As Microsoft continues to finish up work on Windows 8 for a projected Fall 2012 release date, the company is leaving behind a familiar brand in favor of continuity across devices.

As detailed within Microsofts Building Windows 8 blog earlier today, the software company is giving up the Windows Live brand and looking to combine all Windows services into a single Microsoft account. Similar to Googles approach of using a single Google+ login for a variety of Web services, Windows 8 users will use a Microsoft account to sign into a PC or tablet. The Microsoft account will also be used to check billing within the Windows 8 app store as well as Zune and Xbox LIVE services. Microsoft accounts wont be tied into Hotmail and users are free to use any email address to activate a new Microsoft account. In addition, users will be able to create a list of trusted devices tied to the account. 

Many of the Windows Live services are simply being renamed to a generic equivalent for the sake of simplicity. For instance, MSN Messenger will become Messaging App, Windows Contacts will become the People App, Windows Live Mail and Outlook Express will become the Mail App, Windows Live Photo Gallery and Windows Live Movie Maker will become the Photos app, Photo Gallery and Movie Maker, and Windows Calendar will become the Calendar App. Designed for continuity across devices, these new names will be the same on Windows 8 computers, Windows Phone devices and the Web version of Live.com.

Beyond simple branding, Microsoft is also pushing the cloud computing features that will be tied into a Microsoft account. According to Windows unit head Steven Sinofsky, he stated When you connect a device or service to your Microsoft account, you’re automatically provisioned with a set of cloud services, including a contact list, calendar, inbox, instant messaging, and cloud storage.  Of course these services connect to your PC and your Windows Phone, they’re accessible from any web browser, and they’re accessible to different apps if the developer of the app implements our API.

This allows users to add information to one device and it will show up on all devices connected to the Microsoft account. For instance, a Windows Phone user could add a contact to their phone while attending a business function and the contact information will appear on their Windows 8 PC automatically the next time they login with their Microsoft account. SkyDrive will also tie heavily into cloud sharing. On a Windows Phone for instance, SkyDrive has been integrated into the camera roll and automatically copies all new photos to the cloud photo album. 

Microsoft will also allow third party services such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to connect to the Microsoft account. Contacts within these services can be loaded into the People App, thus allowing a user to email a connection on their LinkedIn account or call up a Facebook friend, assuming that the Facebook contact has provided a phone number. Microsoft has opened up the Live software development kit for third parties to create their own Metro style applications that will tie into the Microsoft account. Microsoft plans to offer more details regarding the implementation of the Microsoft account in the coming weeks.

A ticket to somewhere else! The upcoming summer for IMAX is going to be rather epic, not only with The Dark Knight Rises coming in July featuring nearly an hour of footage shot in IMAX, but The Avengers kicks this off this weekend playing in IMAX 3D as well. Theyve also got Ridley Scotts Prometheus coming up, The Amazing Spider-Man, Peter Jacksons The Hobbit. IMAX has recently launched a new branding video to to promote: IMAX is Believing. The video features testimonials outside of IMAX theaters (like we used to record!) talking about how amazing the experience of seeing an IMAX movie is. Its fun, check it out!

For more info on their new IMAX is Believing slogan and campaign, visit IMAXisbelieving.com. Im a bigger supporter of IMAX when the movies are actually shot on IMAX, which is usually only one big movie a year (The Dark Knight Rises in 2012, JJ Abrams Star Trek 2 in 2013). But they still have some epic event movies playing on IMAX this summer that will look even better on the huge, booming IMAX screens. Ive done enough hyping of my own now, its up to you to voice your opinion in support of IMAX, like the folks in the video. Expect to see this promo playing around movie theaters this weekend. IMAX has nothing to do with seeing a movie and everything to do with believing in one. Take a journey to the very edge of reality.

After 41 years at Ogilvy amp; Mather, Shelly Lazarus is calling it a day.

Lazarus, who retained her chairman role after Miles Young became global CEO in January 2009, will now cede that title to Young as well. Effective July 1, shell simply be known as chairman emeritus.

In a statement, Young described Lazarus as an exceptional individual, an outstanding leader and an inspirational evangelist for branding.

Young added that for 15 years she has guided the agency of David Ogilvy perfectly to the letter and the spirit of the agency.

When parent company WPP Group named Young to succeed Lazarus, she had run the global agency for 12 years. Along the way, she forged deep and lasting relationships with the marketing leaders at global corporations such as IBM and American Express.

