The Brad Weisman Show
The Brad Weisman Show
Elevate Your Brand with Expert Insights - Howard Lim
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Unlock the secrets to building a powerful brand with business and brand architect Howard Lim of HOW Creative! Discover the three critical components of branding—strategy, identity, and management—and learn how these elements work together to create an unforgettable brand experience. Join us as Howard uses the iconic examples of Steve Jobs and Apple to illustrate how a clear brand philosophy and user-friendly design can transform a company. He also delves into how branding goes beyond just logos, touching on elements like Coca-Cola's unique red color and the importance of consistency across all brand touchpoints.
In this episode, we dissect the intricate components that form a strong brand identity, from abstract and pictorial marks to the perfect blend of colors and fonts. Howard explains the challenges and strategies behind rebranding, emphasizing the need to reflect a company's true value to maintain consumer trust. He also sheds light on the often-overlooked connection between brand value and company equity, showcasing how a well-crafted brand identity can have long-term positive impacts on a business.
Explore the undeniable power of brand equity with Howard Lim as he discusses how intellectual property and emotional associations contribute to a brand's overall value. Learn how understanding consumer behavior, particularly the influence of female consumers, can shape effective branding and design strategies. Howard wraps up with an irresistible offer for our listeners—a substantial discount on his consultation services. This episode is packed with insights and practical advice, making it a must-listen for entrepreneurs ready to elevate their branding game. #howcreative #howardlim #bradweisman #branding
"So much more goes into creating a lasting brand. It's not just a logo and a tagline, it's so much more than that. The personality of the company, the vision, and the culture of the leadership. Howard is the best in his field at helping all size companies find their Brand Identity which will lead to Brand Equity. This episode is packed with things that will move you forward!" - Brad Weisman
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Welcome to The Brad Weisman Show (formerly known as Real Estate and YOU), where we dive into the world of real estate, real life, and everything in between with your host, Brad Weisman! 🎙️ Join us for candid conversations, laughter, and a fresh take on the real world. Get ready to explore the ups and downs of life with a side of humor. From property to personality, we've got it all covered. Tune in, laugh along, and let's get real! 🏡🌟 #TheBradWeismanShow #RealEstateRealLife #realestateandyou
Credits - The music for my podcast was written and performed by Jeff Miller.
From real estate to real life and everything in between the Brad Wiseman Show and now your host, brad.
Speaker 2:Wiseman. All right, we are back. We are back in the studio and we have a really really cool guest coming up very soon. Actually, this guy's name is Howard Lim. He is a business and brand architect. He has a company called how Creative and I was really intrigued by how far and how deep he takes the research of a brand and talks about what branding means. Have to think about that on a much smaller level too, in just our own businesses, our own entrepreneurial things that we're doing today. It's not just McDonald's and Coke that need to think about it, it's everybody. So I'm going to bring Howard on here. Howard, are you there? I'm here. Awesome man. Thanks for joining the show today. I really appreciate it. Yeah, this is just. It really blew my mind when I started reading about more about what you do and business and brand architect. This is really something big. I mean, tell you just told me before you went live how you're studying. Tell them a little bit about how you're studying brands and the consumer and what that means and how you do that.
Speaker 1:Just tell me a little bit about that. Yeah, so branding is a lots of parts to it, but overall there's three big arching parts to branding and there's actually three different types of specialists. I just happen to master all three. The first is a strategist, a brand strategist, and a brand strategist is looking at, you could say, building the blueprint for a brand to exist Gotcha, yeah. So it's like you know who's our target market, what's our brand promise, what's our brand promise, what's our brand story, what's unique about this product, service or information? And then there's the brand identity. Okay, which is now building that identity to reflect that position from the strategists.
