It was 5 o’clock in the morning. Just as I was leaving the dock in the 14-foot, rental, Lund fishing boat equipped with a 9HP motor, I heard the whine of 150HP Mercury outboard and squinted into the misty distance. There he was. The king of the Lindy Rig , none other than Al Linder streaking across the bay throwing a huge rooster tale of water. He was heading for the very same weed line I spotted earlier.

I pushed the little resort boat as fast as I could hoping that by the time I arrived at the same spot as Al, he would be reeling in a walleye. As I approached his spot from afar, he jumped out of his seat, dropped in the electric trolling motor, quietly moved toward the most likely spot and began fan casting. He made about a dozen casts in less than two minutes, caught nada, and just as fast as he got into the area, he was roaring off to another spot.

I never caught up with Al, but I did follow him with my binoculars in my left hand and the other on the tiller. He repeatedly went from one “likely” spot to another, presented the right bait for the area he was in, but never wasted much time until he scored fish.

Then he caught a lot of fish.

We can get great results as brand marketers, just like an expert fisherman if we take a few cues from Al.

Once you establish your brand, the most important part of which is to specifically define your target audience; next, make sure you have the right strategy and resources to find your target audience. Deliver the most luring presentation with optimum reach and frequency for maximum results. And don’t waste a lot of time pitching your brand to someone who isn’t interested or just not biting. Even though you have spent a lot of time defining your target audience, be ready to make adjustments along the way.

Editor’s note: The above article was previously written after a family trip to Gull Lake. Since that time, Al Linder’s brother, Ron passed away on November 30, 2020. Al, together with his brother Ron, created one of the most successful fishing brands in the modern era. With Minnesota’s fishing opener scheduled for Saturday, May 15, it seemed appropriate to recall the family trip and provide a remembrance of the Linder brothers.

Those who play the game are physically gifted. They are elite athletes who can run faster, jump higher and are bigger, stronger than the average human. Professional football players are amazing athletes. This is what the game features. The emotional aspect for its customers, the fans, comes from what Donna Cavanagh pointed out in an article she wrote in the Bleacher Report, “Why Do We Love NFL Football.”

She wrote, “I believe it is the momentum of football that drags me in. Momentum transfers easily from players to fans.  We almost feel what a player feels when he makes a great catch in the end zone, or a great tackle that stops a first-down conversion.  We feel a player’s pain when he drops the pass that might have saved the game.”

Professional golf is another sport populated with elite athletes. They have a combination of athletic abilities that include strength, flexibility and balance that few people have. And yet, it is the mental or emotional side of the game that often dominates the sport.

The mental gymnastics of the sport came to the forefront the last two weekends. First was the Bay Hill Classic one weekend ago, and the Player’s Championship this past weekend.  Englishman, Lee Westwood noted for for his consistency, and is one of the few golfers who has won tournaments on five continents – Europe, North America, Asia, Africa and Oceania – including victories on the European Tour and the PGA Tour. In both recent tournaments, he entered the final round in the final pairing.

At Bay Hill, Westwood hit a magnificent drive on the 18 hole only to have his ball roll out into a divot. He hit a decent shot to the green, but still lost by one shot because he didn’t get it close enough to make birdie and force a playoff. Fans began to post online that he should have been able to take a free drop rather play it as it lies. Westwood has now responded online and it seems although a free drop would have favored him at Bay Hill, he is happy with the current rule: “Just got to shrug it off and get on with it. The game was never meant to be fair. That’s the mental challenge.”

On the past weekend, at the Players, Westwood was bested by one stroke by Justin Thomas, who incidentally was born in the same year as Westwood turned pro. “This week was huge to win a big championship like this in front of fans again, which is incredible. It tested me mentally, physically, emotionally, and I’m very proud of myself for getting it done.”

A footnote to Westwood is his caddie and fiancée, Helen Storey. “Obviously I get on well with Helen,” Westwood told reporters during the 2019 Open Championship. “She doesn’t know too much about golf but she knows a lot about the way my mind works. So, she keeps me in a good frame of mind and focusing on the right things at the right time. There’s more to the caddying than carrying and getting the wind direction.”

Then there are names you see on road trips like the those for vacation homes along the north shore that you see driving up Hwy 61 to Grand Marais, for instance Ruby’s Rendezvous (totally made up that one.)

The names in the commercial world require a more disciplined approach than naming a child or home on the north shore.  Let’s look at two two examples, Thousand Helmets offering bicycle and skateboard helmets, and The Herbivorous Butcher, a Northeast Minneapolis vegan butcher; and, then follow up with some guidelines on naming products and companies based on my experience at Kazoo Branding.

Thousand Helmets has some very cool looking helmets that are designed to look different from virtually every other helmet on the market. They have a vintage moto lid type vibe, and heritage colorways of the 50’s and 60’s with vegan leather straps for comfort. Along with these features, the wearer can keep their helmet safe with a secret padlock.

What was behind the name Thousand Helmets? According to their website, they named their company ‘Thousand’ as a promise – a commitment and a goal of helping to save 1000 lives by making helmets people actually want to wear. This is their brand story, and it is a good one because it is extendable and offers an emotional connection to its customers.

