When we think of great companies—small and large—it’s hard NOT to think of the Entrepreneurs tied to them. With their quirks and passions and demons and stories. The stories are the stuff of legend. Brands are built from legends. And legends become iconic.

One character, Richard Branson, recently had a campaign built around his own story. Watch here.

It’s a wonderful campaign because it beautifully captures the incessant, sometimes charming—always inventive—qualities of an entrepreneur. Forgive them their trespasses for we will ALL benefit from their invention. Especially when their brand is Virgin.

I especially enjoyed the recent article on Richard in Entrepreneur. I don’t always agree with Entrepreneurial wisdom but I certainly love Branson’s 5 Rules for Entrepreneurs, the 5^th being: “Be visible: Market the company and its offerings…”

Embrace your story, embrace your passion, and shout it from the hillsides and mountaintops.  If you can’t do it fearlessly or constantly, hire someone to do it for you. Don’t keep your passion, entrepreneurial spirit and business vision from the world. We need it now more than ever.

At the event, Daymond spoke to 700 business students about how that entrepreneurial spirit led him from a makeshift clothing factory in his mother’s house to a global, multi-billion-dollar brand. How he had to pound the pavement with nothing but 10 hand-sewn shirts for three years before the sales truly started.  He was engaging and interspersed his commentary with a lively soundtrack of the times. There’s nothing like a presentation you can dance to.

So what makes an entrepreneur successful? See Daymond’s extended comments here. His 5 key, universal “shark rules were:

1. Set a goal
2. Do your homework
3. Love what you do
4. Remember that you are the brand (and be able to say in two to five words what your brand is about)
5. Keep moving

To be a success, an entrepreneur must also have access to leaders who came before. That’s why organizations like Kennesaw State University are so important. Whether hosting lectures like these, offering the Entrepreneur 2.0 Certificate program or collaborating with groups like Entrepreneur Advisors (who co-sponsored Daymond’s visit), Kennesaw State continues to go above and beyond to shape today’s students into tomorrow’s innovators. As an Entrepreneur Advisor board member who is also developing Entrepreneur 2.0 curriculum, I am proud of the efforts to spread the entrepreneurial bug far and wide.

Read more about Entrepreneur 2.0.

But awards do matter. And we know that because our clients and prospects keep proving they matter by asking about them.

• We recently participated in two agency pitches and among the first three questions we were asked: “Have you won any awards…and which ones?” We typically say, “Sure, sure. For this and that. Here is the link to all our awards.” There is somehow an additional sense of confidence in the selection process when someone else has acknowledged the firm.
• Several of our clients are interested in quantifying and receiving third party validation for their marketing efforts (and expenditures) and appreciate copies of awards because it raises their stock internally.

We are proud of the opportunity to serve our clients with ideas that generate results. And the trophies really are fun. But if you know us, you’ll believe us when we say the results we generate (in leads, in visibility, in differentiation, in user experience, in credibility, in cultural change, in REVENUE)…those results are what prove we are winners.

NOTE: While we’re at it, don’t forget to enter the Atlanta Marketing Association AMY Awards. The call for entries is now open and accessible at: www.amyawardsatl.com/

There is of course the adoration of the man and his accomplishments. There are the Wall Street watchers eyeballing the stock as the echo-effect of an honest to God change agent impacts a true brand’s valuation.

The most fascinating headline I’ve seen attributes to Steve Jobs the title: “Master Inventor, Marketer.” Well of course he is. But how many people can you say that of? And how many people would own the label of marketer and believe it is “not a dirty word.”

Inventor. Marketer. Remember that those two words are not mutually exclusive.

The world is desperate for those with a vision. And more than ever people are seeking someone compelling enough to clearly convey a vision and lead. Not just on “Wall Street.” Not just on “Main Street.” Right there in the office where you sit. Right here in mine. And in our homes.

Are you the next “Master Inventor, Marketer?

Sustainability gets thrown around alot. Two years ago I filled my bookshelf with every green marketing and sustainability manifesto I could find. And the greenwashing was everywhere. It was trendy to talk about but very hard to do.

If you want to see what leaders in the space are doing, the American Marketing Association is having a panel lunch on April 19th, including Interface, Southwire Company, Continuum Design and Ted’s Montana Grill. These are guys that take sustainability seriously.

Sustainability is up there with world hunger and world peace. While a lot of companies and people talked about it for a few years, some companies spent the last few decades determining where sustainability, environmental responsibility and corporate citizenship fit within the soul of their company. Once they got that figured out, they were able to plan strategies, act on them and communicate with meaning about real things.

That is, after all, what marketing should be. Choose the strategies that make a real difference, do them consistently and communicate about them with honesty and frequency. It’s hard enough for some companies to sustain a message. To sustain a commitment and then communicate consistently and meaningfully about it…that’s for the pros.

Recently, overstock.com took stock of the brevity of their url and said, can we do better? Now, overstock.com is o.co. It used to be an economy of words. Now it’s an economy of characters.

Did you ever envision a world where “.com” was too long? What will we do when TLAs (three letter acronyms) take too long?

And what happens when we no longer use words to communicate? When I is all that is left? When 1 isn’t the loneliest number, but 1/2 is? But wait a minute…1/2 is in substance shorter than 1, but from a character count, it’s longer with 3 digits. Even “.5″ is longer with 2 characters. Hmmmm.This is going to get interesting.

