I received an e-mail a couple of weeks ago that Tri-City Monthly Lifestyle Magazine is changing its name to Great Lakes Bay Regional Lifestyle Magazine. This rebranding comes within a couple of years of the magazine’s previous rebranding project. Launched 5 or 6 years ago as Interlude, the magazine wanted a greater regional appeal so they settled on Tri-City Magazine. I never cared for the name Interlude, so even the unimaginative Tri-City Magazine was a change for the better.

For any established institution to undertake a rebranding project is a pretty big deal and to do it twice in two years is a risky proposition. Any momentum you have gained with the initial rebrand stands to suffer a little bit with a second rebrand. On top of that, changing the name and then changing it again so soon after will give some people an impression that the magazine is not stable or lacks direction. In the magazine’s defense, due to some big internal changes, I can attest to the fact that they are now probably more stable than they’ve ever been. With the recent changes as well as the editorial changes that took place a couple of years ago, I think the overall content and presentation are better now than they’ve ever been.

While I don’t like the idea of rebranding so hot on the heels of another rebrand, my real issue isn’t that they’re changing the name again, but what they’re changing the name to. Great Lakes Bay Regional Lifestyle Magazine? Really? I have to admit that I am surprised that Tri-City drank the Kool-Aid on this one. When the local communities first unveiled “Great Lakes Bay Region” as the new name for the regional brand, I wasn’t particularly wowed by it. I think the name is way too long, doesn’t lend itself well to certain applications, and I don’t much care for the logo. In branding terms, that’s three strikes against you.

Right away, though,you saw a lot of businesses jumping on board. Public radio quit calling it the Tri-Cities and started using the GLBR moniker. Newspapers quickly updated their style guides to push the new regional brand. My problem with the magazine changing their name, though, is that I think they are the first business to make the regional brand a part of their identity. In effect, they let somebody else name their business. And until then you are saddled with a magazine name that’s as long as an entry in the dictionary.

I don’t think you’re ever going to see an everyday person on the street refer to this region as the Great Lakes Bay Region. As I’ve written about (at length)—it’s just not a great name. There’s no tongue appeal to it. It’s not sexy. It’s just…wordy. Try slipping Great Lakes Bay Region into casual conversation. It’s not easy to do without sounding like you’re selling something. What happens in a few years if this brand doesn’t catch on and people just stop using it? Do you change your name again?

This name change just seems like they are trying to fall in line with what the regional chambers of commerce want. Why let somebody from outside dictate what your identity is? What’s next? Give the chambers final editorial approval on the articles and ads? We’re not talking Woodward & Bernstein here, but tying a publication too tightly to local business interests takes away any appearance of journalistic integrity.

I think Tri-City would have done well to just leave it alone and keep their name. Or, if they are really committed to rebranding, take some time and actually come up with a solid identity. There are some really talented and creative folks working at the magazine, they could come up with something great if they were given the opportunity.

How much attention do you pay to the fonts you use everyday? If you’re like most people, you probably have a few favorites, but don’t worry about it too much. Now how about this…how much attention do you pay to the fonts that other people use?

There is a little bit of an uproar on the internet recently over stylish-but-affordable furniture retailer Ikea switching the fonts they use in their advertising. For a long time, Ikea had used a customized version of Futura in most of their advertising. If you’ve ever seen an Ikea catalog or ad, maybe you can picture the big, bold prices accompanied by a brief description. All of their advertising had a consistent look which helped bolster their overall brand image. In addition, the use of a custom version of a classic font showed that Ikea really did pay attention to design.

So why the brouhaha over a simple font change? The problem, for most people, is that they switched to Verdana. Verdana is a font that many people are familiar with (even if they don’t realize it) because it is a free font distributed by Microsoft. It’s probably found on just about every computer in the universe. I’ll bet you they even have Verdana on the International Space Station. Except there it’s SPACE Verdana…that’s pretty sweet.

The font itself, isn’t terrible. It’s just sort of boring. It was designed very specifically for use on computer screens. Loose letterspacing and tall lower-case letters give Verdana an overall looser look. This is so that it’s easier to read on screen—letters don’t plug up or run too close together. And for that purpose, Verdana performs perfectly. It is a very good utilitarian design.

But to take this on-screen font and use it for print work shows, in many designers’ minds, a lack of respect for design. Complaints about the font range from finding the cheapest option available (free) to the easiest solution due to it being readily available around the world. Neither of these show the same sort of concern for design that Ikea shows with every single one of it’s nearly 10,000 items. Each silverware tray has a fun name, unique design—in short, each product fits in with the Ikea brand image. Using Verdana does not fit into the Ikea ethos.

