Brands
Brands are a hobby of mine. I like to analyse brands, how they influence us, how we relate to them, the power they have. I have a good collection of books on branding on my bookshelf, three by Al Reis, a nice read if you get the chance..
Nobody comes close to Nike. They wrote the book. They created their own world. I mean people tattoo the Nike logo on themselves. Its a cult.
The really good brands are first in a category and they own a simple word in the mind of the customer. My little list of attributes of good brands:
- Short
- 'Proper Name' Brand
- Fairly simple
- Suggestive of category, (visual and sound)
- Alliterative
- Easily speakable
- A bit different and unique
- Own the .com domain
- If you hear it on the radio, there is a good chance you will spell it correctly
Some brands and logos that popped out of my head.
| Year | Brand | Logo | Desc | Status | Word |
| 1996 | Entropy |
|
entropy.co.za: Infotainment Website | Failed | |
| 1999 | Vino |
|
vino.co.za: An Ecommerce Company for the Wine Industry | Failed / Dormant | |
| 2000 | Fireblue | lost :-( | fireblue.com: IT Consulting Company | Failed | |
| 2000 | Blio |
|
blio.com: Embedded Systems Company | Alive | "practical" or "managed" |
| 2000 | Frogfoot |
|
frogfoot.net: Internet Service Provider | Alive | attention to detail |
| 2001 | Hub |
|
hub.org.za: Peering Point | Dormant | guerrilla networking |
| 2001 | Netphibious |
|
netphibious.com: Ecommerce Company | Dormant | |
| 2003 | MetaMera |
|
metamera.com: Food Industry Company | Dead | |
| 2003 | Amobia |
|
amobia.com: Internet Service Provider | Alive | access |
| 2003 | Mailticker |
|
mailticker.com | Dead | |
| 2004 | Clug, Just the new Logo (actually, Naulene did a sketch of my idea, then I created the vector version) |
|
Cape Linux User Group | Alive | |
| 2006 | swimgeek.com | My personal homepage | Alive | swim | |
| 2007 | schoolwan.org.za | Schools Network | Alive | WAN |
Action without a name, without a "who" attached to it, is meaning less. -- Hannah Arendt
With the strongest brands, the CEO owns the brand. It must be owned by someone, the higher in the company the better. -- Shelly Lazarus
I think it's quite clear that in the information age, the brand is what you compete on. -- Andrew Niel