I grabbed a pen from the cup to sign a memo. The pen was broken, the ink well had exploded. I got ink on my hand and screwed up the memo.
“Thanks Doctor Jones, DDS. You freaking clown. I never want to see you again.”
My kid’s dentist gave me a crappy pen, got ink on my hand and ruined my memo.
Your organization puts your name and logo on things. Make sure the things are quality and represent your values. Putting your logo on a broken pen isn’t good advertising.
Many people will want to use your logo in various forms. The family group will want to raise money with it, the re-enlistment folks, the commander and senior enlisted advisor want a coin and stationary.
Often commercial vendors who put logos on things have partnered with the cheapest manufacturers in the world. They specialize in producing large quantities at the lowest costs. This is what the fund raisers look for as it allows them to maximize profits.
Unfortunately, maximizing profits results in destroying your brand.
One time I worked physically near the re-enlistment office. Because of our physical proximity, we ended up working a lot together. I re-enlisted probably hundreds of Soldiers because I was the closest commissioned officer around. We helped the re-enlistment office with their branding and their message. When I left the job, they gave me a nice SOG knife with our logo on it. I had that knife for nearly 10 years until the Pentagon confiscated it. The re-enlistment office put our logo on nice things.
Different job, different recruiting office. These guys were handing out water bottles with a butchered version of our organization’s logo on it. I took the bottle home and put it through the dish washer. The bottle shrunk. Not only did it shrink, it became phallic. Hundreds of people throughout the world now have grey translucent phallic items with our logo proudly tattooed on the side. Not exactly on message.
You have to ensure that your unit’s logo, crest or seal remains represents your organization and only placed on quality.
