Transcript of Authentic Branding: This Changes Everything

Welcome to the I Am Charles Schwartz Show. In this episode, we're diving deep into the world of branding mastery with Howard Lim, the visionary behind some of the most iconic brand transformations of our time. With over 37 years of experience and a client list that reads like a who's who of global powerhouses, Howard has cracked the code on turning businesses into unforgettable brands. From positioning the Lion King on Broadway to revolutionizing campus access cards, Howard's journey is a masterclass in branding brilliance. He's navigated the ever-changing landscape of consumer perception and emerged as a beacon of innovation, all while maintaining a laser focus on authentic brand experiences. In this conversation, Howard unveils his blueprint for brand domination. He reveals why most so-called branding experts are missing the mark, and how understanding the true essence of branding can skyrocket your business to new heights. You'll discover why your logo is just the tip of the iceberg, and how crafting a compelling brand personality can turn customers into lifelong advocates. If you're ready to elevate your business from forgettable to phenomenal, grab your notepad and prepare to ignite your brand's true potential. Howard's insights are practical, no nonsense, and packed with actionable wisdom that could revolutionize how you think about your business identity.

The show starts now. Welcome to the I Am Charles Schwartz Show, where we don't just discuss success, we show you how to create it. On every episode, we uncover the strategies and tactics that turn everyday entrepreneurs into unstable powerhouses in their businesses and their lives. Whether your goal is to transform your life or hit that elusive seven, eight, or nine-figure mark, we've got the blueprint to get you there. The show starts now.

All right, welcome back to the show. Today, we're with Howard, and we're talking about branding and so many other different things. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Absolutely. Pleasure being here.

Tell the audience a little bit more about you. I know you've got some amazing stuff. We were talking about this off camera, about all the campaigns that you've done and all the branding you've done. Tell the audience a little bit more about you and how you're an expert.

Sure. I've doing what I've been doing, but it's evolved quite a bit over the last 37 years. Pretty much everybody's been affected by one of the things I've branded or positioned or built over the last years. For example, I helped position Lion King, the Broadway show for Disney, to their investors, and now I think it's made over $9 billion. The UCSB Access Card, which became the standard for all campuses now. I think, if I'm not mistaken, it's about $20 annually across all campuses around the globe. And then the reband an LA Marathon, which we had a set up participation that are using that format for all LA marathons, and that drives a lot of revenue as well. I'm very much about when it comes to branding, ROI.

It's all about ROI. How did you get into this? How did you discover that you had this gift and that branding really was your thing?

Really, quite honestly, it's going to be sound weird, but when I was five years old, the first time I ever fingerpainted, filling the paint. Back then, it was like powder and mixing it with water. I just remember putting my fingers on the paper, and I felt it was so magical that I was able to create wherever I chose to, whatever my imagination allowed me to do. When I was in grade school, through junior high, through high school, the teachers noticed that I was really into design and art. I'd be always taken to decide and given special projects. I had a to go to, I think, two of the best schools in the world, Cal Poly and San Luis Obispo. I majored in Applied Art and Design before design became even a major and studied packaging, photography, design, illustration, and the list went on. Then after I finished my degree there, I went to Art Center School in Pasadena. That's where the model Audi TT came from, Volkswagen, some of the greatest movies you've ever seen. I really wanted to go to that school. They had the first Macintosh lab in the world, and I figured out how to get things out of the computer.

That's where it really hit me hard. I was like, Well, let me just do this for other companies, showing them what's possible to get really creative. Fortunately, Fortune 500 companies understood what I was doing. I started working representing Apple, Xerox, and Dreamworks, and started to show them what was possible. And lo and behold, by working with big brands such as its Fortune 100 companies, I started to learn what it really took to build a brand because brand is not taught in school. And so it really hit me that it was like, Well, okay, what is the makeup of branding? The essence of branding, quite honestly, if you really look at it, is one design which has to do with engaging and designing things that are esthetically pleasing to engage to consumer and hit their emotions. Then advertising, which is all about positioning. When I When I was growing up, it's like, okay, my brother was in advertising, and he says, You have to choose between design and advertising. I said, Why can't I do both? And that's evolved to the branding that we know today. Now, it's built with more layers, but that's the essence.

