What does your brand smell like?

Okay… too tough for you? How about… what does your company sound like? If I picked up the fabric of your culture what would it feel like?

This week, I’ve been conducting internal interviews for a hotel looking at its branding. Industries like hospitality need to understand their brands from all five senses and more. People want the “experience” of your brand and if it is a fabulous time, they’ll come back again and again.

Take a tip from hotels and explore your brand from more than just sight. Make it really come to life.

Five sites for inspiration

I have just returned from a long weekend in Michigan. Headed back to visit with old friends and made some new ones. I needed to turn off, shut down and reboot… don’t we all sometimes?

It’s important, especially in one-person operations, that we keep our creative juices flowing. To that end, here are five sites I visit for daily inspiration. Stay passionate!

1. Direct Daily: Great blog that highlights great direct mail and grassroots marketing tactics from around the world. Complete with photos.

2. MelissaJill.net: I think this woman is an amazing photographer and fun human being. Photography is not only a personal passion of mine but I also visit because it shows what happens when you look form a different angle. When I get married, I’m calling her.

3. Logopond: Search and discover logos. Rate them, praise them, add your own. Helps rev up the design juices.

4.  CrazyLeaf: Always sharing new Adobe techniques, design trends, etc. Uber design geeky and I love visiting their world for awhile pretending I fit in.

5. MediaPost.com: Mega-ton site of research and marketing knowledge galore. So much to read! So much to absorb!

Reminder to you: keep going

There seemed ot be so much negativity today. So I wanted to take a moment a remind all the small, medium and large businesses out there with passion… with a dream… that Coca-Cola was not built in day. Nor was Microsoft. Or Apple. Or Starbucks. Keep believing. Keep going.

And if you’ve just had an idea for something, pursue it a little. Breathe a little on that kindling and see if it doesn’t catch fire.

Some reminders of products and brands that might never had been…
Blue Jeans: Working as a canvas salesman during the California Gold rush, Levi Strauss noticed that the pants of prospectors had a whole lot of wear and tear. Strauss decided to stitch some canvas together and sell them as pants.

Feather Duster: In 1857, Susan Hibbard turned a notion about discarded turkey feathers into a duster that is still around today.

AVON: The first Avon Lady was actually a man, young door-to-door salesman David McConnell selling books. Turns out the ladies liked his free introductory gift of perfume much more than the books.

Band-Aid: Thanks to being accident prone, Josephine Dickson’s husband had an idea. He took some of the manufactured gauze and adhesive tape from the company he worked for, Johnson & Johnson, and put together some sticky bandages. Soon the company was making them to sell on a small scale. Four years later, in 1924, the company installed machines for mass producing the new product, and the trade name BAND-AID was adopted.

Christmas Lights: Thomas Edison might have been the great inventor, but it was his assistant Edward Johnson in 1882 who hand-wired 80 red, white and blue bulbs and wound them around a rotating evergreen tree.

Boardgame, Life: In 1860, Milton Bradley’s lithographer business was in jeopardy. His biggest seller — a clean-shaven portrait of Abraham Lincoln – wasn’t selling so well now that Lincoln had a beard. Out of desperation, he printed up several copies of a game he’d invented called, “The Checkered Game of Life.” It was hot. He sold 45,000 copies of the game by the end of the year and never looked back.

So whatever it is… you CAN do it. And if you need some help, call me.

On this day…

On this day — March 8th in 1930, Mahatma Gandhi began the campaign of civil disobedience in India. Historically, 32 years later The Beatles performed for the first time on the BBC in Great Britain. Big day for revolutions and cultural evolutions.

There 298 days remaining in 2007… what do you plan to do with yours?

Keeping your creative fire burning

I found this jewel in the last Arizona Artists Guild newsletter and wanted to pass along.

Keep an Illustrated Journal By Jill A. Brownley
Create and keep an illustrated art journal of your painting ideas, your travels, daily thoughts, dreams, or… well, almost anything that you’d like to keep in a notebook. Artists often talk about “the importance of the moment” when painting.That’s how it is with art journaling, too. Draw what you see and what you like… forget about whether or not it will make a good picture.

Go out and look at things and just draw. Slow down and notice things that you normally wouldn’t, such as wildlife, doorknobs, light posts, or an old gate. As you slow down little things become brilliant. Grass growing through a cement crack, a stop sign, an antique car…suddenly matter because you notice them.

No matter what medium you work in—photography, watercolors, drawing, collage, or mixed media—you can create with whatever materials you have on hand. Be innovative and embellish with found objects, beads, or fabric. Be inspired by what moves you. After a while, you will have a notebook full of fabulous ideas for new art work!

What did you do that was fun today?