Question

Topic: Branding

Secondary Brand Strategy Or Re-brand?

Posted by periwinklepeony on 7/4/2012 at 12:25 PM ET 500 Points
I am brand development manager for a natural foods cooperative. Our store has a lively, fun brand image that has at its core a great deal of knowledge about food and the products we sell - this aspect is usually delivered person to person through excellent service, though sometimes it also comes from our newsletter. This newsletter is distributed to owners and can be picked up in the store. In the near future, we are planning to replace our in-house newsletter (broadsheet style) with a new full color magazine that would have broader appeal and could be distributed to businesses, like massage therapists, naturopaths, waiting rooms, etc, regionally.

My struggle is how to approach branding this magazine. Our store's primary and secondary typefaces don't really "work" in this new format. They make the publication look too playful and like we don't take the news and information we are writing about very seriously. (In the store we use Bernhard Modern, Myriad and Sugar Pie faces.) Conversely, if I create the kind of image the magazine will need to attract a spectrum of readers, it looks less and less like our in-store experience. I like to keep a very tight brand, but don't see how - without re-branding altogether - we can accomplish both goals. The other issue is that by too closely associating the magazine with our store, I am afraid it would come across to readers outside the store experience as more as of a paid advertisement than an actual magazine.

Our store's brand is pretty strong and well known in our community, another reason re-branding is not the preferred solution. Sales are in double digit growth, which is fantastic for a grocery store that's over 25 years old.

So, my question is how would you handle this? A secondary brand or would you go the route of re-branding to marry them up?

So many iterations of the magazine cover have been created at this point I cannot count them all. We are scheduled to go to press in just a few weeks, which at this point seems pretty unrealistic. So I deeply appreciate the advice.

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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Gary Bloomer on 7/4/2012 at 1:23 PM Accepted
    Don't rebrand anything.

    From a visual standpoint, use your three main typefaces
    (Bernhard Modern, Myriad and Sugar Pie) as headline fonts, subhead fonts, and for call outs, in the order Bernhard Modern, Myriad and Sugar Pie.

    These fonts should NOT be used for body copy (editorial).

    A better font for body copy is ITC Galliard (Roman, set at 11.5 on 14). Avoid Garamond (it's a lovely font but it can strain readers' eyes ... and do NOT use Times ... it will make your layouts too MS Word-like.

    Depending on your page size and column specs,
    consider inserting paragraph indents for the first lines of paragraphs, OR full or half lines of blank space between the same. If you're going for a single page size of 8.5" x 11", opt for a split column width with THREE widths: 1., full page (with 0.5" margins and gutters); 2., two columns, and 3.; at three columns. Uses these widths for headlines, intro text, and main content columns, again, reading down the page, in that order.

    Use images from your own stock, and from istockphoto.
    Many people avoid istock, which is a mistake, the quality is first rate and the prices are excellent.

    Model your page layouts on magazines such as Oprah, Martha Steward Living, and so on ... that's MODEL, not copy. Create a look that's your own but one that supports and compliments your in store look. This publication needs to be OF the brand family, NOT apart from it.
    You need to CELEBRATE your brand, not hobble it.

    As for your concerns about people's perceptions of your publication: Your magazine will only come across as a paid publication if it contains paid ads. If you DO wind up selling ads, consider confining them to specific sections. If an advertiser demands an inside front cover or a back cover, plan your space rates accordingly. Note, canny advertisers will want to buy at a discount. Pad your rates accordingly to accommodate this BUT to also include a decent margin to make it worth your while to carry ads. Again, if you're going to offer space, be sure to clearly communicate that all ads need to meet certain design criteria in order to qualify for inclusion (your castle,
    your rules). Many magazines do NOT do this, withe the resultant pages of their publications then looking like crap ... and badly littered crap too as ads tend to be inserted hither and yon, willy nilly.

    You could also offer a design service so that any ads you do run look as if they are part of the magazine and not as if they're some God-awful looking carbuncle that's just been vomited together to fill a space.

    I hope this helps. Good luck to you.



  • Posted by Gary Bloomer on 7/4/2012 at 1:28 PM Member
    P.S. I feel your pain about the number of versions.

    Take them all and pin them ... in date order ... to a wall and review them.

    Pin them up side down and review them.

    Discard any that annoy or in any way offend thine eye.

    Regroup the remainder.

    Then cull them.

    Kill any design that does NOT excite you.

    Consider where and how the magazine will be placed and make sure its masthead is VISIBLE if it's to rest in a vertical stack (as one would find in a dispenser of some kind).

    Study the ways other magazines in your niche use images and text on their covers and emulate that look.

    Your piece needs shelf pull ... it must appeal to the eye, to the soul, and to the heart.
  • Posted by periwinklepeony on 7/4/2012 at 1:46 PM Author
    Thanks for the feedback. I particularly like the idea of pinning all the versions to the wall by date. I am definitely using other magazines as a guide, without that I would feel completely overwhelmed.

    At this point I am thinking that I will create a unique nameplate for the magazine - using a font outside our store's font family, but then use elements from our store's brand throughout the magazine - the same colors and type faces. Do you think this would dilute the brand too much? We were going to use Minion for body copy and Myriad Bold for headlines.

    Luckily we won't be competing on the newsstand, just on waiting room tables.

    I have been in this field for well over ten years and was very comfortable up till now with what and how I do branding. I speak at national conferences for goodness sake, but this magazine has all of the sudden made me feel like I don't know anything. It's exhausting and I am sure it will be rewarding in the end. Thanks again!
  • Posted on 7/4/2012 at 1:59 PM Accepted
    I kind of like the idea of a new/unique nameplate for the magazine. You're going after a new audience, and you don't want people to think the magazine is just a big advertisement for the store.

    You can/should, of course, disclose that the magazine is a publication of the store, and perhaps even have a paragraph near the masthead (inside) that tells the magazine's mission and claims credentials from the store's longstanding involvement with the subject matter.

    I'm not a design professional, so I won't comment on the font selection. I'm simply referring to the branding issue for the magazine.
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