These days most businesses start with a ‘brand’ in mind. But the brand of a business used to be the reputation of the men (and it was always men) who established it, such as Mr Marks and Mr Spencer or Mr Woolworth. But things have changed a lot …

What’s in a name?

Ask a fifteen year old what KFC stands for and they almost certainly won’t know that it’s Kentucky Fried Chicken – the name change came about because having ‘fried’ in the title put people off by suggesing unhealthy and fattening food. Big brands monitor public awareness of their name and words associated with their name and move to positive or at least neutral names if they feel they are at risk of losing market share through some negative association.

Charities too have to move with the times – back in 2002 RNIB changed its name from The Royal National Institute for the Blind to The Royal national Institute of the Blind – a subtle change, but one driven by pressure from disabled people who felt the charity was not adequately representing their needs, wishes and aspirations in acting ‘for’ them rather than being ‘of’ them.

There are other reasons for changing names – one is that it allows a business or charity to reinvent itself in the public eye with a new logo and a new message about what it does.

Changing its appearance through issuing funky new clothing to staff and volunteers, printing its new logo boldly on bulk buy T-shirts and shopping bags supplied to those who buy in its shops, and running campaigns to tell people that X is now Y means that a charity can reach out to a new group of supporters.

Businesses do this too – the Aviva advertising campaign in 2008 chose a bunch of people who had changed their names and become famous, such as Bruce Willis and Dame Edna Everage, and used them to highlight that Norwich Union had done the same, to become Aviva.

If you decide to change your business name, think about what image you want to project, whether the cost of revising all your business materials will be recouped through the name change, and how you let people know what you’ve done and why – it can be a good investment, but only if you plan it carefully.

It’s become traditional for celebs to design T-shirts for charities, and the Beckham family have taken this a step further. Apparently David and Victoria Beckham have involved all three of their sons in designing the T-shirts that will be sold for Sport Relief this year. The specially designed T-shirts, for men, women and children, will be sold to assist vulnerable people in developing countries.

David Beckham said, ‘Victoria and I are excited to be involved with Sport Relief again this year. Our family had a great time designing the T-shirt range and we hope it will raise much needed funds for many important causes …The most important thing is that the money raised will make a genuine difference to people’s lives.’

Of course not every charity can acquire the services of David Beckham and family, but if you have a local celebrity who might design a casual top such as a polo-shirt for you, work with local businesses to create a clothing challenge. You ask the local star to design the garment and get a limited number printed. Then local businesses challenge their employees to sell a certain amount of stickers or tickets – each sticker or ticket is recorded and the T-shirt designer will then draw one name out of a hat and that one lucky winner will get a free limited edition shirt, but in addition, for every twenty tickets or stickers sold, the seller will also obtain a limited edition garment. This serves three purposes:

1. It raises funds for a local good cause
2. It encourages employees to learn about that charity and to tell others about it in order to ‘earn’ their item of clothing
3. It obtains local publicity when the draw for the lucky winner takes place.

And you can always arrange for the sale to take place between two similarly sized local businesses which adds competition to the mix and is more likely to make people feel they want to ‘win’ by selling more.

If you want your business to have a superb community profile, you need to invest in the community in question – it sounds obvious, but investment does not mean throwing money at a problem and putting out a self-congratulatory press release. Instead, get actively integrated by:

1. Making good choices – Where possible shop locally. Buy your sandwiches from a small trader who calls at your place of business, have your milk delivered by the local milkman, hire people who have local decorating or cleaning businesses to support you.

2. Take on an intern or offer placements to unemployed local people – it builds your reputation and builds a local infrastructure that is good for everybody. On a wider scale, invest in organic cotton clothing for your staff uniforms and give loans for hybrid cars or public transport season tickets to show you’re committed to a better world, not just a better place for you.

3. Tithe your publicity – It’s easier than you think. Offer a local good cause (such as a shelter for the homeless, a school for disabled children, or an animal charity) free space in your newsletter or a little boxed announcement as part of you print adverts. Make clear that you’re paying their costs because you believe in their activities and you can benefit from their good profile while helping them reach a wider audience.

