Paradigm - creating your view of reality

Paradigm

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Conception

To create the marketing project for our concept company, Paradigm, we were allowed carte blanche on all concepts of portfolio. The idea was that the invented client had no precognitive ideas about how, why or where the media should go and was happy to let
us conceive, create and communicate the marketing message. The word ‘paradigm’ means in essence, ‘Your view of reality’. This idea that you created your own reality was very exciting and quickly became the firm foundation we knew we could weave into a credible, artistic and spectacular campaign. The driving concept was that we used unfamiliar and exotic images, infused with rich and opulent colour that had a familiar atmosphere so the viewer could imagine themselves in that place or in that setting.

Creation

As with all successful media campaigns, there needed to be an anchor running through all the images to link the company into a brand. We decided to use a striking, easily interpreted letter based anchor created in strong, contrasting colours that would not be lost amongst the images, but would complement them and add a strong facet of cohesion. Yellow is a colour traditionally associated with effervescence so we chose a vibrant yellow in tone and hue. The complimentary colour of yellow is blue, but we needed to be careful to select exactly the right shade so that the word art ‘popped’ off the page. The brand logo needed to be able to stand out from the exotic and intoxicating photo. A simple spiral was digitally drawn to symbolize fashioning your own path, and to follow the ‘creating of your own view of reality’ we free-styled the spiral giving it a bohemian appeal.

Communication

The branding had purposeful placement so that the continuity of concept flowed through the whole portfolio. Choosing the images for the campaign became easy as we fused the colours of blue and yellow through the graphics, or highlighted splashes of the colours naturally within the image. By using digital manipulation we were able to match the colors of the brand that were found in the photos perfectly fusing the image and brand into one and solidifying the concepts behind the media. We were thrilled with the artistic, expressive and professional outcome of the project.

http://www.arcreactions.com/paradigm/

Calgary transparent plastic business cards - be on the crest of a new wave

 The Calgary Transparent Business Card ROCKS!

How's  your business card? Ever heard the phrase 'Never judge a book by it's cover'? Why do we have that phrase? Because every one does! There's another one that is pretty common - 'first impressions count'. You bet they do! And no where is it more important to have a sleek, sexy and sophisticated impression as with you business card.

So what does your business card look like? Bad font ... Oh dear! Flimsy ... bleugh.com. Trite design ... might as well get your 4 year old to design it, at least it will have the 'aawwwwww' factor. Your business card is the window to your company - the face you leave behind. Make it a gorgeous one!

Cool plastic is 'the now'.

Calgary plastic business cards are sweeping the industry as they are the image everyone wants to be remembered by. Durable, light weight and versatile they can be molded into any genre and be designed to fit any brand. Whatever you want - it can be done on a Calgary plastic business card.

You need to have the card that looks impressive and lasts forever, as the human spirit seems to favor collecting things - business cards are the obvious choice. Make sure yours is the card that takes pride of place.

5 ways to make a brand - and not a logo...

Brand vs Logo

Branding - whats that? Do you know the difference between a brand and a logo? If you don't - you may just miss out on the one of the strongest marketing devices the can be relatively cheap to create and big on return. And it goes deeper than just the marketing. A true brand gives your company image kudos, elevates your status and makes you recognizable in the ever increasing noise of the selling world, and that in turn brings the nirvana of all marketing - leverage. Are you missing out big time?

Your judgement is only as good as your information, so to set the stage for excellent information and therefore, supreme judgment, lets sort out what is the difference between a brand and branding, and a logo.

Logo:

Often described as an ideogram - and image that embodies something else, which in our case is a company. Logo's are created to project a corporate identity. For instance, a logo can be a clever juxtaposition between typography that is so unique it is linked to a particular company or product. Even 'No named' ranges are identified by packaging style and color - in essence - a logo.

Brand:

"[A] burning scar [with] bankable value" - Business week. 'Nuff said.

So how do you avoid a the product being recognized by logo, and get a burning scar of branding with bankable value?

RESEARCH

Know your audience. This is the vital foundation of branding and if you skimp here you'll never be able to recover. If you don't know what your chosen demographic wants - how can you give it to them?

A brand has to be designed by your potential clients. You need to research what they like, want they want, but most importantly, what influences them. Your research needs to direct your brand in size, shape, form, color, design and look because that's what makes the difference. If you don;t already know - ask them.