Lazarus also is credited with driving collaboration among Ogilvys different disciplinary units, many of which share the same brands.

Before assuming the CEO role, Young ran Ogilvys Asia-Pacific region. Like Lazarus, he is a longtime veteran of the agency. He joined what was then Ogilvy amp; Mather Direct in London in 1983.

Social networks can be a good way to give your law firm exposure and establish expertise within your practice area. Attorneys can comment on news items that are of particular relevance to their area of practice, and they can use social media to convey positive press about their firm. But social networks can also be a good way to make your firm look unprofessional or out of touch. Attorneys and firms that participate in social networks must do so with a targeted strategy.

Before beginning the process of setting up accounts and profiles, take the time to put some thought into your brand. In social media situations, developing a personal brand is particularly important. Personal branding is simply the method by which you market yourself to the world. The concept has received a lot of attention in reference to celebrities, but personal branding is not just for high-profile public figures. Everyone needs a personal brand.

Think about how you would like yourself – and by extension your firm – to be perceived. Brainstorm on some words and phrases that you would like people to use to describe you. Consider your target audience and what they are likely to be looking for in an attorney. Narrow that down to a few keywords and then reaffirm those words with everything you do. Pick appropriate profile pictures and always use the same avatar. Different networks allow different levels of profile customization; take advantage of sites like Twitter and YouTube that give you more leeway to style your pages. Make sure color choices, images and descriptions are consistent across all accounts.

Once you have reaffirmed your brand strategy, take care to control your message. It does not matter if you are a large firm with many attorneys or a sole practitioner, everything you put out across social media channels should appear as though it is coming from the same source. This is easier if you alone are responsible for social media outreach, simply be conscious of your audience and the keywords you established with your personal brand and stick to them. If you are a large firm with multiple attorneys participating in social media outlets, make sure the attorneys are collaborating on their message. Take the time to meet and discuss social media participation and review each attorney’s role. Do not just leave it to chance and assume everyone is on the same page.

This is not to say that your individual attorneys cannot have any personality whatsoever. They should. In fact, connecting with clients emotionally is key to bringing in new business. But it is also important that your firm is not coming across as corporate and conservative on Facebook but impulsive and casual on Twitter. Your attorneys need to be using a consistent tone.

Different social media platforms offer attorneys unique ways to promote their firms and build business. Use the tools each provides to take advantage of them in the optimum way. But always remember that everything you do, from videos on YouTube to articles on your blog to links shared on Twitter must reflect a consistent marketing and branding strategy.

Brace yourselves, idea people. New York Citys Creative Week 2012the fourth annual edition of the advertising, design, boozing and schmoozing bonanzakicks off Monday morning.

A roster of industry bigwigs will be speaking at panels split between City Winery in Manhattan and the Brooklyn-based Galapagos Art Space. Catch, for example, The Big Picture with Facebook director of global creative solutions Mark DArcy; Brad Jakeman, PepsiCos global enjoyment director and chief creative officer for global beverages; and Lee Stimmel, head of the Creative Agency at Columbia Records. That panel, moderated by Wired contributing editor Warren Berger, begins at 9 am Monday.

The small army of advertising and media notables participating in various panels throughout the week also includes Buzzfeed founder Jonah Peretti, author of How to Be Black and formerdigital director at The Onion Baratunde Thurston, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold creator Morgan Spurlock, BFG9000 founder and chief creative officer Gerry Graf, co. collective founders Ty Montague and Rosemarie Ryan, JWT chief creative officer Jeff Benjamin, Google Creative Labs managing director Ben Malbon, New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff, Dexter creator James Manos Jr., Virgin Mobile brand director Ron Faris, HUGE executive creative director Joe Stewart, Big Spaceship CEO Michael Lebowitz, and Andrew Zolty, cofounder and creative director of Breakfast.

Also on the slate, for Tuesday: Shock and Awesome: How to Do Provocative Advertising Without Turning People Off, moderated by Adweek news editor Tim Nudd, and Branding Meets Architecture, moderated by Adweekstaff writer Robert Klara.Find the full schedule of networking and speaking eventsincluding the annual Creative unConferenceat the Creative Week website.

Creative Week, organized by the One Club and sponsored this year by Adobe, GE and Microsoft, also brings with it the annual One Show Awards. This years winners will be announced on Thursday evening, and breakout ceremonies will be held Monday and Friday. The Art Directors Club, meanwhile, will celebrate its annual awards winners with a gala on Tuesday and an exhibition opening Wednesday and running through May 24.