What So you talk a lot about how there's a difference in branding and that you learned it, and it started with finger printing and it all and ended up with Dreamworks and all that, which is just wild that you go from that. What are some of the major mistakes that people do when they do branding? I mean, other than having to rename their podcast in the middle of the season.

So a lot of times, quite honestly, what I found is two ways to build a brand, from a hip or by design. What's happening is that most people are doing it from the hip without understanding to different, we could say, the different principles behind branding. And how could they know it? Because it has to do with a lot of school, like I mentioned, design and advertising, so forth and so on. It has to do with layerings of understanding and knowledge. So most people... And the other thing, too, is that they're thinking that they confused branding that's saying with marketing, and they're totally two different animals.

Walk me through that. How do you differentiate marketing versus branding? Because I think for most people who have done this, who have scaled, we get it. But some people are like, Wait, what? There's a difference between branding and marketing? I just thought branding was underneath marketing, and it's not. How do you describe the difference between the two?

So branding is about the long term position of a company to build its equity, to build its position in the market, and to be understood based on, say, some of the core principles like, Well, what's your philosophy? That's part of branding. What are the values of the company? What is its position? Who's its target market? It's a little bit about marketing, definitely, but it's more about how do you want to get known in the mind of the consumer? Because a big part of branding is not what you're saying, it's what everyone else is saying about you. The question is, how do you everyone to say who you are. The first thing, establish who you are and what you do. The second part of this equation now is using marketing, like I say, like a megaphone to broadcast who you are through the different channels, whether online and offline.

I think one of the things that people never talk about is brand equity. The idea, and I'm stealing this, this is completely your example, where you sit there and say, Hey, I'm going to take a warehouse that's full of Nike shoes, and I'm going to give you all the Nike shoes. They're yours, but you don't get to have the name, how valuable they're shoes. I think that's the difference between brand equity, and people just don't understand that in any way, shape, or form. They're so focused on, How do I just eat? How do I pay the bills? How do I pay my employees? Versus how do I build something that can become a Dreamworks? How do I build something that can be this multimillion or billion dollar thing that you've been involved in? One of the things you were also talking about is there's different people inside branding. There's different people that you hire, and there's different environments. And most people just, I don't think, understand that. I think they're like, I'm just going to hire a guy for five minutes, and my brand's done, and I'm good to go, and I never have to reevaluate it again.

It's completely wrong. Walk me through that as we go into those things.

Yeah. So what's happening, too, is a lot of people, they use branding, don't do branding. It's so funny because the popularity of branding really happened about 12 years ago. I've been doing it way back, like over 30 plus years. The point being is this, is it became more popular through like Tang magazines, Ford magazines, Money magazine. Everyone's like to talk about branding, right? But then the next day everyone says they're doing branding, and so there's a lot of confusion out there. So what happens is that a lot of people are not doing... In fact, quite honestly, out of all the hundreds of people I've met over the years at SayyDee Branding, two people actually. It's a very complex world. It is. It's a really complex world. Going back to your question, there's different differentiations between different experts of branding. Basically, there's three major camps. There's a camp as far as strategists. The strategists are looking at the long-term play, and I say that, Where do I look at? Is that a design from your future and bring it into the now present? It's really thinking way down the road. It's like, Here's my business model.

It's like someone comes to us and goes, Here's our business model? How can we make it so you can maximize its value? And quite honestly, what is the cycle of that life of that product, service, or information? There's a lot of deep thinking that goes into it. It's like, Well, you have to answer What's your overall philosophy? Starting off with not about even making money, but starting off with what is going to make you distinct and different from everybody else, and what would yield adaptability. And by the way, what markets do you want to actually be able to be delivered in, and what industries? So there's a lot of- It's a lot of like- It's a lot of like... It's like this. You want to build a city, you start off with the blueprint. You just start building a piece of putting things together. Otherwise, you'll have a pretty dysfunctional city.

