I am expecting my new business cards to arrive by the end of this week.  I have a new title at work, and since I never got around to updating them with my last title change, I figure now is as good a time as any.  So my new title is there, along with my work phone, cell phone, email address, and company contact information, all plastered into the standard company business card template.

But for events, meetings, and introductions that are in no way related to my current company, I think it’s time that I had my own personal business card as well.  I’m talking about those instances where I run into friends from my past, where a potential consulting gig exists, where I want to pass my name and web site address out to people who might possibly be interested.

A recent blog post over at Ever-Real Modern Marketing inspired me with its display of seventy-two brilliant business card designs.  Now, I’m of the mindset that business cards should always be in the standard rectangle shape and in the standard size.  Many of the cards listed play by those rules, and I think the artists have done an amazing job working with colors, graphics, and typographies to make it their own.  I’m absolutely going to attempt the same.

In my experience, business cards that are shaped or sized differently from most tend to present more of a headache than anything.  I received one at an industry trade show I attended last year that, though novel in its approach, failed on all accounts.  One, it was too small, approximately the size of a fifty-cent piece.  Two, it was shaped like an octagon.  Three, it had light text on a very dark background, and four, the text was so small that every line looked cramped.

Oh yes, and I promptly lost it.  That’s what happens with small, oddly-shaped bits of stock paper.

The point is, I’m looking to create a business card for myself that is eye-catching, sensibly-shaped, and exudes a whole lot of me.  Because, let’s be honest, one’s business card is another means of advertising oneself as a product or a brand, and I need to be sure my card is as me as possible.  This is going to include some thought as to color schemes (reflecting, of course, the other self-promotional venues I use such as my web site and my Twitter page), typography (I tend to veer toward cleaner, sans-serif fonts, so not too many problems there), and any graphical elements I might think of.

And, no, despite my face being on pretty much every site of which I’m a member, I’m inclined not to put my photo on the card itself.  That just strikes me as very ‘real estate agent’ or ‘financial adviser,’ neither of which is my chosen vocation.  Personal opinion, of course, and no offense to those of you who aren’t either of those but do in fact have photos on your business cards.

Hmm. I think some Photoshop play is in order here.

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A lot of discussion has been going on recently about Best Buy’s and Pepsi’s decisions to try out a new ‘look.’  Whether or not the failing economy has anything to do with it, the fact of the matter is that it seems that both companies are simply missing the point completely.

Yes, a logo design change is necessary sometimes.  My company went through the same thing last year, when our original logo was deemed ‘amateur’ and we realized the difficulties in scaling the image in different environments because it was simply too detailed (and don’t even get me started on how it looked on polo shirts).  Our new logo is much simpler, more linear, and cleaner, and it fit in well with the repositioning of our brand on the marketplace.

But that’s just it.  The logo redesign was but a minor part of the overall brand overhaul.  The latter in itself is a difficult task to achieve, and a dangerous one at that, but that’s not the point of this post.  I’m trying here to reaffirm the notion, so often debated by marketing experts, that changing one’s logo rarely impacts a brand and thus rarely helps with market share.

Pepsi has redesigned its logo many times over the years, certainly many more times than Coca-Cola, its primary competitor.  Why?  According to Beverage Digest, Chief Marketing Officer Dave Burwick reportedly said, “If we don’t change quickly, we run the risk of being a footnote to history.” Hold the phone – a chief marketing officer of a major multinational corporation said that?  And yet Pepsi’s market share has dramatically fallen over the years.  Perhaps it would behoove to follow marketing guru Seth Godin’s advice:

Take the time and money and effort you’d put into an expensive logo and put them into creating a product and experience and story that people remember instead.

Seth has it right: brand reputation is what makes a company money, not a snazzy logo.  Especially when you change the apparent name of one of your products to MtnDew, which, by the way, just looks idiotic anyway.  Given how many times Pepsi has changed its logo (and undoubtedly spent thousands on rebranding – physically – their products), and how Coca-Cola continues to dominate the marketplace without straying much from its original design, something about Pepsi’s logic just isn’t clicking.

By focusing on the consumer experience, your brand improves its reputation and economic status.  With that comes a warm fuzzy when a pleased consumer sees your logo.

Best Buy is taking the same route as Pepsi.  First of all, it is removing what is a very memorable graphic element to create a more mature look.  Gone are the big bold capital letters, gone is the solid yellow price tag.  In its place are some thin, rounded letters with capitals in the proper places.  They’re testing it out at the Mall of America right now.