A very different but equally interesting example is The Herbivorous Butcher. The company is co-founded by a sister-brother partnership. According to their website, they carefully craft 100% vegan, cruelty-free meat and cheese alternatives that capture the best flavors, textures, and nutrients most people are used to without their negative impacts on health, animals, and the environment. They are confident that after one sampling you’ll be hooked!

This is an interesting case because they had to fight off a legal challenge from food giant Nestle, not about their company name, but about their use of the term “vegan butcher.” According to an article from the 2/18/2021 Star Tribune eEdition, the Walches had applied for a trademark of “vegan butcher” several years ago but had been denied on grounds that it was “merely descriptive. Just a few weeks after their denial, Nestlé tried to lay claim to the term, and subsequently the siblings hired a lawyer. They ultimately won the trademark battle but only to the degree that it would remain in public domain so that it would be available to anyone in their industry. They spent a great deal of money to this end to achieve a very altruistic goal, which is admirable.

One moral of this story is that descriptive names are very difficult to protect. They are often times in the public domain and chances are if you thought of it, someone else probably has as well.

To help build an emotional connection to your brand with a name that you can also legally protect, here a few naming guidelines.

Naming Basics & Process

A few words about the keys to successful naming . . .

• Unique re: competition
• Protect legally

Impossible to Protect                        Difficult                                            Easier To Protect

Descriptive Names  >>>>  Suggestive  Names >>>>>>> >> Coined Names

Water Bed Gallery                        Ford Explorer                                     Prevea

                                                   Bread Street                                       Kodak                       

                                      Microsoft

• Represent brand personality and position
• Work with current branding and nomenclature system (Brand Strategy)
• Timeless
• Attractive
• Globally acceptable
• Easy to use and to apply
• Technically applicable – – print, broadcast, website, social media, signage, in store, interior design, product packaging, etc.
• Additional criteria (Ex: community, history, personal preferences)
• Emotional
• Tag lines

In business we refer to the “Who I Am” as the core brand essence. If we can work to determine who we are, and be confident about the perception of ourselves, it will go a long way toward becoming aligned with a purposeful and happy life.

Here are a few tips on developing your own personal brand:

1. Core Brand – On a personal level, it becomes a matter of defining your personal skills, job skills, creative skills, favorite activities plus the things and people to whom you are strongly attracted to emotionally.
2. Audits – Schedule your own brand audit on a regular basis. Periodically review your core brand essence and measure it against your satisfaction index – working life, personal life, relationships and trends in the world around you.
3. Reinvent – Constantly think about what you need to do to reinvent yourself. As convinced as you are about who you are and where you are headed, chances are the world around you will change. Keep your core brand intact, but be prepared to make adjustments.
4. Respect – This is about the culture of respect that exists in your work and your personal life. Respect must go both ways within all of your key relationships – friend to friend, employee to employer, supervisor to employee. A culture of respect creates better relationships and increased self-esteem.
5. Sell – To put it very simply, branding is story telling. And so is selling. Every successful sales person I know is a good story teller. Learn how to tell your own story. Friends and co-workers need to hear your story, and the journey you have been on that defines your own personal brand. No one can tell it better than you.
6. Value – Value proposition is a crucial factor in brand development for companies and individuals alike. Be sure to value who you are, the work you do, your creative skills and the value you bring to all of your relationships.
7. Live – Live your brand. It is everything you stand for. Living your own brand will enhance it, and remember it takes practice. Don’t be sidetracked and try to live someone else’s brand. It causes brand amnesia, and you will forget who you are.
8. Explore – Take off on your own journey to find new ideas, opportunities and people. Be curious – take time to smell the flowers – which was the philosophy of a 1930’s professional golfer, Walter Hagen. He thought it was important to take the time to look around, to enjoy life. You should also take time to examine the flowers. You should look at the flower and learn how it is made and how the flower came to be.
9. Mentor – It’s not a good idea to go it alone, so you probably shouldn’t even try. Have several mentors. Join clubs and associations. Stay connected to your industry, and its thought leaders. Stay connected to friends both old and new. Make sure you are fussy about the wagon to which you choose to hook your star. Surround yourself with good people.

With this in mind, it’s just as important to gather the real facts on which to base life’s decisions. We are constantly being bombarded with information. In the last five years the flood of information is unprecedented in our history. It is mostly due to our ability to deliver news and other information digitally. With all of this information, it’s tough to choose what’s right or wrong, what’s fact or fiction.

Just think about the number of times all of us glance at our phones when new information that pops up.

This week, the week of January 27, has been declared National News Literacy Week by the News Literacy Project.

The News Literacy Project, is a nonpartisan national education nonprofit. According to their mission statement, it “Provides programs and resources for educators and the public to teach, learn and share the abilities needed to be smart, active consumers of news and information and equal and engaged participants in a democracy. https://newslit.org/

“News literacy is the ability to determine the credibility of news and other content, to identify different types of information, and to use the standards of authoritative, fact-based journalism to determine what to trust, share and act on. Being news-literate also means recognizing the critical role of the First Amendment and a free press in a democracy and interacting with news and other information in ways that promote engaged participation in civic life.”