I think you talked about before, some people do branding right off the hip versus planning out and being strategic about it. It sounds like the difference between the people who have spent the time to scale and build, which are totally different things. When they're going to do this, the difference from becoming a multimillion dollar business versus a billion dollar business all comes down to branding. If they don't put the time in now, if they don't spend the X amount of days and ask specific questions, and I guess, you talk about there's multiple versions of this. You talk about the strategist. But remind me before we get too far away, I want to tell the audience the top five questions or 10 questions they should be asking. At the end of that, after we go through the different ones, let's definitely go into that and say, Hey, these are the things that you should be asking. Because most people don't understand, and if you're not watching the video of this, Howard did a really good job where he talks about all these people that he's met this entire time, he only met two people that were actually branders.

I don't think most people ever come across people who are actually branders in that case. Because if you're doing this for 37 years and you've come across two, the chances of people like me running across people like you are pretty darn rare. If we've got the branding strategist, which we understand that, what is the next person? What is the next step in this?

The next part after the strategy, you figure out who you are, what makes you unique, what makes you different from everybody else. Then the next part is execution, which I call implementation. It's now what I call you have your DNA, or you could say even your ingredients to, let's say, a beautiful cake or meal, it's now making that meal. It's now making that meal. It's now making that cake with those ingredients. And that's where it takes, for example, to be a strategist. In my book, it takes about 10 years to master becoming a brand strategist. It's like a whole different language in itself. Where you start to understand it. Like, what's the brand architecture of your business? Who's going to be the ambassador to your brand? There's so many components to that. Then there's the execution, which is now let's build it. Okay, so you got blueprint. Let's stick with the analogy of a city. You now have the blueprint. It's like, well, let's start figuring out the roadways. After we figure out the roadways, let's figure out the residential area, let's just figure out the residential area, just figure out the commercial areas. Let's figure out how everything needs to work around the water, electricity, right?

So now it's building it, okay? So the building part of it, in my book, there's five major components to it. So branding memory is about not what you're saying, it's what everyone else is saying about you. The question becomes, how are you going to influence them? And Getting back to that brand equity, what's in the mouth, help them become familiar with your brand, with the face of the brand. I call it the brand icon. The brand icon is a name in a company, it's the mark like a Nike swoosh, it's the font that you use, like apple is very clear what font. It's the color that you use. For example, Pepsi owns red. Excuse me, CocaCola owns red, Pepsi owns blue. So these are the things that really... And the font that you use, so the tagline as These five elements are what start to build the face of the brand. Now, is that branding the logo, for example? No. That's 5% to a brand identity. That's 5% to a brand identity. Now you're talking about, that's the face to the company. Think of it like a brand, like a person. Now it's the personality.

When you look at big brands, think about this like commercial. So you got the main hand guy for Allstate, you got Flow Both for progressive, you got the Geico Lizard for Geico. Those are all personality of the brands. Now, why do people, why do big brands do that? Is because they want to make it personalized and they want to be relatable to their target market. That's part of the design need in a strategy to figure out what personality should we create for a brand and what are the associations with that personality. When you write a copy for a website or let's say commercial, now you're going to have some consistency between how you're actually projecting that brand, the storytelling, the tone voice. What happens when people do it on their own and don't understand it, it's called the Sybil effect. I call it the sip effect. When they have all these different personalities out there of their brand, guess what? No one knows who you are. You're actually diluting your brand before you even started.

I never sat down, even with everything that I've done, never said, Okay, what's the personality of our org? What is the personality at and how are we coming across this? Just while you were talking, I was going through a couple of companies that I've worked with, and I was like, Oops. To get the idea that we never had this. We did great. We exited, we had great multipliers. We've never sat down and looked at our sales copy. We never looked at our website, we've never looked at our post, we've never looked at anything and said, Okay, what is our personality that we're trying to come across. It was more about, can we get looks and views and can we get virality? Is it going to close? What is it going to do for the ROI? What is our upcoming sale? It's interesting because when it comes to, because you gave the insurance ones, there are specific ones I will not buy from because of the personality that I chose. I'm like, That does not resonate with me. I'm not going to do that. It was one of those things that's completely subconscious that I didn't understand in any way, shape, or form.

