Branding is simple

Tom Asacker a man of great insights and ideas when it comes to the field of branding stated this in a recent blogpost. Swift and smart and the fundamental thing is, that branding is very simple when done right. Hard part beeing, just getting to that point.

Perhaps you’re hoping to grow an existing one.

Either way, you’ll be immersed in branding.

Branding is a verb.It’s a continuous, progressive process.

One that answers some very simple questions.

Who?

Who informs everything you’ll do.

Your perspective and intention.

Your look, feel, thoughts and behaviors.

Your vision of the future.

Who is your karma.

Because who you choose to focus on, will ultimately define who you become.

What?

What is your laser focus.

Your passion.

Your unique point of view and expertise.

It’s your daring, meaningful and believable value proposition.

The one that attracts your who.

What is your why.

It gets you up in the morning.

How?

How communicates your what, your passionate point of view.

How is the motivating language, stories and experiences you create and share.

How is your art and your voice.

It sets you apart from others who say they do what you do.

Successful branding is simple.

Who, what and how.

Yes, it requires nuance and subtlety.

But it’s simple nonetheless.

What’s hard is the focus, discipline and unwavering belief necessary to pull it off.

Brilliant!

His blog 

Beeing an innovative brand in a saturated market

What makes a brand tick, how do you define it,  what could it possible be worth to your organisation? You probably get as much answers to these questions as the consultants you ask. 

We need to turn to metrics and analysis. According to Brand Orientation Index, (A Swedish research project which purpose is to identify the link between brand orientation and profitability), states that a company who actively work with their brand is more profitable. That is one aspect. Another study shows that companies with a vision-lead culture significally outperforms those without . (A Harvard Business School global study by John Cotter). 

Now we are on to something, but is a brand and a vision enough?

Well you can obviously get ahead of some of your competition, but todays market place is competitive. 

The expression "business never sleeps" has been around for years. But the expression "brand never sleeps" is equally important. Brands today have to be innovative as well, branding is a daily struggle against competitors and the race for consumers is constantly ongoing, if you fail to deliver upon their expectations they will take their business elsewhere.

Still with me?

So how do you do it, well we could probably start with how not to do it - by being traditional in your approach.
The usual pitfalls:

Human resource takes care of business and employee culture.Marketing takes care of brand platform.

MGMT consultants make the business strategy.

All good initiatives but to many times handled and developed in separate silos with no coherence between. This have to be a top prioritisation for the organisation. Work across departments, align initiatives, engage people within the organisation they are and possibly could be your biggest asset.

But also try to have the outside inside perspective, how to people outside the organisation look upon your organisation. Is your business as clear to them as it might be for you? Metrics and valid KPI's are fundamental, constantly measure peoples relation towards your brand. How you approach them, how do they react to that and adjust if performance is poor.

Differentiate vs. category benefits
Tap into the start-up aspect of business, how do they stay relevant, do they have a masterplan from the start? Atleast they have a product or service that clearly differentiates them from the opposition.

Instead of talking category benefits, talk differentiation. 

Imagine this , if we where to launch a new brand, product, or service, would people support our cause if we were to put it out on Kickstarter? LEGO did it and turned crowd-sourcing into their next winning platform with LEGO Ideas. Everyone can contribute, builds relations even stronger  with the product and brings real brand equity back to LEGO.

Another example, If you have a bank and want to challenge the traditional banks out there chances are that you probably will not stand a chance in competing in the same category. You simply don't have the organisation nor the money to disrupt the category. But when if you neglect the traditional category. Take your traditional business but add the innovative force of e.g digital with the toolset of design processes or/and innovation you might tap into new fields that none of the old banks have the chance to compete with. If your're doing your strategy well you can find yourselves in a whole new segment that is on safe distance from the traditional competition but will close access to the consumers that probably are more eager to save their money in a new type of disruptive bank with promises of taking care of their business with no overhead fees, just making them use the bank in the way they want it the most. Top that off with a service offer based upon customer needs and deliver upon that, then you have the business of tomorrow. 

Screenshot from simple.com

Simple Bank - "We've re-imagined the banking basics."

Create customer experiences that surprise the visitor. Länsförsäkringar shop in Stockholm

Länsförsäkringar -Swedish insurance company - Increased competitiveness and reduced costs with has offices open 7 days a week serving clients with insurances and normal bank services. They have profoundly disrupted the Swedish bank scene by making insurance and bank services a shopping experience.

It would be odd not to mention Uber when discussing disruptive brands. Then american based company have caused the traditonal taxi organisations in Europe to strike, demonstrate and try to legislate against the new kid on the block. 

Customer loves it, the traditional taxi business hates it. The latter unwilling to change. Things are already in motion and by creating a brand that is more simple and more passionate about the customers Uber will forever change the business by doing everything else other then the expected.

