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Archive for category: Brand Management

Brand Management

The FedEx Logo’s Colorful Complications

FedEx has one of marketing’s most recognizable logos. It’s simple: take the first syllable of each word in their name. Federal Express becomes Fed Ex. Smash them together. Put them in the proper font. And voila: you have a well-known brand.

But FedEx has long used color to differentiate which branch of their business their logo is representing.

You probably think of their logo being an iconic purple and orange:

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But that’s only one of their many color patterns.

That orange is also often replaced by a litany of other colors.

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What many people don’t realize—even if they’ve noticed the differentiating palette—is that each of these different colors has a completely different meaning.

Orange is their standard express delivery service.
Grey covers their supply chain services.
Green is ground and home delivery.
Red is freight.
Blue is “custom critical.”
Yellow is trade networks.

Believe it or not, that’s not even all of them.

But most casual observers never realized there was more than one color option, much less that each color had its own unique significance.

Don’t worry about working out mnemonic memory devices for each pattern though. FedEx realized that no one knew the difference — or cared. So they’re officially retiring all of their logo colors save for the standard purple and orange.


As long as we’re talking about the FedEx logo though, here’s one cool component that definitely won’t change: the arrow within.

If you know it’s there, you see it every time you look at the logo. If not, you’ll be amazed what you’ve been missing.

Check this out:

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See it now?
IT WAS RIGHT THERE THE WHOLE TIME!
Hard to imagine, right? It gets cooler still. Check out their logo in Arabic:

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It points in the opposite direction and is written with a different alphabet, but it still contains that (missed-by-most, but loved-by-those-who-notice-it) arrow letting the user know it’s the same brand they can trust to get their package from point A to point B.

Who knew there was so much to such a simple logo?!

Do you have any favorite logos hiding secrets within? Share them in the comments.


​LOOKING FOR MORE SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS, TRICKS, STRATEGIES AND HACKS?

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Check out my podcast Step Up Your Social. All episodes are short (~10 minutes or less) and provide quick, actionable tips to take your digital marketing to the next level. Listen at StepUpYourSocial.com or wherever you stream podcasts.

 

August 26, 2016/0 Comments/by Josh Klemons
/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/reverbal-logo-1.png 0 0 Josh Klemons /wp-content/uploads/2022/11/reverbal-logo-1.png Josh Klemons2016-08-26 10:47:272022-12-21 09:41:04The FedEx Logo’s Colorful Complications
Brand Management, Politics, Telling Your Story

Some Non-Political, Non-Policy Takeaways from the Democratic National Convention

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Last week, I had the good fortune to attend the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. Needless to say, it was quite the experience. I saw and learned A LOT.

While the DNC is all about politics, and quite a bit about policy, I want to reflect on what I learned regarding process. Here are a few key takeaways—in no particular order–that I took away from my time at the DNC.

If you have any questions about anything else from the week, ask them in the comments or on Twitter—I’ll be happy to answer them.

Who’s Telling The Story?
I watched the RNC on television, I had a front row seat for the DNC (well, not exactly front row, but you know what I mean). From where I sat, the RNC was a full-on sh*t show compared to the DNC.

  • The speakers were low caliber (hard to compare Scott Baio and that guy from Duck Dynasty to a past POTUS, a current POTUS, a VPOTUS, a FLOTUS, numerous high-profile Senators, the list goes on and on).
  • The Republicans gave a very coveted time-slot to a rival they knew wasn’t going to endorse their nominee (Senator Ted Cruz). When he didn’t endorse, Trump staff riled up the audience and got them to boo. The crowd was so contentious, Cruz’s wife had to be escorted out for her own safety.
  • The lights on stage and around the arena flickered off during numerous speakers on stage at the RNC.
  • The Donald brought out a lot of “character witnesses,” including most of his children, and not one had a nice anecdote to share about their father/friend. They talked about his success, but not about his person.
  • There was one prominent plagiarism scandal (Melania) and one minor one (Donald, Jr.).

Now to be fair, the DNC had its fair share of controversies.

