CAP Marketing Newletter, Autumn 2007

Capt Rivera · November 19, 2007, 06:57:39 PM

http://www.cap.gov/documents/Marketing_Newsletter_Autumn_07.pdf

3 page short read.... about a page of it is a very interesting chart......

What do you guys think about the content of the newsletter?

Has anyone found "marketing 101" or "The CAP Marketing Guidebook"?

mikeylikey · November 19, 2007, 07:03:06 PM

I wonder if any of those people even have a background in Marketing. Perhaps our money would be better spent hiring a marketing whiz from a fortune 500 and getting new billboards put up.

Capt Rivera · November 19, 2007, 07:50:39 PM

Quote from: mikeylikey on November 19, 2007, 07:03:06 PM
I wonder if any of those people even have a background in Marketing. Perhaps our money would be better spent hiring a marketing whiz from a fortune 500 and getting new billboards put up.

I agree with the billboards idea... Not so sure about paying the suite.... But I think billboards placed in good locations would help local squadrons more then some of the other things that recruiting money has gone to....

arajca · November 19, 2007, 08:00:52 PM

Not impressed with it, except for the value of volunteers. I wonder if these are the same folks who killed the separate senior and cadet brochures and created the worthless POS "Opportunity Knocks" brochure.

floridacyclist · November 19, 2007, 08:02:03 PM

I hung onto enough of the cadet brochures that I hope to get some re-created or scanned and printed...they were great.

Pylon · November 20, 2007, 03:31:58 AM

Terrible.

#1. It doesn't open up on my platform. A platform which, incidentally, I do a lot of graphics design from and wouldn't expect this. Somebody poorly prepped the PDF (forgot to embed fonts, set metadata, etc.), so they have no working knowledge of print media. Bad sign #1 for being "marketing" gurus.

See the attached JPEG for a sample of just how bad it loads for me. Not exactly a model of cross-platform compatibility.

#2. This is Autumn 2007, right? Did the marketing people not get the word that we've changed our marketing approach? I was pretty sure the NEC indicated we dropped the "U.S. Civil Air Patrol" bit? So much for consistency in branding.

#3. I see three different implementations of a CAP logo or branding in the header alone. I see a U.S. Civil Air Patrol command shield with silver edging, which is completely inconsistent with the one using gold outlining (aka: the official one and the one most recently released by the NEC/NHQ for future use).

Furthermore, I see a violation of the Department of the Air Force's graphic standards for use of the "AF symbol" in the top right corner. For one, the CAP command shield's proportions violate the "cradling criteria". Second, the shield used must be registered with and approved by the Air Force Historical Research Agency - does the new U.S. CAP shield meet that criteria yet?

#4. The "look and feel" (aesthetic dimensions of the design, color pallete, and the branding value of the piece) is nothing like any other CAP publication. In other words, we just keep creating new looks and appearances for our constantly growing myriad of publications, both print and web.

Take for example, another organization or company the size of CAP and you'll see that most of their publications (internal and external) all conform to a graphic standard. If you saw one of their publications lying on a table, you'd know from a distance it was from XYZ Org. without even being able to read it because of the recognizable appearance to their other publications and marketing pieces.

Civil Air Patrol has no graphic standard, everything looks different, and we achieve very little marketing value by continuing to splinter that. The fact that the marketing newsletter that offers up "tips" uses non-standard logos and falls short of every other standard marketing expectations leads me to believe I'd find nothing useful from this.... even if I could open the file.

I wish CAP would bite the bullet and hire a national-caliber advertising firm with experience overhauling national and international clients of magnitude to overhaul all of our communications, marketing, recruiting/retention, development/advancement, and PR/PA efforts. It's going to take a lot of work, but otherwise we'll continue to look like a bunch of rag-tag hacks.

RiverAux · November 20, 2007, 03:40:08 AM

I believe this newsletter came out before the US CAP change was made.

mikeylikey · November 20, 2007, 04:05:51 AM

I agree with Mike above. Hire a group to redesign everything. Create a single standard by which we all go by.

Capt Rivera · November 20, 2007, 04:52:20 AM

Pylon... well when you put it that way..... maybe we should find a suit to get things into shape.... seems more then worth it in the long run.

