Expense or Investment?
Cincinnati is home to some of the most iconic brands in America. Companies like Procter & Gamble, Kenner and Kroger all developed amazing brands here. These companies helped Cincinnati become a Midwest mecca for marketing and advertising firms. What those companies understood was that brand building is an investment. If Procter & Gamble, often the world’s largest advertiser, stopped advertising Tide Laundry Detergent tomorrow, their decades-long investment would still keep the brand in the public share of mind for a long time.
What does brand building have to do with signs? Every time you communicate with a customer or potential customer, you are communicating about your brand. Custom signs help your business extend that brand into your customer’s mind and create a lasting impression. Everyone thinks about custom branded signage for the street, storefront or lobby, but some really innovate companies think about it in every customer communication.
One of my favorite branding experiences was with Chef Jean-Robert de Cavel of La Masionette fame. He thoughtfully considered every element of each space. We did a projecting sign in front of a mirror in one of his Cincinnati restaurants. I realized that the plain white back of the sign would reflect in the mirror. I suggested to Chef that we should create a reverse image that would reflect back readable. He loved that. Customers may never have directly appreciated that little custom signage touch, but they intuitively know that care was given to creating an environment that reflected the food they were creating there.
In that same space, we created a sign for delivery and pick-up. Instead of a simple sign that said “Delivery & Pick-up” we took the opportunity to customize the message. After a few iterations, we ended up using “No Queue for You!” as the main message and “Delivery & Pick-up” as a secondary message. That evoked a whimsical saying that evoked Seinfeld and made a more memorable experience for the pick-up customers at a much better cost than digital advertsing.
Every message and every blank wall is an opportunity to remind customers of your brand experience. From the directional floor signage at a Cintas Center to Proudly Pouring Peet's Coffee in OTR to a local plumbers van to the steps of Paycor Stadium, we have put messages all over the city of Cincinnati that reinforce brands in a high-impact and a cost-effective way.