We were writing briefs for ad campaigns, which would theoretically be executed in print ads, TV spots, radio, etc. But even though the campaign might produce a full-page newspaper ad or a :60 spot, the creative brief–particularly the brand promise–absolutely, positively had to be concise and laser-focused.

One customer benefit.

But– but– but– Sometimes the assignments were for products that had a multitude of benefits. It saves time! It’s convenient! It tastes good! It’s healthy! It’s 100% natural!

We quickly learned, though, that we had to choose.

“One benefit!” Schultz would bellow in his Oklahoma drawl. “Not TWO benefits! Not THREE benefits! ONE benefit!!” Schultz understood that it didn’t matter if an advertiser had ten seconds on the radio or two pages in a magazine spread to sell someone on their products.

Because it’s not about the advertiser and how much they want to say. It’s about what people can comprehend in the split second of attention they may privilege you with.

What mattered then, as now, is that people need simplicity. And an advertising message can’t hope to be simple if it tries to convey more than one benefit.

Fast forward from grad school to Pollywog.

Brand creation requires the same level of rigor. But unlike an advertising campaign, which you can change if it’s not working, a brand needs to last a lifetime. It’s critical to get it right from the beginning.

At Pollywog, we take clients through a Power Positioning session to gather the information we need to proceed into name generation. Sometimes it starts as an info dump. Clients want to include every possible facet of a product in order to make it more attractive to their customer. And that’s when we have to prioritize, whittle away, consolidate, soul-search and then eliminate even more.

While the Power Positioning brief will contain helpful background information, as well as an articulation of a brand differentiator, ultimately the brand promise that remains is one sentence.

ONE sentence.

If you can’t fit your brand promise into one sentence, you’re probably trying to say too much. Saddling a new offering with a brand that’s overly broad, complex or ambiguous will doom it to failure, or at best, a lifetime of anemia.

So here’s a test. Write your brand promise in the form of a customer benefit, then send it as a tweet. You’ll start with 140 characters, but leave room to spare so that it can be retweeted. (See How To Determine Your Personal ReTweet Character Count)

Here’s Pollywog’s. Be looking for it on Twitter:

Your Pollywog-created brand will be a business-building asset from launch through the long term.

Now show us yours.

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But social movements are like physics. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. You don’t meddle in other people’s business—working to end inhumane slaughter methods, alleviate suffering among laboratory animals and stop the practice of supplying research labs with dogs from animal shelters, as The HSUS accomplished shortly after its founding in 1954—without raising the dander of some powerful interests.

Certainly even in those early years, The HSUS had enemies—research labs, scientists, foundations, agricultural interests. But they weren’t sophisticated communicators, nor particularly well-funded. They didn’t know how to fight back without turning the public against them. After all, it’s not nice to pick on charities just trying to trying to make the world a better place for All God’s Creatures.

But that was then. This is now:

Now, industries whose profits are threatened by animal welfare legislation have found a way to fight back: Fund a “charity” that purports to be concerned for animals.

The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

HumaneWatch is a registered nonprofit organization whose mission is to “keep a watchful eye on The Humane Society of the United States.” But follow the money. According to the copyright line in the Web site’s footer, the content is owned by the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), a nonprofit lobbying group founded by Richard Berman, a D.C. lobbyist notorious for attempting to knock the halo off charities genuinely working for the betterment of society, such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Through CCF, he has defended the tobacco industry, minimized the dangers of mad cow disease and mercury in fish, fought against minimum wage, demonized unions—in short, he has been doing the bidding of corporations even when it’s against health, safety, economic and environmental public interests.

Though its funding sources are a closely guarded secret, CCF’s agenda supports Big Pharma, Big Ag, Big Tobacco, and the food and restaurant industries—all of which would have reason to counterattack The HSUS for its efforts on behalf of research and farm animals. Given Berman’s lobbying experience and communications savvy, it’s almost certain that CCF conducted focus groups to ascertain weaknesses in HSUS’s image among its supporters and uncovered significant confusion regarding The HSUS’s role and relationship to local shelters.

The (likely) key finding: Many people erroneously believe that local humane societies are affiliates of The Humane Society of the United States.

How a Branding Issue Became a Weapon

The strategists at CCF are smart. They know that it’s almost impossible to change strongly held perceptions and values. So instead of directly attacking The HSUS and trying to build sympathy for corporations over animals, you exploit an existing value to your clients’ advantage. You leverage people’s love for animals, take advantage of the brand confusion surrounding HSUS and tell people that The HSUS doesn’t support local shelters. Never mind that it was never The HSUS’s mission. If people have been confused, they’ll be angry that their donations are not going to where they mistakenly thought they were.

