Incubator Partners with High-Profile Brand Consultant Landor

Incubator KnowledgeCube Wednesday announced a partnership with branding consultancy Landor Associates, in which Landor will provide strategic services for KnowledgeCube’s companies.

The deal will give the incubator’s companies access to Landor’s specialty services in corporate identity, packaging design and branded environments.

Financial details of the agreement were not released.

The need for start-up companies to cost-effectively market themselves has been highlighted by the recent dot-com downturn, when the poor financial conditions of some companies has been blamed on their over-the-top marketing expenditures.

Executives said the move was driven by the needs of incubating start-ups, which require branding expertise provided by their incubator.

“Our portfolio companies are distinguished by their proprietary technologies. They need distinctive brand identities to differentiate their value propositions to their customer segments,” said KnowledgeCube chief executive officer Max Michaels.

The incubator’s clients said they agreed.

“The streaming space is becoming overly crowded, said Marty Young, co-founder of Weema Technologies, a streaming rich media company. “We need to ensure that our brand identity is able to fully communicate our promise to potential customers.”

KnowledgeCube said it tapped Landor for the consultancy’s branding expertise.

Landor has overseen a number of big-name startups and spin-offs, including Netscape, Lucent and Agilent Technologies.

“Brand equity is as fundamental to a start-up’s success as venture capital and banking, strategy and technology,” said Landor CEO Clay Timon. “Start-ups are waking up to the fact that building brand awareness is not the same as building brand value.”