Happy Friday everyone! Don’t forget to change your clocks this weekend!

This week we featured four game-changing Ubiquity contributors via Twitter:

Peas of Mind. Healthy Branding for Small Fries
Ubiquity. Tag—suddenly you’re not it
Nemo Equipment. Innovation is a pitched battle
Sanuk Footwear. Remember the point of point of purchase

We will be sharing featured Ubiquity brands every Friday so stay tuned by subscribing to our blog via email or RSS !

Think Big,

–Team Ubiquity

This week we featured four game-changing Ubiquity contributors via Twitter:

Dairy Queen.  Serving up sweet memories.

ThinkGeek. And the Geek Shall Inherit the Earth.

Junta42: Pitch your niche.

We will be sharing featured Ubiquity brands every Friday so stay tuned by subscribing to our blog via email or RSS !

Think Big,
–Team Ubiquity

Many brands talk about sustainability as part of the position and message.  Since the beginning, Stonyfield has proactively sought new ways to further these initiatives.  With this announcement, Stonyfield is changing the game a bit.  While many consumers do their part by recycling post-consumption, Stonyfield has attacked this from a pre-consumption angle.  This is a paradigm
shift from the blue and green recycle bins.

And, it is not unexpected.  The Stonyfield brand is known for sustainability.  This, perhaps, helps position them as truly innovative.

Stay tuned – their page is in development.  Follow us so you can read more about Stonyfield’s successful moments that have led them to success.

By: Lizzie Ormiston
Director of MicroArts Ubiquity

Threadless: Design by Community. Community by Design.

Ubiquity: Learning a brands true place in our brains.

Gavin Heaton: From slideshow to center stage.

Sullivan Tire: Building relationships that drive brand loyalty.

Avvo: Let’s Advocate the Truth for a Change.

We will be sharing featured Ubiquity brands every Friday so stay tuned by subscribing to our blog via email or RSS !

Think Big,
–Team Ubiquity

This week we featured four game-changing Ubiquity contributors via Twitter:

World’s Best Cat Litter™: Buy the Best. Or Smell the Rest. ™
ChacoUSA: Fit for Adventure
OgoSport:  Leave a little playroom in your brand
World Series of Poker:  Are you all in?
Lemonade: Turning Momentum into a Movement
MicroArts: Own It

We will be sharing featured Ubiquity brands every Friday so stay tuned by subscribing to our blog via email or RSS !

Think Big,

–Team Ubiquity

We were having one of those conversations the other day – about trendy items that we wish we had dreamt up.

Take WebKinz™.  Cute, collectible.  While they appear to be just another stuffed animal, their creators had a bigger idea.  They built an online community of pets and their owners.  For many kids, this is their first social media experience.  They can buy gifts for their friends.  They can chat.  They celebrate birthdays.

And, kids help spread trends.  When a brand does it right, they create a space where kids interact.  Their simple desire to play along can help a brand become ubiquitous.

Do I wish I had thought of that?  You bet.  But alas, I am now the mother of about a dozen furry, admittedly cute, stuffed animals – all of which are rated on their happiness, hunger and health.

What big idea is out there you wish you had thought of?

By: Lizzie Ormiston
Director of MicroArts Ubiquity

Todi: For those who beat their feet.
Bamboo Bottle Company:  Products that speak volumes about themselves.
OhMiBod:  Make love to Mick Jagger, Bono, Pink? No problem.
Anna Street:  ROI: it’s in the customizable bag!

We will be sharing featured Ubiquity brands every Friday so stay tuned by subscribing to our blog via email or RSS !

Think Big,
–Team Ubiquity

We love feedback, so please send us your thoughts ubiquity@microarts.com .  Happy viewing.

By Peter L. Getman
sophisticated man about town

The Holy Grail in brand ubiquity is when your brand name symbolizes an entire market category. Only then can your brand also become a verb.

Xerox it. FedEx it. Google it.

Fax it?

Alexander Bain patented the basis of what would become the fax machine in 1843. During the 1980s, the facsimile machine became a billion dollar market place. Yet what brand owns the concept and the word “fax?”

It’s a shame.

Today, the latest craze in water sports is stand up paddle boarding, commonly know as SUP or going SUPing. Originating in Hawaii from Beach Boy Surfing, the modern day SUP market is still fairly unclaimed. In fact, Google (there’s that verb again) “stand up paddle boarding” and you’ll get entries for:
• Standup paddleboarding
• Stand up paddle boarding
• Stand-up paddleboarding
• Stand-up paddle boarding
• Stand-up paddle surfing
• SUP surfing
• Paddlesurfing
• Paddle surfing

The market can’t even decide how it wants to spell itself. So until someone catches that wave, we’ll have to go SUPing. Twitter when you’re going; maybe we can Skype to arrange an outing! (See what I just did there?)

Another example is a former client, Incentive Systems. Guess what they did? They made—surprise!—”incentive systems for large sales enterprises,” which is fine until a competitor’s tagline becomes, advanced incentive systems or proven incentive systems.

Arguably, Incentive Systems invented the category; so we recommended they change their brand name and logotype to:

MicroArts also crafted and supported the market position as the people who invented incentive systems—reinforcing their position as a recognized educational leader within their domain.

Until it changed its name, the company marketed the entire market category and not their unique value within it. As a result, you could put the company name, Incentive Systems, as a tagline under their top three competitors’ logos and have it be a true statement.

That’s perhaps the biggest bummer a brand can have—a competitor stealing your thunder.

On the other hand, the right name and the right brand can be lightening in a bottle. If you want to try to capture that, zap me an email.

I had a good healthy childhood. Despite my many endeavors, sports and personal ambitions, my parents were always proud of me for trying my hardest. Like many parents, their mantra was “doing your best is all that matters.”

As a result, I grew up ready to try anything. (And still am.)

However, parents are not clients. And effort is not synonymous with results.

• Customers demand results.
• CEOs demand results.
• Brand managers demand results.
• Shareholders demand results.
• Wall Street demands results.

All these people will more likely recognize effort but reward results. And they won’t confuse the two for long.

Now apply this mindset to your big idea driving your brand ubiquity strategy and everything in between. Is it working too hard and not getting any results? Or rather, do your customers have to work too hard to get it?

Sometimes, the best big idea can be the most obvious when you stop to think about it. So work hard to figure out what that is. For example, we have a client, Ignite, who offers a variety of transforming motivational and training programs that can propel individuals and organization to successes. Now, I suppose we could have developed a big idea brand about “organizational strategies, executive coaching, management training” and the myriad other programs they offer. Or we can simply say:

Learn something. Spark everything.™

Your brand is better than the competition for some reason. Say it. Is that the big idea?

Your brand offers your customers something special. Articulate it. Is that the big idea?

Brand it right. Brand it tight. And the results will come.