  • Their party chair and the event host had to resign her position (more on this to follow).
  • There were intense displays of disunity and frustration at an event whose theme was literally “Stronger Together.”

But none of the DNC chaos ever made it on to stage. You could see the protestors in the audience and you could hear them chanting (and occasionally booing), but as far as the regularly scheduled program: it was a well-oiled machine.

And yet, I saw countless stories talking about how much better an event the RNC was, when compared to the DNC.

At first glance, I couldn’t understand it. Had the press been watching a different set of conventions that me?

The answer: they were watching the same events, but they were experiencing them much differently.

Unless you watched the conventions yourself, what you know about them is most likely based on how the press chose to report them. The press experience at the RNC was FAR superior to the press experience at the DNC. I know this from reading numerous reports as well as several conversations with reporters. The RNC understood the importance of pampering the press — the DNC seemed to approach them as an oversight. The reporting conveyed those differing opinions.

The Takeaway: If you don’t treat the press well, the story of the day will not be good.

Don’t Needlessly Extend Your Controversy
Debbie Wasserman Schultz was the chairperson of the DNC. The day before the gavel was set to bring the convention to order, Wikileaks released numerous emails, purportedly hacked from the party’s servers by Russia, showing that one particular conspiracy theory—that the party had been tipping the scales in favor of Clinton over Sanders throughout the primaries—had in fact not be speculative, but real.

DWS was party chairwomen, and as such, much of the blame and the vitriol fell on her. The host of the week was suddenly person non grata within the party. So what did she do? She flailed.

Anyone paying attention knew that she should not take the stage at the convention, and that was the ultimate outcome. But by my count, it took four pivots (FOUR!) in about 24 hours to get her there.

First she said she would gavel the convention in and out, but not speak. Then, she was going to gavel in and out, speak briefly, and then resign immediately following the convention. Then she was set to speak, but not gavel. And ultimately, she did none of the above.

Which was what obviously had to happen. And yet she allowed the hours immediately preceding the convention to be all about her, the controversy, and the process.

Key Takeaway: Damage control is sometimes necessary, but don’t publicly air your thoughts throughout the process.

Don’t Pivot to Your Weakness
Congressman Ron Kind came and spoke to the Wisconsin delegation over breakfast one morning. He was immediately met with protestors, challenging his stance on the TPP (as guaranteed, this point is NOT about policy!). He diffused the protestors by essentially appealing to their Midwestern niceness. He asked them to be respectful, and offered to speak with them in the hallway following his remarks. A New York or Florida delegation might have eaten him alive simply for offering to speak about something like this offline, but these were Wisconsinites. They acquiesced.

Then a few minutes into his speech: he brought up trade (the TPP is a trade agreement). The protestors were willing to sit by while he spoke about party unity and how hot Philadelphia was or whatever, but he pretty much threw their silence back in the face. And they were having none of it.

The protests began again, with fresh blood.

Key Takeaway: Don’t bring up a controversy, unless you are prepared to talk about it.

It Just Takes One Or Two
If you followed coverage of the DNC at all, you probably saw the Wisconsin delegate who taped her mouth shut, declaring herself “silenced.” If 99 people are happy (not that this was the case here at all, but still), the press will seek out the one who is not.

The Kind breakfast (discussed above) got a lot of Wisconsin press, and it was not because of his remarks, but because of the protests that erupted during it.

There were close to 200 people in the room when Kind spoke. There were MAYBE five vocal protestors. But those five people owned the story.

Key Takeaway: Anyone can own a news cycle, if they are organized and ready to become the story.

Is There A Such Thing As Bad Press?
We won’t really know the answer to this question until November, but if anyone understands how to own a news cycle, it’s clearly Donald Trump.

On Wednesday, day three  of the convention, Trump went on TV and literally invited Russia (the purported hackers of the DNC who started the DWS controversy) to try and find Hillary Clinton’s 33,000 missing e-mails. He promised that the press would appreciate it.

He was openly colluding with a foreign government, and literally asking them to help sway a presidential election. To say that this was unprecedented would be an understatement.