Speaker 1:Okay, so mean to brand identity. That includes every. It's called touch points. I call them where they have to be aspiration, engaged points. It's every opportunity to basically broadcast your brand to your actual target market or consumer. That could be the billboard, the website, the name of the company, the tagline, what people call the logo, the radio spots, the list goes on. Those are all part of the identity. And the third component and the third part about branding, as far as a specialist is a brand manager, let's say now that you have that first store in place and let's say you want to bring 100 stores throughout the US. The manager job is to make sure that he managed or she managed the brand. So for consistency on actually how it's being seen and heard by the consumer or by a buyer or both who do you think's the best at branding?
Speaker 2:give me an example of a company that's like, wow, they do a great job, job branding I think one of the best, honestly, was ste was Steve Jobs.
Speaker 1:Steve Jobs really Absolutely, because he was clear there's a couple of key ingredients to building a really strong global leading brand and that is to be very clear of your philosophy. And he was very clear from the very beginning of his philosophy. That you could feel through all his products, all his different software and actually when it comes to even the Apple Store as a service. So he's very clear of his philosophy and that's what gave rise to the shape, for example. Part of his philosophy is he studied design and art and calligraphy. The point being is that he understood the Japanese as far as the way the Japanese architecture is, where it's very clean and simple and therefore it's timeless. Hence the shape for the iPhone. When it came out, it did not look like any other phone that was out in the marketplace, where everything you know was ornate and had a certain look and to it he kept it to the basic shape, which is a rectangle shape. You can't get any simpler than this.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's pretty simple. It's pretty simple.
Speaker 1:And you look at all those products. They're very simple, very clean and very user-friendly. So part of it is basically the form follows function, but also user-friendly. That was part of his philosophy Amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that makes sense. And you know what's interesting too you talk about with brands. It's you know, I think most people when we talk about brand, we think logo and it's not just the logo, it's everything around it, it's the colors, it's making sure. You said in the one video I saw that that Coca-Cola owns the color red that they use, or they they have that patented or whatever trademarked because they're so that that if you're going to do something with Coca-Cola it's gotta be that Pantone colored or whatever they came up with You're exactly right.
Speaker 1:So a lot of people think and that was old school way of thinking, by the way of branding, they just think branding was a logo. The logo is about 5% to branding. Now here's the value behind a logo If it's done right, I call it a brand mark. Yeah, is that? If the brand mark is done right and the name is done right, that becomes the biggest asset, tangible asset, a company can own. So let's just say you know, let's just say that you owned Nike. Go, hey, howard, I'll sell you Nike, I'll give you all the distribution, I'll give you all the clothing, all the manufacturing. I'm not going to give you the name in a swoosh. Yeah, right, right.
Speaker 1:A company just lost all its equity and became very generic. So what happens is the brand name and the brand mark. It starts to create a association of feelings. So when, say, someone buys Nike and they love the performance of it, they love the quality of it, when they see that Nike swoosh or they hear Nike, automatically, it's a trigger of thoughts, what they stand for, which is quality and innovation, and that starts to build trust faster. So the logo again is like 5% of it. But the point being is that it becomes, you could say, the anchoring to the brand identity.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's incredible and it is. And it's true, because as soon as you see, like you said, you see Nike, if you see Tommy Hilfiger, if you see you know any of the brands, the big brands that are out there, you know people. Right away they go oh, I trust this brand, I'm going to buy this. It comes down to trust and integrity of the brand, and it's not just the logo. Yes, the logo draws you in, but then you know that that logo stands for something. You know it means something, just like you know the American flag. It stands for something and I think it's. It's that's the most recognizable logo we have, I think in the United States, um, but let's go into so. You've been doing this for 35 years, uh, and you work for some pretty big brands. You've worked with Apple, disney, hbo. Where did you get your start in this? Did you just? Did you come out doing branding right away, or brand architectural stuff? Like? How did you get your start?
