Contact

Mark Stinson, President

773/537- 4600
mark@stinsonbrandinnovation.com
www.StinsonBrandInnovation.com

Book Excerpt

Forward. Fast. How to Accelerate Your Health, Science and

Technology Brand
This is an excerpt from a book to be published a tale, crafting characters and identities, and
this summer, in hardcover, e-book, and Amazon following a storyline that has been prepared in
Kindle formats. advance.

Throughout the book, I insert pieces of my own

story, as they pertain to the growing narrative
Innov
ate

®
of Forward. Fast. and the consultancy we built
on the foundation of branding. A lot of this book
Crea Motiv
te ate

Navig
ate Chan
How ge
to A
presents universal information about branding,
Your ccele
H ra
Tech ealth, S te
nolo
gy B cience, &
rand

information that can be used in any branding situ-

ation. However, all of this is designed around the
particular profile of our firm – a health, science,
and technology brand consultancy.
Mark
Pres
Stins ident an
Stinso
on Br d Princ
and n
Innovipal Inn
ation ovator
, Inc of
.

So sit back, buckle up, and hold on for the ride.

Introduction This is going to go Forward. Fast.

There have been entire libraries written about

branding. So, it took me a long time to decide Chapter 1 – A View of Branding from
whether I should add yet another book on the a Value Added Perspective
subject. Would I be giving away proprietary
secrets? Would I be writing myself out of a job? Powerful brands lead to customer satisfaction.
Would I be adding anything new to the literature? A clearly defined brand identity can aid
But what I realized was that this information is customers’ recall and can link product to
helpful to marketers. It helps them understand that qualities. A positive brand identity can make
a brand is a complex, living organism that needs customers feel good about their purchase
tender care and gentle discipline. decisions, which leads to brand loyalty.
Customers will allow that company to charge
Far from leading people away from me, this book a premium price, because someone loyal to a
might serve to draw you closer. We would be brand will expect to pay more for the quality
kindred spirits on a quest to advance the art and product or service.
science of branding.
If powerful brands lead to happy customers,
The secondary purpose of this book is to tell a and happy customers buy your products and
story. Branding, on one level, is all about telling evangelize the brand to others, that translates
 into increased market share, higher stock prices,
and increased future earnings.
Managing your brand innovation like you would
any other company innovation — R&D, IP, pat-
ents, inventions, processes, etc. — makes good
business sense.
In the modern landscape of cable television,
high-speed internet, technologically advanced
business, and instant information, companies
expect instant results. Everything is about speed.
We want faster travel, faster acting drugs, faster
lines, faster computers, faster growth, faster
returns.
Our goal is to tap into the
neurocircuitry of a brand
The speed of the mental connections in your
brain is the metaphor we develop our processes
on. We strive to pinpoint and penetrate the
customer’s brain, which leads to faster
communication.
We focus on branding that will make people
take a deeper look, generating a sense of
wonderment. We develop a great brand
experience, one of quality and of memorability.
And we drive for faster adoption of products,
leading to bigger sales numbers at greater
speed. These important connections in speed
are the focus of the Forward. Fast. model.
This industry is all about communication. But
one of the biggest keys to successful
communication is to speak the right language
to the right people. In branding, it is vital that
this communication make an instant connection.
Too many similar products are competing for
attention. Your brand has to target a specific
customer with a specific message that resonates
with that customer. Forward. Fast. speeds
communication by pinpointing the most
important “Big C” customers and penetrating
their perceptions with messages that lead to
direct and fast action.
Your brand does not need to tell the potential
customer everything about the product in one
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What is the value of the red cross symbol?
And what will it cost?
In August of 2007, Johnson and Johnson
(J&J) sued the American Red Cross (ARC) for
trademark infringement. The two organiza-
tions share the red cross symbol, first claimed
by J&J, under the agreement that the ARC
would not use the symbol in the commercial
marketplace. In 2004, however, the ARC
started licensing the red cross to companies
producing disaster relief products, some of
which were in direct competition to products
J&J makes.
So what was the real story behind this lawsuit?
As with anything that seemed so cut and dry,
I chose to dig a little deeper. In the courts of
public opinion, the Red Cross clearly won
the battle. J&J came across as a bully. The
entire situation was taken up by the media as
a greedy corporation going after an innocent
non-profit organization that had nothing but
good intentions at heart.
The bottom line still goes back to trademark
ownership. The symbol of the red cross was
a trademark of J&J’s since before the official
charter of the American Red Cross. Despite
that, the two companies have shared the sym-
bol for over 100 years. Legally, J&J seemed to
be in the right.
I can only imagine that discussions have been
under way since then regarding the outcome of
this little debacle. In fact, J&J has continued
to make charitable contributions to the ARC,
so while the relationship was certainly strained,
it had not completely fallen apart.
In the end, despite the seemingly straight for-
ward legal position, a judge dismissed the case.
But what will the cost be to the public images
of both companies? Will J&J be seen as a
greedy mega-corporation, vilified for its desire
to put the bottom line before humanitarian
causes? Or will the ARC gain the reputation
of being welshers – a company that will not
hesitate to throw away a century-old arrange-
ment to make a little money for its cause?
 glance. That would be impossible, and if you
tried your brand would be a jumble. What
your brand should do is entice a sense of
intrigue about your product. You want to get
your potential customer to develop an interest
in learning more about your product. Creating
this sense of intrigue quickly is the trick.
Once you have a customer experiencing your
brand, it is important that that experience is
one of quality. This may seem to go beyond
branding, but because brands are customer
attitudes about a product, experience fits in
perfectly. If your customers find your product
difficult to use or understand, they will not buy
it again and will not tell their friends to buy it.
Developing this level of experience from the very
initial trials of the customer is vital to making
future experiential gains.
How to move Foward. Fast. -- instead of
just coping with a 24/7, Crackberry,
more-faster-now culture
In a business like ours (especially with a fast-
forward logo), we put high value on the speed
of thinking and responding.
So, when we might be feeling trampled by
the speed of life and business, author Vince
Poscente reveals why harnessing the power of
speed is the ultimate solution for our time-
starved era. The Age of Speed shows this and
other groundbreaking revelations at work with
case studies drawn from renegade companies
such as Netflix, Geico, and Nintendo. With
smart personal revelations, addictively clever
pop science, practical case studies, and a fresh
voice, The Age of Speed is a fast, fun read.
Poscente suggests we embrace the new revolu-
tion of speed in the same way we embraced the
technological revolution of the 80’s and 90’s.
With a positive attention to our newfound
speed, we can move forward and accomplish
more and better things. If we embrace this
speed, it will carry us to a brighter future.
The ultimate goal is to create
quick adoption
The faster people become loyal to your brand,
the faster your sales numbers will go up. All of
this adds up to a faster financial return for our
clients. It means economic value creation for
the brand owner.
Value is provided by satisfying needs, but that
is not the whole package. The key is to create
a personality for your brand that is aesthetically
pleasing and that tells the customer you stand
behind your product 110%. I will show you
how that is done.
Speed is the thing
But that speed has to be more than just fast. It
has to be quality. You have to be faster, better,
and more efficient than your competitors. In
the next chapter we will discuss some of the
differences that this speed requires, and in
chapter 3, some salient points on how to make
your company move at the necessary pace. It is
important to understand, though, that branding
today is about fast response:
• Speed of communication
• Speed of intrigue
• Speed of experience
• Speed of adoption
All of this leads to speed of financial return.
If you can deliver this speed, you are on your
way Forward. Fast.

