Restaurant marketing and design by The Brand Surgery - click on image to enlarge it.

Food, food, glorious food. We love food so much here at The Brand Surgery.

That may be why we are so busy working for restaurants, take-aways and gastro pubs. We’ve been designing logos for eateries since 2001, and one of our customers likes the logo we designed for him so much that he will not rebrand, even after ten years!

As well as designing logos, we help with restaurant promotion by way of websites, blogging, social media (Twitter, Facebook and Linked In), advertising, e-newsletters, PR, strategic marketing and much more …

Christmas Event Promotions

With the countdown to Christmas now upon us, it is essential to send out your Christmas menus and start advertising your venue to guarantee bookings NOW. There are over 130 restaurants in Worthing alone, so how do you ensure that business office parties book tables in your establishment?

If you don’t have a website, we can get you web presence within a week so you can advertise your Christmas menu and get people to book online. All the websites we have designed for eateries have enabled them to reach page one of Google for their chosen keywords. For example, if you type into Google: “Thai restaurant, Worthing”, Carabao will appear. If you type into Google: “Fish restaurant, Worthing”, The Fish Factory will appear at the top. We can do the same for your restaurant so you get prime position, after all, how many people actually scroll to page 2 or 3 of Google?

We can also send your Christmas menu as a funky, designed e-shot to our mailing list of Worthing businesses within a week or two if you book now. Maybe you want a complete branding overhaul in time for Christmas? No problem.

We can also design Christmas cards, flyers and much more so you can enjoy the season knowing your restaurant is booked. We also work in partnership with The Worthing Journal and some of our new packages include design and a published advert.

Simple. Give Vicky at The Brand Surgery a call on 01903 824229 or email vicky@thebrandsurgery.co.uk. We have four new packages for restaurants, cafes, bistros and other eateries.

So whatever type of Christmas event you need promoting, we have a solution for you. Guaranteed bums on seats!

The Brand Surgery – Chartered Institute of Marketing

We have just been told the great news that the boss, Vicky Vaughan, has passed her NVQ Level 3 in Management. And if that’s not enough…

In January this year, The Brand Surgery decided to formalise its marketing experience and embark on the CIM Professional Diploma in Marketing. This Diploma is an ‘Honours Degree’ course and we have 20 hours of reading and studying a week to swot up on, as well as intensive weekends once a month. So far we have been to Reading University and Gatwick Hilton for Managing Marketing and The Marketing Planning Process.

We have been busy benchmarking businesses against leaders in their field, calculating the funnel of activity (for example analysing website conversions), measuring marketing and e-marketing trends, calculating return on marketing investment, measuring innovation, and of course measuring the success of corporate identity.

As you are probably aware, The Brand Surgery, your No. 1 branding agency in Sussex, has always considered competitor research an essential part of the branding process, and it is pretty pointless starting a company re-brand without having a marketing plan to refer to.

So how do you know what perception your customers have of your business? Do you deliver value to your customers? Why should your customers buy from you? What makes your business stand out from the rest? Is your website working hard enough for you?

We can help you to promote your USP (unique selling point) using our combination of innovative ideas and formal marketing training.

Call Vicky on 01903 824229 for an informal chat.

The Brand Surgery are now members of The Chartered Institute of Marketing.

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

Colour Psychology presentation from The Brand Surgery

Due to popular demand, we have created a short presentation about Colour Psychology.

How do you know if you have the correct colour logo for your business? Did you know that different colours evoke different emotions in your customers? Our FREE short presentation will help you decide what colour you should go for – whether you are looking to refresh your logo – or go for a complete rebrand.

As we all know, knowledge is power – and it is incredibly important to know what colours your customers will respond to.  The big boy corporate companies pay hundreds of thousands of pounds for this valuable information. We have collated lots of the top brands’ logos into colour groups – and you will see that they do have lots in common. Hmmm. Food for thought hey.

You can watch our Colour Psychology presentation for FREE on our new Facebook page. Click here to see it!

If you would like to find out more about colour psychology, or would logo or website refresher, give The Brand Surgery a call on 01903 824229. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Look very closely – all these photos are of painted hands and fingers! And there are a few legs thrown in for good measure too.

Although, our branding agency in West Sussex, can’t scoop the reward for these amazing designs – we do have some pretty good ideas going on – whether it be logo design, web design, brochure design or stunning e-advertising. You can even hire us to take part in your business brain storming sessions … Don’t be shy! Give us a call on 01903 824229, then people will be talking about your brand too.

