There is no greater mistake in branding than to overcomplicate the effort. To keep your brand simple but memorable, focus on just a handful of aspects that tell the story about your brand.

When developing a brand, consider the role that color plays in the mind of consumers. Color branding goes far beyond "pink for girls and blue for boys." Millions of dollars are spent each year determining corporate colors by huge firms so spend a little time figuring out what colors match with what you are trying to accomplish. Here are a few established color branding norms: Blue - trustworthy, Red - energy, Purple - established, Orange - creative

A few more ways to promote a new or innovative product or idea:

7. How wide is its appeal? Compare your product with a variety of similar ones, and then try to determine if your product should be in a small niche, or if it has potential to grow. Think if you can add to your product's appeal in any way, and how you can make sure you're not hurting it.

8. How... well, appealing... is its appeal? By that, I mean is it is it going to be instantly interesting, or is it going to strike many people as bland or even repulsive? If the main factors that would get a person to consider the product are negative, then you will want to seriously reconsider your product.

9. If using your product is somehow shameful for your customers, then make as many efforts as you can to reduce that sense of shame. Encourage them by saying that it is normal or acceptable (without deceiving them). If all else fails, ask your customers to defy convention and try your product. Make your product "the new normal."

1. Does your new product contrast sharply with everything else you've made?
2. Does your new product "compromise" anything else you've created, making it look comparatively cheap, overpriced, risky, unappealing, or otherwise bad?
3. Are you going against some promise -- however implicit - that you have kept until now?
4. Unlike your previous products, does your new one require quite a bit of maintenance in order to work, or quite a few accessories to be genuinely useful?
5. Unless you are aiming for some sort of old-fashioned appeal, does any aspect of your product seem like a step back instead of a step forward?

If any of these are true, then you *may* be about to betray your own brand. Sometimes you can compromise and still succeed. Sometimes the five factors above might even be advantages. But if you are not careful, your company may soon become a relic.