The controversy swelled and it quickly became the story of the day.

Granted the story was negative for Trump, with even the conservative press mostly saying it was an insane thing for him to have said.

Yet on a day when the country should have been talking about President Bill Clinton’s remarks from the night before, and the speeches coming later that evening from President Obama, Vice President Biden and Vice Presidential nominee Tim Kaine, all anyone could talk about was Trump.

Key Takeaway: The American people love controversy and drama and Trump is the master of both.

Emotion Trumps Articulation
There have been so many stories written about Kazir Khan, the father of the Gold Star soldier who asked Trump if he had even read the constitution, that I feel weird wading into the territory. But I’ll continue limiting myself to the non-political and non-policy angle of the story.

Kazir speaks English as a second language. He purportedly had no speech on the teleprompter, he simply got up there and spoke. And yet his speech was arguably the most talked about of the entire convention.

Compare his speech those of Senators Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, FLOTUS, VPOTUS, two POTUS, HRC herself and so many others. Khan is far from the wordsmith of any of the aforementioned, yet everyone listening to his speech felt his words in a way that is rare, and frankly special.

Key takeaway: Preparation is good, soaring rhetoric is great, but both pale in comparison to truly believing in your story.

It’s Good To Have Friends
The location of the convention was far outside of town, surrounded only by other stadiums (Philadelphia has football/baseball/basketball venues all in one MASSIVE parking lot), with no hotels nearby.

There were several ways to get to and from the convention everyday, but one of the easiest: Uber.

If you wanted a car to take you as close as possible to the event, you couldn’t take a Lyft or even a standard cab. You had to take an Uber.

Uber and Philadelphia have a complicated relationship, as do many cities with this disruptive technology. And yet a cab could not get you nearly as close to the DNC as an Uber.

David Plouffe, a former campaign manager for Barack Obama, is currently a full-time strategic advisor for the company. Do I know that Plouffe’s role at Uber directly helped create this relationship? No. But does it seem like they are interconnected.

Key takeaway: It’s Not What You Know, It’s Who You Know

Other’s Weakness + Your Strength = Power
While there were MANY powerful moments at the DNC, there was one in particular that really stayed with me.

Throughout the week, they showed these clips of Trump saying terrible things, billed as “Trump In His Own Words.”

One such clip showed Trump mocking a disabled reporter. They then showed him saying disparaging things about the reporter and others with disability. Then they showed the clip again.

As soon as the clip ended, a voice came over the loudspeaker, sounding not all that different than the one Trump had just been openly mocking. Anastasia Somoza was on stage, sitting in her wheelchair and speaking passionately about her relationship with HRC.

They hadn’t just gone out and found a young woman with disabilities to follow Trump’s disgusting moment from the campaign trail, Anastasia has had a relationship with Hillary for many years. She told stories of hearing from Hillary numerous times over the years when she was in darker moments in her life. They showed pictures of the two together dating back to Anastasia as a young girl.

Anastasia was articulate, passionate and proud of her relationship with Hillary. It was a touching moment at the convention.

But it wasn’t her speech that stood out per se (at least not for me). Rather it was the juxtaposition of Trump’s mocking with Anastasia’s grace.

Key takeaway: Don’t just highlight your adversary’s weaknesses. Highlight your own strengths in comparison.


So, those are just a few of my non-political, non-policy takeaways from the DNC. I also saw lots of great speeches, had tons of celebrity sightings, drafted a tweet that made it on to the jumbo-tron and so much more. But these were some thoughts I wanted to share with you.

As I said, ask any questions in the comments or via Twitter and I’ll be happy to answer them. Thanks for reading.

August 3, 2016/0 Comments/by Josh Klemons
/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/reverbal-logo-1.png 0 0 Josh Klemons /wp-content/uploads/2022/11/reverbal-logo-1.png Josh Klemons2016-08-03 11:32:252022-11-10 06:17:23Some Non-Political, Non-Policy Takeaways from the Democratic National Convention
Brand Management, Politics, Social Media

When Posting On Social Media About Your Event, Don’t Let Turnout Define Your Success

Digital tips for capmaigns: don't let turnout definee your success

On Thursday night, Jeb Bush held a town hall in New Hampshire—a must win state for his struggling campaign. Looking at the pictures, it’s clear he packed the room. He proudly took to Twitter to report that the crowd was “400 strong.” Respectable turnout, no doubt about it.

