1. How do you establish your brand?
There are three main components of a brand:

ATTRIBUTES, BEHAVIOR and CIRCUMSTANCES.

An example is Southwest Airlines

6. How will you deliver your brand's promise?
You need to be consistent in every aspect of the delivery of the brand. You deliver the brand in many ways:

Web site; Intranet, E-marketing and communications with your strategic partners, suppliers and customers; through all your contacts with vendors, prospective customers and customers; whether in person, by phone, in writing, through your signage, advertising, packaging, merchandising, business cards, tradeshow displays, voice mails, holiday presents, advertising specialties. Anything that has your name, the business name or your logo or brand on it needs to deliver on the brand’s promise.

In order to go beyond products and objects, empower everyone who works for you to be an ambassador of your brand! Train your staff on your corporate brand strategy, values, vision and personality. Lead by example as the CEO, so your workers will understand the concepts, then they will begin to embrace them and will transmit the message to your customers and other stakeholders.

7. How should collateral materials integrate with the brand?
Every material whether printed or electronic should have the same brand ID, including colors, fonts, shape, etc. Consistency is a key to maintaining the brand.

An example of a brand success is Target
Target chose to compete with Wal-Mart by repositioning itself as a mass merchandiser of affordable chic goods. This "cheap-chic" strategy enabled Target to become a major brand and consumer-shopping destination, articulated around two main interrelated branding activities: designer partnerships and clever, creative advertising.
Target has transformed its signature bull's-eye logo into a lifestyle symbol. The bull's-eye is recognized by 96 percent of American consumers and considered a brand icon in a class with Nike's swoosh and McDonald's arches.

An article on Branding Smaller firms

The Brand Called You
Contributor - Steven Van Yoder
Every company has a reputation. Everyone you meet will form an opinion about your company, even if they have not done business with you yet. The challenge is to manage your reputation so that the opinion that people have of you is positive. This is what creates a brand.
Brands have a number of strategic functions, enabling you to:

• Differentiate yourself from your competition
• Position your focused message in the hearts and minds of your target customers
• Persist and be consistent in your marketing efforts
• Customize your services to reflect your personal brand
• Deliver your message clearly and quickly
• Project credibility
• Strike an emotional chord
• Create strong user loyalty

For small businesses, branding is not about slick advertisements. Small-business branding is about getting your target market to see you as the preferred choice. Building a slightly famous brand is not just about what you do; it's about what you do differently from everyone else.

Building Your Brand
A brand is a promise of the value your clients will receive. In an amazingly complex and competing world-where it is increasingly hard to know what is real and what is not-having your customers not only acknowledge but support the promise of your brand is the key to building a thriving business.

To become a brand, you've got to become relentlessly focused on what you do that adds value. Do you deliver your work on time, every time? Do you anticipate and solve problems before they become crises? Do your clients save money and headaches just by having you on the team? Do you complete projects within the allotted budget?
Branding integrates customer service, sales promotion, public relations, direct mail, newsletters, discounts, event sponsorship, word of mouth and other communications tactics to present a unified message about the company, its products or services.
Your brand will integrate all your marketing around a core idea and vision. As a result, you will find it easier to sell yourself, because your message will be uniform and powerful. Every business needs to evaluate its brand identity against the following criteria:

Relevance to the Market
A brand must stand for something that is meaningful to members of a target market. Your brand encompasses the total experience of doing business with you.

Consistency of Behavior
Customers must be able to depend on the brand to deliver the same experience every time. Because your market experiences your values through your brand, the only way they will truly become loyal to your brand is through your dedication and consistency.

Relationship-Building
A brand is not a logo or an advertising strategy. "The strength of any brand is in the relationship it has between a company and its customers. The stronger the relationship, the more business they will do, and the more likely it is that customers will refer them to their friends and business associates.

Loyalty to the Customer Is Returned
The test of a brand is, in fact, the strength of loyalty it generates. If you have a strong relationship with your target audience, then you have a strong brand and a strong business.