When someone I'm not trying to design this personality. I'm going to completely go here because this is fun. How do you find that balance? How do you find a situation where you might have gone too far down the road with one? For a simple example, there's a very specific personality for political parties right now. It is what it is. It's a personality. We get it. I'm not going to bash one side or the other. I'm going to leave it alone. This is not a political show. But I talk about this all the time that people don't buy products or services that may store identities in ways out of pain. I'm going to have to add to that, they buy personalities. Because if I told you and I asked you, Hey, here's a guy who's got a 4x4 truck. Who did he vote for? Here's a person who drives a Fiat. Who did they vote for? Here's a person with a Louis Vuitton bag. Who's the person with a Whole Foods bag? Who You know who they're voting for. I've always used these examples. I've never understood it as a personality. That's huge for me. When you're designing that personality, how do you design it in a way that you're not going to isolate?

It's a huge chunk of the audience.

It's a lot of it figuring out the persona of your ideal customer. You can't be all things to all people because that becomes a waste of marketing as well. Seeing that over and over and over and over and over again. So really, it's really what's called, and this goes back to when I was doing a lot of work in adding seas back in the '80s and '90s, which is still, it's now coming out. It's like the trade secret of how good ads become very powerful ads. It's called mood boards. So you create the mood board to figure out your ideal customer, and you're figuring out, well, what would it wear? What would it shop? Who is this character? Is it female? Is it male? Is it actually neutral? What's its age? And so you're really building in, in this dialog is how its emotions will be and what its lifestyle is. Is it urban? Is it suburban? Is it a farmer? Right. No, absolutely. And it works. So how you make sure you're not alienating is you make sure then you're figuring out that you actually have a brand that actually could maybe float, I'm just making it sound, between 25 and 50.

Or let's say, why don't we get down to teenager, but also appeal to the elder. So this is where you actually think very creatively, what different campaigns could be created? What's the core? And in front of that core, what could be offshoots? What I always get with clients is I say, Okay, what's going to be our core message? It takes about two hours to get down to the core message, right? The point being is when that core message doesn't even have different offshoots to appeal to those different marketplace based on what channel they're at. Like, are they on YouTube? Are they reading a newspaper? Okay. Because we got four different Now we got the four biggest buying power. It's the fourth one starting to pick up the Z generation. But the point being is that you got to really understand the psychology of your buyers to figure out what would be the right persona for the personality to be relatable. And the reason why we buy from emotions.

100%. It sounds like you're building, not only are you trying to identify your target market, but it's about who does the target market want to have lunch with? Who would the target market invite to their house? That's who you're building because it's based on completely off emotions. It's something that I've never heard of before. Again, you've only met two of these in the world. I've never heard anyone describe it. I've always heard build rapport, get emotions, identify their pain, find their watering hole. All of those things I've heard a million times. I've never heard anyone say it's about personality. What is your personality of your brand? Absolutely game-changing. Going back, we got strategists, we've got the implementer, we've got the blueprint of the city. We have, Okay, now who's going to build the density? What's our next step? How do we go from there after that?

Okay, so when I always got like when we were rebuilding WSS, for example, in 2010 in a recession, a company that was not doing well at all, what we had to do is do a really launch. And so we came with the strategy. I worked with literally seven or VPs to actually come up with solutions to all them. But the biggest thing was to come from the standpoint that we're all on the same page. Everybody, because they had their in-house Marketing, Marketing, Advertising. I also worked with the CFO and CEO, but everybody was moving in their own different directions. I call that the silo effect. The first thing was getting everybody were on the same seeing sheet. That's why We call a master blueprint is so imperative to make sure everyone's clear where we're heading and how we're all going to move there because it's everybody's business when it comes to building the brand.

I know this is going to come as a surprise, but you're telling me that when you go to scale a business that people don't talk to each other and inside the organization, they're actually not each other's friends?

No. You get it.

I tell people all the time. The biggest problem in the organization is not the fact you're trying to get customers. It's just internal. Your culture is broken. Exactly. Why are you doing this? They're just completely. The CFO hates the CIO and the marketing person.

Exactly.

They hate each other. It's the biggest problem. You got to unify your culture. When you run into this, you've done this at pretty high levels. You've done this for billion-dollar companies. I'm completely taking us off course here, but what are some of the ways that you unify them? What are some of the ways when you come in and you're like, Hey, guys, I get it. Marketing thinks branding is garbage. Branding hates IT. It hates fulfillment. How have you found a way when you come in and you help out these huge organizations, which is what you do, how do you say, Okay, guys, we all need to play nice to each other because we don't like to eat in two months? How do you do that? What are some of the tips and traits that you do?