4. Get active – Pick a fun run, swim or cycle race and get your staff involved, remember it’s not just for the runners but for those who help raise sponsorship, or who will act as marshals on the day, or who take on extra work so others can train – make it a whole business event with everybody proud to wear specially printed T-shirts showing how they are contributing to the cause. Or invest in some substantial clothing like work trousers and boots and get your people working on clearing an area of wasteland to plant a garden, or tidying a canal path or litter-strewn park – it benefits the community and gives your team a focus outside the office.

5. Encourage volunteering – let your people volunteer for a non-profit organisation – it builds their skills and gives them a chance to contribute to something they really believe in.

There are any number of ways that people across the world can help fund the relief effort for earthquake ravaged Haiti. blink-182, the Californian punk band, have already released a Haiti Charity T-shirt – available through their band website, and said that all proceeds from each $15 T-shirt sale, will be donated to the Red Cross. The short-sleeved T-shirt carries an image of a rabbit bearing a Haitian flag.

Nearly as fast off the mark are George Clooney and MTV who will be holding a telethon on 22nd January to raise funds for Haiti. And Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have released a statement saying that they will be working with Wyclef Jean of the Fugees, who was born on Haiti, to support people there and urging the public to make donations.

In the longer term, Haiti’s industry appears to be hard hit too – many American and Canadian clothing manufacturers have been using the country to sew garments – so far, Hanes has said that three of the four factories it uses appear to have earthquake damage and Gildan, which uses third-party factories in Haiti to sew many of the T-shirts produced at its textile factory in the Dominican Republic, says that it seems two of the three factories it uses were still standing, but the third had suffered badly.

Obama ‘charged for everything’

The Obama merchandising campaign in the run up to the Presidential election was described as either innovative and controversial, depending on your voting preferences. However, it was definitely a record-breaking approach to campaign funding. The tradition in the USA has been for election campaigns to give away promotional items such wholesale t-shirts, even for non-voters, signs to be stuck in the lawn, and car stickers – which in itself seems very strange to British people who see political campaigning as a sedate affair. But the Obama campaign charged for its merchandise from the very beginning.

Why it worked

Because every purchase – even the £1.50 to buy a car sticker, counted as a ‘political contribution’ the campaign was able to record every purchaser as a potential voter, contributing to the landslide that led to Obama’s choice as candidate. In addition, the range of merchandise was huge, from the £1.50 sticker to the £50 designer bag, with fashion guru custom-designed T-shirts falling in the middle of the range. And because the online store offered a round up option on its check-out page, many customers chose to add a few dollars to round up their purchase, providing tiny but valuable additional sums that could be spent wherever the campaign chose. But what made most difference was the atmosphere. One voter said, ‘I was at the Denver Rally and it felt like a rock concert they were selling so much merchandise …’ and that upbeat, young and positive vibe carried Obama right to the White House.

The Woodland Trust got into shopping

The Woodland Trust is considered to be a pretty staid charity, along with the National Trust and Guide Dogs for the Blind it ranks as one of the most trusted (and possibly, most unexciting) doers of good works. However, in recent years the Woodland Trust has launched an innovative new online trading activity. It has a number of different ‘shops’, all online, linked to specific projects. They all have different products to appeal to a segmented range of supporters, or customers. In some shops you can buy trees, in others you can buy gifts and take out memberships, while in some others you can design your own T-shirt to wear or to have sent as a personalised gift.

Why it works

Online shops create a lot of traffic, bringing a different, younger and more diverse audience to see the work of the Trust. Running the shops is seen as a business rather than an information source, which means that the focus is on meeting customer needs first, educating second, which removes the ‘goody goody’ earnestness seen in many charitable online storefronts. It has reduced the paper load involved in sending out catalogues to supporters, which was increasingly coming under criticism as it seemed to be destroying the very trees it was meant to save.

Controversy and Copyleft – a fight over a T-shirt

Founded in 1998, Copyleft was involved in open source software – the belief that computer software should have open source code that allows anybody to change it, free of charge. In 2000 as part of a fund-raising campaign, it began to sell a hand-printed T-shirt that led to an international court case. The Open DVD T-shirt, as it was known, featured the source code to DeCSS, a programme that decrypts DVDs and ended up with Copyleft being charged, in the USA, with infringing trade secrets. And it did, indeed, lose the case. However the organisation was unrepentant, believing that the publicity generated for the cause of open access to software more than outweighed the fine it received.