STRENGTH

The aim of all branding concept teams and graphic designers is to give the company a strong identity, then give the identity a face. It must be recognizable on it's own without an image or tagline, and without words. It needs to be recognized instantly and it needs to speak to the user as soon as it is seen. Your brand, which can include a well designed and thought out logo, needs to stand on it's own two feet, or get crushed in the crowded market it stands in.

Coming up with a strong name can either be fun or a complete burden. Regardless of whether it’s made up (Skype), a misspelling (Google), or a simple word (Apple); it all goes back to your researched foundation marketing strategy.

Be bold! Be brave! Think big! Your brand will blaze or trail - or be nothing at all.

TRUST

Your brand has to build trust, or it just won't cut the mustard in the business world. Your logo and the image it creates needs to make clients open up and begin to look further, or to encourage them to think outside of the box because YOU are the ones who make it.

Imagine anyone using logo that includes an apple with w bite out of it. What do you think? Is this an Apple site or a rip off? Either way, Apple is such a strong brand it is linked to any related images or designs in the industry. If you decide it's linked and worth it, you trust it.

HANDSOME

A strong brand is good looking. Let's face it, who is turned on by ugly? If you're going to create a strong brand you need to stand out int he industry noise, and good looking does it. Even if it's 'ripped off', a strong brand comes out on top as company quality and consumer trust will be linked to the stronger brand. Make it noticed! make it handsome!

The whole point of it being the best looking brand out there is to make an impact. If you don't have to skills to make - hire an excellent, talented graphic design company.

Think skimping here won't make a difference?Take a look at the picture below - guess which one was done by a professional ...

Need I say more?

DESIGN

The details are in the design. You don't need to dress it up with a side order of cerebral brilliance and wash it down with a large gulp of blatant marketing. This is a brand, something your company is to be known by for a long time - possibly forever. Your brand needs to be strong and eloquent and stand alone, your marketing campaigns are the vehicle for brilliance.

Break you design down into elements and look at each one with a critical eye. Ask yourself, 'Does this make my brand stronger?' If it doesn't - reject it. There is no place for clever, whimsical, adaptive or sweet on the corporate branding express.

A full branding package includes a chosen font family as well as recommended measurements that are eventually enforced on all branded objects/materials such as folders, envelopes, business cards, etc. There is a psychology to color, are you a calming company, an exciting company or an aggressive company - you need to figure this out, and how your  audience wants it portrayed.

After that consider shape - does your typography lean to a square, round or flower shape? Do you want a angular image or a soft one? And to what scale? Equivalent? Assorted? Descending? It all has a voice and you need to know what it says, and to whom it speaks. NEVER forget your audience drives your design, not you.

Whatever you are trying achieve, make sure you get a brand, not just a logo. If you haven't got the skills needed - employ them! This is an image that you can't afford to get wrong. Remember in 1985 when Coca Cola changed their formula? There was an outrage that went on for month! Imagine what would have happened if they had wanted to change their name or brand? Brands create loyalty. Get it right from the start, then sit back and reap the rewards of pure marketing genius...

7 deadly sins of Videography - and how to avoid them!

1 Apr 2014

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The seven deadly sins of Videography

Video Rocks. There is no other way to say it. Placing a short video on your web page, email campaign or social media will impress the search engines bots, attract your audience and impart a huge amount of information in a very short space of time. It’s a win/win all the way round, but it seems few marketers have realised it. To be ahead of the curve all you need to do is produce is a video worth watching. To make sure you don’t make rookie mistakes, here is a list of the seven most common mistakes that make your video draw attention to the video, rather than the message behind it.

Headhunting

There is something born in every one of us that places a person’s face fairly and squarely in front of us, center stage when we interact with them. It works in real life, so it works in video – right? Erm… no. Wrong – in fact, very wrong. Placing every subject in the center of your frame makes a very monotonous video that means your viewers don’t scan the whole frame. You want to draw the viewer in to the scene making them a part of it, so you need them to digest the information that the images have to give. By moving the focal point round the screen you make the viewer’s work for the information and get them involved in every inch of the screen. Just remember you’re making a video, not riding a merry go round. Give enough variety to make it interesting, not too much to make their heads spin.

