For smaller universities and colleges, national exposure comes along very rarely (if ever), often as an invite into the exposure behemoth that is March Madness. This inclusion provides a seat at the table and in the tens millions of brackets printed, researched, debated, analyzed, filled out and monitored by people around the world. What better time to build your brand, especially if you are in the middle of a major rebrand and are looking to push your new name/logo forward into mainstream use?

"A great brand is a story that's never completely told." A great brand is one who never really reaches the end of their story – they are an ongoing manuscript, adding new pages as the world around them moves forward.

The immense amount of background behind a perfect brand strategy and brand implementation must be pared down into bite-sized pieces for consumption, with the hope that these “brand nuggets” will tell the brand story in a way that the audience buys into your brand as a whole. But what you say doesn’t have any impact unless it aligns with how it makes your audience feel.

The Super Bowl. Not only the biggest football game of the year, it’s also the biggest game in the advertising world. Many millions of dollars are spent on the annual event, which puts even more pressure on the created ads to push the needle for their brands. And with a night full of high-profile brand decisions, we knew that time needed to be spent analyzing the commercials and the brands behind them – so on the Monday following the big game, our Addison Whitney brand fanatics gathered to do just that.

If the current visual brand is holding a company back from reaching its full potential, introducing a new direction (and absorbing the initial financial cost that comes with it) may be well worth it. Regardless of the brand, consistency across the board is a vital component. Without it, much like the current state of highway signs, you may find yourself neither here nor there.

T he real purpose of a brand refresh or rebrand can get lost without a strong change factor to back it up. Your new brand elements and your brand story must align, or else it can seem like your big brand announcement is much ado about nothing.

In a recent article, brand and marketing specialist Alessandra Ghini shared a pair of branding lessons she learned during her time with both Starbucks and Apple, two of the leading brands on the marketplace today. They provide both insight and a hint of explanation to the successes of these brands.

Brand consistency is exactly what it implies – constant and unchanging branding throughout your brand’s reach. Your brand can be top of the line, but if nobody knows exactly what it is or how it looks/sounds, then your efforts to promote the brand are facing an uphill battle. Getting your brand in front of your crucial audiences is the only way to continue to grow, and guaranteeing that each exposure reinforces the single brand is the best way to do this. Consistent branding encompasses and is driven by all other brand building efforts, and holds a vital place in the success of your brand.

Welcome to the second edition of Brands We Love Week! All week, we will be revealing what brands our resident brand fanatics thought stood out this year. Whether it was because of something they did, or a great experience they had with a brand, Brands We Love Week is a chance to tell our favorite brand stories! Additionally, we want to hear who you'd add to the list! Let us know what brands you loved in 2015, using the hashtag ‪#‎BrandsWeLove‬.