Speaker 1:So branding didn't even exist as a coin phrase back when I started. This has actually been now 37 years. When I started my company, it started off with breaking a code, you could say, of getting stuff out of the Macintosh computer other than just eight and a half by 11 dot matrix headline black and white right, because color printers didn't exist. Back then I created a team where we actually were able to produce film from the computer Macintosh computer then to burn plates, to go on a press, to create posters, and then I started doing animations, streaming programs together that were you see on ABC. I was hired by ABC to do more creative work in their online machines that are costing like $250 an hour to rent. Back then, 37 years ago, I think it was like 20 bucks an hour for hire. Yeah right. So I was doing more creative work in a short period of time and that changed what's called now as a category motion graphics.
Speaker 1:I was part of that. I wasn't say I did that and I was only one. There was a few of us that were doing that, so that's where it started. But who understood what I was doing? Because I showed what I was doing to traditional design houses and they didn't get it because everything back then was all hand done. You know, you send out your typography to a type house, you get your film done for another company. I said, no, we could do this all on a computer. And so the only company that was really getting this with a fortune 500 companies, cause they always were looking for innovative edge, and so we came up with better producing quality ideas than traditional methods and doing it faster than traditional methods. So I was actually building brand, helping build brands using digital media, helping lead that way without even knowing I was doing branding. I used to call it image marketing.
Speaker 2:It's funny.
Speaker 1:Until. About what was it? 25 years ago, a woman said Howard, you're doing branding. This isn't graphic design, because that's where I started. It's not advertising, which is where I started. This is beyond that. This is about storytelling. This is about creating strong concepts, like advertising, but the aesthetics, like design. It's really a combination of both. Yeah, wow.
Speaker 2:It is interesting how it's evolved. You know, and, and, and, even now, like when you say brand architect, that's and that's a. That's a name that I've never heard until I saw it on your, on your information, you wrote a book, too, called authentic brands. You could tell me a little bit about that? I mean, you know, obviously writing a book is pretty serious, so how did you get into doing that?
Speaker 1:So I wrote the book Authentic Branding because at the time there's about I don't know maybe five, seven books on branding, because it was so new and it's back then when there's actually bookstores.
Speaker 1:So, I looked at the bookstores and I only found a couple of them, but they're very good books, but what was missing from these books is showing people how to build brands. They talked about branding but they didn't give you exercise, like you know. Why don't you think about this, about your brand, and ask certain questions quality questions, quality answers to start formulating exactly like your value proposition, your brand promise. Start formulating exactly like your value proposition, your brand promise. Nobody wanted to give away like the secrets behind building world-class brands. So I decided to write this book so I could help out a lot of companies and start to talk about, and give exercise, how to carve out your brand, how to actually design it and then how to build it, and that gave rise to Authentic Branding it and then how to build it, and that gave rise to authentic branding. Now, why it's called authentic branding? Because during the time, I knew like MCI and a lot of these companies were going to collapse because for them, it was top heavy about making money. It wasn't about making a difference.
Speaker 2:Yeah, big difference. There's a big difference right there, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I wanted to build brands that were authentic, that were making a difference.
Speaker 2:Hmm, yeah, interesting and that lasts. Then too, I think that kind of a branding, then it lasts. It's not a quick business. I mean like again, like when you look at some of these larger brands that have been doing it for many years. They last because they have. It's not just the brand, it's a whole community around the brand that actually makes sense. Let me talk about also. You had talked about brand icon and brand identity, and I think I understand the difference by reading up on your information. But can you explain the difference of brand icon and brand identity? Sure?
Speaker 1:So brand icon. There's five components that make up a brand icon, which becomes what I said. There's a difference between a logo and a brand mark. So the way I define this and other people that really are in deep in branding, a few of them will say the same thing I think A brand, so brand mark, is really like, let's say, the Nike Swoosh yeah, that's a mark. Okay, and there's actually different ways to create marks, like abstract marks, fanciful mark, pictorial marks, but that's the mark. Then you have the brand name. Let's say Starbucks, okay, that's the name. Or Google, and then you have the tagline Okay, and then you have the color and then you have the font that you're using, you're using.