It has been an effective strategy, save for one flaw. HumaneWatch has been directly linked to CCF, making it a little too simple to follow the money, uncover the motivation behind the attacks and deduce its goal of diverting donations away from The HSUS. (Local shelters are no threat to big corporations, after all, so in one deft, disingenuous message, HumaneWatch can defund The HSUS and look like a hero to animal lovers.) But genuine watchdog groups, such as HumaneWatch.info (known on Facebook as Stop HumaneWatch), have been exposing the lies and distortions. Gradually, people are getting wise to HumaneWatch and its corporate-friendly, deceptive agenda.

A slight adjustment in tactics was required.

Enter a Warmer, Fuzzier Wolf

The Humane Society for Shelter Pets (HSSP) exploded onto the animal welfare scene in late 2011 with a multi-million-dollar ad blitz in newspapers nationwide.

A registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, the HSSP’s publicly stated mission is “to help animals at local pet shelters.” HSSP’s agenda and communications strategy and tactics are identical to HumaneWatch’s, leading animal welfare advocates to immediately question its origins and motives. What nonprofit organization is founded one month, then spends millions of dollars in advertising the next?

After some digging, bloggers discovered that HSSP shares the same street address as CCF. When asked directly about the relationship, an HSSP spokesman said:

The speciousness of this answer, of course, lies in the fact that tax status is simply a matter of paperwork. Two organizations can be considered separate entities and still be steered by the same individuals and strategies.

Another blogger ferreted out the truth and got this quote directly from Berman:

I’m proud to say that my firm, Berman and Company, helped get this excellent group off the ground by providing substantial pro bono PR and operational services.

In response, HSUS posted this FAQ about Berman and the HSSP. In addition to voicing indignation over the distortions and manipulations inherent in Berman’s attacks, HSUS wrote this:

In hijacking the proud name “Humane Society” from groups at the local and national level—groups that have worked honorably to help animals for decades—Berman cynically sought to fool people into thinking that he had the interests of pets in mind, when indeed the real point of the group was to attack The Humane Society of the United States. …  If pickpocketing the name “Humane Society” wasn’t shameful enough, Berman and his undisclosed backers lifted the words “Shelter Pets” straight from the established “Shelter Pet Project” of The HSUS, The Ad Council and Maddie’s Fund.

Welcome to the Department of Redundancy Department

The Humane Society of the United States. HumaneWatch. Humane Society for Shelter Pets. Animal Humane Society. Humane Society International. Shelter Pet Project. Humane Society of Arizona. American Humane Association. Humane Society Legislative Fund. Humane Society of Greater Savanna. Washington Humane Society. Capital Humane Society.

Confused yet? There are hundreds more organizations in the nation with “humane society” in their name. While unintentional, naming a national organization the “The Humane Society of the United States”—when there were already similarly named local groups—has created profound brand confusion.

Then there’s this:

What If It’s Not All Bad?

I know of no scientific published studies confirming that people have been mistakenly donating to The HSUS, thinking the funds were going directly to local shelters. But from a branding perspective, I can imagine that it happens. So while The HSUS has not actively cultivated this perception and has overtly tried to educate the public as to its relationship with local shelters, conflation is almost inevitable due to the similarity of their names.

Only The HSUS can know how much revenue comes from confused donors. Some, certainly. Most? Doubtful. How much is too much? Is the confusion HSUS’s fault? Is it their responsibility to clear up?

What to do? What to do?

Before HumaneWatch and HSSP, it’s likely that any brand confusion between The HSUS and local shelters was to The HSUS’s benefit. Now it’s become a liability. From a branding perspective, The HSUS has these options:

1. Retain its venerable though problematic brand name and continue attempts at educating the public. This appears to be the current course of action. The HSUS has called Berman “a small-fry sideshow act that operates on the periphery of American life,” and believes it’s doubtful that Berman’s attacks will have any impact on animal welfare.

Pros:
• Prevents the costs and disruption of rebranding, not to mention a potentially significant drop-off in donations
• Avoids giving the opposition added publicity that would follow a more significant response

Cons:
• May not be enough to overcome negative perceptions spreading virally among animal lovers; the “sideshow” may become more of a “main event” if HSSP throws more money into negative ads.

2. Rebrand.  View this situation as an opportunity to develop a new name that will distinguish the organization from all others in the nation.

Pros:
• Removes a weapon from the opposition and would potentially force a rebranding of HumaneWatch
• Enables the organization to communicate its position as a national leader with a name that cannot be confused with local shelters, and allows it to rise or fall on its own merits

Cons:
• Costly; costs of rebranding must be weighed against damages from continuing confusion
• May result in significant loss of donations if previous brand confusion was indeed responsible for a large share of revenue

3. Fight back.  The name “The Humane Society of the United States” is a registered trademark. The HSUS could mount a case for brand confusion with “Humane Society for Shelter Pets,” which does not appear to have been registered with the USPTO. They should also sue HumaneWatch for trademark violation with regards to its logo.