That's a great question. I always start with the philosophy, and I always work with the spearhead, the founder, the CEO, or it could be the president or a combination. But whoever is in charge, I get to understand who they are. What's funny is that employees, like with With companies that have been around for decades, even generations, you could say the management positions finally get to understand who he or she is and how they think. So always start with the very top to get an understanding what's in their head and questions that have never been asked before. So then we could start to figure out, well, what are we looking at, first of all, as a business and where we're heading. So always start with the philosophy, and I have these very deep question that I ask this, the quote, unquote, the leader, you could say. And once those questions are answered, I form this statement. And that statement should not be more than two sentences long. Any longer than that becomes not memorable for anybody.

It's confusing.

There's not a luffy paragraph.

What are the questions that you ask the founder? What is the one that you walk in? What are the top two or three that you're like, Hey, I need to figure out what? You're the spearhead. How do we find alignment here? What do you normally ask? Sure.

One of the questions could be like, If you're facing the more horrific challenges with your business, what values are so inherent your company would cease to exist?

Got you. I can tell you most sea levels, because this is whom that's my world, I interact with the sea guys, I would say majority of them would have no clue how to answer that question immediately right off the hip. They would have to sit down and form that together because they've I've never thought about it. One of the things that I love talking to you about, Howard, is the fact that you're asking questions and you're bringing it from a point of view, because you've been doing this for 37 years, that even as someone who I've done scaling and I've done exits, never ask these questions. Never even thought of asking these questions. So That's absolutely right. Okay, so that's one. You got another one for me? Because I'm just stealing information. This is great.

Yeah. So now I wanted to be like, what legacy do you want to leave behind?

Legacy is huge.

Yeah. What legacy do you want to leave behind and Why?

Why is a big part on that one?

Why? You're right. A lot of times, the CEO, they've been asked this question. So, of course, I help coach him through it. What happens is, though, is that they start to see a bigger picture than they ever thought was possible. The reason why I do this, by the way, is it's reverse working and talking to over 100,000 business owners because I speak all over the world. The point being is this, as I looked at the common denomination, looking at patterns, and I realized that most companies only reach 25% of their potential. I wanted to create a model so they could reach their full potential, 90 plus. With these deeper questions, it allowed us to tap into what's the opportunity of really creating something which is a huge or bigger ROI, but also deeper penetration in marketplace and actually having it where we're going to do more good for all stakeholders. So this is the reason why I start figuring out what is the questions are not being asked that could actually create a company where it's a hell of a lot more sustainable, a hell of a lot more scalable, and actually a place that really people want to work with or work for.

So that's why I went with this strategy of going with deeper questions is so the client would ask you, and it was something with that deeper potential of a bigger business, if they chose that for themselves or to exit faster for that matter, too.

It sounds like doing these things, you mentioned it earlier, that some of the stuff you did in the '80s and which no one was alive back then. No, it was so far ago. But some of the stuff you did back then is still reaping fruit now. Something 30, 40 years later, these companies are like, Hey, we're still implementing it, and this is the value of branding, not marketing, about Building this and sitting down and answering these deep questions. One of the things you told me about that you do is you work with... Yes, you speak all over the world and you've spoken to all these people, but you work with individuals and you really do a brand analysis for them. What does that sound like? Because most people haven't ever done that. They'll just say, Hey, I need a brand. Okay, give me a logo, which you already mentioned, 2% to 5% of who you are. Most people have never sat down with someone who is a brander. If they're walking in and they're like, Hey, I'm going to work with Howard on how to do this, because I want to say a brander, but I don't know any other brander, so Howard.

What environment, what are they going to be doing? What is that experience like for them?

You're right, I work all the way down to solopreneurs, literally. It's not for me the size of companies. It's more about the difference that they're making. My job for me is really is so honestly, I look at this place, at this globe that we are on, and I look at it from a standpoint, how can you actually make it better? It's made up of all these different personalities and different individuals. What I look at is like when I work with someone, I always look at, are they operating of integrity? Do they want to make a difference? Are they coachable? And do they want to have fun on a way?

