business disasters with Evan Davis

Business Nightmares with Evan Davis is the must-see TV show, made in partnership with The Open University. This show tells the stories of the world’s most momentous business disasters and how they happened. The show documents the damage caused and the lessons that should be learned.  This fantastic three-part series examines business nightmares in detail and highlights the three fundamental areas in which disasters occur: The episodes are called: Doomed Designs, Marketing Mess-ups and Disastrous Decisions. The show features many case studies from businesses that got it wrong.

Unfortunately, the final episode is tomorrow (Thursday 19th May at 8pm on BBC2). The good news is that you can catch the first two episodes for the next eight days on BBC iPlayer by clicking here.

Business owners (including myself) do seem to fear failure, however, failure can be the best thing if we learn how to understand it, learn from it and recover from it. Part of my CIM Professional Diploma in Marketing involves my researching case studies and white papers. It is interesting that the April 2011 issue of the Harvard Business Review was called “The Failure Issue” and it comprises many case studies of how businesses turned around their companies from failure level. I am still a firm believer that learning from others mistakes is better than making your own!

Since studying for my Diploma, I have learned that the subjects I have covered in my book Do a Madonna have been quoted by the world famous marketeers such as Handy, Belbin, Norton and Kaplan. Do a Madonna has been written in an easily-digestible format for new business owners and it includes some of the case studies mentioned in this TV show as well as others. You can purchase a copy of Do a Madonna by clicking here.

Excellent branding - The Fiat 500

We’ve been looking back over 2010 for the most memorable re-brands. The one that sticks in our mind is the new Fiat 500. Two of our funky friends rushed out to purchase the all-new-singing-and-dancing Fiat 500 last summer – exactly 50 years after the first Fiat 500 was born – and they were not disappointed. A great brand always delivers on brand promise.

The new Fiat 500 car has kept the Cinquecento-silhouette features, fused with a distinctive retro-look just like the Volkswagen New Beetle and Mini but is more competitively priced.

Now, we’re not trying to steal Jeremy Clarkson’s job here …  Instead, we are simply using this re-brand as an excellent case study. If you think back a few years, the Fiat Cinquecento was just another small, economical city car. It didn’t really stand out from the crowd, plus the brand name ‘Cinquecento’ is not only difficult to spell. It is also impossible to pronounce unless you have some knowledge of the Italian language.

The book, Do A Madonna focuses on company names and slogans, and the importance of choosing a name for your business or product which is easy to pronounce and spell. Could you imagine having to spell ‘Cinquecento’ every time someone wanted to visit your website? Sometimes, being too clever can defeat the point of the object. The original name, ‘Fiat 500′ rolls nicely off the tongue.

We think the Fiat 500 rebrand is a massive success. What is your favourite rebrand of 2010?

Is 2011 the year when you should think about re-branding your business or products? We help businesses of all sizes to re-brand. If your business has reached the magic five year mile-stone, why not give it another push in the right direction? It may simply need a tweak. If you look at the history of the Shell logo – it has remained a shell in 100 years – the fonts and colours have simply been modified to keep up with trends.

Give us a call on 01903 824229 for an informal discuss about where you want your business to head in 2011.

Happy new year from The Brand Surgery – the number one branding agency in Sussex.

History of the shell logo

Ho Ho Ho! Merry Christmas from all of us at The Brand Surgery. We wish you all a fantastic festive season.

We shall be closing the office from 1pm Christmas Eve and we will re-open again at 9am on Tuesday 4th January. That is actually only one whole week off so don’t panic.

What you do need to think about though is that VAT rises to 20% in January, so if you want to take advantage of the 17.5% rate – you’ve got four days to get your project booked in! Whether it be a new logo, website design or website development, a new shiny brochure, blog writing or our improved marketing services. Whatever it is, don’t delay – book it today!

One last thing, if you don’t know what to buy that special someone for Christmas – my book (DO A MADONNA)  is for sale – click here for further information. You get £1 off if you become a DO A MADONNA Facebook fan.

Phone The Brand Surgery, Sussex’s No. 1 award-winning branding agency on 01903 824229 for further information.