Pros:
• Helps safeguard The HSUS’s good name
• Pursuing trademark infringement cases is often considered necessary in order to continue to own the mark
• Puts the spotlight on HumaneWatch and HSSP as entities with dubious motives

Cons:
• Diverts funds from mission
• Costly, unless The HSUS can find a firm to provide pro bono services

If this were a case of brand confusion among for-profit companies, the solution would be much simpler. Rebrand. Bite the bullet, spend the money and create an ownable brand. Spend more in marketing the first year to make up for a potential short-term loss of customers. With a strong brand, you’ll get them all back and more.

But donations muddy the waters here. A nonprofit organization doesn’t as easily rebound from a sharp decrease in revenue. Because its mission mandates responsible spending, it can’t sink a huge bulk of its budget into fundraising campaigns to rebuild a donor base—not without blistering criticism, anyway.

I don’t see any clear path, but then again, I’m viewing this from an outsider’s perspective. Perhaps the answers lie in The HSUS’s financials and donor surveys. Perhaps the answers will be more clear in a year, especially if the wolves in sheep’s clothing manage to steal enough of the flock to make a real difference. It will be interesting—and painful—to watch.

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In 1970,  a small group of parents in Richfield, MN began meeting in a vacant commercial space to discuss the needs of suburban families that were not being met by more urban-centric programs. Their venue became their name: Storefront. Over time, they relocated, expanded and grew out of their name, yet continued to operate under it for 40 years.

Last year, Storefront asked Pollywog to help them develop a new name and brand identity to more clearly communicate the value of what they bring to the community–comprehensive and effective mental health treatment, intervention and education that can transform lives.

The new brand was unveiled this month on the group’s Web site: Headway Emotional Health Services.

We’re very proud of the work we did for Headway–and pleased again to have provided affordable, effective branding for a worthy cause.

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But when times are tough, a lot of pet owners can’t afford to neuter their animals, which ultimately results in more unwanted litters.

To address this problem, the Animal Humane Society (AHS), the leading animal welfare organization in the Midwest, teamed up with a local veterinarian to introduce a subsidized spay/neuter service for low-income pet owners, delivered by way of two mobile surgical units. Pet owners can sterilize their dog, cat or rabbit for a fee ranging from $35-$100–a substantial discount over regular veterinary costs.

AHS asked Pollywog to lead the naming of this new service. Because sterilization surgery is key to saving more animals–and because the service is made possible through the generous donations of strangers–we recommended “Kindest Cut.”

Logo and brand identity were created by our friends at Sussner Design.

We count it a privilege to work on such an important cause and look forward to partnering with the Animal Humane Society on future projects.

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Read this interesting interview with movie marketing specialist, Matthew Cohen, and you’ll discover a lot of common ground with traits that make brand names powerful.

It should come as no surprise that what works in a brand name also works in a movie title. That’s because the human brain processes information the same way, regardless of industry. Jane the movie-goer has the same brain as Jane the grocery-shopper and Jane the executive decision-maker.

Yet too often, brand creation is restricted by artificially constructed silos, and marketers believe that brands in certain industries must have a certain type of name.

Packaged goods have one type of brand name. Nonprofit organizations have another. Law firms have their own prevailing naming convention. And B-to-B services have yet another.

Certainly there will variations in tone and personality, depending upon audience makeup in these various industries. But the broad concepts of what makes a name powerful hold true across all of them.

Why? Because only in the movies do people have more than one brain.

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There’s a mother lode of information here that can be applied to branding. (I marked so many pages with Post-It Notes that my copy of Brain Rules looks like it’s sprouting yellow hair.) What Medina reveals about the brain’s functionality ought to be a primer for anyone creating a brand.

Brain Rules is grounded on 12 facts about how the brain works. This is research that most people never see, Medina says. “We don’t know everything, but ‘brain rules’ are things we know for sure.”

What are these proven facts, and how can we leverage this knowledge to create more powerful brands?

Medina provides many applicable ideas for improving education, but fewer for marketing and advertising. I’ll pick up where Medina left off by quoting some key ideas and suggesting the implications they may have on branding.

There’s a lot to cover, so this will be a series of blog posts. As not all of Medina’s 12 Brain Rules are directly applicable to brand creation, I’ve taken the liberty of renumbering those I’m writing about.

Brain Rule for Branding #1:
“We don’t pay attention to boring things.”

