LETTERHEADS & COMPLIMENT SLIPS
LETTERHEADS
A letterhead is the heading at the top of a sheet of letter paper (stationery). That heading usually consists of a name and an address, and a logo or corporate design, and sometimes a background pattern. The term "letterhead" is often used to refer to the whole sheet imprinted with such a heading.
The majority of company letterheads are printed A4 in size (210mm x 297mm) although occasionally A5 (148mm x 210mm) and other bespoke sizes are sometimes used. There are certain pieces of information that are required to be displayed by law if you are a UK based limited company. The company name must be included, the place of registration, the registered number and the address of the registered office. For example, if your company name is F. Bloggs & Sons Limited but you trade or are mainly known as Bloggs, or your logo only shows part of the name then you must include the full registered name on the letterhead. There is no need to include the names of the directors on the letterhead, however, if you choose to name the directors, you must ensure all the directors are named.
In the United Kingdom, if you are trading as a sole trader or partnership under a name other than that of the owner(s), you must display the names of the owner(s) and an address for each. Also, in the UK, if you use your letterhead as an order form or invoice and you are VAT registered it is also advisable to put your VAT registration number on as well. All this information is typically added in fairly small print at the foot of the letterhead.
Letterheads are generally printed by either the offset or letterpress methods. We can print onto either 80gsm,100gsm, 120gsm or 160gsm executive white paper stock available in A5 and A4 sizes single or double sided. All our full colour printed stationery and spot colour stationery is litho printed.
Our designers can assist you in the origination of your Logo/Branding and general design of your Letterheads.
COMPLIMENT SLIPS
This is a adocument which usually accompanies goods or information the recipient is expecting because of some prior arrangement. The slip can have a short message written on it or just a signature, or it can even be sent blank. You can simply repeat the letterhead design on the compliment slip. It is not necessary to include the subsidiary information such as directors or registerd office, since this is a relativeley informal communication. The only new information to include is the words, 'with compliments'. If you separate these words out from the rest of the copy,
as is the usual practice, they are isolated in a relatively large area. This is enough to highlight them.
Your Logo and Brand awareness will play a big part towards the success of your business, see below for some information regarding
BRAND AWARENESS.
CREATING THE RIGHT IMPRESSION WITH YOUR LETTERHEADS AND PRINTED STATIONERY
When making the first contact in business it is presentation that counts. It is well known that a strong design applied across a company's stationery, greatly improves its image. We offer an inhouse service from visuals to finished artwork. Our designers can assist you in the origination of your logo and general design of your printed stationery. The BRAND you choose will play a big part towards the success of your business.
WHAT IS A BRAND
A brand is a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers." Branding began as a way to tell one person's cattle from another by means of a hot iron stamp. A modern example of a brand is Coca Cola which belongs to the Coca-Cola Company.
CONCEPTS
Proper branding can result in higher sales of not only one product, but on other products associated with that brand. For example, if a customer loves Pillsbury biscuits and trust the brand, he or she is more likely to try other products offered by the company such as chocolate chip cookies.
Brand is the personality that identifies a product, service or company (name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or combination of them) and how it relates to key constituencies: customers, staff, partners, investors etc.
Some people distinguish the psychological aspect, brand associations like thoughts, feelings, perceptions, images, experiences, beliefs, attitudes, and so on that become linked to the brand, of a brand from the experiential aspect.
The experiential aspect consists of the sum of all points of contact with the brand and is known as the brand experience. The brand experience is a brand's action perceived by a person. The psychological aspect, sometimes referred to as the brand image, is a symbolic construct created within the minds of people, consisting of all the information and expectations associated with a product, service or the company(ies) providing them.
People engaged in branding seek to develop or align the expectations behind the brand experience, creating the impression that a brand associated with a product or service has certain qualities or characteristics that make it special or unique. A brand is therefore one of the most valuable elements in an advertising theme, as it demonstrates what the brand owner is able to offer in the marketplace. The art of creating and maintaining a brand is called brand management. Orientation of the whole organization towards its brand is called brand orientation. The brand orientation is developed in responsiveness to market intelligence.
Careful brand management seeks to make the product or services relevant to the target audience. Brands should be seen as more than the difference between the actual cost of a product and its selling price - they represent the sum of all valuable qualities of a product to the consumer.
A brand which is widely known in the marketplace acquires brand recognition. When brand recognition builds up to a point where a brand enjoys a critical mass of positive sentiment in the marketplace, it is said to have achieved brand franchise. Brand recognition is most successful when people can state a brand without being explicitly exposed to the company's name, but rather through visual signifiers like logos, slogans, and colors. For example, Disney has been successful at branding with their particular script font (originally created for
Walt Disney's "signature" logo), which it used in the logo for go.com.
Consumers may look on branding as an aspect of products or services, as it often serves to denote a certain attractive quality or characteristic (see also brand promise). From the perspective of brand owners, branded products or services also command higher prices. Where two products resemble each other, but one of the products has no associated branding (such as a generic, store-branded product), people may often select the more expensive branded product on the basis of the quality of the brand or the reputation of the brand owner.