Shark-El-Sheik E-shot design by The Brand Surgery

Shark El Sheikh rebranded by The Brand Surgery, and once known as Sharm El Sheikh, once had the international reputation as one of the world’s most fabulous diving destinations in the Red Sea, Egypt. Then the shark attacks happened.

In my book, Do A Madonna, I advise business owners to perform a SWOT and PEST analysis of their business branding. I wonder if the Egyptian tourist board ever forecasted a shark attack and how this may of affected their business branding? When you think of Egypt – do you think of the pyramids or the shark attacks? We all know that a brand is a memory. Click here to read more on this subject.

Another subject I mention in my book is making the most of events and seasonal branding. We all know that the VAT rate rises to 20% in January. Most business start-up owners we meet are not VAT registered and therefore can’t claim this back. Therefore we are offering non-VAT businesses a special incentive.

Shark-El-Sheikh Offer 1: Book your logo design before Christmas and we will knock £100 off our business start up rate. Our normal start-up rate for business branding (logo design) is £595.Special offer £495. This includes our unique research methods which you won’t find elsewhere. Not only will you save £100 – you will benefit for the lower VAT rate.

For all those VAT registered  businesses – we guessed VAT won’t affect you, so we have another offer …

Shark-El-Sheikh Offer 2: As an introductory offer, we are offering our Facebook business page branding for 50% of our normal price. To see an example of this, click here. A page like this, including the presentation would cost £1100. You can have a page like this for £550. Call us for further information.

We hope you enjoyed reading our Shark-El-Sheik offer. For more inspiring ideas from Sussex’s No 1 award-winning Branding agency, call 01903 824229.

Soap and Glory thank Vicky Vaughan

Vicky Vaughan, boss of the Brand Surgery, Branding agency in Worthing, Sussex, will be holding a short workshop entitled ‘DO A MADONNA – the Secret to Branding Success’ at Worthing Chamber’s, ‘Chamber Chat’ which is being held at Impulse Leisure, Lancing Manor on Wednesday 6th October at 6pm. To book your place, click here.

Although DO A MADONNA has been written especially for small business owners,  corporate companies have commended the book as useful learning resource. Just a few weeks ago, The founder of Soap and Glory thanked Vicky personally by sending her a luxury hamper full of Soap and Glory goodies. Maybe it’s fate that Soap and Glory, and The Brand Surgery both love pink and white!

DO A MADONNA has been tipped as the most valuable branding consultation on the market. It is a fun way of looking at an important subject! So don’t delay, book your place at the Chamber Mini Workshop to discover the secret to successful branding.

PS Vicky has been advised to mention Mercedes in her next book!

From the BBC website: A ban on the use of Blackberry phones to send and receive messages is being rolled out in Saudi Arabia, users say. State-owned phone operator Saudi Telecom has blocked text, e-mail, web surfing and instant messenger functions, users in the kingdom have told the BBC.”

Two things ran through my mind …

1. This news story shows how some circumstances (political and/or reglious reasons) are completely beyond our control and this can affect our brand – for better or worse! In my  book, DO A MADONNA!™, I recommend that all businesses should perform a PEST analysis on their brand as well as their business.How will this ban affect their sales? How will the ban affect the brand image in Saudi Arabia, or across the middle East. The good news is that the PR has promoted the Blackberry brand across the rest of the world. These are important subjects to consider when you go into business. I wonder what would happen if our government banned junk mail. After all, a ban would save on recycling costs, trees and print chemicals. It would be disastrous for many printers and designers who could go out of business if they didn’t have a contingency plan in place.
2. The name of brands is very interesting. Do you remember the film Crocodile Dundee? When an American reporter goes to the Australian outback to meet an eccentric crocodile poacher and invites him to New York City? Do you remember how Michael J. “Crocodile” Dundee struggled in our modern jungle? Crocodile Dundee was released in 1986, the same year as the internet. However, the internet didn’t become common until at least ten years later. Can you imagine how funny Crocodile Dundee would be if they re-released it now? What would Mr Dundee (Paul Hogan) make of Blackberry, Orange, Apple, Windows, web, O2 and even Twitter? If you said to Mr Dundee: “I’m going to Twitter today using web on my Blackberry, which is hosted by Orange”. What would he be thinking?:Twitter used to be a verb: to utter a succession of small, tremulous sounds, as a bird. to talk lightly and rapidly, esp. of trivial matters; chatter, to titter; giggle. So is twitter a good name for such a powerful form of social media? Social media experts promote Twitter as a phenomenon in business communication and networking. It is amazing that such a powerful brand wasn’t called roar or something loud!With the above said, Twitter has taken off, as have Blackberry, Orange, Apple, Windows, web, O2 and even Twitter!

