Dennis’ Desk

I got a great question from John Moyer of the Chicago Rush Arena Football team. You can see him interviewed on YouTube. He asked his question through LinkedIn…

“How to brand a person? What steps does a person take to create their presence?

My answer starts with the most important piece of the puzzle: what are your goals?

The first thing you have to know is why are you creating the brand? What do you have in mind? This is the same process whether you’re creating a brand for a business, a city or a person. And you have to remember—you aren’t really creating a brand, you’re uncovering it. It’s already there, you’re just polishing it a little. Read the rest of this entry »

Here at Placemaking Group we realized a long time ago that all PR and Buzz leads to your website. When people hear about an interesting company, the first thing they do is find the website. So, with our clients, that is one of the most important things on our to-do list… Make sure you have an excellent website that tells your potential customers everything they need to know about you and your company. And, equally important, make sure they can find you when they search for you.

I’m not really sure what got into Barbara Irias, our resident web expert, but as she was compiling a list of important things to be aware of when planning SEO (Search Engine Optimization), she noticed they were coming out in alphabetical order. So here are the ABCs Read the rest of this entry »

How easily can a company dilute its brand? For the opportunity to bring in some more cash, can a CEO decide that it’s worth the risk? Our colleague at Placemaking Group, John Nunes, thinks through the situation at Fender Guitars with their Squier line. (BTW, John is an accomplished professional guitarist so this is a subject close to his heart.) Read the rest of this entry »

One of the first things a person comes to realize when doing PR is if you lie to the press, and they find out, they will never believe you again. In which case, you might as well find a new line of work. If you are working in a field where the press gets to know you and they know they can’t trust you, your effectiveness is over. But concepts like “spin” which really comes out of political PR, a different sort of business, give people the impression that you can’t believe what the PR person is saying. Read the rest of this entry »