Kudzu Branding Co. wants small businesses to grow! This full coverage creative agency, just outside of Asheville, NC, is giving away $10,000 in services to help one small business see their business, everywhere. Branding is critical for any business, irrespective of where in the world a business is based. To carry out effective branding, a trustworthy source for printing will need to be found. Print Management Companies London could be at hand to help any UK-based business.
In celebration of the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Small Business Week, May 12 – 16, 2014, SCORE’s 50th Anniversary, and Kudzu’s 4th Anniversary, Kudzu Branding Co. is sponsoring a competition to find one deserving small business, to be selected by the public through social media vote, to receive the grand prize. I’m sure the fantastic prize can be used to go towards sourcing extra marketing materials from websites similar to carva, if you’re interested to learn how to login to canva check out louder.online.
“My husband, Kenny Capps, and I started our business four years ago with the help of SCORE, AB Tech Small Business Center, Mountain Bizworks, and Leadership Asheville,” said Murphy Funkhouser Capps, Kudzu Branding Co. owner/creative director.
On May 16th, Kudzu Branding Co. will give away a promotional package worth $10,000 in services, consisting of brand consultation, graphic design, web design, and printing.
The official start date to enter the competition is Friday, April 4th, 2014. The last date for entries is Wednesday, April 30th. To enter, go to www.kudzubranding.com/
Business entities must:
* Be at least two years old
* Have a specific goal for growth: new location, new product, re-branding
* Have the resources to execute a new brand and a marketing plan, after Kudzu’s work is done
* Be for-profit (Kudzu plans a future competition for non-profits)
* Brick and mortar businesses preferred
A panel of six Kudzu employees and strategic partners will select the top five entrants and post their submissions on www.kudzubranding.com for voters to make their selection. Voting will be held from May 2 – May 15, 2014.
Kudzu Branding Co. and Kudzu Printing Co. are partnerships of Kenny Capps, production director/print master, and Murphy Funkhouser Capps, brand consultant/creative director.
Yes, it may be charitable that this agency is giving away their services. But the real question is why?
Professional designers typically only give away their work for three reasons: 1) It’s to a non-profit they believe in and want to support. 2) The agency knows that promoting their free work will bring it lots of free exposure, and generate business leads. 3) They don’t know any better.
For the sake of argument let’s say in this case, it is probably #2. Some may think it is smart that this agency decided to generate some free PR by giving away their services. However long-term, it may do more harm than good to the agency, the potential prizewinner, and the greater Asheville design community.
1) Whenever a business gives away its services, it tends to attract attention from people who were already looking for something free. Will the prizewinner truly value and respect the agency’s work since it is free? Will they tell their friends that you did the work for free thus attracting more free work?
If design work is an agency’s livelihood and it gives that work away for free, what does that say about its current workload and respect for its craft?
2) When something is done for free, it typically looks free and feels free. You get what you pay for.
3) If an existing business needs free design work, it may have some serious communication problems on its hands that go beyond just design work. It may not be getting enough business to generate enough profit to pay fair rates for professional services. Or, it may not value paying for creative services to begin with. Design can’t fix something like a broken business model.
4) In creative industries, designers get asked to do free work all of the time. They hear phrases like, “If you invest your design time into my business, I’ll give you a percentage of the profits if it makes a profit,” or “I promise this will only take a second of your time or a quick tweak, nothing you have to bill me for.”
If you told your plumber you could only pay 25% of the bill, or your hairdresser that you couldn’t pay for the haircut as he/she is cutting your bangs, chances are your project would stop.
Although this agency may not have any intentions of hurting its industry, it is. Advertising a give away undercuts the industry and re-affirms the general public’s misperception that it’s okay not to value design as a profession and to expect a local agency or designer to do free work.
On the bright side, the next time any of the local designers or agencies have a potential client that needs free work, they will now have an agency in town they can refer those clients to.
Let’s us help you with your branding, we pick a noxious invasive weed for our brand.
Picked, obviously not so good at typing. Snarky Fail
slightly misleading headline. It’s a nice offer- if you like what they are offering and mostly IMHO they are marketing themselves.
Agreed on the misleading headline . . . $10,000 worth of their own self-valued services is a very different thing from $10,000.
You could say that about any company that publicly discloses charitable donations, sponsorships, grants, etc.
They are offering their services for free. Let’s try not to look at everything through such cynical eyes.