Hornsby Brand Design LLC: Creating Sticky Brands: September 2014

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Hornsby Brand Design Launches Energetic New Website!

We're kicking off the fall season with a bang by launching our new website along with our new Facebook and LinkedIn pages.

After months of hard work and preparation, we are proud to announce the release of our newly redesigned, responsive, parallax website. By updating http://hornsbybrandesign.com with a stylish new creative look and feel, we’ve improved navigation and provided you with an enhanced user experience for the desktop, tablet, and phone.

The site is filled with important information about how Hornsby Brand Design can serve you and helpful branding tips (through our blog) that will make consumer relationships with your brand more successful. Check it out. We'd love to hear your thoughts. Please contact us at info@hornsbybrandesign.com or visit us on our Facebook page or LinkedIn page.

Being Human is a Beautiful Thing: Three Brands that Connect

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg takes on the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.

The right digital branding campaign has the power to extend your reach and engage your customer on a deeper level than traditional advertising outlets. Below are three examples that are doing it right.

The ALS Association: The Ice Bucket Challenge

www.alsa.org/fight-als/ice-bucket-challenge.html
An extraordinarily successful social campaign gone viral, individuals across the U.S. are dumping buckets of ice on their heads in support of ALS. Participants range from those in grass roots America to top celebrities such as Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Taylor Swift, and Oprah Winfrey. The ALS Association, a national non-profit organization fighting Lou Gehrig’s disease, received $31.5 million in donations between July 29 and August 20 compared to $1.9 million during the same period last year!

TD Canada Trust Bank: “TD Thanks You” Campaign

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUkN7g_bEAI
In July, TD Canada Trust Bank surprised more than 20,000 customers as they distributed envelopes containing a $20 bill to every customer in more than 1,100 bank branches. They also surprised some account holders with a twist to a traditional ATM machine by changing it into an Automated “Thanking” Machine. Whether the gift was plane tickets to Trinidad to visit a cancer-stricken daughter, college fund for a young widowed mother’s two sons, or a trip to Disney World, the ATM delivered real dreams to its customers. Captured on video, this campaign has accumulated more than 10 million video views!

Always: "Like A Girl" Campaign

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjJQBjWYDTs
The Always brand launched this campaign to reclaim and redefine what it means to be a girl and do things such as “run like a girl”, “throw like a girl”, or “fight like a girl.” Their goal is to dispel disparaging stereotypes and increase confidence in girls everywhere going through the difficult teenage years. This campaign has had more than 47 million views!

How can you connect? By providing “fans” with genuine, direct, and authentic tokens of appreciation and entertaining engagement, these three brands promote goodwill and positive feelings and mindsets throughout their respective communities. Surprising active and loyal customers with a sign of gratitude when they least expect it will go a long way to securing their loyalty. Get creative. Try direct links to special content, special advertising and PR, access to VIP events, or rewards that cater to specific needs. Even better: mix this all together for a killer campaign.

Don’t be fooled!

Baby Boomers ARE NOT

Your Typical Ma and Pa.

The 77 million people born between 1946 and 1964 are defined as the baby boomer era (U.S. Census) and make up what advertisers call the "Silver Market." The bright side is that the Silver Market is more affluent these days, controlling 70% of the nation’s disposable income and standing to inherit $15 trillion over the next 20 years. So with these numbers, why do so many brands ignore them?

Many advertisers assume if they advertise to the youth, the seniors will come along for the ride. However, that’s a really dangerous assumption to make. Baby boomers are older, but not old. They embrace 55 as the new 35. This presents great marketing opportunities, so seize the day and aim towards them directly.

The not-so-bright flip side of the Silver Market is that those who are old, poor, and sick will likely be in the majority. So businesses need to prepare today for the realities of this market tomorrow, in order to leverage the looming demographic opportunity.

Supporting seniors in their everyday lives and enabling them to grow old in a humane way is a simple way to develop a marketing strategy, not to mention promoting positive public relations. For example, products can have adapted functionalities like foods packaged in smaller servings. The population size ensures that profits can be gained even from sales with narrow margins, because the group’s combined total income is substantial—and growing.

Important facts to know:

The senior age group is now, for the first time, the largest in terms of size and percent of the population in the U.S.
Boomers outspend younger adults online 2:1 on a per-capita basis (Forrester Research).
Americans over 55 spend 50% of all vacation dollars in America (ICSC).
55-64 year olds outspend the average consumer in nearly every category, including: food away from home, household furnishings, entertainment, personal care, and gifts (US Government Consumer Expenditure Survey).
96% of baby boomers participate in word-of-mouth or viral marketing by passing product or service information on to friends (ThirdAge and JWT Boom).
89% of seniors 65+ have personal email and use it regularly (Nielsen).
72% of baby boomers have broadband Internet in their homes (ThirdAge and JWT Boom).
36% of adults 50+ own a smartphone (Pew).
Americans 55+ are the fastest-growing age group among gym members, up more than 266% since 1987 (IBISWorld).

The Drones Are Coming!

Amazon’s “Octocopter” promises to deliver your latest purchase in as little as 30 min.

Drone aerial devices are poised to become a huge global business and are going to have a significant impact across a wide variety of industries.

Looking beyond military usage, commercial drones are taking off for businesses. BI Intelligence, a research service from Business Insider, estimates that 12% of an estimated $98 billion in cumulative global spending on aerial drones over the next decade will be for commercial purposes. The San Jose Mercury-News reported that in 2013, there were 15 venture investment deals in drones worth about $79 million.

