“You never get a second chance at a first impression,” sounds like a tired cliche  your mother used to get you to comb your hair as a teenager. But I must say that, too often, professionals lose big when they discount the value of a strong first impression. We all have heard someone say: “he was not what I expected,” or “I imagined her being different.” Often these comments translate into “he did not look like he had his act together,” or “I expected her to be more professional.” Before you call me shallow and too focused on the veneer of human existence, hear me on this one. I agree we are so much more than the sum total of how we look and dress like. I get that. But no matter how hard we try to get people we meet to see the real us, we will be categorized…

Every person in your organization is telling your story. Paid, volunteer, happy or disgruntled, everyone matters when it comes to your brand’s perception. People talk about brand management like it’s something a highly paid executive carefully orchestrates from the company’s headquarters. But more often than not, managing a brand’s perception is left to those at the front lines of contact, such as hourly sales workers or volunteers. Millions of dollars in advertisement cannot overcome a poorly trained or unhappy minimum-wage employee.A while back, I went to the Guess store looking for a shirt. The store was somewhat busy, but soon a helpful sales lady opened a dressing room for me and brought me several shirts she she wanted me to try on.  Through the course of the conversation, she asked about my jeans preference and brought me 4 or 5 pairs to try. Beth was great at her job. When…

In the new world of marketing and advertising, it’s not as much about your message as it is about engaging your audience in a dialogue about your message. Long ago marketing was all about exposing a product to the public. As competition grew and more products and services continued to vie for our attention, exposing a product was no longer enough. Marketers then began positioning it within a category or industry. They strived to place products in the minds of consumers by creating an unique promise, claim, or even story. But in today’s social-media drive culture, position is not enough. Consumers want a conversation with their favorite brands. Consumers now want, and will soon demand, marketing that gives them a chance to dialog with their brands of choice. It’s not enough for us to know the story behind our favorite car, soap, or burrito. We now want to be able…

“We are good at copying but not good at being authentic.” Those were difficult words for a pastor to say, but both he and I knew they were true. As we talked, he told me he had visited enough congregations to know how churches freely “borrowed” others’ identity.  I ran into that problem early on in my marketing career as I was asked to create something that looked exactly like someone else’s work . Even today, my company gets calls from churches that want to use one of our client’s  logo, brand identity and promises as their own. That’s a disaster waiting to happen. I believe that’s a problem way beyond churches and businesses.  We often want to copy the style of something or someone without possession any of the substance.  I know church leaders go to great lengths to look and act like  prominent Christian leaders without spending the…

Whether you’re a CEO looking at your wardrobe choices, a hipster wannabe pastor in search of cool threads, or a professional considering a look update, choosing what to wear can be daunting and, yes, even dangerous. I often get the question “what type of clothing should I buy, or what should I avoid?”  But while my teenage son might disagree with my fashion-forward mindset, I have learned some universal dos and don’ts when it comes to men’s fashion. Here’s my best attempt at helping guys avoid looking like dorks.   If you keep the following rules, you should be OK. Break them, and you’re on your own. The Do-I-look-Stupid? Rule. If you have to ask it, don’t buy it and by all means don’t wear it. Don’t ever decide to wear something because you think that it will make you more relevant or “hip.” That usually backfires. I have seen…

This past weekend I happened upon Uniqlo on 5th Avenue in Manhattan. I must confess, I didn’t know anything about the brand, but after shopping in its brand new 90,000 square foot flagship store, I have become a fan. I’m enthusiastic not because I like their clothing, which I do, but because in a time where retailers are struggling to “make it,” Uniqlo seems to have figured out what we want. The best way I can explain the brand is by saying that Uniqlo is for clothing what Ikea is for furniture, but with better quality stuff. Uniqlo started in Japan and was once a men’s clothing store. Now it’s making a play as a global brand. Here’s what I think these guys have gotten right from a branding, marketing and business model. They design and produce their own clothing line. They are not competing with everyone else for the…

The Southern Baptist Convention is considering a name change. “SBC president Bryant Wright has appointed a task force to explore the poss of a name change of the Southern Baptist Convention,” read the tweet from Thom Rainer, President and CEO of LifeWay. That’s the kind of news that gets a branding professional all fired up.  It’s not hard to reason that not all Baptists are southerners and therefore the current name no longer reflects the true nature of the organization. While I’m not part of the SBC decision-making process or involved with this project, I hope the task force considers these branding laws as they explore a new name. A new name does not mean you have a new brand. New packaging without changing the product or experience only goes so far. Churches that changed their names in the mid 90’s to appear more community friendly but failed to change…

Positioning is becoming a hot issue with growing churches. While most of the private sector has always struggled with positioning their business in the minds of consumers, churches have not given it much thought until recently. With the proliferation of interdenominational, community, or fellowship-type of churches, positioning a church clearly in their mind of the community has become a very complicated task for church leaders. Just the other day I overhead the following conversation: “Where are you going to church these days?” “Hope Community Church.” “Oh, isn’t that a Baptist church that has dropped ‘Baptist’ from its name?” “I don’t think so-people raise their hands during worship.” “It’s a charismatic church, then!” “No, I don’t think so, either. I think we’re somewhere between a Baptist and Pentecostal church.” Well, Hope Community Church is suffering from poor positioning. I’m sure the leadership of the church purposely chose a name that would…

There’s no easy way to say it. The traditional Ad Agency is not going to stay around for long. As the big guys scramble to survive and as the little guys close shop, marketing agencies find themselves in a major shift. Some believe it’s a difficult transition, if not an impossible one under the current way most of these shops are setup. In order to survive agencies must: Stop being dependent on the 15% media buying revenue and print markup.  The days of clients spending hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of dollars on traditional media are numbered. The new media mix is a lot more fluid and fragmented and requires more thinking than a media buyer can do in one afternoon. A direct mail campaign followed by radio and/or TV is no longer the answer for every problem. I’m not certain it’s the answer for any current dilemma. Make technology…

If “marketing” was the church’s buzzword for the ‘90s, “branding” is definitely the new, upstart concept when it comes to communications these days. So what makes the new millennium’s branding better than last century’s marketing strategy? A lot, if we understand the differences between them. Branding and marketing both aim at communicating a product, an institution, even a person to a particular audience. This whole process happens solely in the mind. In this case, perception is reality—for good or bad. Most of what marketing does is build a brand—create a favorable reality in the minds of our target audience. A marketing campaign’s effectiveness is measured in months, but a brand’s strength is calculated in years, even decades. Each marketing effort should help define, position, and strengthen the brand. Recently, the Old Spice campaign featuring Isaiah Mustafa has sold a lot of deodorant to men who want to be more Isaiah…