My finance has a degree in marketing... How about we pay her to do it...

So is the marketing group and the PAO National Branding initiative or whatever it is working together?

JC004 · November 20, 2007, 03:04:35 PM

I'm with Pylon (he and I secretly conspire on this very subject of marketing). The header graphic alone goes against much of what we have talked about as part of our master marketing plan for CAP.

Capt Rivera · November 20, 2007, 03:29:30 PM

Have we as a national organization figured out a single signature yet? If the AF can do it for both written and electronic communication and have it work for Active, Guard & Reserve components...

I would think CAP should be able to.... And that it should be public enough and used enough that it sticks....

I know it's been talked about.... as guidance come down yet?

Note: The signature I use, matches AF standards....

Pylon · November 20, 2007, 06:05:45 PM

Quote from: riveraj on November 20, 2007, 03:29:30 PM
Have we as a national organization figured out a single signature yet? If the AF can do it for both written and electronic communication and have it work for Active, Guard & Reserve components...

I would think CAP should be able to.... And that it should be public enough and used enough that it sticks....

I know it's been talked about.... as guidance come down yet?

Note: The signature I use, matches AF standards....

Though a bit off-topic, it relates through the topic of standards when it comes to graphics and communications (both are vehicles by which the public sees and views CAP). CAP currently has no overarching and enforced standards.

Part of overhauling the branding and image of CAP in all of the areas I mentioned would include setting standards for everything: colors on brochures and publications, fonts used in all NHQ print materials, updating correspondence guidelines to include things like emails and signature blocks, etc.

It's a comprehensive plan that we need - not piecemeal.

Walkman · November 20, 2007, 07:10:55 PM

I'd love to get a crack at working on a national campaign. My ad agency can give NHQ a much better ROI with much more effective work than what I've seen.

www.eurekaville.com

Midway6 and I have already discussed making some new high-speed posters and flyers together for recruiting that we can make available to anyone that wants to use it.

Being new CAP, anyone have any contacts or names I can work up a pitch for (seriously)?

JC004 · November 20, 2007, 08:41:07 PM

Quote from: Pylon on November 20, 2007, 06:05:45 PM
Though a bit off-topic, it relates through the topic of standards when it comes to graphics and communications (both are vehicles by which the public sees and views CAP). CAP currently has no overarching and enforced standards.

Part of overhauling the branding and image of CAP in all of the areas I mentioned would include setting standards for everything: colors on brochures and publications, fonts used in all NHQ print materials, updating correspondence guidelines to include things like emails and signature blocks, etc.

It's a comprehensive plan that we need - not piecemeal.

::standing ovation:: This is exactly what I have been calling for here.

mikeylikey · November 20, 2007, 10:25:03 PM

Quote from: JC004 on November 20, 2007, 08:41:07 PM
Quote from: Pylon on November 20, 2007, 06:05:45 PM
Though a bit off-topic, it relates through the topic of standards when it comes to graphics and communications (both are vehicles by which the public sees and views CAP). CAP currently has no overarching and enforced standards.

Part of overhauling the branding and image of CAP in all of the areas I mentioned would include setting standards for everything: colors on brochures and publications, fonts used in all NHQ print materials, updating correspondence guidelines to include things like emails and signature blocks, etc.

It's a comprehensive plan that we need - not piecemeal.

::standing ovation:: This is exactly what I have been calling for here.

blah!

SarDragon · November 21, 2007, 03:31:25 AM

Quote from: Pylon on November 20, 2007, 03:31:58 AM
Terrible.

#1. It doesn't open up on my platform. A platform which, incidentally, I do a lot of graphics design from and wouldn't expect this. Somebody poorly prepped the PDF (forgot to embed fonts, set metadata, etc.), so they have no working knowledge of print media. Bad sign #1 for being "marketing" gurus.

See the attached JPEG for a sample of just how bad it loads for me. Not exactly a model of cross-platform compatibility.

I'm not sure what happened there. I opened the doc in 4 different versions of Acrobat (Reader and otherwise), on two different machines, and it looked fine. I checked the properties in Acrobat, and the fonts are embedded (subsets) and it's set up to work all the way back to Acrobat 4.something.