Skate Blog Intern Blog

To help facilitate this, we are going to present the material through our eyes as a growing brand while including some descriptive terms to educate you.

What is a brand?

Ultimately, it’s the combination of features (name, logo, design) and personality that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers through the perceived experience of each person.  A brand  is made up of many elements including:  Name, Logo, Graphics, Shapes, Colors, Sounds, Scents, Tastes, etc.

What is a brand experience and brand image?

This psychological aspect (brand image) includes brand associations like thoughts, feelings, perceptions, images, attitudes, beliefs, etc. and a symbolic construct created within the minds of people.  Brand experience involves the sum of all points of contact with the brand and is a brand’s action perceived by a person.

At Bamboo Skateboards, are goal is to ensure that the brand experience is unique.  We achieve this by a combination of things including:

• Utilization of sustainable materials in the construction of our skateboards, which others aren’t doing to our level
• Pride from purchasing products that benefit charities and at-risk youth
• Positive role models who help to inspire skaters with not only their skating, but life’s stuff as well
• Timely delivery of goods and continuous availability of products
• Continuous engagement through social media, events, etc.
• Creative/stylistic expression in decks, t-shirts, etc.
• Lifestyle expression
• “B” logo included in all marketing efforts
• Pop/Strength/Sustainability – 3 pillars
• “Don’t be a beaver” and “The grass is greener on our side” slogans
• Targeted market segmentation
• Guerilla marketing

What is Brand Recognition?

Brand recognition is when a brand is widely recognized in the marketplace, whether it’s by logo, slogans or color, independent of its actual name.  Our goal is to achieve this predominantly through our “B” logo but also through the style of art we use for board graphics, t-shirts, stickers, etc.  We are still fine-tuning this process but our one day goal is to have our own distinct style; truly our own.

What is Brand Awareness?

Brand awareness refers to customers’ ability to recall and recognize the brand under different conditions and link to the brand name, logo, jingles and so on to certain associations in memory.  It consists of both brand recognition and brand recall.  It helps the customers to understand to which product or service category the particular brand belongs and what products and services are sold under the brand name.

While there are many things that go into branding, one of the more important things when setting up a company is the logo.  Think of all the amazing logos that we’ve seen from the Nike swoosh to the Volcom stone to Apple to Coca Cola.  Even when they aren’t the most creatively designed logos or seem to not even make sense to what the business does, it doesn’t really matter.  What matters is that our eyes recognize it, it’s burned into our minds and eventually (from the brands perspective) that people identify with it.

When we first created our BambooSK8 “B” logo, we hired an organization called Creative Deployment to assist us since they had extensive history in action sports.  We knew we wanted something to reflect the 3 arrows similar to the recycle sign, utilize a green color and make it very distinct and memorable.  We were first presented a page of 12 designs, and only 1 of them stuck out in the lower right corner.  After going back to the drawing board with a few more pages of designs, we came back to that original one in the corner and made some final tweaks before we were 100% satisfied.  This was what would become legally trademarked.  As years passed, we expanded upon the design by reducing a 3rd arrow, tightening up the middle section and locking in the 3 specific colors that were used.  Looking back, the reason for more changes was simply because of the new insights we learned as our brand grew and our need to mature with it.   Our desire to give our fans the best possible artistic expression we possibly could contributes to their band experience with us.

Branding is something extremely vital to a company. Not only does branding allow companies to differential themselves, but also allows the market to associate what to expect when interacting with the brand. For example, Bamboo Skateboards differentiates themselves from other skate companies from the material, but promotes the pop and sustainability of the board. Branding is also extremely important when designing the logo, since eventually companies want to be recognizable with just their name for the brand they have built.  By understanding these aspects, it is important when branding your company to know your target audience. This will allow you to effectively brand in areas with high volumes of the market you are trying to capture. In addition, if you know your market, you can promote within it using other collaborations to help highlight your brand such as a celebrity or athlete. For example, promoting Bamboo Skateboards, they could get a celebrity skater for promotional shots and attention. Overall, branding is the entity which drives the company. -NB

Branding can be anything from a slogan, design, or logo. To me, branding is extremely important when trying to build a company as well as the company’s marketing strategy. Some of my favorite brands have been very successful at creating a brand image and have relied on this image to carry their success. A company that did this very well is RVCA. When RVCA first burst on to the scene they approached branding in a way unlike its competitors. RVCA took a more subtle approach to branding by creating a name that was unusual, causing people to be interested in it. They have a very clean and simple logo with the abbreviated VA and their clothing is also very minimalistic.  Bamboo Skateboards is on the right track by getting rid of SK8 and replacing it with “Skateboards.” Bamboo also has a cool logo that is easily recognizable and can be quickly associated to Bamboo.  From what I have noticed about action sports companies is that in order to succeed you have to be viewed as “cool” by the action sports world. One way to achieve this is by having high profile athletes that become “franchise athletes.” For example Shaun White and Burton/Oakley, another way is through advertising and also quality of product. Bamboo skateboards needs to focus on advertising and quality of products mainly because a limited budget prevents them from attracting high profile athletes. – BB

Branding is a huge part of the marketing process. The brand is the first thing I look at when checking out a new company on the market. Right away you can tell if the companies brand is well thought out and focused toward their target audience. A company such as Macy’s will have a very generic brand identity that reaches out to a huge audience. Where as a company like TWS only reaches out to a very small niche audience so they can have a more focused brand identity.  It is important to know who your audience is and what kind of marketing they react to. I can usually tell if I am going to like a brand just from something as small as their logo, the way they speak in their ad’s and media or as big as who the owner or CEO is. This is all part of establishing a good brand identity in the market. – MM

Brand is the personality that identifies a product, service or company and how it relates to key customers, staff, partners, investors etc. Brand identity is what the owner wants to communicate to its potential consumers.  Brand identity should be in mind when targeting the audience. Think about how Bamboo appears to young athletes. Bamboo skateboards should reflect a brand that is welcoming to the youth. They should feel a sense of association and familiarity with what the brand represents. By promoting events, products and messages that allow young athletes to interact with the company on a medium that they are familiar with, bamboo has created a closer gap between brand identity and brand image. – JD