Motorzooming

Most cameras have a zoom – and we all know a real cameraman uses them. So if one is zoom at a time is good, seven zooms are better? Once again – No. In fact a big no. The overuse of on-screen zooms is a common but irritating mistake. Couple it with head hunting and you have a recipe for vomit vision supreme that will make you remembered for all the wrong reasons. It’s good for you to use zoom, you can even use it frequently, but plan your shots and watch what speed you use to zoom in and out.

Rooting

Rooting is death to the expression of style. Avoiding it gives you the chance to stand out and make your video enticing and watchable, inexperienced videographers take video by staying in one position instead of looking for interesting angles. Everything can be viewed from another angle, and finding the angle that fits the shot is the mark of a watchable video. Think outside the box and put some thought into where you can shoot from, even down to where people sit, stand or lean – or you sit stand and lean.

Firehosing

You’ve seen how a fireman uses a hose, waving it all around the place in broad wide sweeps covering as much ground as he possibly can. In videography terms, less is definitely more. Panning all over the scene is never necessary and doesn’t give the viewer time to take in all the details and information in the scene as things are just going by way too fast and the changing scenery makes it very busy. When you pan, be steady and slow and once again, plan where and when you pan, and where you start and stop for maximum effect.

Upstanding

So we all view our lives at eye level, that doesn’t mean your video has to. The chances are you’ll be standing to shoot the video, so nothing is more monotonous that shooting everything from standing eye-level. You can do that in real life – why do you need a video of it too? The key to good videography is, and always will be, planning. Mix the levels you shoot at, something as simple as going up a few stairs for a shot, or kneeling down freshens up a scene and makes it more watchable. Make a list of all the simple ways you can vary heights and experiment with them.

Snapshotting

Snapshotting is another rookie mistake that can add to the vomit vision feeling. It comes by capturing only two or three seconds per shot. It takes the brains a few seconds to digest all that is in a shot, and each section needs an introduction and cut away that gives the viewer time to recognise the beginning and the end of the scene and filter out the message between them. Look for images you can open and close on that are engaging but so not over power the message and give the time needed to prepare the minds of the viewers as you blow them away.

Backlighting

We all have albums full of photos where the auto flash has not been tripped and the subject is nothing more than a silhouette of shadow. The same thing will happen with video if you do not pay attention to making sure that there is enough light in each shot. Backlighting is when too much light falls on the background instead of on the subject. Your camera will create a 2d image of the subject you are shooting so the way light is played in 3d does not translate through the lens. You will need to plan extra light to shine on the front of the scenes even if you shoot outdoors. Moving the subjects by turning them round or to more even light may help, but it may also require lights or torches to make the focus of your shot stand out.
Plan, plan and plan again is the way to make a successful video that is watchable, attractive and affordable. With a little practise and a great story board to use as your map of shots, your company image will be making headlines

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The medium is the message

The Medium is The Message

For as long as man has been alive the ability to communicate by images has been a solid, reoccurring theme that has ruled civilizations and illuminated the masses. From the dawn of time pictures have were used to communicate and to convey and preserve information. So much so, some images have been so conditioned by the communication they carry that cultures and periods of time can be identified from them. No matter what the evolution of people, the one thing that remains is the fact that the medium is the message. In other words - pictures sell.

Marshall McLuhan coined the phrases 'The medium is the message' and 'Global Village'. He had a believed that technology would create one 'Global village' and that images would be the foundation of it. This theory was based on the study he had made about communication and it's evolution over time. This all sounds very unexceptional as nearly any person on the planet could tell you that the digital era has created one 'Global Village', except for one thing - he died in 1980, before the internet was even a sketch on a napkin.

The theories of Marshall McLuhan has nearly all come to fruition, but why are they so accurate when he knew little of the technology that was to come long after he was gone? The one foundation that he built his theory from was that technology would link cultures, countries and people and that images would be the universal language. And he was right. He knew that people are attracted to images and that a message was more easily digested if it was presented in photos, drawings or now, mini videos that litter the internet. He was one of the pioneers that recognized that the new evolution of mankind was influenced by graphic art, photography and video making as a marketing media. He recognized the power of images and that the medium truly is the message - and the company that understands that this principle will lead the rest.

By making high quality and expressive image based marketing you can attract your chosen demographic to you, cutting down your outbound marketing. The way you chose to represent your image is up to you, but remember there is a message in every inch of image. BE careful of what it says. One of the smartest moves you can make is to start a mixed media marketing campaign based on images, and right next to it... hire a marketing professional! By doing that you'll ensure that your campaign is remembered for all the RIGHT reasons....

