Know-How Exchange : Branding

Dear ehoran,

Want the truth? You may THINK you need a creative brand marketing agency to help launch a new logo, but you don't.

I'm well aware that this opinion will be, let's say, "unpopular" with a few people, but if my 24 years spent working as a graphic designer have taught me anything it's that it's totally unnecessary to spend a lot of money with a well known design firm in order to get something "good"
in terms of design.

The managerial notion that it's only "good" design if you spend a lot of money on it is utter bollocks.

Before you dash to the arms of the biggest firm you can find, look within. Your in-house design section, department, or group (if you have one) is far better equipped to design, create, manage, and implement your logo needs than any outside company will ever be.

And any protests from on high that you need a "professional" design company to do this because a design agency is so much more experienced than the in-house people (again, if they exist)
is divisive bullshit, and insulting divisive bullshit at that.

If you go down the road of going outside when you have capable, qualified, dedicated, unsung design champions within who know the organization, its mission, and its core values I can guarantee you'll spend a great deal of money for a swirl, or a swoosh, or a circle, or a square, or some trendy shape that may, in truth, buy you little in terms of lasting value.

Putting a logo on a letterhead is not branding. Although the final design may look good on the top of a sheet of stationery or on the door of a van, a logo in and of itself does not a brand make.

And even if you DON'T have in-house design staff, what is it that you hope to achieve by launching your new logo to member organizations
at your annual meeting June 2010?

How will member organizations USE this logo and what brand management structure will you also have to invest in to ensure consistent look, use, colour, placement, size, shape, and resolution?

The development of your "plan for internal and external audiences"? What exactly do you mean by this? What were the exact findings and recommendations of your recent strategic
brand assessment?

And exactly how will a new logo help when it comes to developing anything, let alone a plan for internal and external audiences?

Who ARE you internal and external audiences? What are THEIR
needs, wants, desires, and unmet aspirations?

As a non-profit membership association of hospitals and health
facilities in the U.S. what is more important to your members, patients, admin staff, doctors, nurses, PAs, and support staff: a new logo?
Or better services, more streamlined treatment and diagnostic
services, and better equipped emergency rooms?

What is worth more? A great trauma/surgical/or paramedic team?

Or a new logo?

Can a new (expensive) logo treat a gunshot wound? Deliver a baby? Comfort a relative? Administer drugs? Take blood? Give blood? Close
a surgical wound? Or do any of the myriad tasks or offer any of the countless services a hospital or a medical service dispenses every day?

Please, as you assess your needs, do yourself a huge favour and REALLY assess what's most important, what can make the most difference to the most people—and for the least amount of money, or to create the greatest benefit to the widest audience.

With healthcare spending and reform on many people's minds, and
with the need for due diligence being ever more important, week by week, month by month, publicizing the fact that you are NOT spending money on a logo and instead, spending that money on essential services—that kind of PR would buy you untold respect and admiration, and do more to enhance your brand equity than a new logo alone could ever
do in YEARS.

To the public at large, a new logo (or an overly expensive logo) may generate a great deal of bad feeling. So again, the question is what will bring the most value and joy to the most people?

Think about this carefully, then come back.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA

Dear Jeff,

I respect your opinion and you may well be right.

In the same way that the questioner has, as you say "benefit of that intelligence which we do not", in my defense, and whether anyone likes it or not, I have the best part of 25 years of my
own intelligence and experience to fall back on and to draw from.

Jeff, you answered the question to the greatest satisfaction of
the questioner and my response was in NO WAY an attack on you, on the world of branding, or on the world of design studios and consultants.

For the better part of 25 years design has been my bread and butter!

My broad brush approach was meant to offer opinion on generating PR, not as a dismissal of anything to do with
legitimate re-branding. And yes, often certain people on the
inside ARE the root of the problem.

But having worked as an in-house designer on both sides of the Atlantic I felt (and feel) that it's my duty to raise the profiles and abilities of internal creatives because way too often, they are overlooked, down trodden, over managed, and under appreciated—and more often than not, by administrative people with no concept of the value brought to the table of the creative staff they have working for them.

Had Ellen Horan (the questioner) countered my opinion with her own "how dare you!" approach I would have apologized for any inadvertent offense or unintentional over stepping of professional bounds. But what I won't do is change my point of view because someone else takes issue with my opinion.

I have no cause to doubt your contention that study after study has proven that change can be a catalyst for achieving better results—regardless of the field.

Because I know you're right.

However, through personal experience, and through several friends who work in the worlds of healthcare and other non profits—that more often than anyone outside the non profit world realizes, these "cash strapped" institutions often refuse to use, or manage, or pay attention to the staff or resources they have and thereby waste money, time, and resources on outside services when the expenditure may be counter to the organization's mission, or a disservice to its primary beneficiaries and stakeholders—or both.

Here, we must agree to disagree. We each have strong opinions on this issue and we might both be right and we might both be wrong. The point is, the person asking the question received an answer to her question she felt was of most value to her specific needs.

If the KHE moderators request that I moderate my tone, I'll do so.
And if I've offended you, (and, indeed, the questioner) the fault is mine and for that, I apologize both to you and to Ellen. But I hope I'll be excused from having to apologize for speaking my mind or for putting forward my opinion.

Jeff, as always, it's a pleasure to read your thoughts and opinions.

Truly it is.

Again, I wish to make it crystal clear that at no time was any offense intended to either you or to the questioner.

I look forward to more mutually agreeable interactions with you and I hope you enjoy the remainder of your weekend.

Kind regards,

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA