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"The Launch of a New Brand" Idea
06/19/2007
Fairfax, Virginia — It isn’t exactly new. The idea is that we’re moving into a new phase of branding Mercury Marketing Resources, Inc., and one step in that journey is the launch of this website.
Why a website? Because it’s representative of our brand and the aspects of that brand we want to emphasize. As our CEO, Don Schoen says,
“It’s becoming obvious that, like the web, MMRI can be an instrument to target our clients’ prospects quickly and precisely, offer them what they want, discuss the virtues of our clients’ products or services — or both — as much or as little as the prospects like, and give them the ability to buy instantly. Our aim is to deliver that kind of immediacy and satisfaction to all our clients and their customers.”
The challenge is deliver satisfaction in every marketing activity we’re involved in, from trade shows to NASCAR racing programs, from special events and event management to premium and ad specialty campaigns, from sales promotions and incentive campaigns of every kind — to websites. We’re in it to make things as trouble-free, quick, easy, and satisfying for our clients and for their customers as possible.
Speaking of websites, this one has been almost a year in the making. We could have done it faster, but, like shoes for the cobbler’s children, the website had to be built after we had met client needs. Now that it’s ready for launch, we realize (and hope you do) that it’s a work in progress. We worked to keep it simple, with just four basic sections:
- Who we are and what we believe,
- What we do,
- What we’ve done, and why we took the approaches we did, and
- How to get in touch with us.
We’ve designed the site so you can drill down as deep as you like, or just skim the surface — and still come away with just the information you want. The buzzword is “easy navigation.” We call it common sense. Put the information where it’s easy to find, without the aggravation of digging through a dozen pages to get six words of interest or value.
Before we go on, let’s answer one question we hear a lot: why Mercury? The name, after all, is part of our branding strategy. Mercury was the Roman god of commerce and messages. The name comes from the Latin “mercari,” which means “to deal or trade.” (Sound suspiciously like “merchant”?) Mercury prompted history’s first trade show, the Mercuralia, which started around 495 BC and is still celebrated by some on May 15. (May was named after Maia, Mercury’s mother.)
Wonder where the expression “silver-tongued” came from? His peers said Mercury was born with a silver tongue, which helped him communicate and persuade.
Mercury is an apt symbol of our focus on the arts and sciences of commerce and communication.
Our brand incorporates the idea of “a tactical marketing resource”. To retread an old phrase, we focus on the marketing process “out where the rubber meets the road.” Our clients, typically, have their objectives and strategies in place. We work at the tactical, implementation level to get it done, make the strategies pay off to achieve objectives.
We’re extremely cost-conscious, often doing superior work for half what a boutique agency might charge, and less than that for what a national mega-agency will charge for the same work. (We often get better results because we’re closer to the market).
To make a point, we’re talking about a new brand idea instead of a brand new idea because the idea itself is as old as time: do the kind of work that makes the client (not the agency) look good; and charge in terms of what a thing costs, not in terms of a “pricing strategy” based on the quaint notion that most people perceive the most expensive work as the superior work.
Our clients know better.
With all that in mind, we cover our new brand idea in a four-word marketing mantra: “Responsive, Creative, Reliable, Experienced.” And that is our new brand idea. Browse through our website, and if you see something you like, or don’t like, jump to the Contact page and let us know.