Speaker 1:When I put all those components together, I call that the icon, because that becomes the imperative cornerstone to a brand identity. So that becomes a cornerstone. Well, now, what is a brand identity? It's really all the other components that make up that brand look and feel. That means the website, the brochure, the vehicle wraps, the commercials. Everything else has to quote, unquote, follow a certain system, which is an identity system. Okay, so, using the same fonts, same colors, but that cornerstone, again, that nucleus, is the icon. And those five components I mentioned I find are the most valuable assets to a company when it comes to building the equity yeah, and you don't mess with those things either, like and what about when people, when they want to do a rebrand right?
Speaker 2:I mean yeah, because I've seen on your website you did some really awesome what I call rebrand. It might not be what you call it, but I saw like a before and after on your website that I thought was pretty. It was pretty cool. It went from like sometimes a very complicated logo, slash, tagline and everything and then it went to a very clean, looking, you know professional, you know looking, um, you know identity. So I mean, is that is that? That's something that's tough to do, because you you got to be careful you don't lose your identity while you're changing your brand right or changing your look Exactly.
Speaker 1:So that steps into my SIM system. You're right. So a lot of branding people, what they do is that they'll just go. Okay, well, we know that doesn't really reflect the value of the brand, but let's just start creating an identity. The value of the brand, but let's just start creating an identity. But the problem with that is that the identity a lot of times does not reflect the value of the company.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I've seen that many times.
Speaker 1:Right, right, so they'll read you the look, but they don't. They don't really understand how to position the value of the company so they could actually show up more in the mind, heart of the consumer. Okay, so you're right, a full value and expressing their full value to their target market. Because their brand, on a 10 point scale, their identity, could look like a two or three, or maybe look homemade or amateurish. It's not reaching those who are their target market and so it's not creating an equilibrium either between the value of the inside of the company, what it has to offer as a product and service, and actually how it's being represented through its identity to the consumer or buyer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's, that's amazing. And a lot of people I see a lot of people that rebrand and then it doesn't follow the identity of the company and and those two things really have to be, have to be together. And you know, and I recently I was talking to somebody else about this kind of stuff and they were saying I know it was, it was a guy who was on a podcast here with me. He said, um he what he does when he's helping people brand or when he's helping people build their, their, their business, when they first come to him. He said the logo for him is last. Because he said he wants to, he wants to learn, he likes to go to the sales meetings, go to whatever they can go to find out what the company feels like. So that when the when you go to make the logo, the logo actually matches the feeling of the company as opposed to the company happened having to match the feeling of the logo.
Speaker 1:No, he, he is. He is absolutely correct. That's why I do the strategy when I said right now literally I'm in the second half of the third day of a three-day strategy session You're exactly right. The gentleman's absolutely correct. It's to find out as much as you can about what kind of brand you're creating from the people that actually are going to run the business and then understand firsthand what their customers feel and then their employees feel basically all the stakeholders, quite honestly. So, yes, you're absolutely right. So it needs to be an expression of what they truly stand for and what truly makes them unique. And then you're right. Then that's where you want to pick up the pencil and start to create. You got to start off with a strategy first before you start building that identity. Otherwise it's here today, gone tomorrow, whatever you create, yeah.
Speaker 2:No, and I'd like to hear the backup on that because, like I said, somebody was just in here talking about the branding and it was interesting, so let's go into this just before we get done here. The brand value as it relates to company equity you explained this on a podcast or actually saw you on a live thing. We don't normally think about the brand value as it relates to company equity. That was new for me. Can you go into that a little bit? We touched on a little bit in the beginning, but maybe go into that a little bit more.
Speaker 1:Sure, yeah, and this, this part of branding 95% gets lost with branders because they don't even understand what brand equity is. But again, that comes from literally representing Fortune 500, what made them a Fortune 500 company? Yeah, right, right, okay, so what? So? What is their formula? What are they doing?