Remember, it never stops, so keep on developing, questioning status quo and your brand will flourish. 

Sagmeister is sceptical...about storytelling

It came to my knowledge that one of my favourite designers Stefan Sagmeister recently made an outcry about storytelling and how it has become so misused. 

That sounded way to interesting for me not to investigate. Click the image above to view the original video. Movie by FITC Toronto Conference in April of 2014

So did he add something new and fresh insights or ideas to the debat? well not really. He stated that the term storyteller/storytelling now is used to widely and by people that are not storytellers. Neither did he conclude any other solutions to use instead. 

Everyone is entitled to ones opinion but I think he makes one fundamental mistake and that by trying to define storytelling as something exclusive. I interpret what he calls the ones doing it right as the only one entitled to express their stories/or expressions. It has never been and will never be exclusive to a specific category of people. It is an artform so old is almost impossible to track. People have told their stories since the beginning of mankind. More or less interesting of course. But still stories and that will never change.

"...no fuckhead you are not a storyteller."

If you put this into a corporate context it is a completely other issue. There is Stefan's standpoint more valid. Many brands tend to claim the storytelling aspect and force that into our normal lives. There we have the actual problem.

Brands are not storytellers by birth but they as well as anyone can achieve, innovate, develop something and align that into their DNA.

Brands that construct something that is not necessarily aligned with either their history, future, products or services or/and then applied with a authentic story will eventually fall and that is what I consider to be a false or non existing storytelling. You as well as me can probably refer to hundreds maybe thousands of ads, tv-commercials that tried to be/tell something that you did not associate with the product or service at all or just made the brand more delusional. 

So stay authentic to the core of your business or the truly amazing aspects of your service or product and you can tell almost which story you feel like.

Be authentic: Clear connection with you business ambitions and true to what you are really do. What is the purpose of what you want to express.
Be simple: Do not complicate things to much.
Be passionate: Make something that triggers stakeholders both outside and inside the your business. 

Story is not dead, just used in less flattering manners across all fields, but when used correctly is one of the most powerful expressions for your brand out there.

In conclusion, storytelling or story is non claimable, however one could criticise the context and the quality it is used in. And how it is constantly evolving.

Last but not least lets end with a Seth Godin smartness from the past.

Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell.

Conversation is king!

Brands rarely and unfortunately do not pay enough attention towards its customers requests. However each and every time it happens it gives me great satisfaction. That is what constantly I keep telling my clients. Start conversations and act upon things that might emerge in the that process. If not instant it will eventually create engagement and long-term and storytelling values that will outsmart every tv-commercial to date.

View fullsize

Image from Adweek

American brand J. Crew recently announced that they will put a discontinued swimsuit back on the shelves due to a request from one customer that longed for yet another great garment that she clearly could not let go of.

Read the full story here 

One small step of conversation, one giant leap for brands.

What must brands do? - Physical interpretation

One thing that the future will hold is the expectancy among consumers to broaden their interaction with their favourite brands of choice. The online retailing business is expected not only to be a part of their consumers digital expectations but also the physical ones. 

This is already happening, check out the retail development of of Amazons retail pop-up stores, physical kiosks for Groupon. One business area that used to be very cutting edge in the retail pop-up store segment were the fashion industry. Despite huge success for some (Asos, Net-a-porter, Mr Porter) this segment have not grown to show their full potential in the physical sense. My prediction that it would be hugely appreciated by the crowds. During the summer the Monocle Magazine has had a American Tour of its very limited and specially made shop concept with visits to other prestigious boutiques. In NYC and so forth.

I’ve tried to find key areas to support the action of making online retail - physical. 

Time

Aim to make this event based, either create the event yourselves or ride the wave of other well suited happenings on location you so causally choose.

Manner

It should be experimental, nobody likes a coward, especially if the expectations your costumers is in a certain way. You need to excel in order to make the experience even wider.

How

Efficient, it need to be cost effective but in the same time bridge the online/offline shopping experience.

So is this the way to go for all online commerce to get even more social…no however with the right decisions made early on and with the proper strategy and tactics this might be the best thing that your online brand could do or at least consider in a nearby future cause as you now.

"There is no points for second place!"

Image borrowed from Kitsune

This is how long we come so far...(serie 1 of 2)

Came across this a couple of weeks ago, unfortunately I cannot remember the link or who discussed it (will of course post it as soon as I get my links sorted). But I’ve made summarisation with own inputs on the matter and if this is what we have come to experience so far in the marketing and communication age with the relation to brands.

I will elaborate on this even further to find the proper way forward. Participation is good but there is so much more you can do.

Informational Age – Advertising was primarily long-form copy and just gave information on products. 