Reputation Is Priceless
The only way to be successful in business is by establishing a good reputation, and a brand can help you do that. Your reputation works as your strongest marketer by communicating the relationship you have with people who've done business with you, and your target market in general.

Good brands stand the test of time. To develop a brand that will last a lifetime, go beyond what you do right now. Think long term. Look at Coke, Ford and General Electric. No matter what they sell or how they change over time, they can rely on their brand equity build on a foundation of customer trust to take them deep into their customer is trust quotient and keep them there.

If you establish a place of trust and relevance in prospects' minds, you're already in the door. The more people believe in your brand, the more it will spread throughout your niche market without your pushing. If your brand is clear, distinctive, and easily understood, and expresses a unique, compelling benefit that people believe in, it will bring you all the business you can handle.

Contributor: Steven Van Yoder
Steven Van Yoder is the author of Get Slightly Famous™.

don't focus only on your opinion
"One tip you often hear is that if you believe in somethin, don't give up—but there's a caveat. I think the key is to believe in something that others also really want. I've come up with a million ideas, but ultimately it's about what do I see that's missing [in the market], not about creating something that pleases me. Do your research and you'll be unstopable."
Concepción Lara, 44, mexicana, senior vice president of business development and marketing for Studio Latino in Los Angeles

Trucking industry needs more Spanish-language recruiting efforts, report says

A white paper released by S&C Advertising & Public Relations shows that Hispanics are helping to fill the nation's shortage of truck drivers.

However, unless the industry responds with more English and Spanish language trucking news and information, it could make recruiting more difficult. Currently, there are about 480,000 Hispanic truck drivers, according to the San Antonio-based advertising and public relations firm.

To enhance recruitment of Hispanic drivers, the study recommends truck driving schools offer bilingual training, that firms post job listings in Spanish and that companies hire dispatchers who can speak in English and Spanish.

S&C commissioned the study to determine whether there is a need for additional trucking materials in Spanish. According to the study, which is based on interviews with Spanish-speaking drivers, fleet owners and other industry experts, about half of the nation's Hispanic drivers prefer to receive information in both English and Spanish. Drivers are still required by law to speak English to obtain a commercial driver's license.

The white paper "Filing the Gaps in the Road" is available through S&C's Web site (www.scpr.com).

S&C is a bilingual communications firm. In 2005, the firm created the Spanish language Web site for the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

© 2005 American City Business Journals Inc.

June, 17, 2005

Hit the road and airwaves

San Antonio-based S&C Advertising & Public Relations’ TELLY award-winning television campaign for the Federal Highway Administration will be broadcast 350 times per week in 40 TV stations through-out the state of New York this summer, according to Richard Novick of the New York Broadcasters Association. “Work zones are the cause of many deaths and accidents and we needed to do something in this state,” he says. Members of the New York governor’s staff and the Federal Highway Administration’s office in New York heard that this specific campaign has been effective in generating awareness and changing behavior in other states, so they have selected it to start as early as this week on some stations, explains Earline Lagueruela, agency president.

The campaign is currently running in Alaska, Oregon, Washington and Arkansas. For a look at S&C’s campaign, visit www.scpr.com/jack.htm.

Distinguished
Minority Women
in Business

Earline Lagueruela
President S&C Advertising & Public Relations
San Antonio, Texas

Earline Lagueruela was born in Puerto Rico and, in 1976, became the first Woman in San Antonio to form an advertising firm. She has grown S&C from a one-person shop to a full service national bilingual communications firm. Her experience encompasses every aspect of communications, including public relations, advertising creation and placement, community outreach, media relations, audio and video production, public information campaigns, new product launches, e-marketing, E-commerce and web design with content both in English and Spanish. S&C has been the prime contractor for Air Intelligence Agency, Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, FHWA, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, EPA Region VI, and other large and small commercial clients.