If you would like to find out more about successful branding, why not purchase a copy of DO A MADONNA!™. Click here to purchase. DO A MADONNA!™ is the most competitive branding consultation around!

The magicman rebrand included new logo, brochure, website and livery.

We are very proud of our latest achievement – the magicman® rebrand!

Way back last year we created a stunning new look for magicman®. Our brief was that they wanted to move the company onto the bigger things, and hence they required a new corporate look. The brief including a new logo, brochure, website and livery, plus signage for their new executive offices.

We created the magicman® logo in a variety of formats, all which can be used in various mediums eg. for press advertising (black and white version of logo), white logo for placing on dark backgrounds, blue logo for placing on white backgrounds. The accent colours are a warm lime green and stone colour. This client didn’t require a branding toolbox, however branding toolboxes are part of our platinum brand consultation service and are excellent to send out if you are having adverts designed, or to promotional product companies.

You will see we kept the dark blue for the rebrand, plus we kept the ’star’ as the ‘dot’ on the ‘i’ of magicman® – just a tadge more tasteful.

The new magicman® logo, just like The Brand Surgery logo, is a registered trademark and we recommend that if you want your company to ‘go large’ you should also do the same.

We are now well on the way with the website, and hope that before long we will be blogging about another magic success.

Branding tips

We always recommend that a business rebrands every four to five years as fashions change and old logos look stale. It needn’t be a total evolution. Perhaps just a simple font or shape modification will do in many cases. In my new book, DO A MADONNA!™, I show you some of the larger companies that have successfully rebranded – and in some cases the change is minimal. It is important that when you rebrand, you are still attractive and recognisable to your target audience. CONFUSION = MISTRUST. If you want customers to invest in your services, you must gain their trust and loyalty.

In case you are new to our blogs, you may not know that that we do have a new online brochure service if you are worried about the cost of print – a rebrand need not cost the earth.

Call Vicky at The Brand Surgery, branding agency serving Brighton, Arundel, Chichester, Crawley Horsham, Littlehampton, Worthing, and the rest of West Sussex on 01903 824229.

Happy branding!

Magicman rebrand included logo, brochure, website, livery, signage, uniforms

DO A MADONNA website designed by The Brand Surgery

At long last, the original brand doctor, Vicky Vaughan’s book, ‘DO A MADONNA!‘ is complete. DO A MADONNA! is being printed right now!

DO A MADONNA! has had it’s first review.

“Everything in DO A MADONNA! is so true! I’ve read many other branding books, but DO A MADONNA! looks at branding in an entirely different way and it is so easy to digest. I work as part of the sales team for the Shropshire Star and I shall be recommending this book to all of my sales colleagues.” Debbie Marks-Rumble, Shropshire Star.

DO A MADONNA! focuses on keeping your brand alive. Vicky says: “It takes much more than plonking a new logo on a new brochure or website. You are your business and this ten-step book will help you on your way to business success. DO A MADONNA! is a handy-sized book which will help you discover the ten secrets of successful branding.

When you buy my book, you will also have access to the DO A MADONNA! toolbox which contains tips on colour psychology, plus much more! You will learn that even well known companies make branding blunders. DO A MADONNA! will teach you how to learn from their mistakes.

It’s time to get your business Into the Groove and Express Yourself! Once you’ve read the book and discovered the secret to branding, your business will be good enough to grace the cover of Vogue! Buy my book and let your journey to WORLD DOMINATION begin.”

DO A MADONNA! is very reasonably priced at JUST £9 and 5% of all book profits go towards Madonna’s charity: http://www.raisingmalawi.org

Go to www.doamadonna.com to pre-order your book. There will shortly be an e-book version of DO A MADONNA!

If you would like to have some personal branding advice, call Vicky Vaughan at The Brand Surgery, branding agency in West Sussex on 01903 824229.