Personally, I’m not freaking out about the font. I’ve seen print pages with the new font and while I don’t love it, it doesn’t ruin it for me. To be totally honest, I think that a lot of the uproar is because it’s a font created and distributed by Microsoft. Microsoft and the design community don’t generally play well together. It’s not the Mac-vs-PC thing, though, so much as it is that Microsoft tends to devalue professional design. By putting out products like MS Publisher with 15 zillion templates, they tell people that everybody can be their own designer.

The moral of this story is this: um…I don’t know. I have to admit that it would be pretty sweet, though, if 989 Design ever got so big that people got pissed off about the font I used on my site. I think I’ll make that one of my goals. Become huge, cause font uproar.

RadioShack recently decided that they are a little too cool for their own name. Wanting to distance themselves from their pocket-protector past of selling diodes and cathodes and other stuff that ended with -odes, they needed something fresh that would really sell their new forward-thinking product lines of laptops, cell phones, etc. They enlisted the creative firm of Butler, Shine, Stern and Partners of Sausalito, California (read the end of the post for a quick note about BSSP). Together, RadioShack and BSSP came up with the company’s new creative platform—THE SHACK. I don’t know about you, but does ‘shack’ conjure up new and innovative?

Lee Applebaum, RadioShack’s Chief Marketing Officer says, “We’re contemporizing the way we want people to think about our brand. THE SHACK speaks to consumers in a fresh, new voice and distinctive creative look that reinforces RadioShack’s authority in innovative products, leading brands and knowledgeable, helpful associates.”

To me THE SHACK does not communicate innovation or contemporary or fresh or new. It says Clampetts. It says Ma and Pa Kettle.

Contrary to other reports, RadioShack isn’t actually changing their name. They’ll still be RadioShack, but now we’re supposed to call them THE SHACK (sort of like Sean Combs—aka Puff Daddy, aka P. Diddy, aka Puffy, aka Diddy). Here is the splash page to THE SHACK SUMMER NETOGETHER event coming up in less than 24 hours.

Referring to RadioShack as THE SHACK is okay, I guess, but it seems like they’re trying just a little too hard to be cool. It’s kind of like a dorky kid in school wearing parachute pants and an Izod with the collar popped at the same time. Give it up, kid, you’re not fooling anybody. Is there is some sort of hierarchy of cool in retail electronics sales? I figure that Best Buy is probably as cool as that sort of thing gets, but even then, bright blue shirts and khakis? You have to ask yourself, when you’re looking up at Best Buy on the cool-0-meter, how far from the pack have you wandered?

Added Applbaum, “When a brand becomes a friend, it often gets a nickname.” Yes, this is true, but you gave yourself the nickname. Do any of you have a friend who demands that you call him by his new nickname? Is there anybody less cool than the friend that gave himself a nickname? That isn’t how it works.

Most importantly, let’s not forget to acknowledge the 7-foot, 1-inch elephant in the room—the world already has an internationally famous brand using the name.

Nothing personal, Shack, but you will NEVER be as cool as Shaq.

Author’s note: I hadn’t heard of BSSP before today. Or, rather, I may have read about them but didn’t really know anything about them. If you have a few minutes (seriously, you’ll need some time) take the time to check out their site. It’s REALLY slow to load, but it’s well worth it. There is a lot to see at their site so be sure to stop by and check it out.

Author’s note: This is something I started to writing, but couldn’t finish, a few weeks ago. It isn’t quite as timely as I would like it to be, but I still wanted to put this out there. In the interest of full discloser, I do some work for the Saginaw Spirit, the Ontario Hockey League team which Garber  owns and was instrumental in bringing to Saginaw. Even though I do some work for the Spirit and we have exchanged hellos at a couple of games, we have never actually met and I’m sure he doesn’t know who I am.

Author’s Note #2: I did not take the above photo, I found it online and borrowed it.

Anybody living in the Tri-Cities can speak firsthand about the effects of the economic downturn and the rapidly eroding job market. It’s really been pretty brutal in this part of the state. Largely due to a decade-long trend of auto-industry job losses, Saginaw’s unemployment rate is over 20%, which is pretty insane.

We’ve all heard about the federal government’s bailout of the auto industry as well as the cash-for-clunkers program. Love these programs or not, they gave the auto manufacturers a chance to reorganize their business and rethink their business practices. As part of their reorganization, GM decided to eliminate many of its dealerships across the country, which does make some sense. There are markets in the nation with multiple dealerships within just a few miles of one another. The dealership closure was a big part of their plan as GM headed into bankruptcy court. What baffles me is what the criteria were for closing a dealership.