Jeb Bush tweeted about the 400 people who attended his event

Just a few hours away in Vermont however, Donald Trump was holding a much-publicized, much-covered rally. Despite the room having a capacity of 1400, his campaign distributed over 20,000 tickets. According to Trump’s Twitter account, they “could only get a fraction of this 25k crowd in.”

Donald Trump tweeted about his 25k person crowd

So on the same night, there were two events in two neighboring states. Both campaigns tweeted out recaps of their respective successes.

But here’s the thing: Jeb Bush could have said “we were standing room only in Peterborough last night.” He could have said “full house in NH.” He could have skipped describing the size of the of the crowd altogether—he had great photos to tell that story!—and spoken instead about how awesome his event was.

But he didn’t. Instead, he told the world that his event was “400 strong.”

Now 400 people is a lot of people. A LOT… for a local band. Or a high school soccer game. Or for a Rick Santorum rally*. But it’s really not all that impressive for a presidential candidate with a $100 million war chest and the resources that Bush has at his disposal.

And it REALLY doesn’t seem like that much when you see Trump bragging about his YUUUUGE numbers from right down the road.

What’s the point?
You can brag about turnout without mentioning numbers.

Had Jeb left it at “full house” or “standing room only”, we could have imagined the size of the event and been impressed that he filled the room. Instead, he gave us a number. Compared to Trump’s, it just seems paltry.

Takeaway
If your numbers are extraordinary, you might consider sharing them. Otherwise, just talk about the quality of your crowd and the substance of your event and don’t get caught up reporting on quantity. There’s little potential gain and a decent amount of potential risk.

*Feel free to substitute Santorum with the undercard candidate of your choice.

January 10, 2016/0 Comments/by Josh Klemons
/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/reverbal-logo-1.png 0 0 Josh Klemons /wp-content/uploads/2022/11/reverbal-logo-1.png Josh Klemons2016-01-10 11:44:082022-11-10 07:18:33When Posting On Social Media About Your Event, Don’t Let Turnout Define Your Success
Brand Management, Politics

A Brand Has to Mean Something

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Carly Fiorina, ousted head of HP and defeated 2010 senate candidate, is running for the GOP nomination for President.Things were going very slowly for her throughout the summer. She was relegated to the “kiddie stage” for the first GOP debate. She accepted her placement and the general consensus was that she shined. She began to get noticed for the first time throughout her campaign.

By the second round of debates, she had risen in the polls and she managed to score a big victory by being the only candidate to move up from the kiddie debate to primetime.

She was again widely praised for her performance in debate #2. The highlight of the evening for her was when she took on Planned Parenthood over some tapes that had just been released.  She made an impassioned pro-life plea and quickly shot up in the polls.

The problem was, the highlight was based on factually incorrect information. She claimed that the videos showed things that didn’t exist—objectively didn’t exist . No media bias, no difference of opinions, she simply created a scene and spoke about it in great detail (or possibly, confused a different video with the one she was referencing).

While her rise was meteoric, her fall was pretty much just as quick. She built her reputation on something verifiably false. Every story that followed was not about her or her ideas, but about that falsehood.

It was a good play based on a shoddy foundation and she ultimately fell right through the bottom. Post debate, she was polling at 15%, putting her in second place. Today, heading into the third GOP debate, she is at 4%.

Her Truthiness Problem is Bigger Than That One Debate Statement
Fiorina has a general problem with telling the truth, even when the fact-checkers have done their fact-checking. Mother Jones just published a story called “Carly Fiorina’s Fact-Defying Stump Speech,” outlining all of the outright falsehoods she has made a regular part of her speeches.

