What is your personal brand?

“We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.”

—Tom Peters

The term “personal branding” was first coined in 1997 by leading business-management thinker Tom Peters. A personal brand is formed by an individual’s professional reputation and online image, as well as personal characteristics such as work style, community engagement and worldview. It incorporates all the skills, talents and areas of expertise an individual has cultivated over his or her lifetime.Read full post...

Congratulations. Your organization’s leaders have decided to establish a new positioning statement, brand platform, externally facing mission statement and even a new slogan. And they want you to come up with concepts and copy to get the message out. Now what?

Before you jump in head first, put together a work plan to collect marketplace research in order to create a brand platform and strategy that will support your organization’s suite of current and future products and services.Read full post...

When co-branding makes sense the benefits can be high for all involved.

Let’s say you run a successful organization, and you’re asked to co-brand your business with another business. There are several good reasons for doing this, and a few things to consider to ensure you do it right.Read full post...

As a public relations professional working in the 21^st century, I am reminded every day about the importance of combining traditional tactics with (the ever-growing in popularity) practices from the wonderful world of technology. Social media, search engine optimization and big data analysis—to name a few—are not going away any time soon, but many of us in the marcom industry still have a lot to learn when it comes to integrating these strategies into our campaigns.

Recently, I’ve been taking advice from my friends in Hollywood. You might not believe it, but megastars like Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift have some genius marketing tricks up their sleeves. Let’s take a look at their most recent album launches.Read full post...

Almost 400 people took the Business and Labor Resources Employment Branding Survey this past June. The results highlight the importance of marketing and human resources professionals working together to build and maintain an employment brand.

Slightly more than one quarter (26.6%) of survey respondents said their organization has an employment brand program—i.e., “a program directed at employees and potential employees as opposed to a general brand program directed at the population at large.”

Of those who don’t have a brand program, 40.5% said they plan to implement or are considering one, and 50.7% said they may consider one in the future.Read full post...

Craig, Jenn and Paul of AB&C with Anita Moos of Newark Natural Foods. (Photo credit the Delaware Business Journal.)

If you scour our website and blog, you’ll see the words “brand” and “branding” popping up all over the place. It’s at the very core of what we do, so naturally we like to talk about it. What makes our jobs more fun is when our clients adopt that same love and appreciation for branding that we have. And we are fortunate enough to work with many clients who have done exactly that.

Delaware Business Times wrote an article spotlighting Newark Natural Food’s recent brand makeover. (Side note: it’s fairly obvious that posing for pictures doesn’t come quite as naturally to us [or at least to me] as branding does.)Read full post...

Brands don’t happen over night.
image credit: Latimre Appleby

In my career I have built, enhanced and even created numerous brands for multiple organizations in healthcare, higher education, and other industries. And people always ask me, “How long does it take to establish a brand?”

My answer: five years.

In the first phase, you’ll develop your brand. This requires qualitative and quantitative marketplace, stakeholder and competitor research; positioning and brand platform formation; and creative execution, messaging, and brand guideline and internal collateral development. You’ll need careful planning and patience—and about 18 months.Read full post...

The term “diversity” is popping up more and more in in the news and within our organizations. Why? Diversity is great for business—it’s a key driver of innovation, and it’s crucial for companies that want to attract top talent. Diversity and inclusion (D&I) is no longer just “training” that your employer requires you to complete—it’s a crucial factor in the culture of successful organizations. Read this case history about how Sodexo used D&I to improve employee engagement and foster creativity.

Have you ever wondered how D&I affects your brand?Read full post...

I would be wealthy if I had a nickel for every time a member of the faculty, staff, administration or board said, “I didn’t realize you could help with that.”

Far too often, the marcom (marketing/communications) and public relations office is brought into a situation requiring communication to internal and external stakeholders late in the process. I have learned through experience that the more people understand what marcom professionals do, the better the outcome.Read full post...

“TheSkimm,” a free email newsletter skimming three to five top stories in the world geared toward female millennials, recently announced it would start pairing up with other companies to bring in advertising revenue. It will do this through strategic “partnerships” rather than typical ads. Approaching its third anniversary, theSkimm has grown exponentially in popularity and recently completed a fundraising push bringing in .25 million in capital from backers like RRE Ventures (Buzzfeed) and Chelsea Handler. While its main focus has been growing its readership, now at 1.5 million readers daily, founders Carly Zakin and Danielle Weisberg decided it was time to make theSkimm profitable.Read full post...

Aloysius Butler & Clark is happy to welcome five new Aster Awards into our office. What do these wins mean to us? They mean we develop strong creative for our healthcare and public health clients’ advertising campaigns and websites. The Aster Awards program is an elite competition dedicated to recognizing the nation’s most talented healthcare marketing professionals for outstanding excellence in advertising, according to the award’s website.

Winning creative included two websites that won silver — the American Nurses Association site, promoting its quality improvement indicator tracking system, and the Delaware Department of Public Health (DDPH) site, promoting protecting your skin from the sun. The skin-saving campaign — “Save Yourself” — also took home a gold award for the print and digital creative pieces.Read full post...

As a staff recruiter, you have to target physicians precisely, and then differentiate yourself from your competition — and do it all on time and on budget. That budget may be tight. You may be a team of one. And the physician shortage sure doesn’t help. But you press on.

Because your bottom line relies on the income physicians bring into your organization.

In AB&C’s 10 + years of helping physician recruiters, we’ve seen the challenges you face. And we’ve helped healthcare organizations find and bring in the physicians they need to keep the bottom line in the black.

But even if you can’t hire an agency just yet, we can still help with your recruitment strategy. Here are four areas you should focus on:Read full post...

Who is your person? Your most trusted source of information and support? Who is the person you look to for guidance? For me it’s my husband. He’s smart, he’s usually right, and I trust him. (Not so much when it comes to grumpy teenagers or what shoes go with what outfit, but that’s another story.)

For many organizations, being the go-to source of expertise is the premier communications objective. “Make us the thought leader in our industry/region/community. Put us on the map!” It’s said in almost every PR strategy meeting.Read full post...

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Some creative is just fun to show off. Recently we partnered with the good folks at Newark Natural Foods, a healthy foods grocery store, to help them with a rebranding effort. They plan to launch the campaign as they expand to a larger location.We worked on a brand discovery project, updated their logo and produced in-store posters, among other things.Read full post...

WILMINGTON, DE—Aloysius Butler & Clark and The Healey Education Foundation will explore all aspects of Healey’s brand, including its graphics, messaging, tagline, marketing materials and website. With the Foundation’s evolution and expansion into new markets, Healey—known previously as The Catholic School Development Program—wants to ensure complete clarity of its mission.Read full post...