Speaker 1:So brand equity is the assets that are tangible and non-tangible that the company has ownership of. So let's say, the Apple phone okay, they have ownership, even though it's a lot of copycats. They have ownership of the shape. They have the ownership of the name Apple. They have the ownership of the name Apple. They have the ownership of what Apple stands for.
Speaker 1:Do you use your friendly interface? Right, and they also have, from the standpoint of equity, is all the different associations from an emotional standpoint, like you know, when people like me I was one of those people that stood in line for six hours getting the first iPhone right they built a culture because they were so clear what they stood for. That's all part of the equity that actually moves the needle for what, the value of the company's worth, which is called brand value. What is it worth? What is a company worth on a balance sheet? Is brand value. What makes that value? More is literally what's been associated with that company through equity, tangible and the intangible, so a lot of times actually patents and intellectual property like trademarks as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what's funny and you think about that. You stood in line for something that you never even tried, right? You know what I'm saying? So obviously it wasn't the product you were buying, you were buying the brand, exactly Right. For somebody to stand in six hours in line. It's the same as going to see a concert, Right you?
Speaker 3:know same thing.
Speaker 2:If I stand in line to go see, you know um, you know, uh, zach Brown or whatever, or you know Kenny Chesney, I go to see it and stay in line. I, you know I'm standing in line because I want that brand up there. That's what I'm going to see is the brand. And so you didn't even hear anything yet. I didn't even hear him sing. He could be terrible, you know, when I get there he might have a cold. You don't know what he's going to be like. Interesting, but you're going for the brand. You're going there because there's a trust and an integrity of that brand that I'll stand in line for six hours because I know what they get to me is going to be great.
Speaker 1:Exactly there's a value that's exchanged and a belief.
Speaker 2:Yep, and that's equity right there Exactly. Yeah, that's inherent. That's amazing, but it's just good stuff, really good stuff. Hugo, do you have any questions? I see Hugo's taking notes over here, so I know he's probably got a question.
Speaker 3:I'm taking notes. I'm taking notes. In the beginning, you mentioned there were three components to a brand and you mentioned that you happen to be a master of the three of them. But you mentioned strategist brand manager. What was the third one?
Speaker 1:The implementer the one that builds the identity. Ah, I see. All right, there you go.
Speaker 3:I have just one last question For anybody who's looking out there listening to this podcast, who is thinking about just starting a company. What is a quick tip in picking a name for a company?
Speaker 1:Well, the name has to come after. Like your gentleman that you've spoken to about branding, is you got to start off with a strategy, because a name is critical of the positioning which the position has to go through a discovery of what's making you unique and what you stand for and how you differentiate from all the others in your space and unique and what you stand for and how you differentiate from all the others in your space.
Speaker 2:There's work involved, there's a lot of work involved in that right. I mean that's what you're doing now. You said for that other, what you're doing right now is that discovery right. It's figuring out what makes them tick at figure, figuring out who they are. You know it's all those things because at the end of the day then that will give you the the ideas for what, what they need to look like in branding.
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly, you know. Give them the sustainability. It also allowed them to grow in scale.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So one more thing here I saw on your blog. You have a blog. It's on LinkedIn and it's actually really good. I saw it on there and you have like I don't know if it's a blog or whatever, but you write like different things. I like where something just recently that was on there and this was interesting was about the female. I'm going to read this. The female consumers are at the forefront of shaping design trends and messaging. Surprisingly, about 80% of today's purchasing decisions are influenced by women in the realm of branding. Design, uh, holds immense potential for for yeah, for foregoing emotional connections. So 80% of today's purchasing decisions are influenced by women.
Speaker 1:That means that influences you on how you're going to tell somebody to brand exactly so a lot of times and, by the way, doesn't mean that the design has to be always feminine, right? A lot of females want masculine design because they want to have that sense of freedom. But they want to have that sense of stability. Yeah, okay, so it's not. I don't go by so much gender when it builds a brand. It goes of freedom, but they want to have that sense of stability. Yeah, okay, yeah, so it's not. I don't go by so much gender when it builds a brand. It goes more with the energetic vibration of feminine energy, masculine energy. So, when it comes to the, yeah, that's a subject in itself. So, when it comes to the female shopper, they are 80%, are the ones that are doing the quote, unquote discovery on their shopping path. At the same time, the purchaser. And so, yes, a lot of things have to appeal to them, and how you appeal to them is through aesthetics. A lot of products.
