Week 3 Part B: Developing a Brand

 Part of taking this class was to see if social media would be a good way to promote the services I provide. I work for the Department of Defense. To break that down further, I am a civilian employee of the United States Marine Corps. As a field service representative, working on a particular group of equipment, I provide a variety of services. I troubleshoot, repair and provide training on the equipment. I am one of three individuals who perform these duties. The other two are in Japan and North Carolina. Neither of them is really on board with the use of social media as a way for us to put out information or for the Marines to contact us.

The section of the Marines we work for is called Marine Corps Logistics Command. Under that umbrella we work for the Marine Depot Maintenance Center (MDMC). MDMC has a good logo we all use and its adequate. They use the tag line “Winning Battles”. All of us a pretty far removed from any battle. However, our efforts are directly affecting the training, capabilities and readiness of the front-line war fighter. I think our logo is more mechanical in nature. I work with electronic test equipment. I have considered proposing a logo design for the team I work with that would be a better representation of the support and services we actually provide.

The three of us are in our forty’s and fifty’s. You know, the early Gen X’ers. We deal, mostly, with millennials. At times, its difficult for us to relate to the customer, other than the fact that we all share the title Marine. In most cases, the customer is young enough to be one of my children.

A rebranding or creating a sub-brand may be just the thing for the younger generation to want to reach out. Even though, for most of these individuals, someone old enough to be their dad is showing up to help them. A new logo with eye catching graphics, a catchy font and tagline might be beneficial. Our current logo is a grey cog with the Marine Corps emblem in the middle. Its kind of bland. Working for the Marines, you really can’t get away from the Marines Corps emblem. I do think we could improve upon the surrounding graphics. We are electronics technicians, working on electronic test equipment. I like the idea of incorporating electronics into the logo. I am not very artistic. So, I would probably need some assistance with the graphic design.

We have a website with no links to social media because we don’t have social media. The Marine Corps, as a whole, has serval social media platforms. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and others are used by the Enterprise and major sub commands. Just not by us. Our website is generic and bland. Its really for informational purposes. I have no control over the website other than to suggest relevant changes. The administrator does just enough with it to get the info out there. Even though many segments are outdated. The perils of working with the federal government. Developing something outside the domain is frowned upon due to things like security issues and so on.

I’d like to find a way, especially in the current covid climate, for the younger Marines to reach out directly. There are many restrictions to overcome in finding the way forward.