Events marketing shop Stillwell Partners is running Creative Week this year for the first timethe firm has been responsible for the similar-in-spirit Advertising Week. This year also marks the events first significant expansion into Brooklyn, spearheaded by HUGE, the largest in DUMBOs cluster of digital companies, along with neighborhood advocacy groups Digital DUMBO and the DUMBO Business Improvement District (BID). The whole neighborhood is buzzing about Creative Week, said Alexandria Sica, executive director of DUMBO BID. Creative Weeks move across the East River is a major statement about where things are happening today.

To capture the zeitgeist, Adweek will be setting up a photo studio on the third floor of Galapagos to snap photos of speakers and attendees. Swing by during conference hours to have your shot taken and get a chance be featured in Adweek and on Adweek.com.

Oomph Studios Website Design and Branding unveils their latest product enabling small business on a budget to get an affordable website in one week.

SINGAPORE – When people leave their jobs, they often hand over their responsibilities to an appointed colleague, say their thank yous and goodbyes, and leave.

For Mr Dennis Lee and Mr Soh Jit Seng, the connections they had made at their previous workplaces kept seeking them out for branding advice even after they had left their jobs.

Realising the business potential from their extensive network, the duo decided to form their own branding firm, Leftfield Concepts, in 2005.

Celebrating its seventh year of operations this August, the company counts small and medium enterprises, multinational corporations and listed companies among their clients.

My last stint as a wage slave was as CFO for a listed property development company. Then, I was involved in building buildings. Now, I build intellectual property, said Mr Lee, 43, with a large grin.

The father of a three-year-old son was also previously based in China, Hong Kong and the Philippines for almost 20 years.

Mr Soh, who is 32, single and among the pioneers of the Singapore Management University, believes that there is demand for affordable branding services, especially for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

One of their most recent projects is a brand-building campaign for property website iProperty.com that includes coverage on taxis, MRT stations and trains, and in print advertisements.

iProperty.com country manager Glenn Thompson said: In our experience with Leftfield, we found them to be agile, responsive and personalised. They spent time understanding our business and, hence, were better at addressing our business challenges.

Such testimonials play a huge role in increasing and expanding the client base for Leftfield, which relies mainly on referrals for business growth. The company spends little on advertising, saying a good product will sell itself.

We have never actively searched for prospects. All our leads have been through referrals of confident clients, who have become our brand ambassadors, Mr Lee said.

That their company is small is not an issue for the duo, who say that ideas and application – and not size – are the ingredients for success.

As the world becomes flatter, ideas rule and are a great equaliser to size. Smaller companies such as Leftfield do not merely make branding accessible to small firms, but also offer alternatives to larger companies.

Mr Soh said: The Singapore business landscape is tough for start-ups and SMEs. Having been put through the same path of adversity and resistance, we have had to find ways to spend our money prudently and can strongly empathise with the struggles that a fledging SME faces.

When asked for insights on sustaining a branding consultancy for the past seven years, Mr Lee puts it down to embracing curiosity.

Contrary to popular belief, doing so will not kill the cat. With curiosity, one realises that there is more than one way to skin a cat, he said.

Okay, Im working on my personal brand, said my friend Keith on the phone. Ive been writing down words that describe me. So far Ive got Strategic, Seasoned and Results-oriented.

Geez Louise, Keith, I said. Ive known you for ten years. I wouldnt put any of those lame-ass labels on you. To me youre quick-witted and funny and charismatic. Youre very kind, he said. No way, I said. Im being honest. I wouldnt let you brand yourself as Seasoned and Savvy, or whatever you said.

Why not? asked Keith. Because those terms are grovelly! I nearly shouted. Everyone says the same things — savvy, strategic, seasoned, results-oriented, hard-charging, self-motivated, blah blah blah. Switched-on people dont praise themselves, especially using done-to-death, emotionally dead terms like those.

But dont hold back, Liz, laughed Keith. Tell me how you really feel.

This is how I feel, my brother, I said. You arent going to find adjectives that will brand you with the Keith-power that anyone can feel within three seconds of meeting you — even over the phone. Adjectives arent going to do it. Youre going to have to tell your story.

Tell my story, as my branding? asked Keith. As in I grew up in New Jersey and went to school in Vermont kind of story?

Well, Im not sure all of that is relevant, I said. It might be — it depends what you want your brand to be. If I were writing a LinkedIn Summary for you right now, Id say something like I started out in Chemical Engineering and followed that path until I went into a manufacturing plant after college and realized that I love designing manufacturing systems.