Those are my thoughts. I wish people would answer the third one. Are they coachable? Good God. I always talk about it. I don't care about the size of you. It's a question that's, Can I scale you? I've said this for years and years and years. The coachable. Holy Moses. I tell customers as well. It's like, okay, do they want your product? Can they afford your product? Will they buy your product? And then the last one being the most important, do you want to work with them? People always forget the last I've got this one. Even when you're trying to coach people on scale, are they coachable? That's a hard ball game. When someone comes in, let's say they created a podcast name and it sucked and they have to change it on the fly, what are they going to be expecting to walk into? What are some of the questions What does that environment look like? What should they prepare before they show up to have this conversation with you?

What I always start off with, no matter who they are, what size, what industry, or B2B, B2C, or B2G, which is business or government, I always start off with an assessment. I do it online that allows me to work here and work with anybody. What I do is I ask them to turn in their logo, which we could talk It's a lot different between a logo and a brand mark. But let's say the logo, they're turning their website, they're turning in brochure, they do have a product, their product, their packaging, even storefronts, because I do a lot of design storefronts or billboards or radio spots, TV spots, their social media. And what I do is I look and critique it in a way to take it from good to great. And it's usually an hour long, and I work really fast, and the whole thing is recorded, and I'm marking things up and going, Okay, where's your value proposition? Like their website. For example, the website I have this process that I take companies through is the way I look at website is that the homepage should really be like a trailer to a movie.

Most websites I see is that they're throwing everything in plus the kitchen sink. So everything is shouting at you, right? And the reason for that is because a lot of times these people that are designing websites are not designers, they're desktop publishers. Yes. Desktop publisher is someone that has no experience in design that picks up a computer and then call themselves a graphic designer without any four years, eight years of schooling. And so what happens is that there's a whole pattern to read in a website, anything for that matter, dominant, Subdominant, subdominant, subdominant, subordinate. The headline should be the first thing that people engage in, like a really strong headline that's engaging. And subordinate would be like the body copy to back that up, right? Subdominant, a lot of times, would be the subheadline. Just like a great newspaper, when you're reading a headline, it catches you. It's this formula, and you're right. These principles will never go away. It's how we digest information.

Right. I think people don't understand that, that these ideas, you're talking about human behavior. Sure, there's different ways to get it. It could be a newspaper or it would have been smoke signals, and now it's social media. The core of it hasn't changed. The delivery method has changed. But the core of it of humans are humans or humans are humans. We talk about this. I've talked to special force operators, and we have this conversation all the time. They're like, Just shoot to wound. I'm like, Why would you shoot to wound? Why wouldn't you eliminate your target? They're like, Because the target has friends, and I'm going to turn one target into I was like, That's universal across the board. It doesn't matter if it's a 50 cow at a 1,000 yards or if it's a bow and arrow at 20 feet. It's these core parts of the human idea and the human existence that if you haven't gone to school and if you don't have these level of experiences, you're going to run into it. I feel like you're a UX designer in a way in the sense of... Let me explain. There's so many times where someone who does UX, which is you as your experience, where they design this whole great thing and you get this very well-trained UX designer.

They're like, Yeah, you're changing everything. They're like, Why? I'm like, Well, People with color blind can't see that. Your stuff's in the wrong place. This can't be there. This is how people read. It sounds like branding is the grandfather of even that as well. It's like, okay, UX is cute. Let's talk about branding. You talk about the difference between a logo and what was the other thing?

Brandmark.

Thank you. A logo and a brandmark. It's so foreign to me. I didn't even know what a brandmark was until right now. What the hell is the difference between a logo and a brandmark?

Okay, so yeah, well, because I started to create what's called an authentic brand. I start creating a glossary of distinctions. And that's a lot of times why people haven't heard this because it's the only category I created over the years. So the point being is that a logo, a lot of times people create a logo based on personality. I'm going to show my friends what my brother-in-law did and see if they like it or dislike it. Ask them why and this and that. But it's all based on the personality. A lot A lot of times logos, for example, I call them a liability, where they're not simple, they're not bold enough, they're not unique enough. They won't work in black and white. So they work as a broaderie all the way down to an app. They won't work from an app to a billboard. So they miss a lot of science to it. The second part that they miss is how it connects to the business. A lot of times I just look at something and I go, What does this have to do with your business? What does this have to do with what you just told me five minutes about your business or what it's about?