The problem is, every enticing story or juicy statistic she tells is sure to impress the people in the room. But candidates, like businesses, organizations or anyone else, can no longer live just in the room. The press is listening, social media is watching and the fact-checkers never sleep.

While making up facts and statistics may help a candidate—or brand—get noticed, the story will ultimately be not about the candidate but about the falsehoods. And that is always a recipe for disaster.

It is far better to win over voters—or customers/supporters/fans—slowly with honesty, than quickly without merit. Their support may be harder to gain, but it will be worth something once you have earned it.

Tonight is GOP debate #3—we’ll see if Fiorina has learned her lesson. Based on her current stump speech, I’m thinking the answer is no.

October 28, 2015/0 Comments/by Josh Klemons
/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/reverbal-logo-1.png 0 0 Josh Klemons /wp-content/uploads/2022/11/reverbal-logo-1.png Josh Klemons2015-10-28 11:28:572022-11-10 07:53:57A Brand Has to Mean Something
Brand Management, Social Media

Happy Back to the Future Day

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Today is the day Marty McFly traveled to in Back to the Future II. #BackToTheFuture is trending on Twitter and Facebook. Several GOP presidential hopefuls (Carly Fiorina and Senator Marco Rubio) released ads based on the sci-fi comedy classic. And plenty of brands are trying to make sure that their products are part of the story.

Here are a few highlights from the day thus far:

  • Pepsi has released a limited edition Pepsi Perfect drink in honor of the day. This is a direct reference from the movie, it is a drink that Marty and Doc see people drinking in 2015. The bottles cost $20.15, so that’s a clever way to get people to spend waaaay to much on a soda. But it worked: Pepsi sold out of the limited edition early. And people are not happy.
  • Want to ride in a DeLorean? Call for a Lyft today in New York City, and there’s a chance you will get to open your car door up, instead of out!
  • Ford is offering a “Flux Capacitor” for the Focus and the Fiesta. But before you get too excited, be forewarned: “For recreational use only. Interfering with major historical events is illegal and could have unintended consequences for all of humanity.”
  • Universal Studios released a trailer for Jaws 19! This time, they are fighting to save the oceans.
  • When Marty traveled to today, he headed to an arcade and played a game called Wild Gunmen. Nintendo has now made this game available via their Wii U Virtual Console.
  • Then of course there’s the Cubs. Their success this year has gone almost completely according to the movie’s script.

Has your brand done anything special for the big day? If so, share it on social media, using the hashtag #BackToTheFuture. Tag Reverbal Communications on Facebook or Twitter–we’d love to share your story!

October 21, 2015/0 Comments/by Josh Klemons
/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/reverbal-logo-1.png 0 0 Josh Klemons /wp-content/uploads/2022/11/reverbal-logo-1.png Josh Klemons2015-10-21 11:03:542022-11-10 07:55:54Happy Back to the Future Day
Brand Management, Wisconsin

Look how Hyvee Shows Local Pride

Hyvee Dr. Pepper Wisconsin

This is a current Dr. Pepper display, in the entranceway at the Hy-Vee on East Washington Ave.

Simply using cases of Dr. Pepper (red) set against cases of Diet Dr. Pepper (white), they found a really creative way to show their Wisconsin pride.

They didn’t need special bottling or a massive banner; they simply incorporated their own message (love of Wisco) into their regular display.

A sign declaring that “Hy-Vee loves Wisconsin” would certainly have come across as pandering.
But it’s hard to imagine this display creating anything but positive impressions. Where most would have simply stacked their cases, Hy-Vee saw an opportunity.

Striking the balance between inauthentic and genuine is the hardest—and most important—thing that any brand will grapple with. What are some ways you incorporate your story into your displays? How do you navigate the path between authentic and contrived? Share in the comments, on Facebook or on Twitter.

September 25, 2015/0 Comments/by Josh Klemons
/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/reverbal-logo-1.png 0 0 Josh Klemons /wp-content/uploads/2022/11/reverbal-logo-1.png Josh Klemons2015-09-25 10:45:092022-11-10 08:37:20Look how Hyvee Shows Local Pride
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