Essential Branding Lessons to Learn from Colorado Brands

To continue our May focus on brands based in Colorado, this week’s discussion revolves around Colorado brands that serve as great examples when working to build and manage a strong, healthy brand.

Crocs. The strength of the Crocs brand is largely built on customer experience. Specifically, it’s the unique look and exceptional comfort of its product that sets this brand apart. As a result, Croc loyalists have been singing the comfortable footwear’s praises far and wide since its inception in 2002.

For a time, Crocs, Inc. lost sight of this integral brand characteristic by offering an expanded product line that complicated the brand’s messaging. In recent years, Crocs has returned to concentrating on the unique look and comfortable feel of its original line of clogs in its messaging with such campaigns as “Find Your Fun” and “Come As You Are.”

The main point to take away from the straying and ultimate correction of the Crocs brand is the importance of maintaining clarity in branding. When kept uncomplicated, branding aids your company in keeping to a distinct character in terms of what products and services your business offers and how it is represented. It allows all of your marketing components to remain in a similar vein so that there is little confusion in terms of how your target market views your company.

Chipotle. The recent E. coli outbreaks at Chipotle bring one major aspect of brand management to the forefront…communication. When such a crisis occurs, it is always best to react swiftly and carefully. In Chipotle’s case, the company was infamously tongue-tied and defensive when responding to these events. This baffled reaction only made things worse.

Although public reaction can be unpredictable, Chipotle’s example demonstrates that a swift and confident statement filled with unambiguous language that lays out clear steps for the immediate future would do better to keep a situation from escalating and spinning out of control.

New Belgium Brewing. As we stated in last month’s Brand Differentiation in 5 Easy Steps, the design of a company’s logo is an integral part of the brand experience. Its job is to set the brand apart by being identifiable, unique and memorable. A well-crafted logo is a big step toward creating an emotional connection with a brand’s target market. The Colorado brand’s logo that we feel epitomizes all of these things is that of New Belgium Brewing. The logo is a representation of the company’s flagship beer, Fat Tire. The bicycle image has become so iconic that, since 2006, this powerful logo has been used to symbolize the entire New Belgium brand.

Can you think of even more Colorado companies that provide excellent learning examples for building successful brands? Please Share!