Today, after two days of golf in the sun, I finally began my senior project. I arrived at Sandstrom Partners at 9 AM nervous, but mostly excited. For the last couple of weeks, I've been looking forward to the conclusion of high school and the beginning of my first extended expirence in a professional setting. After driving to 3rd and Yamhill, elevating up 6 floors, passing through two doors, I was finally in the office of Jack Peterson, the president of Sandstrom, and my mentor for the next three weeks. I ready to begin my project.

But first, we went over what I will actually be doing. Jack explained to me that he had arranged for me to observe, expirience, and participate in Sandstrom's business process through a couple different projects. Currently, Sandstrom is working wtih a dozen different companies, all in different ways. During the next three weeks, Jack told me, I was to be a part of three of those projects, all of which were at different stages. During this briefing I was constantly being introduced to a multitude of people that walked in and out of Jack's office.

After going over my project, Jack transitioned to telling me more about Sandstrom Partners. Here's what they do: Sandstrom is a brand design firm, which means that they are hired my companies that have a product, but lack a strong brand identity. Theres companies are just starting up and are looking for guidance in the branding of their product, or have existed for a while and have an existing brand, but sales of their product are low so they are looking to recreate their brand identity. In order to create a strong brand identity, Sandstrom manipulates the way the product is presented. They do this through the packaging and marketing of the product. In the past, Sandstrom has built brands (Tazo Tea, Moonstruck Chocolate, Kombucha Wonder Drink, St. Germain Liquor, Smith Teamaker) and recreated others (Converse, Miller Lite, Adidas, Sessions Lager, Full Sail Brewing). All of which has become what Jack calls "thought leading brands", brands that are completely unique and do not replicate other existing (and competing) brands.

Sandstrom approaches each brand in a different way, but Jack talked a lot about the overarching guidelines that dictate the creation of a brand. Jack walked up to his whiteboard and drew a triangle, one that would look very simular to any Catlin english student. This is what it looked like:

                    Product                                                                                                                                            Logos

                                                                                    looks a little like:

Market                             Message                                                                                              Pathos                                     Ethos

A brand, he said, encopassed all three vertices of the triangle in the same way that a good essay does. The triangular nature of a brand replicates the rhetorical triangle of appeal. In the same way that English teachers at Catlin make sure that their student's essay have strong logos, pathos, and ethos, Sandstrom makes sure that their client's brand represents the product, market, and message. It was really interesting to see something I've learned in school so clearly applied to the real world. 

The project that I got to observe today was the rebanding of the company Krekow Jennings. KJ is an estate construction and management firm that builds houses for multi-millionares and billonares alike. Their product (the estates they build) is strong, but recently, due to the loss of their brand, their business has been struggling. KJ has hired Sandstrom to rebuild their image. In order to do this, Sandstrom has to do research about the company. Today, I watched Daniel Baxter, Sandstrom's Director of Strategic Planning, conduct an interview with a head accountant of KJ as a part of Sandstrom's internal audit. Sandstrom will use the information they recieve from these internal interview to begin to build KJ's new image.

Before sending me home, Jack gave me a project of my own to do. He told me to go to a grocercy store and look at the brand Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day and find how their brand positioning differs from the dozen's of other household cleaners. I found that Meyer's is able to attract consumers by presenting themselves as authentic and ginuwine through their warm colored labeling and 70's era Americana typography. Tomorrow I hope to talk to Jack more about Meyer's, as I'm sure he will enlighten me more about the effectiveness of their brand.

Jack has also assigned me some reading to do tonight. I am to read The Design of Business by Roger Martin to give me more perspective on the brand design industry. 

Overall, it was an awesome first day. I've had my first taste of the world of brand design and can't wait to take my second bite!