Mrs. Lagueruela helped launch the White House Office of Drug Control Policy’s National Hispanic Outreach campaign. This included creating and producing ads suitable to various and distinct Hispanic audiences; transcreating web content, brochures, press releases, fact sheets and other campaign information to Spanish; writing opinion editorials for major Hispanic newspapers. She has provided environmental public and community relations to a variety of clients since 1994, including Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Montgomery Watson Harza, EnSafe, Parson Science Engineering and other private and public organizations. Mrs. Lagueruela teaches media coaching & training, minority outreach as well as risk and crisis communications programs nationally. She has helped organize citizen advisory boards to manage communications in highly controversial projects.

Mrs. Lagueruela is Chair Emeritus of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio School of Nursing Advisory Council; a founding member of Women Impacting Public Policy and a member of the San Antonio Advertising Agency Owners Association and San Antonio Association of Hispanic Journalists. She also served as Vice President Public Relations for the San Antonio Women’s Hall of Fame and National Association of Women Business Owners, San Antonio Chapter.

Among the many honors Mrs. Lagueruela has received is her induction into the Women’s Hall of Fame for Communications, San Antonio, TX; Women of Color Technology Award National Entrepreneur of the Year 2000; National TELLY Award Winner, 1999 Best TV PSA in the Nation; SBA’s Administrator Award 1996; Who’s Who in Advertising; Who’s Who in the South and Southwest; Who’s Who in American Women and Most Notable Women in Texas.

Mrs. Lagueruela attended the University of Geneva, Switzerland and received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Manhattanville College, Westchester, New York, and completed MBA studies for Entrepreneurs at the Tucks School of Business at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire.

Robert E. Bard, Publisher of LatinaStyle Magazine	Honorable Anna Escobedo Cabral, U.S. Treasurer, U.S. Department of the Treasury

On April 1, 2005 LATINA Style held their Business Series Seminar in San Antonio, TX at the Sheraton Gunter Hotel in conjunction with the national MANA annual conference. A National Latino Organization (MANA) and LATINA Style Publisher Robert E. Bard hosted a luncheon, whose keynote speakers included President of MANA, Alma Morales Riojas and U.S. Treasurer, Honorable Anna Escobedo Cabral.

The luncheon was followed by the Latina Entrepreneur Panel, designed to help Latina business women in expanding their business and overcoming challenges that they may face on a daily basis.

The Panel was moderated by Patricia Pliego Stout, who was honored that day with the LATINA Style Entrepreneur Award. Three Latina business owners shared their personal stories and gave advice on how to succeed the hardships of owning a business. An audience of more than 50 aspiring Latina business owners actively participated in this exchange of experiences and advice provided by the three women panelists:

Earline Lagueruela, President, S&C Advertising & Public Relations; Omega Arteaga-Gamboa, President, Omega Health Group; and Teresa Vasquez Romero, Owner, El Sol Bakery. Panelists answered questions concerning financial resources and barriers faced as a Latina business owner. Earline Lagueruela shared 8 important tips for running a successful business with the audience.

Click here to view and print a copy of the list.

LATINA Style Magazine has become the most influential publication reaching the contemporary Hispanic woman. LATINA Style broke new ground in 1994 by launching the first national magazine dedicated to the needs and concerns of the contemporary Latina professional workingwoman and the Latina business owner in the United States. With a national circulation of 150,000 and a readership of nearly 600,000, LATINA Style is unique in its ability to reach both the seasoned professional and the young Latina entering the workforce for the first time. The culturally sensitive editorial environment we provided showcases Latina achievements in all areas, including business, science, civic affairs, education, entertainment, sports, and the arts. We also offer technology tips and reviews, entertainment reviews, travel recommendations, investment guidance, beauty tips, food and drink recipes, automotive updates, and career advice—in summary, all of the things that impact the quality of life.

The LATINA Style Business Series, launched in 1998 with the assistance of the U.S. Small Business Administration, is the most successful business development program for Latina business owners in the nation. The program has been featured on NBC, ABC and CNN, and in The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times. This program has created a unique forum for Latina business owners to learn everything they need to start their own businesses or make their existing one more successful. Over 8,000 Latina business owners in forty cities have participated already in this program. Seven new cities are on the schedule for 2005.

Source: LatinaStyle Magazine