WebProNews

Laura Bergells from Maniactive.com here, a long time WebProNews.com subscriber and occasional contributor. . .

Kudos to the Bill Haig article. . .very informative and timely! I'll be sure to pass it on to some of my clients who are struggling through logo and branding issues.

(Bill's article: Successful Logos Explained)

You also asked for comments on the new WebProNews.com logo. . . here goes:

As a 40-something Midwestern gal, I loved the nostalgic look and feel of your new "alphabet block" style logo. It easily meets the "competent" and "reliable" components of Bill Haig's triad of credibility-based logo development.

But "forward thinking"? Maybe that quality is implied in your name "WebProNews.com". . .so that's why you need to focus more keenly on the "competent" and "reliable" components by using a nostalgic, educational image like a child's alphabet block.

However, in my geographic area, I usually experience the exact opposite issue. . . let me explain:

I live in Grand Rapids, Michigan -- a town that's known as the office furniture capital of the world. Pretty old fashioned stuff, furniture. The very industry suggests competency and reliability, so we tend to focus on "forward-thinking", and suggest the latest in ergonomics or fashion trends in our marketing efforts (think about the success of Herman Miller's Aeron chair in the early dotcom days. . .)

But Grand Rapids is also home to another old-fashioned industry: wooden toys. For example, Grand Rapids-based Uncle Goose Toys (www.unclegoose.com) is the largest manufacturer of wooden alphabet blocks in the world. . .and the I believe it's the only one of a very few remaining wooden toy manufacturers in the United States.

While Uncle Goose primarily manufactures and markets their products as "toys for children", they have a growing secondary market: business and advertising! In other words, Uncle Goose manufactures private label blocks for ad agencies or businesses who want to use their alphabet blocks to sell concepts like growth, building, progress, simplicity, learning, etc.

Nostalgic images like alphabet blocks work well in ads & logos that target the baby boom generation and older. . .like me! But how many twenty-somethings in the WebProNews.com audience have actually played with alphabet blocks? How many would consider it as one of their favorite, treasured childhood toys?

I wonder - if we didn't see alphabet blocks frequently representing valued concepts in advertising, would today's children even know what wooden blocks are, much less what they are supposed to represent? Spurred by aggressive marketing, today's children demand. . .and get. . .a huge variety of foreign-made plastic toys, not high-quality, US-made educational toys like wooden blocks!

I'm sure Uncle Goose is thrilled with all the subliminal exposure blocks get in concept advertising. But while companies and advertisers use blocks to sell valued marketing concepts, I'll bet Uncle Goose can't possibly put the same kind of energy into marketing wooden alphabet and word blocks as actual toys for contemporary children.

I'd be interested in knowing how many of your subscribers use the "alphabet block" or other nostalgic concepts for promoting something that's forward thinking. . . like WebProNews.com!

But won't using the "abc block" as a concept be lost on your 20-36 year old demographic. . . as well as completely baffle coming generations? And what would Bill Haig say about using nostalgic images like "abc blocks" to lend credibility to high-tech companies? Or conversely, using high-tech imagery to sell low-tech items like. . . wooden blocks!!!

As for me, I love the new look. . .and the new/old logo. But that's just me!

Keep up the good work!

Laura Bergells
2300 Edington Dr. SE
Grand Rapids, MI USA 49508
http://www.maniactive.com

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