Size 10½ Boots

One of my roles in my professonal life is as regional chair of the PM Forum in the East Midlands. We had a meeting today with an excellent presentation by Stuart Powell of The Hughes Company.

Anyway, one of the new members in our region is local professional services marketing firm, Size 10½ Boots and I had a good chat to Bernard Savage, a director at the company. I particularly wanted to speak to Bernard because I loved the name and I asked him about it. I won't repeat everything that he said because he got some great local press coverage last week (you'll need PDF) that can fill you in with the details. You can also watch the video on their site (great idea). But the key thing that Bernard said was:

"You've got to stand out, haven't you?"

My point exactly. You'll remember his firm name. If you get one of his mailshots you'll also remember his name because chances are he'll actually send you a size 10½ boot! And that, of course, is the whole point of branding - to distinguish yourself from your competitors.

Bernand also used that oft-overlooked space to communicate what he does - the back of his business card. The back of his business card says:

"marketing consultancy for professional service firms"

His website says the same. This is a great illustration of how you can easily combine the message about "what you do" along with a great brand. A brand that tries to do both is probably going to fail at being a brand (that is, it will blend in to a sea of blandness) and maybe won't say what you do that well either.