Garber Buick is an icon in Saginaw. Established in 1907 by the Garber family, Garber Buick had survived the Great Depression, two World Wars and several economic downturns throughout its 100-plus year history. At one point early in their history, the Garber family—who have long been very closely associated with GM—helped Buick make its payroll when they were short on cash. Currently, even with the economy in Saginaw being pretty rough for years and years, Garber Buick has remained one of Buick’s top-selling franchises. On top of all of that, they receive consistently very high marks in customer service. In short, Garber Buick is a model franchise.

So when the news came that GM was going to cut Garber Buick from its franchisee list, people in the area got up in arms. Buick was planning on cutting off one of the top performing franchises in the country. How does a move like that make even an ounce of sense? With decisions like this, it’s really easy to see how GM got themselves into their current predicament. Ouija boards could probably produce better results than GM’s bloated-and-out-of-touch management structure.

As I said, people around here got pretty fired up and started a letter-writing campaign to GM and I was one of the many who took the time to write. Even though I don’t know Dick Garber personally, I know a lot about him and the way he runs his business. it doesn’t take a genius to see that this was a stupid decision and I wanted to let GM management know what a bunch of disloyal jackasses they are (I didn’t actually use the word ‘jackasses’ but I did lecture them about loyalty). I don’t know how many people took the time to write, I only know that I was one of many.

Very often, when people see someone who has more than them get taken down a peg, they take a certain amount of satisfaction in it. This schadenfreude (isn’t that a great word?) is a kind of sick spectator sport—taking pleasure in the suffering of others. But that’s not what you saw in this case. What you saw was a community come together and instead of snickering behind his back, they rallied behind him. Even if the letters fell on deaf (and very dumb) ears at GM, the outpouring of support was something special and unique to the Tri-Cities. We do take care of each other and we showed our true colors here.

Congratulations to Dick Garber, all of the employees, friends and relatives who are stakeholders in the Garber organization, and to the community of Saginaw which could ill-afford another gut-punch like this.

I’ve said it before and I’m saying it again—your logo is not your brand. Your brand is made up of everything that is a part of your company/organization. I had an experience this week that gives a great example of how everything—the person answering the phone, in this case—affects your brand.

I wanted a pizza for dinner last night. There are many pizza joints to choose from in Bay City, but I have a couple of favorites. I couldn’t find a menu, so I looked them up online and found their website. The website has a menu, but I still had a question about one thing on the menu, so I picked up the phone and dialed.

A young woman answered the phone brightly, with a friendly greeting and the name of the restaurant. This was the high point of the phone call.

My question was pretty straightforward and, having worked in a couple of pizza places in my life, should have been very easy to answer. My question left her baffled…I’m not sure what was so confusing. I repeated my question, but she couldn’t answer it. Instead of informing me that she had to ask someone else, she just put the phone down and started asking a co-worker.

The co-worker then answers the question with this snotty, mocking/condescending tone, as if it were a stupid question. I can hear the whole conversation and I wanted to hang up right there because I was pissed. I let it go and when she gets back to the phone, she repeats what her co-worker said, minus the mocking tone. I tell her what I want and she tells me they have a special on a certain pizza—it isn’t exactly what I wanted, but it sounds fine so I tell her I’ll take it and then try to place my order.

I tell her the size and crust style. She repeats it back to me and gets the crust wrong.

I repeat the crust style and this time she gets it right.

I give her the toppings. She repeats them back to me and gets them wrong.

I repeat the toppings and gets it right.

Then she starts offering side items, which I tell her I don’t need. She tells me that to get the special, I have to get the side items. I tell her that I just want the pizza, but she can’t give me a price.

In the end, I give up.

I wasted several minutes on what should have been a one-minute phone call. The person who answered the phone was uninformed, couldn’t answer simple questions, wasn’t very good at listening, and overall communicated very poorly (outside of the sunny greeting, that it).

I don’t care how great your logo and website are, what people are going to remember long after they forget what your logo looks like is how they are treated. Both on the phone and in person. If I were a first-time customer, I’d never call back a second time. As a repeat customer, I’ve had bad service there a couple of other times, but it’s good pizza. No matter how good the pizza is, though, there comes a point when customers are going to stop coming back. 

The life of any brand can be either shortened or lengthened based on customer interaction. This is why it is crucial to keep in mind that the person answering the phone is as much a representative of your business as your logo and your product. If I know that I am going to have a problem every third time I place an order, why would I bother calling back? There are, as I said above, many pizza joints to choose from. I’ll just go to the next name in the phone book and give them a shot. (HA! I said phone book…how quaint.)