For some reason, a lot of people think brochures are dead because they figure they’ve got a website and why on Earth would they EVER need a brochure?

There are all the cons:

• it takes a lot of time to plan, write and produce
• it requires skillful graphic designer who understands print production
• it requires printing, which can get expensive
• it seems to out-of-date the day after it’s printed

But, what many people forget is that brochures have not lost their value in the marketing and sales process because they provide (sometimes the only) the tangible and visual representation of a brand.

If you were going to purchase a car, maybe a Mercedes-Benz. It’s ridiculous to think that a nice, slick, 4-color, glossy brochure won’t make a solid impression on the buyer, and is in fact a strong marketing tool in helping to reinforce the quality brand that Mercedes stands for.

Mercedes tells you they have the best engineered cars in on the road and it’s only natural that they would want to provide brochures and marketing materials that position their brand in EXACTLY that way – showing the potential buyer why they have the best cars.

The branding logic is, if their brochures are this well-done and impressive, what must their cars be like?

What do your print materials say about your company? Do they say Mercedes or Yugo?

Many branding and marketing books will try to tell you that there’s some secret formula to making your market feel confident in your company’s ability to deliver, but it’s really rather straight-forward.

To win confidence, you simply have to consistently deliver on what ever promise your company or brand makes. Whatever that promise is, you have to consistently be there.

A lot of companies make a lot of plans around a promise – whether it’s Domino’s promise to deliver your pizza 30 minutes or else it is free or J. Crew’s absolutely no-hassle return policy – if you don’t deliver on that promise, it’s going to cost you.

And even with customer service, as a society we have become more demanding in the quality that we expect and the minimum levels of customer service we’re willing to accept. And, as the world gets smaller with Internet communications, companies need to make pure craftsmanship of customer service.

But, it all starts with being consistent.

There’s a guy named Scott Ginsberg and I don’t know if you’ve ever seen him, but he has his website called HelloMyNameIsScott.com and for the past 2,900+ days, he’s worn a nametag. Which means, he’s been wearing a nametag everyday for the past 8 years. Scott wears his nametag every single day no matter where he is going. If he’s doing laundry, he’s wearing the nametag that says, “Hello, my name is Scott”.

His story is very interesting and at some point he even got a tattoo where his nametag would be – presumably to take care of days at the beach. That’s Scott’s “thing”. There is no question that Scott is at the very center of his brand.

And, being at the center of your brand gives you a level of differentiation that’s hard for your market to ignore.

Scott happens to help companies make their brands more approachable to their markets – so it makes sense that his “calling card” would be a nametag. It works perfectly for him. He’s done a good job with that.

But, what about you? What if you’re the center of your brand and you don’t want that dynamic anymore? You’ve found yourself being the Scott Ginsberg, the Dr. Phil, the Madonna of your brand you’re sorry you developed your brand in that way.

You want to be able to take a break.  You want to sell the company.  You are’re interested anymore.  You have had a nervous breakdown. Whatever the case, you want out. What do you do?

Well, you think, “that’s tough”.  You think it’d be hard to do for the obvious reason – YOU are the brand.

Let’s look at Martha Stewart. Let’s say, for example, that she wants to sell her company. I believe she might make out BETTER than if the brand was NOT centered around her as THE brand’s personality. Look at it from a marketing standpoint: there wouldn’t be a Martha Stewart satellite radio station, cooking show, magazine, retail lines – without Martha Stewart being at the forefront.

She has also created a meaning behind the brand – well, her marketing people have. When you know something is made by Martha Stewart’s company, that means certain things – quality, fair price, equality – and those things aren’t really about her personally. It’s become what the brand means to consumers.

So, if YOU are the brand, there might not be so much to worry about. Just make sure the brand MEANS something aside from you so that when you exit, you don’t take the brand with you.

Whatever happened to Ronald McDonald? Where is he?  And, the Hamburgler? What happened to him? Did you notice when they left? It occurred to me recently that they are MIA (missing in action) as part of the McDonalds’ brand.