There does not appear to be a bias in the organization toward a conservative or liberal point of view. As a matter of fact, they have a news literacy test a person can either choose a liberal or conservative path relative to misinformation.

As a journalism student at the U of M, we learned in our first reporting class to gather all the facts, and then fact check the facts. This is a good practice  that is still true today, whether we are reading about the best bed to order on line, or information about our government agencies.

Both were created to be more like droids, an abbreviated term for androids, robotic type creatures that possessed artificial intelligence (AI) and human like characteristics, which were meant to make them appear more friendly. R2-D2 was a round aluminum ball that scooted along difficult landscapes in other galaxies, and was quite adorable.

More recent developments of androids, using robotic technology and applying A.I. seem kind of creepy, even though they are designed to act and appear like humans.

Then there are the industrial robots that perform work like tasks like those developed by Boston Dynamics, an American engineering and robotics design company founded in 1992 as a spin-off from the highly prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. Boston Dynamics is owned by the Hyundai Motor Group since December, 2020.

Their machine-like creations are meant to perform all type of industrial tasks, and look like intricate machines devoid of human qualities. Kind of like an erector set. But it’s possible that with imagination, music and creativity, an emotional connection can happen, which is exactly what Boston Dynamics accomplished with a video they produced which has been viewed over 25 million times on YouTube.

Set to the music of the Contours, a musical group from the Motown era in the 60’s, “Do You Love Me (Now that I can dance)” their robots show off some amazing dance moves considering they are robots

There is no doubt these robots can perform industrial tasks, but now that they can dance, there is an emotional connection, which all successful brands have, as did Boston Dynamics and their robots. Don’t you just love ’em?

Here began the process working with hundreds, maybe thousands of people. Some of the customers drove into the gas station in a Chevy Bellaire, which my dad’s Prudential insurance agent drove, incidentally. That type of car morphed, in terms of brand into today’s Honda Accord. It was the car for the responsible and conservative adult. The convertible drivers? They were a totally different type of person. The Renault drivers? This was a car that routinely caught on fire, when you tried to gas it up. But the owners loved those little French imports. I quickly learned the emotional attachment people had with their cars. Afterall their car was their second largest purchase after their home. But there seemed to be much more going on than the dollar investment. Reacting with all of these people and servicing their cars was my first exposure to brand, but never realized it at the time.

Next came the University of Minnesota where I received a degree in Journalism / Broadcast / Marketing. It was a great education, because it filled my marketing bag with loads of useful tools, for example how to write a story. In order to be accepted to the J-School, you had to pass two composition courses, expository and creative, and then the school taught us how to write a story. Along with this came learning the importance of accuracy; and furthermore, how to tell a story in front of a camera, live in 3 minutes, and how to listen and check the details.

After time in the US Army, I gained experience in four different industries that shaped the way I looked at just about everything.

The first experience was working for the Tennant Company. They sold industrial floor cleaning products, in every type of industry, from steel foundries to parking ramps. Their sales force received exhaustive training to include working in the factory on the assembly line, product knowledge on every machine, and how to make an effective presentation, complete with video reviews of everyone in the class. They hired former teachers for many of the sales positions because they were really good at explaining things, and with this approach they became very successful at selling sweepers and scrubbers. I, on the other hand was moderately successful at selling because I spent a lot of time trying to determine what motivated people to buy, rather than go for the quick sale.

The next stop was a Miller Publishing that was launching an agricultural market research group. They wanted someone to help sell their newly minted research services. I didn’t know much about farming nor market research, but I did know how to sell.

Agribusiness was becoming more sophisticated. The crop chemical and implement companies wanted to be more strategic in the way they went to market. Knowing more about the target audience would be an important element for how these companies trained their sales people and equipped their dealers.

Equipped with 10’s of thousands of names from the ag publications, our research group offered mail surveys, telephone interviews and, what become a ground breaking service at that time, focus group interviews. Ag marketers were thirsty to figure out things like cultural and cropping practices, a hierarchy of influencers and how they might respond to new advertising and new products, and in general how farmers made buying decisions.

We discovered, for example, that the color of the tractor was as important as the transmission. Some farmers were green, they were tried and true John Deere men. It told is that there were emotional connections to brands were extremely important in their buying decision, even ones that were highly sophisticated, with lots of product attributes like tractors. Another example of an emotional connection was a major agricultural lender whose tag line was, “Farming is everybody’s bread and butter.” It was an emotional message because it supported the farmer’s importance in the food chain that most consumers did not understand.

And finally, there were the advertising agencies and the design business, Kazoo Branding, I started, working with many talented art directors, designers and writers to develop brands for every type and size of business from healthcare to entertainment. During this time, I learned the “creatives” could not only write a killer headline or visualize the message, but they were also excellent marketers. They needed concrete reasoning for what they were about to do. It needed to make sense. They needed some parameters. As one art director once told me, “Give me the freedom to work in a small box.” We came to call it the strategy. Basically, it was helping the whole team figure it out.

And this is what we hope to accomplish. Help people figure things out.