For more on what social media, brevity and newspeak (all credit due to George Orwell)…actually newtype…have done to how we communicate (in fact whether we communicate) come to the May Women In Technology (WIT) panel “OMG. Can U Succeed” by clicking here.

• INFORMATION OVERLOAD. It’s no longer measured in impressions, it’s measured in gigabytes. J. Walker Smith at a recent AMA Atlanta lunch told us we’ve gone from tens of thousands of daily impressions (or 3 GB) in 1980 to over 33.8 GB daily.
• 60% of B2B SALES CYCLES ARE GREATER THAN 4 MONTHS. That’s what MarketingSherpa’s new 2011 B2B Survey says. We’re living in an instant gratification world where careers launch and die in under a quarter. We often plan campaigns with a 1 to 2 month arc. That’s how the people we sell to are wired, but it’s not how the SALE/BUY we’re furthering is wired. We need to reconcile that contradiction.

There are a whole bunch of other reasons it is hard to have a meaningful dialogue. What is meaning to you? What is meaning to them? How into you are they? What do you want to happen? And how do you get them to ask, “And then what happened?” That’s engagement. It’s the first step to a relationship with customers, partners, prospects, employees, you name it. Make sure you thinking about, talking about, planning and taking the right steps.

• For help positioning yourself and selling yourself over the long haul, email us: info@modomodoagency.com
• For more on J. Walker Smith, check him out at the Futures Company here.
• For the free Executive Summary of the Marketing Sherpa 2011 B2B Study, launch the PDF here.

History can be the judge of who has made the right decisions. Who had sound strategy. Who demonstrated leadership. Who served as the best brand steward and who built the most brand value.

These are just teasers, there are tons of articles for further reading on the following.

• Gap Has A New Logo…No Wait…They Don’t - When you have brand equity, you need to be cautious about brand evolutions. Who knows if this is what happened here. Needless to say there was enough poo-pooing in one week for Gap to decide to flush their Logo investment down the toilet and go back to the beloved, comfortable, recognizable lockup. Did it affect revenue? I’m sure they asked those questions or are checking it out.
• StarBucks Has A New Logo…Really…They’re Sticking With It – When Starbucks customers learned that the company name was taken out of the mark they went ballastic. The brand managers said they were sorry but they’d thought about it, done research and knew it was time to evolve. For an instant gratification, change-driven culture it is amazing how much we all cling to habit. We’ll see what impact this has on revenue. After 40 years, will people not know Starbucks when they don’t see the words?
• Motrin Moms - What happens when a small (3%?) segment of REALLY vocal consumers are incensed by your campaign? Ask Motrin. You take down your site, your campaign, then you ask questions about what the impact is. Was it ready, fire, aim? Who knew…they just knew those moms were pissed.

If you’re having a slow day and want to read more stories of consumerism gone awry, brand management gone astray, social media gone meteoric and some people with an entirely out of whack sense of their own relevance and power, check this blog on “A Chronology of Brands that got Punk’d by Social Media.” It’ll make your head spin.

Modo Modo Agency Ranks #2 on Fastest Growing Women-Owned Firms List by the Atlanta Business Chronicle

The last few year have seen plenty of ups and downs. Some media sources and some hard hit industries have dominated the discussion. But all is not darkness. In all this change are millions of opportunities for invention, reinvention and growth.

We don’t just profess this as cheerleaders for our clients…we say this because we have experienced it first hand. Modo Modo Agency was just ranked the 2nd Fastest Growing Women-owned Business in Atlanta by the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

We’re proud of this because it puts us in league with our clients, attempting to grow in a variety of capacities. Some people hear “growth” and think of headcount or square footage at headquarters. We hear growth and ask more questions to determine how marketing can help achieve the specific growth our customer is after:

• Geographic Expansion – marketing assists with voice of the customer and learns regional, national and international distinctions. Targeting is key.

• Product Line Expansion - marketing helps articulate and leverage existing market experience that reinforces the new line value prop. If the lines are unrelated, marketing can focus more on establishing a distinct identity rapidly and getting to market.

• Growth Through Acquisition – marketing helps understand the two firms coming together, the collective value prop, the comprehensive customer set and help align teams, messages and materials. Acquisitions also move at the speed of light so marketers play a critical role in rapidly assimilating information and organizating the launch of the retained or refreshed brand.

There are of course many more types of growth–across industry, across category, and more. Whatever the opportunity our customers face, we are always excited and curious to learn and grow with them. Our success in asking these questions, keeping this type of optimism and seeing the vision that our customer expresses leads to our own growth.

Here’s to more growth in 2010 and beyond. Let us know how we can help you.

2010 AMY Award Winners

We couldn’t be more proud of the recognition we continue to receive from communications awards that place a premium on results. In the last several years we have been recognized for every type of integrated brand and marketing strategy there is. This year is no different with two wins at the 2010 AMA AMY Awards for:

•  Visual Branding/Identity – B2B for “IQL Logo/Branding” for IQ Laboratories

• Event Marketing – Event Under $100k Investment for “SureSeal Irrigation Show Marketing” for Southwire Company

The AMYs held at Atlanta’s Fabulous Fox Theatre are always a fun event for our firm. As active particpants and leaders in the AMA organization, we enjoy seeing the diversity and quality of entrants and campaigns that Atlanta has to offer. We are proud to be a part of the movement to keep Atlanta at the forefront of marketing excellence and represent the many innovators that call this their home.

To see the complete list of winners and learn how you can get involved with AMA Atlanta or the AMY Awards visit the Website at www.amyawardsatl.com/aboutamaatlanta.html.