We still have the Ronald McDonald house, which provides a tremendous service to sick children and their families, but where is Ronald McDonald himself? He used to be on TV commercials and made public appearances. You would see him and the Hamburglar and the other characters of Ronald McDonald land at grand openings of a McDonalds and other events. Looks like they were quietly retired from the McDonalds’ brand.

And, who has said hello? The Burger King in his costume.

I personally like the Burger King with his plastic face and frozen smile. Burger King didn’t try to make an animated character or overdo the Burger King concept. He’s just kind of totally fake and you know it, and more importantly, he appeals to kids AND adults.

Brand mascots can really do a lot to build a brand – especially when they are oddly real or people can identify with them – think Energizer Bunny or Owens Corning’s Pink Panther.

But, seriously, what did actually happen to the Hamburglar?

McDonalds’ marketing used to be totally driven towards kids. Their whole advertising was focused on engaging children and reluctantly the parents would give in and truck on down to the local McDonalds to get them Happy Meals that included little plastic toys – like the Hamburglar.

Now, as our population is getting older and making healthier food choices, McDonalds has changed gears – its advertising is focused toward aging boomers who want to have healthier food and McDonalds has revamped its menu to include more salads and lower fat meals.

So, while we might be pained to have seen the exit of Ronald McDonald and the Hamburglar, McDonalds was smart to reposition themselves and take advantage of the changing demographic trends by offering healthier fare that appeals to both boomers and their older, more health conscious children.

Just do it.

Quality is job #1.

We try harder.

Healthy fast food.

It is entirely possible to “own” a phrase or a word in the mind of consumers. The above examples prove that – and it’s not just an option for big companies.

If you the phrase you choose describes what your brand stands for or cuts through to your brand’s core values, you can own that phrase. Being able to achieve “phrase ownership” is a quick way to communicate an idea to your customers.

Think about Burger King, they owned, “Have it your way.” Which, in essence sent the message to consumers that if they went to McDonald’s they couldn’t be sure if they could order their Big Mac with no pickles.

With Burger King, you told them what you wanted and they would  make it.

That one small difference was the reason their marketing campaign was very successful. They focused on the one thing they knew they could do better than McDonald’s, developed a phrase for it and delivered on their promise.

People always ask me how long a brand should be around before it’s safe to change brand elements like corporate colors, logo shape or the company name.

And, brand changes – or upgrades – do happen. Some of the brands that consumers are familiar with have gone through considerable changes, for example, Citibank.

The old Citibank logo looked like this:

And, now it’s looks like this:

Granted, this was done to manage their merger with Traveler’s, because Traveler’s logo is a red umbrella, but their logo changed nonetheless.

In most circumstances, it’s probably not a good idea to mess around with the three main brand elements unless, of course, any one of those elements is just awful – like a bad name that’s dated or just should be changed.

It’s really important that you not mess around with the company name because mostly people relate to a company’s name more than anything, but sometimes you have to.

An example of a smart name change is Consolidated Foods. That name was just too general. Who is this company? What do they do? Who’s their market? The name was just bland.

Consolidated Foods changed their name to Sara Lee and now it’s a very recognizable brand name. Soon after the name changed to Sara Lee, the company rose to the become one of Fortune Magazine’s most-admired companies in the food industry.

The company CEO at the time, John Bryan, made the comment that people invest in and buy the stock of companies that they believe can become the best. He remarked that the company itself is the same, the only difference is the name. In other words, the company did not change, implement any new management or Six Sigma strategies or anything like that – they just changed the name. And that name, Sara Lee, has proven to have a very positive image with consumers.

If at all possible, stick with the brand you have, upgrade it if need be, but try not to remove all recognizable bran elements unless there is no other choice.

In my book, Branding Insights for Small Businsses, I used the example of Exxon, the oil company:

which used to be called Esso:

The powers that be at Esso needed to change the company name and they decided to let a computer select the name for them.

They fed the computer some parameters:

• it had to have two syllables
• double consonants
• start with an “E”
• be a name that wasn’t being used throughout the world and
• no meaning in foreign language.

Exxon was supposedly the only word the computer came up with.

I like Exxon because it was the first company that used a computer for naming – or in this instance re-naming – a company.

Although this happened awhile ago, I still find this case study very interesting. And, at least they kept the colors the same!