But what’s been happening to Best Buy’s brand?  I’m assuming sales have dropped since the advent of online shopping; one can find items, often cheaper, in many more places, from Amazon to Craigslist to eBay.  And a veritable army of angry customers has formed due to Best Buy’s careless attitude about customer service.  IHateBestBuy.com has a thriving community of folks who aren’t hesitating to share their stories about purchases gone horribly awry; in February, the company was sued for $54 million dollars after it lost a customer’s laptop … and didn’t do anything about it.  To be honest, I’m not completely content with Best Buy at the moment either after I ordered an item online for pickup, only to be told when I went to pick it up (after receiving an email from Best Buy that my item was ready) that, oops, the item wasn’t actually there, and that I could cancel the order if I wanted to.  Yes, apparently that was my only option.  Thanks, guys.  Real helpful.

Solid products, excellent customer service, and a dedication to success will get you the green.  Lacking all of those but having a snazzy logo won’t.  Your company’s story is what makes the logo work, not the other way around.  And it does bother me when I see marketers change their company’s logo on a dime because it seems like a ‘quick fix’ for their problems.

• Your Brand Is Not Your Logo
  
• Chronic Logo Redesign vs Preserving Brand Integrity
• Best Buy New Logo Redesign

One of the many wonders of the ‘Net is that not only do you get direct messages from companies, but you also have easy access to the opinions of disgruntled customers.

Sites like IHateStarbucks.com, BoycottWalmart.org, and LoewsSucks.com have been created for consumers to voice their not-so-flattering opinions of major companies.  And, recently, the Wall Street Journal reported the results of a survey that details company responses to such so-called “bad” publicity.

Buy All Uncomplimentary Domain Names

Xerox has done this, nabbing xeroxstinks.com, xeroxcorporationsucks.com, and ihatexerox.net, among approximately twenty others.  In this way, they prevent angry consumers from registering the domain names themselves, thereby forcing them to voice their opinions elsewhere: on forums, in blogs, etc.  However, this sort of “strangulation” method seems almost the worst thing Xerox could do, as it reduces the possible outlets for expression and thus has the potential to just frustrate the consumers more.

Let the Consumers Do What They Want

Dell hasn’t made any attempts to grab the anti-Dell domain names, and does not have any plans to do so.  Currently a few of these domains do exist, like DellIsEvil.com, but as yet the sites are merely parked and full of links to – you guessed it – the Dell corporate site.  Dell knows of its floundering reputation amongst some consumers, but is allowing them the freedom of expressing their opinions should they choose to do so.

Turn the Angry Domain Name into a Useful Tool

AMC Theatres turned the Loewssucks.com site into an educational resource and added a customer satisfaction survey.  BankofAmericaSucks.com has been modified from a strict text-only, single-consumer complaint page to a forum that is now known as “The Official Bank of America Consumer Opinion Site.”  Companies that use “bash” domain names as a means of funneling complaints about their products or services are actually taken advantage of a tremendous marketing opportunity.  By allowing such freedom of expression within a tight, managed format, companies can use the comments that come in to improve themselves in a way that appeals to extremely targeted individuals: people who are actually purchasing their products and services.

Read more about companies combating angry consumers, and thanks to Elena for the tip!

• They Just Don’t Get It
• How to Handle ‘IHateYourCompany.com’

That’s exactly what the engineers over at Inuda Innovations want to figure out. HowSociable? is the nifty new tool for those of you who wish to gauge how big of a presence and how much visibility your company or brand has on some of the top social media outlets, including Del.icio.us, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Technorati.

Though still in its infancy – the first prototype was only made available at the end of May, and even then they had “only spent a week building it” – HowSociable? has already measured over 7500 brands as of approximately fifteen minutes ago, and the number is quickly rising. Do note that many of the brands measured are actually just people’s names; I definitely checked mine, and apparently I’m not being sociable enough to have my name splashed all over the ‘Net … though that could be perceived as a good thing, I suppose.

Brands are measured based on a sliding scale that begins with a rank of 1000 for internationally-known brands such as Coca-Cola, and it goes down from there. The ranking system is a good start, but even the developers realize there is much to be altered within it – just think of the Google PageRank algorithm – and so they’ve launched a Feedback Forum for users to post their suggestions for the tool.

In any case, it’s a fabulously interesting concept, and I suggest you try it out for yourself.

• Seduction is a Social Media Tactic to Build Your Brand Online
• The Brand Called You and Misspelled Social Networks
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