The Organic Center, an organization that helps consumers, policy makers, researchers and the media understand the benefits that organic products provide to society, is throwing their 5th Annual Bay Area Celebration ‘for the Health of Our World’ on September 12th.

Brand Engine is a sponsor of both events during the celebration. In addition, Will Burke is a discussion leader at the morning’s ‘Entrepreneur’s Open Forum’, which will focus on strategies for healthy business growth. The event is hosted at Numi Tea Garden in Oakland at 10 am. For more information and to RSVP for the morning forum, click here.

The evening celebration at Clif Bar in Berkeley will feature organic hors d’oeuvres, a silent auction and a 15-minute film festival showcasing Food Inc, FRESH, Soil: In Good Heart. For more information and to RSVP for the evening celebration, click here.

Clear Beverage’s Kid Fuel Naturally Flavored Water Beverage was recently featured in Contract Packaging’s Magazine’s July/August issue. The article, “Stepping up for the little guys”, focuses on Kid Fuel’s success in utilizing value-added services of contract packagers and others in the supply chain to achieve measurable cost efficiencies while also keeping desired package designs intact.

Click here to read the article on Contract Packaging’s Web site, or click here to read the article pdf.

Will Burke has been invited to participate in AIGA Reno Tahoe’s Principal Display Panel in North Tahoe on August 20th.

Other panel members include Michael Osborne of MOD and Steven DuPuis of The DuPuis Group. Moderated by Andrew Gibbs, Editor in Chief of The Dieline, the group will discuss the trends, psychology, art, and engineering of some of the worlds most trusted brands…..and the box they come in.

For more information on the event and to register, click here.

Will Burke was invited to contribute to Shelf Impact’s guest authored column, and his article, “Package Structure: A Brand Manager’s Investment in the Brand Experience” is featured in the July 9th newsletter.

The article focuses on how package structure is an often overlooked opportunity for brands to reinforce their brand story and core qualities with their customer. It goes on to discuss that a unique structure shape and material is an investment in the company and will produce multiple returns, including increased sales from both existing and new customers and packaging production efficiencies.

To read the full article, click here.

Assessing the Strength of Your Brand Package
In our previous newsletters on the topic of “How is Your Brand?” we gave you some homework to evaluate the health of your brand and offered tools to develop a relevant brand strategy based on your business objectives. The next step in our brand development process is assessing the strength of your brand’s package to ensure that your package is a natural extension of your brand and communicates your brand story.

A brand’s package must quickly convey the brand’s personality, promise, unique position and look, preferably in the few seconds it takes a customer to scan a shelf. Of all the different touch points for telling the brand story, the package is the most engaging because it can hit all the senses and draw in the customer. The package is the ultimate test of a brand’s survivability and sustainability.

The brand package should clearly communicate and connect with your core market. More than simply capturing a customer’s attention, a package must engage their emotions by contributing to an authentic, meaningful and memorable brand story to create sustaining power. To achieve this, brands need to focus on customer psychographics rather than their demographics to know why customers buy, and to learn their values and attitudes. They need to get to the emotions and rationalizations behind why people purchase rather than what population group they represent. The package needs to speak to their lifestyle, even help solidify the mindset they use to judge the category. A package is merely a commodity if it doesn’t create a memorable experience with the customer.

Put your package to the test
So how do you know if your packaging is properly representing your brand strategy and fully connecting with your customer? As customers weigh their choices, it ultimately comes down to being able to tell a compelling brand story through packaging and presentation. Once engaged, customers will find every reason to make that brand part of their lifestyle.

Evaluating the strength and relevance of your brand’s package
7 questions, 7 minutes and you can give your brand package a quick diagnosis. Answer each question on a scale of 0–5, with 5 being “I strongly agree” and 0 being “I strongly disagree.”

So, how do you score our Little Bug frozen baby food redesign?
Insights from Brand Engine revealed that the original design did not communicate their core values and lacked a strong brand position. After defining Little Bug’s key qualities and brand story, Brand Engine utilized these differentiators to convey a meaningful story on package:

• The strong green background color, symbolizing the natural land connection and short-farm-to-table approach, is distinct and ownable in the freezer section.
• The illustrative “window-like” bull’s-eye treatment, representing the one pure ingredient, appeals to multiple senses, inviting you to touch and smell the fruit.
• The clean and simple design uniquely positions Little Bug in its category.
• The brand identity expresses the brand personality, targeting mothers looking for wholesome choices for their children.
• The kraft box is a unique material, fully recyclable and an eco-friendly choice for moms and their babies, supporting their values of sustainability.

If you didn’t have the opportunity to evaluate the health of your brand from previous newsletters, click here to take our brand evaluation quiz.

Of the three Detroit automakers, Ford is the only one going forward (and quite successfully) without government assistance. There are many reasons for their success. The products, the people, and their brand vison, mission and values. In a recent FORTUNE article, Fixing Up Ford, we get a behind the scenes look at how the new CEO, Alan Mulally has transformed Ford over the last 3 years.

It is clear that Mulally knows the value of brands and the value of values. On his first day, when reviewing the future product lineup, he noticed that the Taurus was missing. He asked why. The reply was that they had “made a couple that looked like a football…and they didn’t sell well, so we stopped it (using the brand) .” Mulally’s comment was “How many billions of dolalrs does it cost to build brand loyalty around a name?” The marching orders following the meeting was for the product team to “make the coolest vehicle that you can possibly make (and name it the Taurus).” His point was that poor product can easily damage or even destroy a brand and instead of abandoning the name, go and fix the real problem. And yet, the old Ford was willing to give up on the investment it had made in the Taurus brand for over 20 years and begin the process again of building brand loyalty around a new name. What waste.

