Category: Branding

Yesterday I shared a wonderful LinkedIn post by Mark Phillips titled How to modernize a charity brand. Today I want to show you how that satirical and very funny post is only a slight exaggeration of what happens in the real world. I’ll do this by showing you an excerpt from by book on nonprofit…

Somebody thinks that all of your organization’s revenue dreams would come true if you’d just re-brand and make your organization look cooler, more modern, more on top of the latest trends. That somebody could be the intern, or your board president — or anyone in between. Maybe almost everyone in between. I get it. A…

Pepsi is overhauling its visual branding! Everything from its cans to its trucks is getting new design. In the advertising and branding world, this is big news. (If you care, you can read about it on Marketing Drive at Pepsi embraces maximalism for first visual overhaul in 14 years. The article quotes extensively Pepsi officials…

Would donors want to wear a t-shirt with your organization’s logo on it? Chances are, most of them would not be interested. That doesn’t mean they dislike you. It’s just that except for a few, nonprofit organizations just are t-shirt brands, as Seth Godin outlines at Is it a t-shirt brand? T-shirt brands are those…

Why do nonprofit re-brands so often lead to steep drops in revenue? The entire purpose of a re-brand is (or should be) to enhance an organization’s ability to do its work, usually by becoming more effective at raising funds. How could it go so terribly wrong so often? (It’s a challenge so strange and with…

What do big-name celebrities have that we don’t have? Why does someone like Adele seemingly succeed by just “being herself,” while fundraisers have to figure out donors and become relevant to them. Are we missing something? What can we learn from Adele? Culture for Hire has some thoughts, at Egocentric marketing: Why pop stars get…

I admit it: “value proposition” is a jargon term. But it’s a useful one for fundraisers, so I’m using it here. Because, as this excellent post at NextAfter says, Nonprofits Have a Value Proposition Problem. The post defines a nonprofit value proposition as a the answer to a four-part question every potential donor has: “If…

Another jaded but accurate look at the world of brand thought, from Marketoonist: Is your brand, like so many others, an expression of hubris? (Hubris means excessive pride and self-confidence that in literature often leads to a character’s downfall.) A smart brand — especially a smart nonprofit brand — is about what your organization means…