How much is one minute of video marketing worth?

 

 Why do you need video marketing?

According to Dr. James McQuivey of Forrester Research, the value of just one minute of video equals that of 1.8 million written words. With the massive amount of digital information being flung at every person on the planet, it has been proven that attention spans are getting shorter. People are hungry for information, but they don’t want to have to work too hard to get it. Knowledge of the written word, and the ability to digest and understand it, is now under question, so how do you reach your chosen demographic in a way that is easy to comprehend but extensive enough to educate? That, my friends, is the power of video. Let’s face it, if you were presented a 2 million word brochure (in three volumes) or a one minute video – which would you choose?

45.5% of internet users watch at least one, one minute video a month, with a massive 100 million people viewing online videos every day you have a large pool of potential customers to drink from. “The average user is exposed to an average of 32.2 videos in a month, increasing the chances that your marketing message will be seen,” writes Video Brewery. That’s more than one a day, and each day they watch a new video. The potential of video marketing is huge.

The Magic 10

The interesting thing about video marketing is that nearly all videos are watched for the first ten seconds, then the decision is made whether to watch further or not. In those ten seconds you can impart a huge amount of information. Make those ten seconds sleek, confident, enticing, and you’ll have them to the end. You need to connect with the customer quickly, speak to them fluently and draw them into your message. With a little research into your audience, a lot of knowledge about your subject and a talented videography team you can provide content that instantly catches the attention of your potential customers, and keeps them there.

The attention span of different users also makes interesting reading. “While desktop viewers tend to stick with videos for 2 minutes or less, mobile users seem to have a longer attention span. iPhone users tend to watch for about 2.4 minutes,’ reports Video Brewery, ‘Android users give a video three minutes to engage them and Symbian users stick around for just over 4 minutes. iPad users have the longest attention spans of all, sticking with a web video for an average of 5 minutes.” All these statistics in the right hands can be a powerful way of reaching into the lives of you clients, customers and potential clients, and becoming an integral part of their life. How many times have you had a great discussion that started out with, ‘Do you remember that commercial that …’.

Be Where Your Audience Is

Five tweets per second contain a Vine link. That’s hard to ignore. All of these statistics point to the one fact that for all marketers, the audience is already firmly entrenched in the video world, waiting to be sold to. With the rocketing growth rate of social media video enabled sites, they’re fast becoming the hottest seats in town and filling up quickly. Making yourself available in an easily digested form on these networks expands your reach and embraces a cross pollination of marketing. Vimeo, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube are all instantly accessible and instantly shareable. Make something good enough – and your audience will come to you.

Appease the Bots of Google

Video marketing is about killing two birds, or more, with one stone. It’s not just your audience that will appreciate the implementation of video, Google will too. The number one search engine no longer favours static websites. Instead, it places more emphasis on sites that produce consistently fresh, quality content, particularly information rich content like video. The Google bots often give a preference to embedded video images rather than text rich pages and place them higher in the search results, mainly because video will catch the eye of the users and is more likely to be clicked through.

If increasing your business is your goal then the video marketing road will take you there. It reaches new audiences, produces easily understood and enjoyed, knowledge loaded information and romances the bots of the search engines to put your brand in an extremely strong position for being at the top of your industry. As a bi-product, it adds another dimension to your company image keeping your social media fresh, memorable and relevant – and that keeps your audience returning.
Great videography make great web content. It’s a wise investment in your product, your service and your company image. Don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s an expenditure – any well-made videography is versatile and multi-useable and will guide your audience where you want it to go. Go out and reach your demographic, influence them, entertain them, before someone else does.

Designing the Perfect Brochure

Designing the Perfect Brochure

Nothing can capture the essence of your company more than a sophisticated brochure with pages of well-designed company image. Your brochure needs to serve two main purposes: to be inviting but also hold the power to influence. The more of your company image that you can leave with your customers, and potential customers, the greater the chance of gaining an order. But leaving your impressive brochure with your customer is not enough to ensure a sale – the literature you leave needs to encourage them to browse, digest and apply to your products to their business. Designing the perfect brochure is something that takes flair, design and a little marketing know-how. 