Im kind of touched that you remember that much about me, said Keith. But the reason I remember that is because thats how I think of you! I said. To me youre funny-charming-Keith-who-was-a-chemical-engineer-and-then-fell-in-love-with-manufacturing. Thats the brand youve established in my mind. If thats the brand you want to establish in other peoples minds, you only need to tell the story to more people.

Why is that a good brand for me? asked Keith. I cant say that it is, but thats how I think of you, I said. You might like that brand — I started out doing X and found that I love Y more, and made the switch — if you want people to understand a bit of your journey and the way youre wired. The story shows that you make your own decisions. It shows that you do work you love — a pretty important distinction, if you think about it.

If I were going to tell that story, Id add in the fact that I went back and got an MA in Literature, too, said Keith. Bravo! I said. More differentiation. There are manufacturing VPs and CEOs who want broad-minded people. You see, when we fold into the story the MA in Literature, we dont need to say Im a Renaissance Man or Im a broad thinker. It goes without saying. Its in the story.

But youve written before that a personal brand is not about our degrees, Keith pointed out. For sure! I said. Your brand is not I have this and that degree, and this many years of experience. Theres no emotional power in that. Your brand is I am Keith, and heres the path Ive been following, and why. The degrees are part of it — youre going to wrap them into the story, not just list them, free of context.

Its funny that you just used the word context, said Keith, because that word just popped into my head, too. Context is the whole deal, I said. Who you are, where youve been, where you plan to go — its all context. Disembodied lists of Skills and certifications and degrees and employer names dont make up a personal brand. A brand is holistic. Its all of a piece. We want people who come across your LinkedIn profile to get you, if they are capable of getting you. If they arent capable of getting you, we want them to move on. You dont have time for people who cant get you.

I love you, said Keith. Thats how I feel, too. I dont have time for people who want to quibble with me about some certification or other. Heck, if I dont impress them when they meet me, they should leave me alone.

They should flee, I added. Run away as fast as their legs can carry them. Its a branding world. The right people find the right people. Thank goodness for the English language, right?

Its a pretty good one, agreed Keith. One million words, I said. The author Bill Bryson says English is the only language that has or needs a thesaurus. Thats BA, dont you think?

Definitely, said Keith. His brand is his story. Its a great story. Why would he (or any of us) want to keep the story under wraps?

I am always a bit bemused when people go on about multi-branding as a high-cost model – you just cant see that in the numbers, Kelly said yesterday.

Rival boss Commonwealth Banks Ian Narev, recently made a jibe at Westpacs approach, saying his bank would not pursue a strategy built around differentiation of a lot of different brands. However, in the same sentence, Narev also outlined his commitment to keeping CBAs Bankwest unit.

Much of the focus has been on the Bank of Melbourne experiment, which reports through St George. Rebadged from St George in Victoria, the bank is on an ambitious rollout, recently opening branch number 50. It is early days, but Bank of Melbourne has lifted customer numbers by 7 per cent in the past six months, outpacing growth in the broader market.

Kelly maintains the the multi-branding gives Westpac the opportunity to win a greater share of the market.

Indeed the big four bank views multi-branding as a big attractor of customers who would otherwise bank with a regional player or a second-tier big bank.

There are a range of customers, as we know, that choose St George over Westpac. If we didnt have a St George, they wouldnt choose to bank with us, she said. It gives us an opportunity to win more customers.

One unit, BankSA, which reports through to St George, has taken a back-to-basics approach to banking. It delivered a 4.3 per cent lift in cash earnings to $97 million. BankSAs soured loans came in at a tiny $16 million on an $18 billion lending book.

Increasingly multi-branding will be used as a niche-marketing tool for what is essentially a utility service. St George is increasingly matching CBA on mortgage pricing while Westpacs flagship brand is being sold as a premium offering.

As with rival bank ANZs costly investment in Asia, investors will also need convincing that multi-branding is right for a low-growth banking market.

This is increasingly important as Westpacs first-half result shows its cash return on equity has shifted back to

15.1 per cent from 16.5 per cent over the same time last year. This places Westpac at the bottom of its target range and behind CBA and ANZ in terms of shareholder returns.

• TVs
• News
• HD branding doesnt guarantee HD quality

HD branding doesnt guarantee HD quality

By Derek Fung, and Geoffrey Morrison | May 4, 2012
| 2