I’m sure it’s a debate that’s been going on since cave paintings, pictograms and grunts were used for communication. Does the visual image impact the targeted market more than the content and the subsequent data received from the campaign? (although I’m sure Alley Oop didn’t phrase it like that.)

I asked this question to some of my clients and peers this week, and they all danced around the same burning question when it came to time to create or modify a marketing strategy or communication campaign. When committing a budget to a particular campaign, should they go with visual enhancement or do they invest in research, technology for data tracking and research? Yes, I said research twice.

My answer: Why does there need to be a line drawn separating design and data? A TRUE (truthful, relevant, unique and engaging) brand should dictate the direction…

Imagine, if you will, that a logo is the image that lends your face a smile. Considering that, the marketing and communication plan you choose is the loincloth you wear to the big, harvest moon bonfire. Everyone is going to see you in it and if it doesn’t fit (brand disconnect), the promising hunk across the cave is going to club someone else… thud.

Sorry, I digress…

Are your brochures, websites or radio / TV spots, etc. true, integrated marketing tools with brand-driven content and results-oriented functionality, or are they just more sparklies to distract your market from your brand message?

Think about it.

Marty Neumeier states it well in his book The Brand Gap “…in a society that’s information-rich and time-poor, people value feeling more than information.” He continues on to say “There are no dull products, only dull brands.”

So will your marketing collateral get you through the dance or will you end up a wallflower waiting for stragglers and bottom feeders to ask you for a cha-cha? Do your clients feel like your brand message is an extension of you? Or do they get bored and wander on to the next sparkly?

Look around the dance. If Alley Oop seems to be distracted, maybe the matching loincloth and nose bone wasn’t the solution. Maybe truthful, relevant, unique and engaging branding should have been the outfit of choice.

As you stand in your (marketing) closet, wondering what will get you to the dance, ask yourself this simple question…

How does your collateral support your brand? Is it integrated with your marketing strategy or will it be read once – never to be reviewed again?

Do your cave paintings say what you want (or need) them to say?

Let me know your thoughts on design vs. data. Do you have a success story for either camp?

Alley Oop Image Credit: V.T. Hamlin (1900 – 1993) USPS Stamp

“BC” Cartoon credit: Johnny Hart (1931 – 2007) ©2007 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

I’ve become so enamored with blogging and blog writing, that in my daily review of blogs, I often times run across specific entries or even entire Blogs that simply knock me over… I sit there and scream at my monitor, “Oh! I wish I would have written that!” or “That’s EXACTLY what I was thinking!” often times followed with the dull, resonating “thud…clack-ity, click” of my head hitting the keyboard.

What is it about these passages that draws me in day after day? Do they inspire me? Do they make me laugh? Do they provide insight? Do they help me with my business? Family?

Some do all of the above, and some simply have shed light on a person or company that, like a moth, I am drawn to without explanation.

Lately, my desire to “get the word out” about cooking up true, integrated brands has become my ironic writer’s block… I could “talk” about the truth in a brand, the relevance of a brand, the uniqueness of a brand or the ever popular effectiveness of a brand… but do my readers (peers, friends, family and a select handful of clients and prospects) really want to read that day after day? Not if they have lives… no offense.

In my last post I wrote about a new game that (in my opinion) will open lines of communication that, due to text messaging, emails, digital memos, cell phones (the ones with the little cameras and full keyboards) and yes, blogs, have been crushed closed with bytes upon bytes of nonsensical messages about the most mundane and trivial things “life” has to offer. There are so many “messages” that when we do receive a true, uninhibited form of honest communication, we lose interest or skim over it, not slowing our pace enough to feel, absorb, comprehend and cherish it – messages that could become part of your personality – something that YOU really relate to and carry on as part of your personal brand “tool chest.”

So, today, in my effort to reach out to my readers and to spur on some true conversation, I ask this of you…

Give me your best. Give me what you’d really like to hear about. Make it silly. Make it serious. Make it business-related. Make it hobby-related. I don’t care – just make it about YOU. All I want is a headline – a short sentence that would communicate something about YOU or about something you want to discuss… Below are a few examples…

“Without feathers, I’d never…”
“But I can’t feed my kids on your wisdom”
“Forget the President, I want to eat Jell-O”
“The importance of Balsa wood and Miller Lite.”
“It’s not Rocky Science“

And so on… and so on…

Once I get a collection of good headlines, I’ll periodically research a headline with whomever posted it to gather the “whole story.” If there’s really no story, I’ll work with the person that submitted it to glean a fun, creative experience based on that headline…

It’s not rocket science. And this is meant to be a fun way to get to know each other.

What is your “headline?” What would YOU LOVE to write about…?