Branding for SMEs – Dr. Paul Temporal

Brands are everywhere. They are a part of our lives. But some brands are more successful than others.
How do the best brands do it — how do they get so close to us that we will have them at the top of our shopping list whenever we can? And for those aspiring brand owners, what do they have to do to be a great brand? This series of articles answers these questions and helps explain that the magic of branding is both an art and a science, coupled with a lot of hard work.

Branding is vital for long-term profitability and growth, yet few small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) understand what branding is and is not. This article is a guide for SMEs on the “myths” and “musts” of branding that all small and medium-sized companies should know.

Elements of Branding – Table of Brand Evolution Terms

A little nifty doodad on branding by Kolbrener:

Built by the Kolbrener Branding Agency

Case Study: BKP Property Development’s Success Through Branding

Here’s a good case study for Malaysian business owners and managers to learn about branding, “Successful branding drives BKP’s property development success” (The Edge Financial Daily, 25 Sept. 2007, p. 8).  

A few thoughts to think about:

1. Branding is more than just a “face lift”  – it involves the external AND the internal
2. Branding is about being and doing.

   “Branding through executive (BTE) is a consistent and relentless delivery of an organisation’s core values, implementation of quality in-house management policies and passionate engagement with customers, staff and business associate.” ~ BKP’s group managing director N K Tong

3. Branding does, in fact, lead to success – sales, etc.
4. Branding must be championed by the top leadership/management – or it will fail

Full article here: Successful branding drives BKP’s property development success

Ideas Are Easy, Doing Stuff Is Hard

From my marketing hero, Seth Godin:

…ideas are easy, doing stuff is hard.

My feeling is that the more often you create and share ideas, the better you get at it. The process of manipulating and ultimately spreading ideas improves both the quality and the quantity of what you create, at least it does for me.

History is littered with inventors who had “great” ideas but kept them quiet and then poorly executed them. And history is lit up with do-ers who took ideas that were floating around in the ether and actually made something happen. In fact, just about every successful venture is based on an unoriginal idea, beautifully executed.

So, if you’ve got ideas, let them go. They’re probably holding you back from the hard work of actually executing.