Amazing advertising concept – this design represents United Kingdom

Amazing advertising concept – this design represents United India

Amazing advertising concept – This design respresents The Bahamas

Amazing advertising concept – This design respresents Canada

Amazing advertising concept – This design respresents China

Amazing advertising concept – This design respresents Egypt

Amazing advertising concept – This design represents Costa Rica

Amazing advertising concept – This design respresents China

Amazing advertising concept – This design respresents Italy

Amazing advertising concept – This design respresents The Netherlands

Amazing advertising concept – This design respresents Russia

DO A MADONNA

The day has finally come. DO A MADONNA!™ has been printed! Hoorah!

The book should be available on Amazon.co.uk within the next two weeks. However, you can pre-order the book on the website by clicking here.

Writing a book has been a steep learning curve. The writing was the easy part! The proofing, liaising with the print company and pre-press was the main challenge – and we deal with pre-press departments every day! I can’t imagine what it would be like dealing with these book printing companies if you had no experience whatsoever.

With the above said, we are looking forward to marketing DO A MADONNA and I am looking for speaking opportunities to launch it. So if you know of a venue or organisation who would like to book an interesting talk, this is the one for them. Guaranteed to stimulate people, even during the graveyard shift!

A little bit about DO A MADONNA …

Keeping your brand alive 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 and it also 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. It’s time to Express Yourself! Soon your business will be good enough to grace the cover of Vogue!

Priced at only £10. Let Your journey to WORLD DOMINATION begin.

5% of all book profits go towards Madonna’s charity: http://www.raisingmalawi.org

Click to launch the full edition in a new window.

Proto Promotions Team jackets designed by The Brand Surgery. Photography by Studio IV.

It’s official! The Brand Surgery are now designing clothes and teamwear!

Our client, Proto Restaurant Group commissioned us to design some jackets recently. The design brief was: Proto Restaurant Group wanted a Formula One feel for some corporate team wear for their promotions team. The jackets would be worn at events such as the Splash FM Awards 2010, and other sponsored events. They asked us to brand the jackets with their logos and awards. We also designed some hats, t-shirts and chocolate boxes. We are very proud of this latest extension to our design services.

You can read about the Proto promotions team on their website blog, which we also design, develop and write. Click here to read more about the Proto promotions team and to read our blog writing.

When you have a logo designed, why not advantage of promoting your brand. We produce a number promotional products. Do you remember our Beat the Recession, Make an Impression packs? If not, click here to read about them.

If you have a logo that simply needs refreshing, this can easily been done, without breaking the bank. Call Vicky on 01903 824229.

We all know that in marketing we should use the KISS method – Keep It Simple Stupid! or Keep it Simple & Straightforward is the more polite version. We have applied this theory to our new Mission Statement which is:

The Brand Surgery brings branding excellence at affordable prices to all businesses in Great Britain.

You can’t get much clearer than that! We bring the same jargon free business ethics to all of our services. If this is the first time you have discovered our blog, here is a little more about The Brand Surgery.

The Brand Surgery is a branding agency and offers services such as: Branding consultancy, logo design, design for print, website design & development, PR services, e-marketing services, blog writing services, copywriting services, photography, Illustration and SMS marketing
The Brand Surgery believes in the principle of Givers Gain. We give branding advice and give help to businesses by offering high-end branding services at realistic prices. Our tried-and-tested formula to marketing is HONESTY and HELPING OTHERS. We help businesses and we put ourselves in their shoes. We believe that using honesty when helping our clients with their marketing and promotions is the way forward.

Clients we have helped are so pleased with our expertise that they have passed our name to other businesses that also want to grow. We have advised all of our clients that good branding, marketing and promotions is the key to standing out, especially when the economy is tough. Customers are going to buy from businesses that look professional and established. The customers that have taken our branding advice have thrived throughout the recession.

Everything we advise our clients to do, we test on our business first – from customer care to the envelopes we post our marketing packs in. Give as you would like to receive is our motto for helping businesses to grow.

If you like our business philosophy, then we would love to work with you. Visit our website on www.thebrandsurgery.co.uk or call 01903 824229. We hope you enjoy looking at the rest of our website.

Viking passengers experience 39 hours delay

I don’t know … I’ve been gone for two weeks and the blogging has just stopped. Luckily I came back when I did …

It is actually a major miracle that I made it back after my Egyptian adventures. Drift snorkelling isn’t for Vicky Vaughan. Especially when one’s face mask doesn’t fit. And double-especially when one is extremely short-sighted. Treble-especially when there are twenty identical looking boats which are 200 metres apart, with a strong current and you can’t remember the name of your boat. I have to say that my drift-snorkelling experience was pretty scary, and I am not sure if I still want to swim the channel to raise funds for my charity, Talent within You next year.