“This technology is an extra tool to help an industry be more effective,” said Gretchen West, executive vice president for the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI). “With precision agriculture, for example, it can take pictures of fields so farmers can identify problems they wouldn’t necessarily see walking through the woods. In law enforcement, you can find a child lost in the woods more easily than walking through a field, particularly if there’s bad weather or treacherous ground.”

In fact, AUVSI predicts commercial drones could pump almost $14 billion into the U.S. economy between 2015-2018, and over a 10-year period, creating more than 100,000 new jobs, including 34,000 in manufacturing.

However, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) hasn’t yet legalized commercial drone usage, although it’s expected this will change sometime next year. But it won’t be easy for the FAA. The issue lies primarily with air traffic congestion. Analyst from Frost & Sullivan market research firm, Michael Blades, who is studying the commercial drone market, says, “The airspaces in Australia and Brazil, for instance, aren’t nearly as crowded as ours. And the first time one of these unmanned vehicles accidentally takes down a plane, the FAA will be torn apart. So the rule-making process is tricky, because in a way, the sky is a political battleground.”

Companies like Google and Amazon aren’t waiting around. Google’s advanced research lab, Google X, announced last week that it’s developing a system of drones to deliver goods. The Wall Street Journal reported that a five-foot wide single-wing prototype from Google’s Project Wing carried supplies including candy bars, dog treats, cattle vaccines, water, and radios to two farmers in Queensland, Australia, earlier this month. Amazon introduced drone prototypes last year and has asked the FAA for permission to test them in open U.S. airspace; a decision is pending.

This exciting technology could dramatically change the landscape of your business, so it’s worth putting on your watch list.

See the related article "Top Nine Commercial Uses for Drones."

Top Nine Commercial Uses for Drones

Drones could very well be the next new technology wave. Already, drone technology is being used by various government entities, but what's interesting are the various businesses interested in harnessing this technology for commercial use. (See related article.) And with drones, just push a button and watch them fly; no remotes are necessary because they are guided by GPS!

So what are some practical commercial uses for drone technology? Here are nine ideas in the works:

Delivery. Drones could allow businesses to deliver products to customers without having to send (or even hire) a driver. From medicine to pizza and beer.
Internet service. Some were puzzled when Facebook moved to acquire Titan Aerospace, a maker of solar-powered drones. The potential sale could further Mark Zuckerburg’s Internet.org initiative, which aims to provide wireless Internet to remote parts of the world. The solar-drones, which can reportedly stay airborne for five years, would act as movable wireless access points.
News. Drones equipped with cameras can fly lower and into smaller areas than larger manned aircraft. Viewers could one day get a look into the driver’s side window of a speeding car on the local news.
Photography and film. Commercial photography has a lot to gain from legal unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Real estate agents could contract with a drone-savvy photographer to take aerial shots of a property and festival organizers could conduct accurate head-counts using overhead photos. In addition, ad agencies and film directors could shoot more commercials and feature films using drones, as drones could replace the more expensive helicopter pilots.
Agriculture. Although farming isn’t usually associated with cutting-edge technology, the agricultural industry could reap the benefits of drones. Large-scale farmers might utilize aerial views to monitor crop growth.
Population growth. Drones could be used to survey and document wildlife such as counting birds, for example. The electric-powered aircraft is so quiet that it can be flown over a bird colony, and the birds won’t even know it’s there.
Search and rescue. Drone search and rescue missions have already been adopted by some law enforcement groups across the country. Since they operate without pilots, drones can survey and act in dangerous situations without risk to life and limb. Also, by using heat-sensing equipment, victims can be found more quickly.
Inspection. Since 2003, drones have been patrolling offshore oil fields on a regular basis. Even at night, the drone camera reveals the presence of thieves and potential kidnappers, who often try to reach the rigs using small boats. Oil leaks and slicks also show up clearly in infrared, and by detecting them early, the drone has saved oil companies millions in fines, which are imposed automatically for such leaks.
3-D Mapping. Drones can survey landscapes and take thousands of digital images that can be stitched together into 3-D maps. The military produce similar maps, using satellites, but this emerging UAV technology can put that capability in the hands of small companies and individuals, which can then be customized and used for a seemingly endless variety of applications. Pix4D’s software creates 3-D maps from drone images. This technology has already been widely applied—for Haitian relief efforts after Hurricane Sandy, by farmers seeking to manage far-flung crops and fields, and by mining companies monitoring changes to open pit mines.

Corporate Life Cycle

It's helpful to realize where your business stands in its life cycle in order to affect change where needed. So, we've included the following phases:

Courtship - The initial development of the business model
Infancy - After launch and the beginning of activity
Go-go - Energetic early growth and sometimes chaos
Adolescence - Still developing but more established and defined
Prime - At its healthiest and most competitive, popular, and profitable
Stability - Still effective and profitable, but beginning to lose its leading edge - vulnerable
Aristocracy - Strong because of market presence and successes, but slow and losing market share to competitors, new technologies, trends, etc.
Recrimination - Doubts, problems, threats, and internal issues overshadow its original purposes
Bureaucracy - Inward-focused administration seeking exit or divestment, many operating/marketing challenges
Death - Closure, sell-off, or bankruptcy.