A lot of the social media and branding used by the 3M company is protected and you have to be an employee to see it.  I think this is probably a good idea to keep that information within the company.  I wonder what the strategies are that they do use though.  On the website where they explain that the information is protected, they also have this quote, “Our brand is more than our name and our logo. Our brand is the outward expression of the promises we make to our customers‚ our powerful culture of innovation and the ideas and values that make us who we are.”

 The website also has examples of some social media pages.  They all look very neat and clean and simple. 

 When looking for a 3M sponsored Facebook page, it was very hard to find.  I saw several other accounts and even Brazil’s Facebook before I found the United State’s official 3M page.

 Recently, the 3M’s United States Facebook page has posted about how they support “Small Business Saturday.”  Posts like that are important to engage the audience, so the brand is not just pushing out content and promoting their own products.  I believe that doing things like that makes the audience tune out of the posts.  It is similar to having a friend who only talks about themselves, the habit itself is annoying and kind of makes you like the friend a little less too.

 3M also has a Twitter that I think is a bit more interesting than their Facebook page.  They tweet about their products and about current events and days that are happening both worldwide with the brand and locally where 3M is headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota.  I liked one thread of tweets they had about a story the local news station, KARE11 did about a donation the company made. 

I think what they are doing with social media is effective for the company’s goals and what their focus is.  They are a bit of a unique company because they do sell primarily household and business items.  It might be somewhat difficult to make a compelling and interesting social media site for a company that makes tape and Command Hooks.  I think they’re doing a good job though.  Their campaign in early January of this year with the user-generated content is a great example of the good things they are doing with social media.  They took their product and let people be creative with it.  They were a platform for their users to show their creativity, and they did.  I think businesses are to the point with social media where they understand how to use it and have a little better of an idea of what their users want to see of their social media pages.  

3M is in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific.  Their headquarters are in St. Paul Minnesota.  They operate their business in over 70 different countries, but their products are in almost 200 different countries.  In those countries,  3M operates manufacturing facilities, laboratory research centers, advertising sites, distribution offices, and a series of corporate headquarters.

http://www.vectortemplates.com/raster-globes.php

The organization began their international operations in the year of 1951.  Half of the manufacturing of 3M’s products takes place in the United States.  There are only 28 states in the United States where this product manufacturing takes place.  The other places where 3M manufactures their products are in the west part of Europe, Japan, and parts of Canada.  Around a third of the organization’s total business takes place in the United States.  This number is expected to rise however in the near future according to the company’s annual report and projections.  A large part about why this is the case is because, according to that annual report, Most of the research and development of the organization also happens in the United States.

The annual report issued by 3M also stated that the organization strives to localize their brand and their company in the international markets.  The organization says that they believe this method will give them an advantage over other companies trying to achieve similar goals in the common markets.  They say that they believe this can be accomplished by starting to build new buildings that would counteract competition from other businesses in the international marketplace.  It is also important to have employees that understand what the market is like in the region where the company hopes to conduct business.  This knowledge of the employees is part of the reason why 3M has been successful with their global business is because of the local talent hired by the company.  This provides them with a local insight about what works in each individual international marketplace.  They say that their aim is to make the company seem ‘borderless.’  One of the ways that the organization accomplishes this is through their way of targeting products to their consumers.  This means that the products are sold in the same region where they are manufactured.

I think this method makes a lot of sense.  It would cut down on transportation and distribution costs and allow the company to focus solely on manufacturing the products.  I also think finding people in the market where they want to expand is a good idea because they would obviously know it better than anyone else.  I don’t think 3M’s international businesses are necessarily taking away jobs from the United States because the international businesses are selling locally to the people in the region.

http://solutions.3m.com/3MContentRetrievalAPI/BlobServlet?lmd=1370013363000&locale=en_WW&assetType=MMM_Image&assetId=1319229751200&blobAttribute=ImageFile

