What is a “Brand Capsule”?

This is a term we’ve come across from time to time and its’ meaning has always been a bit fuzzy (for me).

However as part of our current brand review process, where we’ve determined a brand capsule for e-see®.

I thought therefore, that this would be a good time to record a definition of what Brand Capsule is.

Brand Capsule is defined as:

Brand capsules represents the cast of a branding strategy (scenario) operating within an audience’s familiar cultural environment, relevant & literate to his or her own personal identity. The scenario focuses on solving or understanding needs, desire or contradictions felt by popular consumer tribes.

A brand capsule can be a name, a logo, a sound, an interface, a statement, an image, a small piece of software, a video clip, a simple ceremony… anything instant & easy to experience, easy to remember & easy to transfer, reproduce or broadcast toward another individual by word of mouth or word of mouse.

The capsule’s container is the brand identity (logo). The content is an “ideavirus” performing the symbolic & relevant answer to a need, a desire or soothing an cultural anxiety, an audience is struggling with.

From www.cross-culturalbranding.com

So what’s e-see®’s Brand Capsule? = “Simplifying Brand Management”

Happy Branding.

What a branding session at Mega might look like

Courtesy of our friend Dan at : Informly

American Airlines rebrand looks great

The new America Airlines brand identity looks great.

Have a look at this video that explains the update.

I really like the new “Flight” Symbol. Part eagle, part wing, part of the ‘A’.  Also love the new silver paint colour on aircraft…reminds me of PanAm and TWA.

In fact I think what I like about this is that it harks back to the golden age of aviation in the US.

Time will tell if the service itself lives up to the visual promise…but it’s a good start.

Which file formats should I use in my Digital Asset Management system?

The ability for brand, organizations and individuals to generate content in the form of images, artwork, writing, video and a host of other media types has become easier, faster and far more common place. Not just for professional content producers but almost everyone with a computer.

As content proliferates and is shared, Brands need to take measures to keep the important content under control.

To save, manage and distribute it with some sort of Brand Asset or Digital Asset Management system.

But which file formats? 

As part of the digital asset management process you need to decide which files to keep and which to discard. Which files formats are the best file formats to maintain usability and compatibility going forward. Which file  formats do you request from the creator and which to ingest into your BAM or DAM system.

Here’s a list of the top 6 DAM file formats.

1. PDF (Portable Document Format)

PDF or the Portable Document Format was originally a proprietary file format produced Adobe and required Acrobat software to read. However Adobe open sourced the PDF standard some years ago and it is now firmly entrenched as the standard container file format used by professionals and business users.

Originally designed to make wordy documents viewable and portable across computers systems, PDF has emerged as a do it all format that does the same job that previous container formats like EPS were performing. In fact .pdf and .eps extensions are now interchangeable.

PDF files can include images, vector artwork, text, InDesign documents, multi-page documents, portfolios of different types of media, video and more.

Most Adobe Creative Suite applications can save to PDF and you can typically elect to make them editable, making them an incredibly versatile format.

For example if creating logo artwork in Adobe Illustrator (the industry standard), you could save and ingest the file into your DAM in either Illustrator .ai, .eps or .pdf. AI and EPS files may need a professional creative application to view and/or edit whereas PDF will be viewable (not necessarily editable) by everyone.

While we currently use all three formats (eps, ai and pdf) , PDF is the future.

Read More

Need a Brand Voice? Show. Don’t Tell

Great post by @barrettcondy spotted at Forbes

I’m going to describe three brands to you. Try to guess which ones they are. Brand #1 is clear, insightful and optimistic. Brand #2 is fun, funny and slightly irreverent. Brand #3 is hard-working, honest and approachable.

If you guessed your own brand for any of these, you’re both right and very, very wrong.

Every client brief or brand standards guide has this section: “What is our brand voice?” How is a sane brand supposed to answer that? Of course you’re insightful, hard-working and fun. Who wouldn’t want to be that? Or clear? Or honest? I have yet to see a brand that admits to being money-grubbing, treacherous and curmudgeonly.

