I’m proud to write this morning that one very influential blogger, Brand Identity Guru, recently chose Orange Element Insights as one of his picks for the “top 44 branding RSS feeds in the world.” Wow - the whole world. I’m not sure we deserve that credit, but THANKS, we’ll take it!

And on top of that, I find out that Alltop has Orange Element’s feed on their Alltop branding page, right next to Brandweek. That’s a huge honor for myself and the rest of the team here that works so hard to make this blog worth reading. In case you don’t know about Alltop, it’s one of the best blog aggregators out there because they scour the Web to gather all the best blogs on a number of topics, one of which is branding.

Garret Ohm
http://www.orange-blog.com

Snickers has been touting their candy bar as a great solution to that hunger between real meals for a while now, and they’ve just taken a new, dramatic step toward building that brand. Their new ads are extremely effective in getting that message across without beating around the bush. That said, I am frightened. Check them out, via Adfreak:

On a side note - I want a Snickers. It really satisfies.

Garret Ohm
http://www.orange-element.com

We recently completed a piece that I’m really proud of - an environmental stewardship brochure for The Brick Companies, based in Edgewater, Maryland. This project highlights the outstanding efforts that this real estate company makes toward sustainable business, and reinforces their collective commitment to doing work “for good.”

This is not your average brochure. As a sustainable company, The Brick Companies sought to communicate their commitment without creating additional waste. We suggested developing a brochure in the form of a downloadable PDF housed on their Web site, which is available for downloading and printing if necessary.

We’re quite happy with the results, and I encourage you to click HERE to visit the environmental stewardship section of their Web site or click HERE to download the PDF to check it out for yourself - If for nothing else, to read all about what a forward-thinking company does to lessen their impact. A few select pages of the brochure are below.

Nice work, EJ, Beth and Ande!

Garret Ohm
http://www.orange-element.com/

As brand marketers, we always seek to find businesses and organizations that have solid business models and a true unique quality that makes them better than the competition - and allows them to deliver a great brand experience. This makes our job much, much easier because we believe that a brand cannot survive on great branding alone. If we were in math class, it would look something like this:

Great branding + Great business model = Success
Great branding + Mediocre business model = Fail!

Unfortunately, not every business that seeks professional marketing help is backed by a solid business model. Many businesses simply exist, with no unique, compelling characteristics that consumers crave. I believe that these businesses, even with the help of a slick brand, cannot survive in the long-haul. And to add insult to injury, it’s a difficult fix that most business owners aren’t willing to embrace.

On the other side of the coin are businesses that deliver an amazing brand experience, yet aren’t supported by a healthy branding effort. The problem with this is consumers use a company’s brand image to decide whether or not they want to engage/purchase/patronize/etc (Think about it the next time you’re in the grocery store trying to decide which shampoo to buy). If the brand isn’t up to snuff, many consumers won’t give them the opportunity to deliver a brand experience because they’ll just move on to the next brand…That equation looks like this:

Bad branding + Great brand experience = Fail!

This happens too often. On a local scale, here in Maryland there are countless brands that I have come across that are truly remarkable brands. A couple that come to mind right now are Terracycle, Carols Western Wear, Chevy Chase Bank and Lemongrass (Thai food). Each of these are companies that I feel deliver a PHENOMENAL brand experience, but could use some help with making sure their brand communicates it. Luckily, I know just the right group of people to solve their problem…

Garret Ohm
http://www.orange-element.com

p.s. Thanks Alchemy for the image.

Promotional items are notorious for generating useless waste. So if you’re going to buy 20,000 of something to give away, why not do it right? This is a great resource that we’re definitely going to use: http://ecoimprints.logomall.com/default.aspx

Thanks, Brandflakes.

Garret Ohm
http://www.orange-element.com

Have you heard that a group of former Google employees just launched a new ‘revolutionary’ search engine that they claim is better, deeper and more effective than Google? Gutsy, for sure. It’s true, and you can read about it HERE. It’s called Cuil.com (Pronounced “cool”) and the Internet is abuzz with chatter about the product.

I was excited to check it out this morning and have to say I am not sure if I dig it. The initial aesthetics of the site are pleasing - similar to Google, except a full-black background. The design itself probably much more sophisticated than Google (not that Google strives for sophisticated design) but the results of the search were a little difficult for me to digest. It could be that I’m so accustomed to seeing the results in the format that Google spits back at me, but I just wasn’t feeling the multi-column results.

That said the article discusses the benefits of this system over Google - mainly that it searches a database of as many as three times the amount of Web pages that Google does! If that’s factual, it’s pretty impressive. Could it be that this product is actually better than the Google search engine?

I’m not sure, but as I mentioned, the design ruins it a bit for me. The way it reports results is a bit overwhelming and I’m not sure I know what to make of them. It also seemed, initially, that it brought up many more irrelevant results for a couple of searches I did.

What do you think?

Garret Ohm
http://www.orange-element.com