 Make the Headlines

Start with something unexpected. Make a headline that will cause your audience to look again, then want to investigate further. Don’t make the mistake of filling your front page with information they already know or can find out easily from another source. If you don’t have a well-designed and styled logo – get one. Ask a question that is relevant to your audience that invites them in and gets people involved. One of the most effective things you can do on the front of your brochures is – say less. Don’t clutter up the page with words however tempting it is, the last thing you want your audience to do is read the cover, then discard it. 

Back to Basics

The first page of your brochure should offer three reasons why your customer needs to continue reading. Choose the things that are the most important, or the most impressive. What is your edge? What will be their most concerning problem? Why do they need you?  What benefit do you give? What is alternative to not using you? Write down as many reasons as you can think of that convince the reader, your customer, why they need to look further then chose the three most important. Presenting these in three, simple, uncluttered short blocks of text on the first page is an appetizer for what lies within. 

Focus

Make all your text focus on the most important aspects of your company that are impressive. Avoid the temptation to put too much information in your brochure, instead inviting the reader to move to another media such as website or help line to keep the customer bonding to the brand and moving nearer to a sale. To simplify your brochure use images in place of text and do not be afraid to be creative. Anything that is ‘outside the box’ will be remembered and leave a definite impression. 

Ask the Question

It’s a simple premise that is often overlooked in the scramble to be clever - ask for a sale. Do not be afraid to include other calls to action, such as claiming a free gift, gaining an email address or subscription to a newsletter. Use plain language in your whole brochure, but consider power words when you ask the questions that demand an answer. You’ll be amazed how often the answer is ‘yes’.

Dress to Impress

Designing the most effective brochure must include a close look at the materials you use in the construction of the finished product. A brochure is like your handshake – it should promote confidence and competence so consider carefully the weight, texture and overall feel of the finished item as it needs to impress from the moment it is first seen. These are the things that are noticed and send a message to your customer that you care about your business, your company image and the quality of the products you produce – instantly.

Mixed Media Marketing

Consider your brochure as a part of your complete company image and branding. Make it professional but consider providing it in CD or USB stock format, provided on a custom designed and printed CD or USB stick. For an even more impressive mixed media package the CD’s can be inserted into the brochure and carry video advertisements, how to’s and testimonials that also inform, enlighten and entertain. 

Take the time to design your brochure in every detail, carefully considering what to include and what to leave out and you will create an impressive piece of marketing collateral that will impress, inform, entice but most of – galvanize your audience into action. Brochures have grown beyond the catalogues and magazines of your grandmas era, and now provide slick, sleek and sophisticated marketing. It’s the new revolution in marketing. Get yours carefully designed now, or get left behind.

The war that does not exist - Digital vs Print

Print vs Digital: Do You Need Both?

There is something deliciously familiar about printed matter. Whether it’s a greeting card, business card, magazine or book the fact that you can hold it, feel it and carry it with you is like being attached to something less nebulous and very much more corporeal. It’s almost like a security blanket.

With the rise of digital media and the drive to pixelate everything it’s easy to think that only ‘new’ media will cut the mustard in the advertising world. It’s maybe a logical way of looking at it, but it is also a dangerous way. Let’s take a look at the figures to see what they tell us:

Research company Ipsos divided a sample of 2,500 readers into three groups:
• Digital readers.
• Conventional (i.e. “paper”) readers.
• Combined (i.e. “print + digital”) readers. 

After large exposure over a period of time to their relative media, they were questioned about their reading behavioural patterns, their attention to the advertising, their brand recall, and their buying intentions as a result of the advertising. The results were unexpected in some aspects, and surprising in others.

Level Pegging

For all groups the engagement in the media was at about 70%. They all estimated that they read nearly three quarters of the media they were given and felt the same level of enjoyment and interest in it on either media. Again 70% of the each group said they felt some ‘connection’ to brands they saw. 

It’s reassuring to note that the message is not lost in the delivery and each campaign is viewed on its own content, rather than the media it is provided by, and that it has the same effect on its audience. But there are differences, and they make very interesting reading.

Ideas and Originality

When looking at the SAME advertisement, the online readers felt that the impetus of the advert was on ‘ideas and originality’, whilst for the printed media said that the perception was ‘credibility’. The group that were exposed to both the printed matter and online versions felt that the advertisements they saw in print were very much clearer and got a stronger message across. This group also were more aware of the ads and had a far better brand recall than exposure to one or the other media. 

