Take a break and let’s decorate the tree!

click on the ornaments to begin.

Edited from The Washington Post article by Gene Weingarten

He emerged from the metro station at the L’Enfant Plaza Station and positioned himself against a wall beside a trash basket. By most measures, he was nondescript: a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money, swiveled it to face pedestrian traffic, and began to play.

It was 7:51 a.m. on a Friday in the middle of rush hour. In the next 43 minutes, as the violinist performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by. Each passerby had a quick choice to make, one familiar to commuters in any urban area where the occasional street performer is part of the cityscape.

Three minutes went by before something happened. A middle-aged man altered his gait for a split second, turning his head to notice that there seemed to be some guy playing music. Yes, the man kept walking, but it was something. A half-minute later, Bell got his first donation. A woman threw in a buck and scooted off. It was not until six minutes into the performance that someone actually stood against a wall, and listened.

After 10 minutes, a 3-year old boy stopped but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. Every parent, without exception, forced their children to move on quickly.

No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His name was Joshua Bell and his performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities.

Just days before he appeared at the Metro station, Bell had filled the house at Boston’s stately Symphony Hall, where merely pretty good seats went for $100. The Stradivari violin he played at the metro station has been estimated to be worth $3.5 million.

The questions raised: in an ordinary place at an unbefitting hour, do we recognize beauty? Do we pause to appreciate it? Do we appreciate talent in an unexpected context?

In the fields of marketing and advertising, many studies have been conducted to analyze how context affects overall perception of quality. Weingarten’s findings are a great example of what PeakBiety is all about: the power of perception®.

The results of the Joshua Bell experiment aren’t too surprising to us. The nature of a presentation is closely linked with how it will be perceived. A client’s product or service could be the best available, but without relevant strategy, a strong branding platform and appropriate marketing—the product or service could be easily overlooked.

Pop quiz! What is the most common, yet most easily corrected, mistake small businesses make?

A. Undercapitalization

B. Marketing myopia

C. Lack of branding

D. Failure to diversify

A recent article by Steve Strauss, one of the world’s leading small business experts, posed this question.

Based on his experience, Strauss concluded that the answer was C, bad branding. “To understand why, try this little experiment: Think about a major street that you drive down every day, and think about the row upon row of businesses you see on that street. OK, now, quick, which ones do you actually specifically remember?

If you are like most of us, the answer is zero, or maybe one or two, and that is sad, sad, sad. While every one of these small businesses represents someone’s dream, very few of them are actually businesses worth remembering.”

Finding a real difference that resonates with your target audience is hard work. Most businesses never do it—even many larger ones.

Strauss goes on in the article to talk about the importance of a unique value proposition, or what we like to call, a brand promise. It’s what gives your potential customers a clearly defined reason to choose you over the competition. A big part of that is owning a word or value in the consumers mind.

So how do you determine what your brand promise should be? Often, talking to current customers can provide important clues. You also need to understand what prospects are looking for, and study competitors positions to see what, if anything, they have aligned themselves with.

Small businesses can get bigger… the key is managing perceptions.

by Kathryn Clark, Art Director

Color—a difference of a few shades can stimulate, depress, provoke, soothe, and even make us shiver or sweat.

In fact, according to a study at Washington State University, people who are surrounded by the color green can endure more pain, and recover more quickly from surgery using fewer drugs.¹ Pink, on the other hand, has been shown to have a subduing and calming effect on violent prision inmates.²

If color is this powerful, what is it saying about your brand?

Here are a few of the ways color can influence brand perception:

• People will make riskier bets and gamble more under red lights as opposed to blue lights. This is why you see so much red neon in Las Vegas.³

• Being in a blue room can lower your heart rate and suppress your appetite. Red and yellow have the opposite effect—which is why so many fast food restaurants use these colors.⁴

• Yellow and red are also the best selling candy colors. Dylan Lauren, the owner of Dylan’s Candy Bar in NYC says that “Yellow is nostalgic, and red is passion. It makes people hungry.”

• Recent studies suggest that nearly all sports are enhanced in blue surroundings—including weight lifting. This may be because people tend to be more calm and focused in a blue environment.⁵

• Purple stimulates the area of the brain used in problem solving.⁶

• White pills are the most effective at soothing ulcers, even if they are merely placebos. Green tablets reduce anxiety, antidepressants are best in yellow and blue ones make the most successful tranquilizers.⁷

While the response to color is altered by personal and cultural experiences, many are universal and can be used for more effective brand positioning. From the office to the candy store, from your house to the grocery store, color affects our lives in amazing ways. Why not harness this power for your brand?