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. It also ensures that customers know which of their needs are satisfied by the brand through its products (Keller). Brand awareness is of critical importance since customers will not consider your brand if they are not aware of it.
There are various levels of brand awareness that require different levels and combinations of brand recognition and recall. Top-of-Mind is the goal of most companies. Top-of-Mind Awareness occurs when your brand is what pops into a consumers mind when asked to name brands in a product category. For example, when someone is asked to name a type of facial tissue, the common answer is “Kleenex,” which is a top-of-mind brand. Aided Awareness occurs when a consumer is shown or reads a list of brands, and expresses familiarity with your brand only after they hear or see it as a type of memory aide. Strategic Awareness occurs when your brand is not only top-of-mind to consumers, but also has distinctive qualities that stick out to consumers as making it better than the other brands in your market. The distinctions that set your product apart from the competition is also known as the Unique Selling Point or USP.
BRAND ELEMENTS
Brands typically are made up of various elements, such as:
NAME: The word or words used to identify a company, product, service, or concept.
LOGO: The visual trademark that identifies the brand.
TAGLINE or CATCHPHRASE: "The Quicker Picker Upper" is associated with Bounty paper towels. "Can you hear me now"
is an important part of the Verizon brand.
GRAPHICS: The dynamic ribbon is a trademarked part of Coca-Cola's brand.
SHAPES: The distinctive shapes of the Coca-Cola bottle and of the Volkswagen Beetle are trademarked elements
of those brands.
COLOURS: Owens-Corning is the only brand of fiberglass insulation that can be pink.
SOUNDS: A unique tune or set of notes can denote a brand. NBC's chimes are a famous example.
SCENTS: The rose-jasmine-musk scent of Chanel No. 5 is trademarked.
TASTES: Kentucky Fried Chicken has trademarked its special recipe of eleven herbs and spices for fried chicken.
MOVEMENTS: Lamborghini has trademarked the upward motion of its car doors.
GLOBAL BRAND
A global brand is one which is perceived to reflect the same set of values around the world. Global brands transcend their origins and create strong enduring relationships with consumers across countries and cultures. They are brands sold in international markets. Examples of global brands include Facebook, Apple, Pepsi, McDonald's, Mastercard, Gap, Sony and Nike. These brands are used to sell the same product across multiple markets and could be considered successful to the extent that the associated products are easily recognizable by the diverse set of consumers.
BRAND NAME
Relationship between trade marks and brand The brand name is quite often used interchangeably with "brand", although it is more correctly used to specifically denote written or spoken linguistic elements of any product. In this context a "brand name" constitutes a type of trademark, if the brand name exclusively identifies the brand owner as the commercial source of products or services. A brand owner may
seek to protect proprietary rights in relation to a brand name through trademark registration and such trademarks are called "Registered Trademarks". Advertising spokespersons have also become part of some brands, for example: Mr. Whipple of Charmin toilet tissue and Tony the Tiger of Kellogg's Frosted Flakes.
TYPES OF BRAND NAMES
Brand names come in many styles. A few include:
INITIALISM: A name made of initials such as UPS or IBM
DESCRIPTIVE: Names that describe a product benefit or function like Whole Foods or Airbus
ALLITERATION and RHYME: Names that are fun to say and stick in the mind like Reese's Pieces or Dunkin' Donuts
EVOCATIVE: Names that evoke a relevant vivid image like Amazon or Crest
NEOLOGISMS: Completely made-up words like Wii or Kodak
FOREIGN WORD: Adoption of a word from another language like Volvo or Samsung
FOUNDERS' NAMES: Using the names of real people,and founder's name like Hewlett-Packard, Dell or Disney
GEOGRAPHY: Many brands are named for regions and landmarks like Cisco and Fuji Film
PERSONIFICATION: Many brands take their names from myth like Nike or from the minds of ad execs like Betty Crocker
The act of associating a product or service with a brand has become part of pop culture. Most products have some kind of brand identity, from common table salt to designer jeans. A brandnomer is a brand name that has colloquially become a generic term for a product or service, such as Band-Aid or Kleenex, which are often used to describe any brand of adhesive bandage or any brand of facial tissue respectively.
BRANDING APPROACHES
COMPANY NAME
Often, especially in the industrial sector, it is just the company's name which is promoted (leading to[citation needed] one of the most powerful statements of branding: saying just before the company's downgrading, "No one ever got fired for buying IBM"). This approach has not worked as well for General Motors, which recently overhauled how its corporate brand relates to the product brands.[22] Exactly how the company name relates to product and services names is known as brand architecture. Decisions about company names and product names and their relationship depends on more than a dozen strategic considerations.
In this case a strong brand name (or company name) is made the vehicle for a range of products (for example, Mercedes-Benz or Black & Decker) or a range of subsidiary brands (such as Cadbury Dairy Milk, Cadbury Flake or Cadbury Fingers in the United States).
INDIVIDUAL BRANDING
Each brand has a separate name (such as Seven-Up, Kool-Aid or Nivea Sun (Beiersdorf)), which may compete against other brands from the same company (for example, Persil, Omo, Surf and Lynx are all owned by Unilever).