His argument is that our resistance to speed

is born of out-of-date concepts. We used to
think speed would control our lives, that
doing things faster meant doing them with
less quality. Poscente says that is not so any
longer. That kind of thinking is applying the
rules of an old game to something profoundly
different. Instead of applying these old rules,
we need to adapt to the new environment of
speed and use it to reshape the world in which
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we live.
 About the Author

Mark Stinson is a persuasive writer, dynamic

presenter, and skilled facilitator. Most of all, he is
a brand creator.

Mark’s focus is to help evaluate product and

personal brand equity – helping assess the com-
mercial viability of brands and create distinction
for professional offerings. In doing so, he is often
engaged by life science executives and entrepre-
neurs to help define their vision. And he makes
connections with complementary groups to build
resources and support for new companies and
brands.

His company, STINSON Brand Innovation,

has clients in all sectors of health, science and
technology. In his role a president, Mark conducts
branding workshops, training seminars, new
product development initiatives, consultant panels,
business development presentations, and brand
reviews.

Before forming his company in 2004, Mark

served as executive manager and chief creative
officer at three other healthcare marketing agen-
cies. Previously he was vice president/creative
director of a national business-to-business agency.
Overall, his career in marketing, communications,
and branding spans some 30 years. Mark
received his communications degree from
Louisiana State University in Shreveport.

STINSON Brand Innovation is a global health, science, and technology brand consultancy. It defines the core strengths of brands, and
then helps grow them through five service dynamics: innovate, create, motivate, navigate, and change. The firm’s expertise includes brand
strategy and positioning, corporate branding, interactive and digital branding, branded customer experiences, and brand team facilitation,
Founded in 2004, Stinson is attracting global clients and collaborators for work on brands in research technology, diagnostics, medical
devices, pharmaceuticals, integrated healthcare delivery, and patient advocacy. The consultancy is headquartered in Chicago with offices
in Boise and Philadelphia, along with affiliates in Istanbul and London. More information is on the firm’s website at
www.StinsonBrandInnovation.com

© STINSON Brand Innovation, Inc.

Stinson Brand Innovation and the red forward-fast symbol are registered trademarks of STINSON Brand Innovation.
All other names and products are trademarks of their respective owners.
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