Providing your advertising in print and digital form gives you the advantage in your industry. The aim of all businesses is to have a credible company image and to be remembered by consumers. The figures bear out that a distinct presence in both media is the way to achieve that. Mixed media marketing IS the way to be formidable in business. 

Targeting

One big surprise that came out of the survey was where the media was viewed. Print was most commonly viewed in the kitchen, whilst online was more or less equal between bedroom, study, at work or simply ‘on the move’. Is that just an interesting fact? No! It means you can target your advertising to where it will be consumed and by what mindset. Valuable information for creating a relevant advertising campaign that reaches that little bit further and bonds to your customer. 

Interaction

Online ads seem to have the ability to make people want to interact with them. A whopping 62% of users felt that there was ‘a categorical NEED to interact with the ads’ when they saw them. That’s huge. It would seem the experience of ‘clicking through’ an advertisement to access more content is almost compulsive in more than half the people who viewed it. Knowing this means that by making your digital advertising interactive you have already made yourself much more attractive to more than half your audience. Back it up with printed media and it ensures you’ll be remembered too. 

What are the practical conclusions you can draw from this study? 

Firstly – Mixed Media Marketing is the way forward. There is no ‘Digital vs Print’ equation. If you’re in business – you need both. 

Secondly -Digital advertising needs to lead to other landing pages and be backed up with excellent content and it will lead your chosen demographic on a breadcrumb trail to buy. 

Thirdly – Be creative! Both media are flexible and when used together – unbeatable! 

If you haven’t embraced the principle of mixed media marketing you need to expand your marketing portfolio to include it. It’s easy to incorporate advertising that bridges the gap between each area and combine them into one powerful concept if you look for them to complement each other. Do it well and you’ll create a double whammy – a sleek, desirable and effective message and a definite company image. What more could you ask for?

Professional marketing - is it for you

What is Professional Marketing?

Realtors have a way of finding unique and enticing descriptions for what is essentially a design flaw. An over grown broom closet with a half hanging door becomes a, ‘Snug little hide way for all those special items that need a little bit more than average space’, or an ugly 1970’s faux brick fireplace painted lime green becomes a, ’quaint and expressive retro feature, oozing with authenticity’. If there isn’t a description for it, a realtor will make one. Some would argue that professional marketing is the art of selling sand to a nomad and nothing more than a glorified sales man, but that is NOT what professional marketers do, or should do.

Professional marketing is now a recognized part of marketing teaching curriculums and is very successfully raising the bar on the whole ethos of marketing. Gone are the days when flaws are overlooked or turned into a selling feature; this no longer washes with a well-informed, tech savvy consumer demographic of the digital era. Real estate may still have room for inventing the non-informative, but the momentum behind professional marketing is to make products more transparent and to answer the eternal consumer question, ‘What will this do for me?’

Professional marketing is a road to achieving your goals faster. The whole concept is to create a marketing presence that is infused with quality, integrity and excellence across the whole range of the campaign and the company image. Professional marketing binds all the media used by the company and creates a uniform, empowered image that reaches out to the demographic and demands attention. It doesn’t matter what the media is, digital, optical or traditional, it needs to follow the concept of the campaign and promote the company brand. 

There are many facets that need to be considered in a professional marketing campaign for any company. First and foremost a well thought out web site, with specially designed logo and branding sets the tone for the rest of the media. One of the foundations of an effective professional marketing campaign is the quality of the website. Do not underestimate the merchandising power websites have. The ability to ‘Wow’ the consumer with eye popping graphics, seductive content and ease of use all play a part in creating a unified brand that is purpose of professional marketing. 

When the foundation of a creative rubric, logo, brand and impressive website has been established then the company image can be leached into all the media that leaves your workplace. Your professional marketing image leaves behind the stuffy, perfunctory need to simply pass on your contact details and turns any contact with your company into a transferral of passion and pride about your brand. 

With the need to consistently improve the concepts and applications of professional marketing , campaigns are based around the processes that make marketing successful. SEO, content management, networking and blogging all need to be optimized for maximum potential for success, but also for company branding. Professional marketing leaves no facet unleveraged or misaligned.  It’s a win/win situation. You get a professional, unified company image and you promote your business at the same time. And as a definite bonus, you don’t have to hinge your reputation on the virtues of a lime green fireplace.