The Genuine Sushi Restaurant???

Was wondering around yesterday at 1Utama shopping mall and came across this advertising panel which lets shoppers know a new outlet is about to come up... Here it is...


While looking at it, a thought occurred to me. How can a business, any business for that matter claim to be "THE genuine sushi restaurant".

From a marketing viewpoint, trying to create such a brand identity maybe difficult to defend. How does one justify being THE genuine sushi restaurant? What is going to be so genuine about this restaurant that makes it different from other kaiten sushi restaurants such as Sushi King or Genki Sushi?

Brands such as Sushi King and Genki Sushi also use conveyor belts or better known as "Kaiten Sushi". Maybe then Sushi King could come out claiming to be the 1st quick service Sushi Bar in Malaysia? This is an example of an easier to defend marketing position because they have been in Malaysia since 1995.

Something for Sushi Zanmai to re-consider??

Something's wrong with this bunting...

Recently I was at the Pavilion in KL. An amazingly designed place but slightly confusing to walk around. I always seem to get lost??? maybe my internal compass is out of whack!

Anyways, as I was touring the food court section, I came across a J.Co Donut outlet. I'm always amazed at the line of people awaiting to purchase their donuts. I think there's definitely something here to take away from how J.Co brings people to their outlet...

However, the point of this post is beyond words, only pictures are adequate.... something is definitely wrong with this bunting... Can you tell???





if you didn't catch it... here's a close up...




I'm sure what they actually wanted to say was...




I must say, it this was a joke it was a damn good one... If not, I'm sorry but someone needs to give the copywriter a kick in the *&&!!!


Moral of the story: Always! Always! Always! go through your communication material going to print.

Point of Sale Material

Hey there, was having lunch the other day and saw this little Advert (i.e. table talk) on the table which caught my eye. It was for some sort of health drink but after reading it through, something really got me confused... Take a look



Now besides the obvious health benefits of this drink, would it be "fermented from 10 fruits & 2 types of vegetables" or would the statement be "fermented from 102 types of fruits & vegetables".

Now I'm gonna go out on a limb here and state that the correct phrase should be "fermented from 10 fruits & 2 types of vegetables". Thus without soiling (no pun intended) their design, wouldn't this advert cause less confusion if it looked like this.


My my, what happened here?? Perhaps the designer should have run this design through a copywriter before going to print with this....

Designing a company profile that sells

Today, it is not uncommon for companies not matter their size to have a company profile. A company profile is intended to tell readers about the company as well as ultimately how they (i.e. The company) can be contacted.

But there is an important factor which I do find many company profiles lacking in, that is they DO NOT SELL the company. Though using the selling analogy rather broadly, what I mean is that a company profile or brochure has to accomplish 2 things; one being that it should let you know who and what the company is about.

Second and more importantly a company profile must sell the company's experience, expertise, knowledge, etc.

So, what sort of information should we consider when developing a company profile which sells.

Here's what I think should be very fundamental information of what contents a company profile has to have:

1) About Us: This section entails describing issues of who you are, your history and core beliefs. Anything more in my opinion would amount to story telling and no one wants to read a long winded profile. KISS is the acronym that comes to mind. KEEP IT SHORT and SWEET.

2) Products and services: Come on, this is a given! Why else would anyone want to come up with a profile if not to include this in it? The point here is to go into very brief descriptions of your products and services. Leave out the technical specs and specialist jargon which belong in the trash can and not your profile. Having something too technical to describe your product or service will serve to confuse your reader rather than infuse them with knowledge about you.

3) Why Us: For myself and my team, this represents the most important aspect of any profile. This is where you sell the company, its experience and knowledge. The point of this section is simple: to let the customer know you can handle his business.

4) Clients: This area helps a lot in giving your readers of your profile confidence that you are capable and competent. It especially helps when you have a few big names (i.e. well known clients) as your current or previous clients.

I believe that these are the basics of what should be covered in every brochure. Anything more could be boring, but if you feel it important then maybe it should be in there, but not covering your basic areas as outlined here is sure to guarantee you a weak profile that will be of no use to you or anyone else.

Is promotion marketing?

Have you ever wondered, “Is promotion . . . . . marketing ?”

Likewise with advertising, promotion through its extensive use of the advertising vehicle has landed its role as perplexed as the misplaced advertising. In all its intent & purpose, promotion activities carried out by many companies has become marketing per say; as promotion is used to generate purchase, induce consumer purchase, induce pantry stocking and its all placed under the expense of marketing. Why is this so - one may ask?

To get a glimpse of this scenario all one needs to do is to look at the number “price – off”, “special offers”, “consumer premium gifts”, etc.; that are funded by manufacturers and advantaged by the retail trade. To us, the sole purpose & role of promotion is lost and promotion is done solely for volume gains and to wedge competition, so to speak.

Now a big Question comes to mind, how long can one wedge competition by throwing special promotions; weekly, monthly, year round? In the Malaysian retail trade, it has gotten so bad now that most retail stores have sale after sale throughout the year just to encourage consumer spending. This has thought consumers to be very smart, if its not on sale; don't buy it! What kind of impact do you think a year long promotion will have on your brand?

So trying to wedge competition by throwing countless promotions is not feasible due to the number of products & SKU’s available in the marketplace, moreover the cost to do so is in itself prohibitive, even if you have a multi-million dollar budget.