Why it worked

Controversy is not for all organisations and many charities in particular shy away from bad publicity, but for radical campaigning organisations like Copyleft, being sued by a Goliath can bring them great public support and a wider awareness of their role in promoting the rights of ‘the little people’ against those of ‘big business’

A minor media sensation has been developing around the way Barack Obama dresses. Recently he’s been featured visiting Egypt, talking to reporters, and holding urgent telephone conversations with security advisers in the wake of recent terrorist attempts. Unlike all his predecessors, who conducted this kind of photo opportunity in full formal clothing, on each occasion, President Obama was wearing a well pressed but casual polo shirt.

The messages given by ‘leadership’ clothing

It might seem trivial, but such matters never are – somebody will have sat down with the President and made the decision to move away from shirts and suits to casual clothing. The message they almost certainly wish to convey is that this President does things differently – even down to what he wears. The underlying information given by his choice of polo-shirt is that he is young (remember Tony Blair rolling up his shirt sleeves during a conference speech and the way this suggested he was ‘go-getting’ and practical?), he is down to earth, and he doesn’t need to rely on the trappings of power (formal clothing like that worn by Reagan and the two Bush presidents) to be powerful.

Innovators and establishment figures

Ajay Bhatt, the co-inventor of the USB, features in an Intel advert wearing the ‘anti-fashion’ garment, the woollen tank top, over a shirt and tie – an affectionate way of showing his ‘alternative rock star’ status for geeks. Similarly Steve Jobs, found of Apple, is famous for his chinos and cool T-shirt dress code, which he wears to meetings with heads of international industry. Breaking clothing codes is a sign of an innovator.

On the other hand, bankers were recently advised to wear something other than their suits and ties during G20 protests, so that they couldn’t be picked out by protestors. But in general we want people in ‘conservative’ professions: bankers and doctors and psychiatrist, to dress conservatively. We don’t want to feel that they are innovators because we don’t want our money, or health or our minds to be experimented on. In these professions, establishment clothing is an asset because it gives us confidence that they are going to take care with the things that matter to us.

Keeping or breaking clothing codes

So breaking a clothing code can be a good way of indicating that a person or company is ready to try something new, or has got a new focus – but innovating new clothing styles professionally can also be a risk, and if you’re in a profession where you’re expected to be sensible with other people’s possessions or wellbeing, innovation can send the wrong message and must be managed with care if you are not to lose the confidence of the people who rely on you.

Wing Zone is an Atlanta-based restaurant chain selling deep-fried food. From its creation on the University of Florida campus by founders Matt Friedman and Adam Scott, it has gone on to have around 100 Wing Zone franchises across 25 American states.  The founders have won awards for their food and kudos for their marketing.

What’s it got to do with T-shirts?

Well, when they started out, Matt and Adam wanted to reach an audience nobody else had much interest in – college students. Now they reach out, through social media, to every kind of consumer on what they describe as ‘[using] the power of Social Media to connect with our customers on a personalized, interactive basis’.

So in mid December, they used their Facebook Fan Page to send out this message: ‘Christmas is next week? We need to get in the giving spirit some more! For every 5 fans that like this before today is over, we’ll give away a t-shirt to a random liker!’ One hour later they had 101 likes and 10 positive comments – all vying to win a T-shirt bearing the legend: Wing Zone Poked Me, And I Liked It. And if you don’t know what that means, you should be using Facebook more often!

What it adds up to is the way that innovative brands are using the scope of social media not just to connect with their consumers, but to create advertising, through items like T-shirts, that go where the company never could. One winner was a grandmother in her seventies, spotted wearing her new T-shirt to a senior citizens’ bowling club dinner.

Adam Scott says, ‘Before we launched our Social Media strategy, we had to have a plan in place. We were preparing to add a human side to our brand, and interact in our customers personal spaces. We had to be ready.’ Wing Zone intend to give away a thousand T-shirts before the end of January and to extend their ‘hard’ advertising with ‘soft’ methods. ‘While we still hit the streets hard and post fliers all over the communities we interact in, we can now send out a personalized message within seconds, at no cost, and build a better bond with our customers’ says Friedman.

So the message for other businesses, especially SMEs with small budgets, is to use the cost-free capacity for networking and engagement that is offered by social media, but to back it up with gifts and incentives to those who engage with you, so that your ‘soft’ marketing in virtual media is supported by the ‘hard’ evidence of those wearing your T-shirts or carrying your message in other ways in the real world.