Workshop on Branding: How to Stand Out in a Crowd

Gathered at the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, attendees at last month’s Branding: How to Stand Out in a Crowd workshop hosted by the Arts & Business Council of Miami arrived ready to learn how best to brand and re-brand their organizations. The panel provided insights, tips, and tools from their personal arsenal of success stories.Kevin Sprague from the branding and design agency Studio Two shared how his company crafts branding messages, and defined contemporary branding as creating a unified and consistent message and voice. He stressed the ability to state your mission or vision in one sentence and as having a defined value and identity.He named Apple, Harley-Davidson, and Tiffany’s as brands that quickly connect to their intended audience, communicate their core values and have brand consistency; and Red Bull as a company who built a universe around their brand message of craziness.Sprague suggested brainstorming with wordplay, utilizing wordle.net, researching the competition and ensuring your images are telling a consistent brand story and being aware that people interact with your brand everywhere -- print, web, social media, television, in person, billboards, packaging, signage and customer service -- so no area should be neglected.According to Robert Schaps of Turkel Brands: Always put the consumer first, and know that decision-making is emotional. It’s important, he said, to develop a brand from the point of emotion, keep the message simple, and make sure what you stand for is at the forefront. Also try and find a way to elicit all five senses and repeat the message throughout from your logo to collateral materials, making sure they look the same.Representing the cultural arts were Tracy Belcher from Perez Art Museum Miami, Chris Cook from Cannonball, Rayna Davis of New World Symphony, and Rebekah Lengel of Miami Light Project.Belcher spoke about PAMM working with a branding agency to create their message of being a gateway to Miami as a cultural port, resulting in their brand message “The Miami Art Portal.” The mission is to make the museum associated with the best in modern and contemporary art and culture, as well as a central place to connect, engage, reflect and interact with the world around us.Cannonball’s Chris Cook spoke about the group’s current re-branding from LegalArt to their new name Cannonball and their newness to re-branding. It helped that they assembled a steering committee of artists, board members, and other interested parties to come up with the new name. They then commissioned artists to create a promotional video focused on the re-branding. They launched their new identity during their 10-year anniversary, allowing them to test out the new brand and see what response it generated.A new logo was a large part of the Friends of the New World Symphony re-branding effort, said Rayna Davis from marketing. Like Cannonball, how they rolled out their new logo was critical; a carefully crafted rollout allowed Friends’ board members to develop a relationship to the new brand.Finally, Rebekah Lengel from Miami Light Project spoke of how they strategically placed banners along the highway that leads into the Design District and Wynwood, so people could find their new space. They also were allowed to place postcards with the bills of the restaurants owned by their landlord, Goldman Properties.In addition, Miami Light forged partnerships within the Wynwood community by shifting educational programming to reach out to three very different groups in Wynwood, including the crowds at Second Saturdays art walk. They are constantly working on turning folks that have heard of them but never attended into actual audience members, she concluded.