Yet again, here we see a marketing tool which is obviously misconceived and misplaced. The age old rule & role of promotion primarily is to build consumer trust and acceptance of the “Brand” through product trials & usage thereby generating brand royalty, perhaps, even loyalty.

So lets keep those “price – off”, “special offers” & “consumer premium gifts” to a minimum and ensure that their usage is done so sparingly and in the correct context.

Choosing the right background...

I recently received a postcard as pictured above. First and foremost, I must say it is a great endeavour by the company that did this. It is an excellent way to build brand awareness via marketing tools such as postcards and flyer's to new or existing clients.

However, as we all know, the end result of any marketing material given out is that your potential reader might do 1 of 2 things when they get it. Number one being that they might just throw the darn thing into the trash can or second they will give themselves all of their precious 5 seconds to skim through your postcard and then throw it into the trash.

So in essence, designers and marketers have a big role to play when coming out with promotional material. Back to our story, to my surprise it was actually a LEGAL FIRM and not a INTERIOR DESIGN firm that sent me this postcard.

The point is this, whenever you design marketing materials always PUT YOUR CLIENTS BUSINESS in pictures. Pictures together with the right words can make a very effective promotional tool. I didn't know that it was a legal firm and that they were informing me that they were moving to a new location. I thought they were a design firm who were trying to introduce me to their service. Perhaps what the designer of this card should have done was to choose a background which suited the business of the client (i.e. legal services) and just put these words on "WE HAVE MOVED!"

Point I'm getting at is this, always choose a design which fits your business. Example; If you're in the design business, use pictures or design elements that say your in the design business. Perhaps in this case a more suitable picture to have used would have been a picture of a pen & paper or a picture of a legal document as a background. In this case, the background for this postcard should not have been a pen with some technical drawings & sketches in the background. YOU LOOK LIKE A DESIGN FIRM buddy, not a LEGAL FIRM.

A good example of what I'm talking about would be this postcard below. Simple, straight to the point. You know their in the beauty business.

picture courtesy of www.visatacreative.com

So keep on designing and be careful to choose the right pictures and design backgrounds that suit your business or you might end up promoting yourself in the wrong light.

Brand Building fundamentals

In today's business environment, the buzz that we seem to hear about is “branding”... Brand this... brand that... But lets focus for a minute. Do we actually understand what branding is about or what it actually entails?

Essentially, I think branding is all about having an identity for your product/service. For example, we all have names and behind each name is an identity. Take for instance, my name's Tim and I'm sure behind my name exist also an identity to Tim which gives me a character and personality.

So when you strip away all the lingo behind this phenomenon of branding you are left with this... A brand is fundamentally an identity / personality / character behind your product or service.

Which then begs the question, if we know what branding is, just how do we go about doing it? In my opinion, BRANDING should be simple. The search for an identity / personality / character behind your product or service should be in essence a search for the obvious. It should be something which is easy to understand and communicate to your consumers be they old or potential new consumers.

So here are the 4 consideration that go into building a brand:

1) What's your differentiating factor?
This is a common among many businesses . Many companies assume that if they have a budget for advertising then they are likely to build a brand or a differentiating factor to their business. It does not work that way. The reason is simple, if your consumers today are so over communicated with advertising from your direct and indirect competitors to your business, are you sure the money your spending on more advertising really working?

Won't it just overload them with more messages which they might not be paying attention to in the first place? The mind is a funny thing, the more overloaded it becomes with information the more it tends to block out e.g. Trying to study for an exam the day before the actual test. Can you actually recall anything you studied the night before? So, first and foremost, creating a clear difference between you and your competitors is top priority.

2) Who are your clients?
This is also important issue to consider, to determine who your clients are going to be. As Jack Trout and Al Ries once put it “you can't be everything to everybody” so the same is true when building a brand. What kind of clients do you want? Price sensitive or quality sensitive? Naturally a price sensitive consumer is not going to be loyal to you if you are not the cheapest in town. They'll only stay with you as long as your prices can STAY LOW. Question here would be how low can you go?

3) Does your Sales material reflect your brand?
In trying to build a brand, its always important to ensure that every communication from you to your consumers must carry the company's corporate identity (C.I) be a brochure, packaging, website, etc. Many a times, most companies and this is true of companies in Malaysia, where they have a different company doing their packaging design and another company doing their brochure design or website. This can be detrimental to building a brand. Are you sure that each supplier understands your brand completely and executes your design requirements in-line with your brand values?

For the sake of your brand, perhaps its better to stick with one supplier. Some of the better suppliers to look at would perhaps be marketing agencies or even reputable brand consultants. I do understand that when you undertake such services they are usually not cheap but there are marketing agencies or even brand consultants out there who charge reasonable service charges. Keep an eye out for them, I'm sure they're keeping an eye out for you.

4) Brand building is about creating MINDSHARE.
I remember reading Jack Trout and Al Ries, where they mentioned that positioning (i.e. Branding) is ultimately a battle for the consumers mind. A place in the mind that is. So, branding is about building mindshare. To more your consumer remembers you ultimately will contribute to your market share. So, do whatever it takes to get into the minds of your consumers. Staying there is a whole other story.

Ultimately, brand building is by far the most successful way to build your business, but alas many businesses for go this step because its either too expensive to hire a brand consultant or a marketing agency to help them. That I believe is the no. 1 reason why most companies think they can go about brand building on their own. However many a times, a 3rd party can provide some direction or avenue to build your brand which you just might not have thought about. After all, they always say that 2 heads are better than one.