How many ads is the average person exposed to every day? Nobody really knows for sure, but estimates range from 1500 to 13,000. Even at the low end of the estimate, that’s a lot of competition for a customer’s attention.

So when you’re creating a brand, it’s essential to remember that the human brain is hard-wired to ignore most stimuli. Without the ability to select what we pay attention to, we would be overwhelmed with information.

And if our brands don’t capture attention, there’s no opportunity for gaining someone’s interest or, better yet, committing the brand to memory.

Why do some brands command attention and others don’t? More in my next post.

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The new logo eliminates the name completely, relying only on the iconic mermaid image to identify the brand.

Some branding experts consider this move a savvy adaptation to a changing media environment. Says Kevin Budelmann, president of Peopledesign:

‘There is an ongoing desire to simplify graphic identities so that they can be more portable into different kinds of media spaces. Today people thinking about new graphic identities are thinking about facebook icons and Twitter icons just as often as stationery or business cards.”

Certainly. But that has never precluded a brand identity from having a simpler version of a logo for such instances. Pepsi, for example, uses its circular mark as an icon when it suits and its full name/mark lock-up when it doesn’t.

I have two issues with the stripping away of the Starbucks name from its logo. First, a customer’s brain now has fewer points of connection to the brand. While we learn and remember best through pictures, text provides its own form of symbology.

More troubling is speculation that dropping “Starbucks Coffee” from the logo signals that the company intends to move the brand into adjacent, non-coffee spaces. While it’s true that Starbucks has always been more about the experience than just the coffee, its brand perception can only move so far without damaging its core.

Starbucks will always be associated with coffee. While the company may attempt to extend the brand into other types of foods, it does so at its own peril.

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Today, Korea enjoys the world’s 13th largest economy–a transformation so dramatic it has been called “the Asian miracle.”

Initially, Korea scrabbled out of poverty by imitating the technological advances of other nations and selling me-too, low-cost products. But its recent explosive growth is attributable to a systematic, sustained and government-supported focus on innovation.

Korean innovators often receive financial aid from public sources, but now many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) say what they need more than money are the intangibles, including branding.

Miga Medical is one such company. It developed a product that purportedly reduces the size of the human waistline and named it, “N-Body.”

As reported by JoonAng Daily, “the company took six years to develop the product but only spent six minutes to pick a name for it.”

A Miga Medical executive ruefully admits, “We put tremendous effort into developing the product, but were neglectful in naming the brand. Promoting the brand name was a mess. Even employees here don’t really know the meaning of N-Body.”

Miga Medical sought the expertise of Seoul branding agency, whose president Kim Wang-gi says that this is not an uncommon problem among SMEs.

“So many SMEs have been developing outstanding products, but have failed to commercialize them because of poor brand names. That’s the reality of SMEs today,” Kim said.

“A brand name that intuitively and easily tells the product’s functions is crucial.”

Unfortunately, branding also gets the short-shrift from many U.S. entrepreneurs in their rush to market. Many mistakenly believe that naming should be easily handled in-house because, after all, they’ve successfully named their children and pets, so why not their brand? (Apparently they have not yet wandered in the trademark jungle in search of an effective name that’s also available for trademark.)

Others may consider it an intangible that’s not worth paying for. They’ll spend thousands on a Web site that will need to be overhauled in a few years, but won’t invest in a name that will affect their business for the life of the brand.

Branding is an investment, and an effective brand will deliver ROI for years to come. A weak or meaningless brand will be a drag on business forever.

Small- and medium-sized businesses in Korea are figuring this out. We hope more American innovators will too.

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Meaningless names are usually available for trademark and often sail through onerous corporate approval processes. There are no meanings to object to, after all.

But going to market with a meaningless name puts any brand at a disadvantage. Instead of alluding to a brand promise and helping to predispose a customer to a sale, a meaningless name requires explanation. Companies have to spend time and money on educating customers to what their brand name means–a ball and chain for any business on the race to profits.

A far more effective brand name connects to ideas that are already in a customer’s mind, because they’re familiar with the word or phrase.

And in our perspective, the type of name that performs most effectively is the evocative name, which uses a metaphor to connect to the brand promise.

Metaphors are rich in meaning. They’re a powerful form of shorthand–and a crucial tool for new brands especially–because they can convey in a single word a multiplicity of ideas and elicit an instant emotional response.

Without being educated on the product’s benefits, I can infer that “Full Throttle” is strong, “Amazon” is huge, and “Blackwater” is dangerous.

The power of metaphors as a branding technique is the result of metaphorical thinking, a process hard-wired into the human brain. At a recent TED conference, professional aphorist James Geary explained how powerful and pervasive metaphors are in language and culture. It’s worth a look:

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