BRAND TATTOO

One of the expressions that I use in my speaking sessions on building business into a big brand is "You have to indelibly imprint or tattoo your brand in your customer’s minds". And one of the ways to make sure that you do that, is to make sure that every single piece of communications is "on brand strategy" and looks like it belongs to the same family.

I was thinking about that recently and it brought to mind a true story that I would like to share with you, that I hope will demonstrate the power of branding yourself or your company so that it differentiates itself from the competition.

At this particular time in my life I was living on the beautiful Island of St Thomas USVI, I absolutely love the place and the people who live there.

As was normal on the weekends I would go to the beach and basically hang out and watch the world go by and enjoy watching the volleyball. This particular day a boy who had been born in the States but parents had moved to the island came down to play volleyball. His name is David, and I knew him very well, and the thing that made David different was that he was the ultimate "Preppie". Everything David wore came from Ralph Lauren and had the "Polo" logo on it. I mean everything, sneakers, shorts, hat, tee shirt, I am sure his bed sheets were Polo too.

• As an aside, did you know that the US Polo Association can't use the word "Polo", as their URL, that smart businessman Ralph Lauren owns the rights to it.

So David gets the chance to get into the game and takes his Polo sneakers off and puts them under the chair next to me. Then he takes his Polo cap off and finally the Polo Tee comes off!  And that's when I started laughing so hard that people must have though I was nuts. There it was on David's chest the "Polo" logo tattooed exactly where the Polo logo should be on a shirt.

Can you imagine putting a tattoo of your personal or corporate logo on your body? Harley-Davidson could imagine and their customers do it too!

The chances are that it will be tough to get you, your asociates or workmates to tattoo themselves with the company or personal logo, but you should think of delivering all of your corporate or personal brand messages with "CONSISTENT AND MUTIPLE QUALITY IMPRESSIONS". If you just do just this it will dramatically increase your chances of moving your brand towards becoming the Brand Leader in the category that you are competing in.

My wife Kathi and I spent the Christmas Holdays in New York. Just seeing the smiles on our Granchildren's faces when they opened their presents was awesome!

Is that too cool or what?

On the work front I am pleased to be speaking for MPI in New Orleans in a few days and if you are going to be there, please make sure to say hello!

I will give you a report on how it went in the next issue of BRAND AID.

Finally, I am actually going to  launch the GOLF ACCESSORY product that I have invented. If you would like to learn more about it and be one of my test group, just drop me an e-mail, and thanks in advance! Or go to www.highanddrygolf.com which is the work in progress website!