Click to access 3m_company_wg_comment.pdf

3M is a company that supplies mostly business and home supplies.  The focus of the advertisements for the demographic is on creating a simple and clean look.  This works for the demographic because their products are to make life for those in business and working in the home simpler.

http://under30ceo.com/organized-chaos-the-life-of-being-a-college-entrepreneur/

3M has a special demographic with one specific product line of theirs.  The Command Hooks brand is specifically for young homeowners and college students, though they do have other customers who use the command hooks.  The command hooks are designed to be a cheap way to hang things in places that cannot have permanent holes from nails.  They target this demographic because the command hooks are cheap and accessible.  They also have an impact on this demographic with where they place their products, they put them out in the isles of Wal-Marts around move in time for colleges.

The Christmas crowd demographic is also big for the Command Hook brand.  They advertise to those looking to hang up their Christmas lights using Command Hook brand products.  They also procure on making their product simple and making things simpler for the people who use them.

3M is also after a new demographic that is part of an advertising campaign that involves user generated content.  Earlier this year in January, Post-it notes started an advertising campaign that demonstrated the creativity of those who used it.  3M spent around an estimated $10 million on the campaign.  It let users of Post-it notes show their creativity using the product.

This was a different approach than what is typically done with advertisements, where the company puts out work for the consumers to see.  It let users of Post-it notes do creative things with the product, like make art, and even wedding proposals.

I think the demographic of this campaign was young people who probably do use the product a lot for its original purpose, to write notes.  The campaign asked these young people to look at their product in a different way and to use it to be creative.  I remember seeing some of the commercials on television, since those were also included in the campaign, and being surprised with them.  I think this would have also generated a lot of buzz on social media sites.

The name for this type of user generated product content is called customization.  It is targeted towards 20 to 30 year old consumers.  It works well for them because they feel that they are a part of the brand and it feels more personal to them.  It also calls to look at brands that have been around for the lifetime of this generation to look at them in a different way.  Sharpie also did a similar campaign with their markers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/business/mutfund/3m-says-go-ahead-make-something-of-it.html?_r=0

The most common imagery used by 3M to sell their products is their bright red logo.  This is used on every single product they sell, and it is everywhere.  The company has over 50,000 products and the logo is always on each one.  3M is a parent company to a variety of different other companies including Command Hooks, Scotch tape, Scotch Blue, and Nexcare.  With all of those products, they always have the traditional 3M logo on them.

Their logo has not changed very much, especially considering that the company has been functioning for 100 years.  The design changes through the years remind me of Ford or Coco-Cola’s logo changes through their over 100 years of being in business.  They all started quite simply, then added some things through they years and are back to being very simple.  3M also added the red color.

http://www.designboom.com/design/logo-life-life-histories-of-100-famous-logos/

This is even true for their series of medical and car care products. The 3M logo is located in the upper left corner.  The logo is usually for the most part always red, however, for some of these products the logo is colored black.

According to their national website, the design and graphics teams are working to create more uniform design requirements for all of their publications.

The interesting thing about some of 3M’s brands products is that they have “Top of the mind awareness.”  An example of this is that consumers say they need a “Command Hook.”  A Command Hook is both the name of the brand of the product and not just the brand and company.  This also applies for 3M’s products of their Scotch tape brand, when consumers say they need Scotch tape instead of just tape.

The 3M logo stands for the Minnesota Manufacturing and Mining Company.  I think it is interesting that they have kept the name to what it still is today because they do not do anything with mining, and never really did.  I’m not sure if there is necessarily a reason of why it would be needed to be changed though.

I think 3M tries to portray images of consumers living in a happy home or working in a successful and positive business with a cheerful environment. This makes sense because they produce products that are designed to make life better for both at home and at work.

Their logo is also used on their Twitter, which is their mainly used social media.

3M presents a majority of their products with sans-serif font with a plain white background.  They choose to have a minimalist design factor for presenting their products.  I think it is effective.  This design attempt seems to say that their products just simply work and do not need a bunch of added extras.  They are what they are and that’s enough.