Speaker 1:Back in the 70s, you know a kind of like all manufacturing, kind of like. You know, uh, just something you could buy. Everything started to look the same. Yeah, right, yeah, pretty much a commodity. Let's say a commodity if you go in a grocery store now and you're buying a drink. Look at all the different types of drinks out there and look at all the different packaging that's out there, and it's all about how they're being positioned to radiate and have that person that become a bypasser into a buyer to stop them in their traps and go. I want to pick this up. This looks really interesting. I want to taste it at least once. So, yes, yes, we right now rely so much on our quote, unquote. Out of our five senses, we 90 of the time is eyes, visual yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I do the grocery shopping for us in our house, uh, which is? This is funny, but I do. I do it on sundays and, yeah, my wife is constantly on me because I buy the stuff that just looks fun or it looks new or different. So, just so you know I'm, I'm probably the easiest person to find to to to purchase something, you know I'll, I don't even look at it, I just look at that packaging looks nice, this should, this should taste good, and then you put it in the basket. You know what I mean. It's so funny, but that's, that's branding. That's what they do. They're, they're sucking me in.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 1:Now the thing that that makes it authentic. If you purchased it and you had expectations and that experience matched that expectation, then they're doing something that's really brilliant, because you'll come back again.
Speaker 2:Interesting. So yeah, because otherwise it was a lie. Yeah exactly Right, otherwise the integrity wasn't there. If they're saying that they're the best banana muffin, they better be the best damn banana muffin.
Speaker 1:Right, exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's interesting, Very interesting, Good stuff. Man, I'll tell you what I love this. I could talk about this stuff forever. I love what you're doing. I really, really appreciate you sharing your knowledge with us here. Today we're going to um. Is there anything else that you want to say before we end the show?
Speaker 1:Well, what I'm offering is for those who want a piece of me is I'm offering how creative forward slash assessment is that for like a whole hour I'll work and I work very quickly. I'll look and I call it an assessment is I'll go through your identity system, like your website, your logo, the name of the company, your product, if you have packaging, you got billboards, radio spots, whatever it is. I'll go through it and I'll critique it and tell you where the gaps are from being from good to great.
Speaker 2:So all we do is go to okay, so we're going to go to your website. Backslash assessment.
Speaker 1:Exactly how creative backslash assessment, exactly how creative backslash assessment. That's fantastic and if you type in on the coupon code, because I sell this for 2500 for an hour of my time, the whole thing's recorded. Oh wow, if you put an how, how, it'll knock it all the way down to 500.
Speaker 2:Oh man we're gonna have to put that. You're writing it down, hugo, because we're gonna put that on our social media when we actually, when the show airs, we're going to put that on our social media so that everybody has the advantages of that. That's amazing. We really appreciate that.
Speaker 1:Sure, I mean. I love the entrepreneur spirit and we are living in a free enterprise country, which I absolutely love. And I'm all about empowering people to become healthier and wealthier.
Speaker 2:So are we, man, so are we. We love it. Thanks so much for coming on the show today. I really appreciate it. We'll definitely have to have you back. Good luck with that project you're working on right now, and that'll be it. We'll see you later. Thanks so much.
Speaker 1:Thank you, sir. Thank you for having me All right.
Speaker 2:All right, there you have it. Howard Lim from how Creative. That was an amazing show. I mean, this guy is branding everybody and doing a great job of it, and if you want to see anything else with him, just go into howcreativecom backslash assess. I think is what he said and it's howcreativecom. Yes, go there and you can figure it all out. We'll have it on our social media.