The connections between marketing and psychology are particularly interesting for an agency such as ours with the brand promise, “The Power of Perception^®”

The Branding Strategy Insider recently ran an article called Creating The Brand Halo Effect. The halo effect refers to how a product—through effective advertising, promotion and acceptance in the marketplace—takes off in sales, not only for that particular product, but for products associated with the brand.

The article uses Apple’s iPod as an example of the halo effect. In 2005, the company concentrated advertising dollars heavily on the iPod; however, their overall sales went up 68 percent from the year before. The big news here is that this jump wasn’t only from iPod sales, which accounted for 39 percent; but the other 61 percent of their sales, which came from computers, software and other services. By placing the spotlight on the best product or service from a given company, audiences form certain understanding or perception of an entire brand.

Putting most of your marketing “eggs” and advertising dollars in one basket may not be an easy idea to sell in the boardroom. But focusing on the best horse may increase sales in other areas.

The article also mentions how imprinting is an important concept in both marketing and psychology. In psychology, imprinting describes rapid learning that occurs on a subconscious level. In marketing, the first brand in a new category is often imprinted in audiences’ minds and percieved as more authentic than others. Examples of first brands are Kleenex, Hertz, Heinz and Starbucks.

Carefully managing perceptions to increase the value of brands has been PeakBiety’s focus for years.

By Glen Peak, President

You can’t touch it or feel it, but it’s there.  It’s not a pie chart, a graph, an ad or an endorsement.  Yet it can encompass all those things. It can turn prospects into buyers and skeptics into believers.  It’s the difference between brand X and brand Nike. I’m talking about the power of perception(SM).

Even if brand X makes a shoe every bit as good as Nike, it’s unlikely to net half the price—a disparity that hinges on perception. Granted, Nike has spent billions of dollars carefully cultivating its perception.  But even a company with only a small budget can achieve visible results by controlling the way people view its brand.  Which would you rather own:  A watch?  Or, a precisely crafted timepiece worthy of passing on to future generations? I’m sure you see what I mean.

So while your brand’s perception may not be something you can touch or feel, its impact will be clearly seen on your bottom line.

For a step-by-step guide on how to build perception, request a copy of our white paper, “Corporate branding.”

By Amy Phillips, Creative Director

When I joined PeakBiety branding + advertising, about 3.5 years ago, it was as if the agency adopted me into a family (and I had adopted an agency). My new digs had a different name on the door and a foreign brand identity everywhere. An identity I had not been involved in creating. It was like wearing someone else’s shoes that didn’t quite fit but I began to get used to them. Or so I thought…

During my first month on the job, a project was opened for a “New Agency Brochure.” What started out as a straightforward concept involving optical illusions and “The Power of Perception,” evolved into much more than a mere brochure. You know the concept is on target when the title of the brochure begins to be considered as a new brand promise.

By the time the creative group had the collective epiphany that we were looking at much more than a new agency brochure, senior management saw the writing on the wall. Literally, the creative team started plastering the walls of the agency with our new iconography and colorful identity. New logo, brand promise, letterhead package, signage, website—you name it—it followed. And the evolution and extension was quite natural as it usually is when the “big idea” is so strategic.

Normally, it’s not easy for an advertising agency to rebrand itself. Brand building for a company, particularly an advertising agency, is an incredibly arduous task even with an in-house design team. Not only is finding time to work on it a problem—when we are busy with paying clients—but feeling satisfied with the work is another. Why do the cobbler’s children have no shoes? Because working on your own stuff can be paralyzing. The self-conscious process is more than intimidating. The work not only needs to be effective at capturing the essence of our company. It needs to be a model of the best of the best. We hold our own branding up as an example of the quality and attention to detail our clients should and could give to their own brands.

The story here is about how branding, or rebranding, can be a journey over time. What starts out as a simple idea gets sharpened, fine-tuned, polished and extended. It becomes embraced and loved by those who have created it and stand by it. More important, it can convey what an entire company stands for. It’s the essence of collaboration and the fruition of consensus. Then, when the right style and design are applied, it sings loud and clear.