Introduction to my Car Company

The company's brand is about Vehicle (Car, Truck, SUV)!
Use the ADV420 brand workbook (This link shows you how to make a brand)

Introduce your company

Instructions

This week you'll be creating a brand for your company and performing a competitive audit. 

Vehicle (Car, Truck, SUV)

Hospitality (Hotel, Cruiseline, Resort)

Service (Any Service)

Shoe Brand

Clothing or Fashion Brand

Beauty Product

Fast Food

Micro Brewery

Music Streaming

Jewelry

Tech Startup

Gym Concept

Advertising or Marketing Agency

Use the ADV420 brand workbook to complete the following exercises. Make sure to go to File > Make a Copy to create your own version.

Defining Your Brand 

A brand is more than a name and logo. Brands originate from "why," specifically why the brand exists to begin with? Author Simon Sinek has famously stated, "People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it."

Why do we need another shoe manufacturer? TOMS' shoes exists to help humanity thrive through ethical business. The TOMS' brand is built around this originating concept. Your brands "why" is a combination of the companies beliefs and values. TOMS' believes in fair labor, positively impacting people's lives, partnering with employees, and customers, etc...  from these beliefs they derived their mission or "why." 

Layered on top of the why are three attributes:

• Who you champion


• Brand voice


• Brand image

Let's discuss:

Who You Champion

This is more than a target audience, rather those individuals who you're making the hero of their own story. You'll be creating buyer personas to better define them. Refer to the recorded demonstration of the brand workbook to see an example.

Brand Voice

What does your brand sound like? Like people, brands have a personality. Is the brand casual? formal? serious? fun? 

Brand Image

What does the brand look and feel like? For example, does it look modern or vintage? Vibrant or dark and brooding? 

Competitive Audit

Your company won't be successful if you don't understand how you fit within the competitive market. Identify your top three competitors and research their marketing and branding efforts.

Look at the following elements:

• Social media activity


• Tagline


• Mission statement


• Website 


• Sign up for their e-mail newsletter

Try and identify:

• What's the competitors "why" or mission?


• What tone do they use?


• What look/feel do they use?


• Who are they targeting?


• What are they doing that's working?


• What are they not-doing that you could?

Assignment

This week you'll be preparing a blog post introducing your company. As described earlier, treat this assignment as if you are developing a real company and brand. This post should be professionally prepared, written, and structured. We'll evaluate your assignment on how professional it is.

Fulfill the following requirements:

Requirements

Create your blog on WordPress.com (create a free account!) and do the following:

• Select a theme from one of the following options:


• Twenty Twenty


• Twenty Nineteen


• Twenty Eighteen


• Twenty Seventeen


• Twenty Sixteen


• Twenty Fifteen


• Twenty Fourteen


• Twenty Thirteen


• Twenty Eleven


• Create an about page with 500 words or more describe your brand, your roll as the chief marketing officer, and that this blog will be your recommendations on digital strategy.


• Create "post categories" for the following topics:


• Brand


• Strategy


• Social Media


• Inbound Marketing


• Paid Media


• Remove any default content / comments


• Customize the imagery to align with your brand

Write a profession blog post addressing the following:

1. Name of your brand


2. Description of your industry and the problem your brand is solving


3. Your brands "Why"


4. Slogan or tagline for your company


5. Logo for your company (optional)


6. Who you champion (include a screenshot of your two personas from the brand workbook)


7. Your brands voice


8. Your brands look / feel (include 2 - 5 images that show the personality of your brand - be sure to use open source images, and link to the source, or shoot your own images)


9. An audit of your top two competitors (include a screenshot from the SWOT analysis from the brand workbook)

Expectations

• Must be at least 500 words


• Must be client ready, nicely formatted, creative, and formal in language


• We must have a clear idea of your company brand, target audience, and competitors

Turn it in

Write this entire assignment up on your blog and make it look great. Then link to your blog post from the D2L assignment. You only have to turn in a link - the work will be on your own WordPress blog.

Also, when you link to your blog - please have it Open in a New Window. This is an option when you add a link to an external site. This is good because it keeps your page open - and opens a new window to view the new post. Smart. Please do.

Include a link to your brand workbook. IMPORTANT: Make sure it's publicly accessibly by anyone with the link! If we can't access it for any reason you'll lose points.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Make sure you share the PUBLIC post link, if we can't access the post because you shared the logged in link you will lose points.