newsletters, press releases, promotions, CRM, sales, programming, products, annual reports, and internal communications- day […]
October 1st, 2010
We came across a newsletter this week that actually said: “‘like’ our Facebook page and receive an exclusive offer.” We’re not sure what the offer was, because we’re not interested in being bribed, manhandled, or coerced into social media engagement (…but we’re guessing it’s free shipping or a discount promo […]
February 2nd, 2011
“Made to Stick” by Chip and Dan Heath Why do some ideas make powerfully indelible impressions and others just don’t seem to stick at all? Chip and Dan Heath have the answer to what makes some ideas “stickier” than most. The official how-to guide on crafting and conveying ideas that […]
August 3rd, 2011
Narrativity: [nar-uh-tiv-uh-tee]: 1.) the degree to which your brand spunk, funk, credibility, attitude, and vibe shines through your messaging. 2.) Your voice, your verbiage, your tone. While preparing for a wine-touring camping trip to Watkins Glen, I began perusing the websites of the nearby Seneca Lake wineries and plotting my […]
October 9th, 2012
When it became clear that it was time to retire the “flashy” BlackDog website, we did what we always do around here. We started looking around, asking questions, and reading the facts and findings of the guru’s that write the research. What we gathered was informative, most of it was […]
June 3rd, 2013
We’ve all bumped into Cicero’s Latin placeholder in templates, websites and other draft work pieces. It serves to give a sense of shape, text or typography without confusion “by removing the distraction of meaningful content”.(1) Unfortunately, the same is true for much of the results of “branding” projects, or “re-branding” […]