The point of a brand is to create an instantaneous association in people's minds. The Nike 'swoosh' brings to mind footwear, athleticism, and Michael Jordan. The Toyota 'bull' logo evokes images of compact cars, foreign business competition, and new ways of doing things. The name Budweiser reminds us of everything from the actual beer to those clever talking frogs, and the 'wassup!' advertisements. These are cases of successful, memorable branding. Michael Jordan is retired from professional sports, the frogs haven't been on television in years, and wassup has almost faded from day to day use in the American pop culture vocabulary. However, every one of these elements remains identifiable, and mentioning them to most people will get the typical, 'oh yeah!' response to memories of clever marketing, cementing the image of the brand in the viewers' minds. Branding is the creation of these memories. However, recollections of a product...

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Sincerity: The 'Secret Sauce' for Effective Marketing A couple years ago, I was talking with someone who was, for me, a very challenging client. I'm all about cultivating relationships that result in opportunities to sell. This particular client seemed allergic to cultivating relationships for reasons I didn't ever really understand. I remember one such meeting, I was trying to explain to my client the wisdom of first creating trust and credibility before trying to get a sale. And my client was blocking me at every turn with reasons why relationship development would not work for their business. It was maddening. Finally, I cried with exasperation, "Well, why the heck do you want to keep working with me since my approach doesn't work for you?" "Because you're sincere," the client replied. "Who cares" I thought to myself since it didn't seem to be to helping my client grow their business....

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If you have ever wondered if your website sucks, here is the answer:An incredibly comprehensive list of everything that could possibly cause your site to suck, including 149 mortal sins that will send your site straight to hell. http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/does-my-web-site-suck/does-my-web-site-suck-intro.html...did you check any of the boxes?If so, try this link next: Fix my terrible website, please!...

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In the spirit of Independence Day, a document outlining the struggles faced by all web designers/developers:The Preamble"When in the course of online events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the browser based bands which have connected them to the internet and to assume among the powers of the interwebs, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Common Sense and of World Wide Web Consortium entitle them, a decent respect to the standards of web design requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.We hold these truths to be self-evident, that creativity exists in all designers, and they are endowed by Common Sense and the W3C certain rights, that among those are Web Standards, Sanity, and Creative License. When these rights comes under fire by any establishment it is the right of web community to address them and, if necessary, act...

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