Geoff Rosenbaum of the Principle Group on Branding

Today, I’m happy to publish the first of a series of posts from Geoff Rosenbaum. Geoff is the Executive Vice President of Principle Group, an international branding company headquartered in the United Kingdom that recently opened a new U.S. office in Tennessee. I can’t wait to read Geoff’s insights! Keep reading to get a taste of what he’s got in store for the KeySplash Creative Conversations community!

What if cattle farmers marked 25% of their cows with an old, twisted branding iron, leaving a garbled symbol that could be interpreted multiple ways? Or didn’t brand some cows at all because the animals were located in a hard-to-reach area?

In a competitive environment, the livestock would be stolen. The farmers’ investment would be lost.

The origin of the term ‘branding’ remains a logical touchstone for understanding the value of focused, steady marketing in today’s business arena. A brand is only as effective as its consistent, quality application, and global companies in particular are keenly aware of the difficulties in achieving and maintaining that consistency.

Most multi-national ventures eventually find themselves confronted with the lack of reliable brand implementation resources in many regions. Materials not available on a global scale, interpretation of guidelines varying widely, unsophisticated local suppliers – these and other factors contribute to the complexity of effectively implementing a worldwide brand.

For large-scale branding endeavors such as international skyline sign installations, worldwide identity conversions and multi-site simultaneous rebranding, these challenges can quickly multiply and transform into gauntlets of terror for normally efficient and capable marketing teams.

The need has been established for better, cost-effective ways to consistently solve these problems. Within the past 10 years, a few companies have positioned themselves to help clients surmount these obstacles. One example is Principle Group out of the United Kingdom. In the coming weeks, Principle is happy to partner with KeySplash Creative to provide some of our thoughts on effective global branding strategies.

Now in its third decade, Principle has steadily expanded its footprint to become a leading provider of global brand implementation services. The company has established a worldwide community of partners known as the Principle 360 Network – a group of vetted, quality-controlled vendors providing dependable brand-related products from signage and graphics to interiors and brand maintenance. In a sign of our commitment to expand this model, Principle recently opened a U.S. branch in Knoxville, Tennessee, applying its layered sourcing and project management strategy to provide quality cost savings to clients in the Americas.

If you are a branding professional who’s looking at a big, complex and terrifying implementation program, don’t panic! In the coming posts, we’ll discuss the five rules of successful global brand implementation:

Plan it like a military campaign,
Do it now, do it everywhere,
Cut the costs dramatically,
Get it right every time, and
Maintain and recycle.

If you have any questions at all regarding these posts, please feel free to email us at geoff.rosenbaum@principle-group.us.com.

Susan Gunelius

Susan Gunelius is President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc. and Founder & Editor in Chief of an award-winning blog, WomenOnBusiness.com. She is a 25-year veteran of the marketing field and has authored 10 books about marketing, branding, and social media, including the highly popular 30-Minute Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing for Dummies, Blogging All-in-One for Dummies and Kick-ass Copywriting in 10 Easy Steps. Susan’s marketing-related content can be found on Entrepreneur.com, Forbes.com, MSNBC.com, BusinessWeek.com, and more. Susan is President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc., a marketing communications company. She has worked in corporate marketing roles and through client relationships with AT&T, HSBC, Citibank, Intuit, The New York Times, Cox Communications, and many more large and small companies around the world. Susan also speaks about marketing, branding and social media at events around the world and is frequently interviewed by television, online, radio, and print media organizations about these topics. She holds an MBA in Management and Strategy and a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing.