Branding and marketing… it all comes down to one thing: image. Your image is the basis for everything. It is what causes people to associate certain feelings and perceptions with your brand, product, or service. As we have discussed numerous times, people will choose a brand over another because of these associated feelings.

Every aspect of your marketing MUST tie in with your image. This is crucial, and yet so often we see advertisers sending mixed messages to the consumer. For example, a restaurant that wants to portray an image of hip, young, fresh, and new needs to take that image into account with everything. This surpasses just logos and promotional materials and must span down to couponing, where to advertise…everything! Corporations spend huge amounts of money trying to change consumer perceptions that have been built up. It may be time to ask yourself…what image do I want to portray? And what image am I actually portraying? After all, perceptions are reality.

Have you seen the new T.J. Maxx commercials? What an awesome branding campaign! T.J. Maxx has typically been branded as a discount retail store. PROBLEM: This positioning carried perceptions of being “last year’s fashions”, “the stuff nobody wanted”, etc. etc…

This new branding campaign is blowing these perceptions AWAY!! For those that haven’t seen them, T.J. Maxx’s advertising campaign is educating customers on the way they buy their merchandise. Basically, the idea is that the designer has extra inventory since department stores and boutiques can only carry so much. T.J. Maxx buyers come in and make the designer a deal to take the rest of the inventory off their hands. This is why T.J. Maxx can offer the same current fashions at a discounted price. WOW! What a different perception, don’t you think? Slogans are used such as, “When we score, you score” and be “shopportunistic”. That’s a thought.. shopping at T.J. Maxx doesn’t make you cheap it makes you shopportunistic. I like the sound of that.

They even have a journal on their website tracking their buyers progress all around the world to find these great designer “scores.”

Check it out! http://www.tjmaxx.com/about.asp?subSection=journal