If there's one thing that running a business for over 30 years has made me appreciate, it's the ever-changing nature of the marketplace. Whether you sell circuit breakers to power plants online or lattes to hipsters out of a repurposed Airstream, there is one absolute truth about modern day business: It's continually changing, and changing fast. To keep up with a rapidly changing marketplace, business owners must understand branding, and at some point every company must rebrand itself.

 

To understand branding, it is important to know what brands are. A brand is the idea or image of a specific product or service that consumers connect with, by identifying the name, logo, slogan, or design of the company who owns the idea or image. Branding is when that idea or image is marketed so that it is recognizable by more and more people, and identified with a certain service or product when there are many other companies offering the same service or product.

Branding is also a way to build an important company asset, which is a good reputation. Branding can build an expectation about the company services or products, and can encourage the company to maintain that expectation, or exceed them, bringing better products and services to the market place.

 

In 2016, the PEARL marketing committee began meeting to review and discuss the PEARL brand. The purpose of this brand audit was to make sure that the current PEARL brand matched up with the vision, message and direction that PEARL was heading today and in the future. The committee spent several months reviewing and studying the PEARL name, mission statement, tagline, logos, brand colors, sub-brands and audience messaging. They concluded it was time that PEARL make some changes to their brand. Since April, the PEARL marketing committee under the leadership of Bonnie Sonnenschein of Kellen has been working on a PEARL rebranding project. The project is expected to be concluded in early 2017 and unveiled at the PEARL 20th Annual Electrical Safety, Reliability and Sustainability Conference in April. The Rebranding rollout presentation to members is scheduled during the PEARL business meeting which will be held on the first day of the conference, Thursday April 6th at 1:30pm.

 

I hope that everyone will be sure to arrive at the conference in time to attend the business meeting on Thursday. This is a very important time each year for PEARL members. The new board will be elected and the current board members will have an opportunity to discuss our accomplishments for the past year and goals for the coming year. 

 

Robert's company sent him to an expensive, week-long training course so he could be the "go-to guy" on a complicated set of production equipment. Robert came back from training with high marks from his instructors. The course covered theory of operation, common problems and their solutions, and advanced troubleshooting techniques. The maintenance manager crossed off the box marked "Mission accomplished." READ MORE