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Rebranding

Al Ries has an article in AdAge about rebranding efforts. The gist of the article is that advertising agencies have a natural tendency to, and vested interest in, rebranding your company.

Excerpts:
"What leads cities, states, countries and companies to concoct meaningless, unmemorable slogans? I believe the culprit is 'creativity.'"

"Every day of the week, advertising agencies are hired to create new, compelling branding strategies and fired when these new, compelling branding strategies don’t work."

"[Y]ou can’t win an advertising award with a campaign that is not new and different."
When you hire an ad agency, they want to justify themselves by coming up with a new image for your company. If they trot out the same old slogans, they are limited in how creative and different their ad campaign can be. You're often much better off staying consistent with your established brand.

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