“Brand voice” is supposed to guide people (both at the agency and within your own walls) in creating materials that are on-brand. This voice can mean anything from a simple email to a full-blown campaign.

However, in this endeavor, brand voice is nearly useless. There are limited positive adjectives with which to describe your brand, but there are unlimited brands to describe. Therefore, every brand voice starts to sound the same, because clear and insightful are essentially no different from smart and approachable.

My brand is like a pineapple.

It’s about showing, not telling. If people say they’re cool, they probably aren’t. But if they say they’re like Fonzie, maybe they’re worth hanging out with. Start drawing comparisons, and you end up with a more accurate portrayal of your brand’s image.

• If your brand were a superhero, what would his or her superpower be?Maybe your superpower is flight, because your product flies off the shelves. Or precognition, because you can predict market changes. Answer with what you have, not what you wish for. I’m sure Batman would have loved the power of flight, but he worked just fine with what he had.

• What type of cereal is your brand? Unless your brand is cereal, you’ll need to pick a car or fruit. Again, the key is the rationale. Are you crunchy? Healthy? Flaky? Do you have a prize inside? What type of box do you come in? Do kids love you or loathe you?

• How is your brand like a frog/Gandhi/a dinosaur/a bicycle/a politician? Example: Is it like a frog, because it can catch business that seems out of reach?

These are just a few examples. But if brands start thinking of themselves not in terms of words but rather examples of how they want people to feel about them, everyone involved in representing the brand will have a much easier time.

The original article can be seen here.

Barrett Condy is a senior copywriter at gyro, the global ideas shop.

Follow him @barrettcondy

A brand transparency lesson from McDonalds Canada

Checkout this brilliant piece of branding transparency from McDonalds Canada.

McDonalds Canada operate a Your Questions page on their website, where they field questions from customers and answer them in a clear and transparent fashion.

We particularly like the response to this question: ”

Why does your food look different in advertising than it does in the store?”

Some time a go I met with a food photographer that explained the process to me and I knew already that it takes several hours to get the right shot.

However this video response from McDonalds is superb. Clear and transparent. It does a great job of explaining the differences and too me anyway, enhances McDonalds reputation immensely.

Have a look at the video and then consider how you could open up and reveal something about your own brand. Honesty is always the best policy and we all love authentic brands.

Happy branding :-)

Closed for Christmas

We’ll be closed over Christmas, off on holiday.

Close: 4pm Friday 21 December 2012
Open: 9am Monday 7 January 2013

If you need support or urgent assistance during that period you can contact the helpdesk as usual, on 0800 300 373 or help@e-see.com.

If you need assistance with publishing new data or product photography during that period, please contact us as soon as possible to arrange prior to the Christmas break.

Thank you

It’s almost over, this year of 2012 and we’re looking forward to a break over Christmas, the opportunity to recharge, relax with our families and friends, Christmas crackers, yummy food, sunshine, a good book …and plenty of sleep.

Naturally we couldn’t have made it through the year, without all of our customers, brand users, colleagues, partners, suppliers and supporters.

So thank you.

The Santa Claus™ brand

We asked ourselves, what would Santa’s brand guidelines look like.

We think something like this:-

So there you go. The Santa Claus™ brand is free to use but follow the rules and you should be good to go.  As always, if in doubt check with Santa HQ in the North Pole, who make the final decision about fair and proper use.

Feel free to share these guidelines.

e-see® Brand Review

You know the story about the Builders house that’s never finished.

Well as a branding company we’ve felt a little out of sorts, especially around the differences between e-see® and BrandFM. We decided we needed to “eat our own dog food”, so to speak. Late this year we started a brand review and realignment process (which we highly recommend).

As a result of this work (which is still ongoing) you’ll see some changes in the new year. However you can get a sense of the changes coming in our new tagline; Everyone on-brand, everywhere.

We’re looking forward to a big year in 2013.