New marketing stats revealed during Advertising Week XIII showed some amazing findings regarding Social Media, Mobile and even Television Networks. Social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Google, and Snapshot for example, are growing significantly on mobile devices. The data regarding Television was compelling as well:

Via adweek.com

There was also no shortage of numbers revealed during the New York event affirming the impact of television—and yet, even the networks are embracing mobile more than ever.The ad business, noted Carolyn Everson, Facebook’s vp of global marketing solutions, isn’t just getting into the game. “The shift to mobile,” she said, “has already bodybuilding-life.com happened.”

Advertising Week XII Reveals Amazing Marketing Stats

Without a doubt, these marketing stats prove that the only thing that is certain these days…is change. In times like these it’s more important than ever to stay on top of the latest trends. That includes doing what it takes to successfully market your product or service online and on mobile.

Tips to Staying On Top with New Media

Millennials are driving much of the growth in the overall economy. They spend their time across a lot of different kinds of media, so to reach them effectively consider being a jack-of-all-trades.

To start, you need a strong, diversified advertising plan. This plan should include a mix of traditional advertising, along with some ‘new’ media. Then you combine this with some engaging online marketing programs and popular social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram.

This will give you a recipe for success in the ‘new’ marketing and media landscape that consumers live in today. And then when the latest marketing stats are released, you will find yourself leading the trend – instead of being somewhere in the back, or left behind.

I recently had lunch with an old friend. During the conversation he begin to talk about a new business he was starting. He was excited about the process of establishing his business and the process he and his team had to undertake to get started.

The conversation soon turned to the cost associated with starting a new business– business license, certifications, office space and more. All total he had, very willing invested over $20,000.

After hearing all he had done I asked, “Do you have a budget for marketing or a logo design?” Of course, like most business owners he had not and wanted to know how much a logo design would cost?

It’s subjective… like how much does it cost to build a new house? Or how long is the string? Where are you in your business and brand journey? Are you just starting out, making decisions, changes, and revisions? Or are you solidly established and in need of a complete logo redesign or brand update? The answers to these questions will help you decide on a budget, and select from the logo design options below.

You could run a contest, ask a friend or relative, or contact a local school with a design department and propose a class project. I don’t recommend any of these, but I know it happens, and sometimes people get decent results. But more often than not, the quality of the results is reflected by the price. This type of request is often called spec work, where logo design submissions are requested with no guarantee of compensation. Most professional graphic designers refuse to do spec work. Can you blame them?

Read the full story here

How Much Should I Spend on a Logo Design?

So what’s the answer to “How Much To Spend On A Logo Design?” The budget should be in line with the industry you are in or entering and the image you want for your company and only you can determine that.

My advice, seek help from a graphic design professional. One with a proven track record and work with them to create the desired image for your company. Set a budget, a reasonable budget, for your industry and expectations. You may even want to look for any logo design you like and reach out to them to see if you can determine what their budget was.

The bottom-line, set a budget that you can be comfortable with, work with the best possible resource for that budget and be comfortable with that. And keep in mind, as your business grows or the industry changes you can always have it redesigned.

Snickers Replaces Brand Name with Friendly Insults in Creative Packaging Roll-out

Popular candy brand Snickers continues the trend of personalization by actually replacing it’s very own brand name with new creative packaging that features 21 humorous hunger symptoms.  Continuing with it’s current “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” campaign – these “Hunger Bars” are meant to be shared with friends who are not quite acting like themselves because they haven’t eaten.

While some bars will retain it’s original packaging, here are some of the names you’ll see emblazoned on the wrapper instead of the familiar “Snickers” logo:

• Drama Mama

• Curmudgeon

• Ornery

• Whiny

• Testy

• Grouchy

• Irritable

• Complainer

• Feisty

• Rebellious

• Princess

• Goofball

• Confused

• Snippy

• Cranky

• Loopy

• Spacey

• Forgetful

• Sleepy

Oh, the hilarity that will ensue when you give one of personalized Snicker bars to someone who really deserves it! Or when someone gives one to you!