Bad Branding Experience

The swimming was just one adventure! The second was my delay coming home. We were delayed by 39 hours and 40 minutes no thanks to Viking Airlines. The worst part about our delay was that Viking couldn’t be bothered to communicate with its 200 passengers in person. They faxed a letter to Sharm airport to tell us the plane had been cancelled. I was travelling alone and if I hadn’t been so well travelled, would have been very frightened. To Viking’s credit, they did provide accommodation for two evenings. If they had of been honest and said we would be staying another two nights, we could of relaxed. Instead, they had us check-in and check-out of the hotel three times. We had four departure times conveyed to us via an Egyptian rep with pigeon English.

The above experience has left me with a bad memory and is what I call BAD branding! Viking should be sitting on the naughty step for a long time. They have broken their brand promise which is (according to their website): Our experienced team has a philosophy of excellent customer service to ensure your flight experience is exemplary.We look forward to being of service to you! LOL!

The last bad experience was with Breo watches. I purchased a Breo Roam watch on the outbound Viking flight, and it was supposed to be water resistant to 10m. Well trust me, Breo watches  are not water resistant. And what’s more, they will not give me my money back because I have no receipt, thanks to Viking Airlines! Answer from Breo to my request for a replacement or refund: Apologies for the experience with the watch. Unfortunately, In accordance with our Returns Policy (http://www.breo.com/customerservices.php) “Returns and exchanges will only be processed if accompanied with proof of purchase. This includes all airline purchases and items bought through resellers”. What an utterly useless response when Viking couldn’t even send a plane to take me home so I could get a receipt!

Good branding experience

Good branding though is the service I received from HSBC holiday insurance, which comes free with HSBC banking. They refunded £25 per 12 hours (OK a bit stingy I know), but they did it by BACs on the phone. It was so easy. Thank you.

So after all of this, I did have a great holiday. We stayed at Three Corners St. George in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. The weather was gorgeous. I had great company with my friends who I met at the hotel. I would go to Sharm El Sheikh again – it’s great to be able to trust the weather in March.

While I’ve been away sunning myself, my brand doctors and nurses have been busy working on three websites, brochures, rebrands and adverts. We are also writing a number of press releases for businesses on a national level. Plus the long awaited book, is back from the proof reader, and we are just about to send it to the publisher.  Go to www.doamadonna.com for a sneak preview! Watch this space!

Call Vicky at The Brand Surgery (best branding company in West Sussex) on 01903 824229 or email vicky@thebrandsurgery.co.uk if you would like to give your business some urgent branding medical attention.

Rebranded Coastliner buses are launched

As you may know, we publish the Coastliners Magazine on behalf of Stagecoach, with our sister company Pulse.

We always work hard to ensure the cover of the magazine will not date – especially as the Coastliners magazine has a shelf-life of six months. Although this magazine ran over Christmas, we didn’t want to make the cover too Christmassy as it had to last through to March 2010.

Hidden illustration talent

The boss – and original Brand Doctor, Vicky Vaughan, decided it was time to unveil her hidden illustration talents and created the above masterpiece! Wow! She illustrated the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth and The Brighton Dome, which represented the Coastliner route from end-to-end.  The added benefit of this illustrated cover design, was that the colours Vicky chose, followed the Stagecoach South corporate identity and  branding. The cover was presented to our client, approved, then printed and is actually still in circulation now.

Not long after the magazines were printed, we received a call from Stagecoach South, who were so impressed with Vicky’s illustrations, they commissioned her to illustrate six further landmarks across the south coast in the same style as she created for the cover.

Official launch of illustrations

Illustrations of landmarks along the Coastliners route

We’ve been keeping this work top secret at the request of our client, until now! At last, we have been given permission to tell the world about where the landmarks would appear. As you can see in the photo above, Vicky’s illustrations were part of a design for Coastliner buses.

There are 40 buses in total which will be wrapped in this unique design, and there are four different designs:

• Worthing
• Brighton
• Chichester
• Portsmouth

Vicky says: “I was so proud to see the illustrations in their finished format. The illustrations took a long time, especially the HMS Victory with all it’s ropes, and the Chichester Market Cross with all the fine detail. It was so worth it, so see my illustrations printed so large. I believe these buses will be cruising across from Brighton to Portsmouth for the next few years, and I certainly won’t mind being stuck behind one of the Coastliner buses in future!”

Illustrations can be used for a number of marketing solutions

Now we have unleashed this creative talent from Queen Vic, why not consider commissioning Vicky to do one for you. Illustrations are excellent for:

• Websites
• Brochures and leaflets
• Posters
• Newsletters and magazines
• Books
• Exhibition graphics
• Livery signage
• Packaging

Illustrations of landmarks along the Coastliners route