Tony Attwood's Blog

Just how well are you known in your market place?  Is your company’s name recognised?  What image does your company have?

It is, for me, a very important area – not least because some 20 odd few years ago I discovered to my horror that my company was nowhere near as well known as I imagined it to be.   One of the marketing team did a survey at a trade show, and found that actually no one seemed to know much about us.

I have to say I was astounded by the findings, and didn’t believe them.  Since then I have come to realise that the same situation affects many firms.  It is as easy to imagine that people in your business know you as it is to believe that all your customers are loyal and won’t go somewhere else.

Anyway, back to my main point.  There are two ways out of this.  First, one can build recognition so that the potential customer says, “Oh yes, I’ve heard of them”.   But for me that doesn’t do much.

Much more interesting is the second option of getting to the stage where people say, “Oh yes, they’re the people who…”   If the end of that sentence is positive and interesting, then matters are looking up.

The solution Hamilton House found was one that led people to say, “They are the people who do those Toppled Bollard stories”.  Most people saw our introduction of silly one page stories (instead of sales letters) as positive and innovative.  It got us known.  And amazingly they remembered the name of the invented pub in which the stories supposedly took place.

Of course it didn’t solve everything, because a lot of people then also thought – “but we couldn’t possibly do that.”  So we picked up one group of customers, but then had to add a different side to the mix, so that people realised that the Toppled Bollard stories were just our solution to getting known.  There are many other ways.

It has worked for us, and I believe it works for most companies – you just have to find the image you want to project.   Unfortunately some firms still say that they want to be seen as “the one-stop shop” or “a very friendly helpful organisation”.   They might be – but so many firms have used that line that it doesn’t make an impact any more.   To make an impact you have to have a slightly different approach.

In essence your image becomes a reflection of your advertising.  Put out dull advertising and you get seen as a dull company.   Put out highly innovative advertising, and that is the type of company you are seen as.

If you would like to see some of the original Toppled Bollard stories written five or six years ago (and still mentioned by those who received them!) they are on www.blog.toppled.info If you would like to see our latest experiment in eccentric branding it is on www.badad.co.uk And if you just want to talk about branding and using advertising messages to put across an image, we can do that too.  Give me a call on 01536 399 013.

Tony Attwood