Read more via Adweek:

As part of the campaign, the brand has released this online spot from BBDO New York, starring a loopy goofball of a hotline operator who takes calls and dispatches bike messengers to deliver the insulting candy to those in need. A percentage of bars will remain in the original packaging. Print advertising for the campaign launches later this month.

“We believe the new bars will inspire people to not only quickly identify their own symptoms and satisfy their hunger, but give them a new, fun way to call-out friends and family on who they become when they’re hungry, too,” says Snickers brand director Allison Miazga-Bedrick.

https://youtu.be/pT6PlWjuXw0

Extending Your Brand Through Creative Packaging

Bravo to the team at Snickers for taking their marketing strategy and creatively extending it to their packaging in order to better engage consumers. That’s a bold move that many may assume is not possible in their own situations. In reality, there are all kind of ways to achieve similar results – that may or may not involve changing your packaging.

First – Like Snickers, you must partner with a creative marketing company that will take the time to truly understand you, your brand, and your targeted customers. They should also have proven experience; perhaps with brands even larger than yours – to know exactly how to market your product to create the buzz, excitement, and measurable results your brand deserves.

In a brilliant bit of branding coup, Oscar Mayer has created and released an actual dating mobile app that aims to bring together like-minded people who share a deep and abiding love for…bacon!

Proving once again that “there’s an app for that” – this free iOS app called “Sizzl” aims to give dating apps like Tinder a run for their money and match up people nearby based on your preferences.  This is how it works:

Via adweek.com

You download the app, specify your bacon preferences in a customizable profile, upload photos and start swiping your greasy digits through pics of local fellow bacon lovers. Depending on how “Sizzl-ing” they are, you can message and meet up with other Sizzl users, based on a mutual-matching system, for what Oscar Mayer is calling “bacon-wrapped dates.”

“In love, as it is in bacon, it’s important to be discerning when selecting your perfect match and to never settle for less than the best,” Eric Dahmer, marketing director at Oscar Mayer, says in a statement. “We passionately cure our bacon for 12 hours, and lovingly smoke-house it for another 12, making it the true bacon for bacon lovers. With the launch of Sizzl, we’re thrilled to give our true bacon lovers the chance to find each other and potentially meet their soulmates, in life and in bacon.”

https://youtu.be/Vh3RuV-xoZc

This Sizzl app from Oscar Mayer is a great example of what you get when you take a pinch of strategy, mix in 3 parts creativity, add a bit of branding – and package it all in a custom developed mobile app cleverly designed to engage your core and desired target audience and generate buzz.

Very clever indeed!

If you want to check out the Sizzl app for yourself – it’s only available for download for the next 6 months – and exclusively on iOS, for iPhone 5 and up (sorry Android and Windows users).

Branding is critically important to any product and company. We know this instinctively – either as advertising and marketing professionals – or as consumers in the marketplace. Done well, effective branding creates true corporate value and an emotional connection that can be worth billions.

Names Those Brands…In 60 Seconds

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Via adweek.com

“Even if you change the most important thing of every brand—the name—if all other elements are strong enough—color, typography—you will still be able to recognize the brand in a second,” Inetdesign partner Martin Rickmann tells AdFreak.

That’s because the clip uses famous logos to explain the importance of branding. Sort of. The colors, dimensions and basic design elements of the corporate marks are unchanged, but the company names have been replaced by words from the video’s story. For example, “design” is rendered in the fashion of Disney’s monochrome logo, “future” follows Facebook’s blocky minimalist model, and perhaps best of all, “loud and clear” glows against a starry background, like an affirmation from a Jedi knight setting off on some celestial crusade. (And there are many more to sample.)

Even though this video cleverly shows the power of a well-recognized brand, every one of these have undergone a logo redesign over the years.

Redesigning a logo successfully is a delicate balance of honoring the brand equity and consumer recognition that has already been achieved – and then strategically and visually transitioning the brand identity to a new place in the hearts and minds of the consumer.