How does this connect your identity to your consumer or customer? And... Oh, go ahead.

Sorry, I have a really important question about this one because I always have, how the hell did they get here when it comes to one specific brand? And I'm curious if you've got a famous brand, I'm going, How the hell is that related? For me, the one that stands out is Starbucks coffee. The logo of the mermaid holding up her legs that is cropped, it's a very famous... It It is what it is. How in the same as Zuz's butthole did they get from there to there? I guess my question is, if you've got a logo that you've already been in bed with long enough, it's been part of your brand for 10, 15, 20 years, pivoting your logo or your brand brand, Mark, is not easy. How does someone who didn't know that you existed a couple of years ago go, Oh, crap. We have a mermaid with their legs spread wide open as our logo. Good God. It might work. It might check It might, Hey, look, we can avoid it. It looks good in black and white. It's clear, but it doesn't align with our brand. It doesn't align with the personality of our brand.

How does someone go through and say, Okay, how do I fix this? How do I do this? How do I pivot this?

That's a great question. It's really interesting because when I present and I'm teaching and presenting, I'll showcase studies where a company had a logo to brand mark, and one of them is Starbucks, by the way. Starbucks, if you look at it, it's very like, hand done. It looks very junior level. It looks like someone's done it in their basement. And then you could see the transformation over years. And I knew they're going to have problems. I first saw Starbucks, and it took three more reiterations. Probably cost them millions of dollars to redo all the storefronts and everything associated with all the marketing, all the advertising, all the product itself, to redo it all. So what they had was really... God, this is a loaded question. Let me just finish this discussion. They had the evolution from a logo to a brand mark. The one that was prior to the one that they have now, it's called an emblem mark, where they chiseled it down graphically, so it looked beautiful, it looked simple to digest, but they had the words integrated into the actual mark itself, what's called a Victoria mark or the Merme. The problem with that is that as you start to migrate, you start to grow your company in the different countries.

Guess what? That needs to be translated from English to Arabic or Chinese or whatever, right? It will look like a whole different brand. It looked like you just got knocked off. Right. So what they did, which is I'm a firm believer in that, and I actually started to figure that out building brand marks years ago. The point of being is this, you want to separate the two. So the Mermade is now separate from the words. So now the market sell The pictorial mark, the picture is filling it up in a sense you don't have to have words anymore.

It could stand on the top.

You have something now that's universal in all languages. It has nothing to do with the words. It has to do with an image. Which is the image. That's how that one was able to do it. To keep that story, how he came up with the book because Moby Dick, we keep that part of the history behind it. But the point being is that now it actually is a brand mark, so now we don't have even limitations where we have a lid on it, and now we're able to grow that into any part of the world for that matter, because now you have a strong brand mark.

So one of the questions that people are going to ask about branding, Especially now that we live in a world where you can't get domains anymore, where you can't get the name that you want. That influences a lot of the name of the company, where it's like, Oh, I want to name my company the Bedpest podcast show ever, and I'm sure someone owns that. How do you survive drive when you're building your brand, where you fall in love with an idea, and you've got your brand mark and all of this, but the domain is not available. Do domain names matter anymore?

Absolutely. Before you even think about the name, though, you really want to think about the position, the strategy session, to figure out what is your position, who's your target market, what media you plan to be reaching those target market. When it comes to naming, there's five basic categories of creating a name. First of all, you want to create a name that really you don't want to have more than three syllabus. Then ideally, you don't want to have it more than two words. Why? Because it goes back to how we think. If you want someone to remember who you are, you got to make it simple. It's true. The bomb air, they make up all these fanciful words. You never going to be able to find a website because- You can't spell the name thing. That whole era was like total chaos. I was like, What a freaking nightmare. Genere. But anyways. Yeah, you do want to have it where... So let's go back to there's five ways to create a name. There's Genere, which is not trademarkable, which hotel in the Las Vegas tried to create the hotel called Name Hotel. They battled God knows how much money they spend trying to figure out how to trademark that name.

They could not because it's a common word. Then you get into descriptive re describing, like Motel 6, when it used to be six dollars, right?

