I sold printing for quite a few years prior to owning an advertising firm – I loved it and was good at it. What I learned is that the power of the printed word IS powerful AND there is a right way to do it and a definite wrong way.
Brochures – it is imperative that a client or prospect be able to identify YOU as a company immediately from the cover of yourbrochure. It needs to be unique and identifyable. For intance, if you are a private elementary school and you put a child reading a book on the cover of the brochure that looks like any child from any school – what makes that unique? What screams YOUR COMPANY? nothing. Remember your brand. Your printed material needs to have something that identifies you and more importantly separates you from the competition. What should go on the cover of that brochure is something within your private school that no one else has – a landmark, a famed program something that isn’t run of the mill AND and identifiable UNIQUE logo.
Not always easy and not always easy for clients to understand.
Albeit, I do lose the battle sometimes – but I do try to make clients understand the value of “Brand Recognition”. When you see a “Swoosh” – you think Nike. It doesn’t matter if there is a sneaker or a sweatshirt on the front of the brochure- you see the swoosh and you identify with the brand. Geico has done it with the cavemen – those ads often don’t convey any image of insurance – BUT they have “Brand Recognition”. You see cavemen in a commercial – you think Geico Insurance.
To wrap this up – when designing a brochure or any print collateral you should make it to tie into your brand AND make it memorable. Cavemen and insurance – no connection, but Geico created brand recognition outside their genre- whether you like them or not, its marketing genius.
Don’t have a strong brand identity? Now is the time to start working on it. When you reach that magical place where you have THE “Swoosh” Nirvana then you don’t need me anymore!
Until then – start branding!
What does Brookhollow have? A cow and a tag line “Brand your Name…Build your Company” Enough said.
At left is Raisin the Cow ( in holiday attire) She appears in the majority of my ads and says it all – she’s branded with my logo for Brookhollow Marketing. And yes, she is a real cow from Hautboy Hill Farm in Corwall Connecticut. Cheers!