Now two years later the payoff arrives with the new Taurus which has been met with postive reviews in the automotive press. Finally, the right product to deliver on the promise of the Taurus brand. The learning here is is that product and brand are inextricably linked. Both need to be in harmony with product leading the conversation. As I’ve been know to share with others, my observation is that until you get the product right, you have no brand.

Mulally also knows that for a company and brand (in this case the Ford brand) to succeed, requires focus and dedication to one vision, one mission and one set of values. He calls it ONE Ford, with the mission statement and four goals (expected behaviors) printed on two sides of a plastic card (business-card size). Every employee has one. As Mulally says, “…I wrote it, It’s what I believe in. You can’t make this shit up.” Right-on!

And finally, what has made me a fan of Mulally is his openness and complete transparency. And he uses a sentence, I’ve come to embrace. At at early meeting with employees upon joining Ford in 2006, the question on everyone’s mind was “Will Ford make it?” His reply was “I don’t know.” “But we have a plan…”

You are at a social function, and have gone through the horderve line and you can’t find a place for your drink.

As I see it, you have three options:

1. Abandon your drink at someone else’s table.
2. Place your beverage on the ground and hope that it doesn’t get kicked.
3. Awkwardly place your plate on your forearm, risking an embarrassing spill.

Now we have more options, thanks to the Go Plate. Genius.

Link via Uncrate.

I’m still amazed – and grateful – that we continue to have real-time examples of businesses poorly executing their brand story. GM’s brand woes continue to fill the print and online space. They are trying hard to convince consumers to give them a second (or is it third or fourth…) chance at becoming their car brand. In the words of Susan Docherty, VP of Buick and GMC, “We need (Buick) to be relevant and we aren’t today.” Docherty is referring to today’s consumer – younger, more discerning, with higher expectations – that has zero loyalty to GM’s brands.

Great quote. Unfortunately you don’t change perceptions or capture these consumers overnight. The rule about brands is that if you nurture them, they will flourish and grow. If you neglect them, they whither and die. With most GM brands, it’s been a long-term case of neglect that only needed the recent financial credit crisis to push them over the edge. While the products had turned around, the brands had lost their relevancy.

What is GM to do? Well, first I would suggest ditching the advertising that talks about how we didn’t listen to our customers in the past and now we will (really?); and that the New GM will be stronger, better, more fuel efficient (really?), innovative, etc., etc. I’d call it greenwashing if we were talking about eco or sustainable products. I need a new term here – carwashing? I digress.

Instead of buzz words and 30-second sound bits, GM needs to focus on clearly defining and articulating the story of the remaining brands in the portfolio. Each brand should have a story that is authentic, memorable and meaningful to today’s consumer. Each should be clearly distinct from each other. And once the story has been penned, tell it over and over again – a thousand times.

Tell it with conviction and follow through with your products and service. Tell it with empathy and do the little things to make someone’s day. Tell with humor to show you are one of us. Tell it like you want your customers to tell it.

So, what’s your story?

Image by Lunchbreath. Link via Core77.

Today is a big day in the business world. GM declares bankruptcy. You can read the numerous stories on the ripple affect this will have on the lives of many people beyond those employed by GM. Is it a wonder that the US government has taken a 60% stake in the “New” GM to “save” jobs. Will it be enough? Who knows. Maybe the more important question —  is GM a brand worth saving?

Looking back over the 100 year history of GM with my brand-goggles, I belive GM died over 30 years ago. It just didn’t know it. Even prior to the OPEC energy crisis in the 1970’s GM had begun to lose it’s way. The passion to create automobiles and brands people love began to fade quickly from that point on. The products were not the standard of quality anymore. For a long stretch, you could not tell a Chevrolet from a Cadillac (Remember the J-cars?). Innovation and leadership gave way to short term profit and increasing production to maintain their #1 standing as the largest automobile company in the world. While GM, Ford and Chrysler fought against higher fuel economy standards, the rest of the automotive world embraced them and moved forward. Now in bankruptcy, GM agrees with higher fuel economy standards. How times have changed.

When you look at GM from that perspective, it is not surprising that “loyal” American automoblie buyers went elsewhere. First to German brands. Then Japanese. Now Korean. Next Chinese?  Jaime Kitman, writer for Automobile Magazine wrote in this latest column that at a certain point over 87% of Saturn buyers did not know they were buying a GM product. I’m not sure if that is good or bad news.

My quick take-away is that GM has a tough road back. By shedding brands (Pontiac, Hummer, Saturn, Saab) and focusing on their core brands (Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac and GMC) they might have a chance — if they really have the passion to built great automobiles. Having seen the new 60-sec. spot for the “New” GM by Deutsch, I’m not holding my breath. If GM has any chance at all, they need to change the conversation.

Want to read more on GM? Here are some article I found interesting:

GM turns 100, September 16 2008 , MotorTrend

GM and Me, Alex Taylor III, Fortune Magazine

When Bad Things Happen to Good Brands: Won’t Someone Save Saturn?, Jamie Kitman, Automobile Magazine