Source:

logo life: life histories of 100 famous logos

3M’s main value is their commitment to environmental protection.  They put themselves in the middle of a triangle between economic success, environmental protection, and social responsibility.

One example of this is shown in their way they thought about the usual desktop tape dispenser.  Instead of the usual, clunky heavy type, 3M came up with a new one that was cheaper to manufacture and better for the environment.  The disposable take dispenser is made from recycled products, and is recyclable.

I think “being green” is really trendy right now; it makes businesses seem less like a old fashioned company and more caring about their employees, customers and world.  When I say old fashioned, I mean the turn of the century and industrial age type of thinking.  Henry Ford was known to joke why the whole person showed up to work at his car manufacturing factories instead of just the hands, which was all he needed from a worker for that type of line manufacturing.

This makes them seem relatable and personal.  It’s also just good for the environment.  As a manufacturer of many plastic products, much of what they do could be very bad for the environment.

3M is a worldwide company, and their website says they work to maintain relationships with their companies across seas.  Their branding is universal.  3M does not have an American Facebook page, but there are other counties that the brand is in that do run a page.  All of those other pages have 3M’s signature bright red logo.

It seems strange to me that 3M does not have a Facebook page in the United States.  I can’t really think of a reason why they would choose to not have a page other than something I heard Tom Brokaw say when talking about a presidential election.   He said that the more an audience hears about a candidate in excess, the less they are liked.  Maybe 3M is applying this principal to their social media presence and believe that they are strong in other aspects of advertising and marketing and that a Facebook would be too much for their audience.

However, they do have an active and interesting Twitter account.  It is focused on the environment and the ways their company is helping it.  The example below is a sample of the content they tweet.

https://twitter.com/3MNews

Another aspect of 3M’s core values that I think makes them a strong and attractive business is the way they enable their employees to work on the things that interest them.  Scientists are allowed 15 percent of their time to research things that personally interest them.  This type of management allows each employee to be used for his or her best potential.

The three “M”s in 3M represent their original business title which used to be the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company.   That’s what the company started out as, a mining company in Minnesota.  Five businessmen had goals to mine corundum in 1902, but failed because there was none in the area.  Three years later the men changed their business into creating products made from sandpaper.

I’m familiar with the 3M brand because there’s one just 20 minutes from the small town in Northeast Iowa where I grew up.  I know what products they create because my mom is a teacher and one student she had got a variety of his school supplies from 3M.

The business has over 55,000 different products produced by 88,000 people.  I remember those products as being mostly typical home and office supplies, but some were very innovative and creative.  According to the company’s website, they have a variety of office and home supplies, dental products, electronics, medical products, car maintenance products and film.

The website also says the company has $30 billion in sales and has employees in 65 countries.

The 3M company has a history of being innovative, it makes sense considering those 55,000 different products.  They were the first company to make the world’s first waterproof sandpaper.  This was important, according to their company website, because it made manufacturing automobiles in the 1920s safer for the workers.

3M also has ties to war products.  Although it was not said what exactly 3M made, the company did manufacture products for World War II.  This change of products for the war inspired creative thinking for what other products could be useful for America after the troops came home.  These products included some graphic art and even highway reflectors and magnets.

The advertisement below is an example of an online ad for 3M.  The company has specific guidelines for their branding, such as immediate recognition of the business logo, the red 3M.  The company even has a required guideline for what font is supposed to be used for all ads, that font is Helvetica Neue Condensed.  The part about the advertising guidelines I found personally most interesting was the last one; it prompts a question about storytelling.  The guidelines ask if the advertisement tells a story, specifically a visual story about how the elements connect to each other, the product being advertised and the logo.

I’ll end with a story about 3M to finish up this blog post.

The name “scotch tape” came from a painter using 3M tape.  He was annoyed that the tape did not have enough adhesive, and told the company he bought it from to take the tape back to their “Scotch” bosses to fix.  And, the name stuck.

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_WW/Corp/Identity/Applications/MarComm/Advertising/Online/