Not anymore.

Okay. Then you get into suggestive, and then you get into arbitrary, like apple to fruit and apple to computer, right? Then you get into fanciful, totally made up, like Exxon. Now, here's the beautiful thing. As you start to go up the chart to the where it's arbitrary or fanciful, you're going to have something that separates you from the pack. It will take more to get people to know who your brand is. But the beautiful thing is you will leave the pack and get more known and be more unique to be more memorable, like Lululemon, for example, right? Or as much as we don't like... I didn't like the word at the beginning, Google, right? But the point being is that as you move up the chart. So there are plenty of words. When we come up with names, we come up, like literally when we were clients, we come up with hundreds of names. And my job is to look at if we get a high percentage of dot-coms. Because there's ways to articulate what names should you be creating based on a strategy, and from that DNA starts to build out, well, what are all the possible names that we create based on that strategy to actually best represent that brand position.

There's so much that you've shared here. There's so many things that even with... I'm in the middle of a renaming and a rebranding now where I'm like, that's got all change. There's so much that people just don't know. How How do people find you? How do people sit down and get some of this knowledge and maybe save themselves millions of dollars in not trying to brand something that they can't brand and make it so that their company can scale up into that next level? How do people find you? How do they sit down with you? How can someone pick your brand and get access to you?

I make it really simple. I give away my mobile number and my personal email. My email is howard@howcreative. Com. Howard@howcreative. Com, H-O-W-Creative. Com. Then my phone number is 310-804-4251. Then we'll set up a 10-minute discussion. If you want to go through, quote, unquote, It's up to you. If you want to go through a full assessment, then what I do on my website, I sell for $2,500 for an hour. But through a code using H-O-W to hit the coupon and say, apply, it brings it all the way down to $500. I'll do a whole evaluation, a whole assessment on what you've been creating and show you the gaps. Here's what you just told me where you want to be and who you are, but this is how you're representing yourself right now, and what is that gap?

If someone doesn't have the ability to call you up or jump on the website, are there other resources you have that people can get access to? Are there tools that you like to use?

Yeah. I took this time to write a book. It took me five years. I think it's been about 15 years, and it's called Authentic Branding. It It's sold not so much than bookstores, but globally. But the fastest way people could find it is on Amazon under Authentic Branding by Howard A. Lim. And you could find my book. And the reason why I created this book, by the way, Because at the time, there was maybe five branding books when I wrote this book. And there's one book I really admire called Strong Bands, by the way. That really inspired me. But the point being is that none of these books really had any exercises. Yes. No one wanted to divulge any of their trade secrets, which that's fine. I get to respect that. I said, Well, I'm here to help out as many companies as possible. I'm not actually say, Okay, what do you do to create your values? And How do you test your values? And then give examples and da, da, da, da. So that book is not just a book to read. It's based on actually how do you actually think about your own brand.

And it's available on Amazon?

It's on Amazon, yeah.

I need to go to Amazon after this. Okay, perfect. I really appreciate. I just wanted to make sure we had that. I really appreciate you coming on and changing so many different things. Just the idea, for me, the biggest takeaway was that it's a personality, that you're building that. I was like, oh, crap. Every company I built in scale, I just went, oh, my God, I left so much money on the table. Oh, to Moses. Yeah, there's, oh, damn it. I really appreciate it. Thank you so very much for coming on. I really appreciate you blowing mind.

Yeah, no. This has been really fun. This has been really fun. Thank you.

And that wraps up our enlightening conversation with Howard Lim. We hope you found his insights on branding as valuable as we did. A sincere thank you to Howard for sharing his wealth of experience and practical wisdom with us today. His approach to authentic branding and long-term business success is truly inspiring. To our listeners, your commitment to improving your branding strategies and growing your businesses drives us to continue bringing you high-quality content. If you'd like to delve deeper into the strategies we discussed, we've prepared a companion guide for you. This resource summarizes the key points from our conversation, including Howard's techniques for developing brand personality, creating impactful visual identities, and asking the right questions to uncover your brand's true potential. You can access the companion guide at podcast. Iamcharleswartz. Com. Remember, as Howard emphasized, effective branding is about consistency and authenticity.