Entertainment Age – In the 1960′s and 1970′s, advertising became a source of entertainment thanks to William Bernbach. This worked for a long-time. 

Participation Age – The fragmentation and commoditization of media and products has made participation key.

It is never just about the logo...

I’ve deliberately been waiting with my reflection on the A.A rebranding. With some perspective and time past, it is time to go into it. Of course I am talking about the big rebrand of American Airlines made by Futurebrand. 

The fundamental approach to this post is a question on why the logo still is the first in mind when referring to a major rebranding, if you ask me it has never been about that, the logo is just a tiny part, however important, of the visual structure of a brand but not the essence. 

When A.A made the switch between the classic logo made by design guruMassimo Vignelli back in the 60’s he and and other industry experts around the world was outraged. Some called it atrocious. Some called it a disgrace. 

From a graphic design standpoint I might join the crowd that still likes the old logo better (the ones who know me, knows that I am a big Vignelli fan), however I am amazed that the discussion primarily have been about the logo, not the extended process they undertook on in order to make a leap of faith in order to (hopefully) save their business.

For the first time in decades AA invested strategically in their brand NOT the logo. AA focused on the entire brand experience. Flying used to mean something but have not been so for quite some time now. As a possible investment to re-strengthen from a downwards spiral since the 2000’s they made the effort but everything remotely engaging seem to be about the logo at least from a industry standpoint. 

Here is a excerpt from the press release:

“…Since entering the restructuring process, American has made a series of strategic investments designed to place customers at the center of all it does and give employees the tools, training and leading technologies they need to provide customers with a uniquely American experience, while also creating growth and opportunity for its people.”

And, of course, to top it off they also introduced a new logo.

With these details in hand I understand A.A:s decisions to make this transition, it is a vital part and a investment in order to  take of once again or landing for good. 

But people cried out about a killing of a classic, to some extent true and I will probably miss it but lets be frank the logo is not your brand. Just from an employee perspective this new brand experience was a huge leap forward in trying to reach relevance in people’s mind again.

Only time will tell if A.A, made the right decision, I would say they did the right thing regarding the other possibilities.

Cannot rest the thought on a more nearby example…SAS. Is it time for them to try to revitalize their brand experience once again in order to keep up with the opposition of low-cost efficient operators in the region?

BRAND LOYALTY IS HOW WE ESCAPE DECISION FATIGUE.

Aether is a American outerwear company known for quality and technique, they recently opened a new retail store in San Fransisco. It looks amazing. But what really caught my eye about this project is how they have translated their primary customer channel aetherapparel.com into a physical retail space in downtown San Fransisco. A space that breaths functionalism, adequate minimalism, innovation and acts as the perfect physical beacon for their brand.

A well orchestrated strategy with beautiful execution over both physical and digital platforms. 

With the sun in your hand!

Brilliant concpet of Little Sun. Design with purpose and do something that really matters. A modern brand in its true sense.

LIttle Sun is a project developed in response to the energy deficit facing many parts of the world. It is a project to bring light to the 1.6 billion people in the world who live without reliable access to electricity.

Little Sun is a beautiful solar-powered light in the shape of a hand-sized sun. It’s a work of art that works in life. And this week, it was nominated for a 2013 Designs of The Year award by the Design Museum in London.

Check out their webpage here.

The personal brand/invest in yourself

Yet another week of branding @hyperisland coming to an end. This one started out with a personal branding workshop. And as a closure of this week it is satisfying to see that the reflection about this important issue also is on the agenda at one of the worlds largest brand agencies - Landor.

The Landor country manager of India Lula Raghavan made a good post about it here

Just as in the competitive marketplace where brands in every category are vying for attention from consumers, it is important to stand for something special and stand out in the talent market. It’s a great way to secure the most interesting assignments, the most challenging work and the biggest opportunities to make a difference.

A lot of good insights but they are best summarized by these 3 key headlines:

Define your special difference
Continuously nurture it
Consistently deliver it

I´d like to add convert them into these steps an add one:

Clarify it / Differentiate 
Evolve it/ Innovate
Live it/ Cultivate
Learn by it/ Reflect

The last point being, at least from a personal perspective tremendously important. In order to achieve greatness you need to reflect upon the history. Easy to say, sure but when I reflect upon my own career sometimes I often find great moments and achievements that helps me in the daily strive of evolving. And as the quote lover I am I usally use this line:
"To move successfully into the future one’s need to reflect upon past achievements.”

So keep on or start branding yourself, everyone will benefit especially you!
 
 

“It is impossible to have a great life unless it is a meaningful life. And it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work.”

— Jim Collins

The Design Series: Commandment #3

Aesthetics is closely linked to good products and the value of it has not decreased rather the opposite. People have become less tolerant to mass consumption and therefore a key asset it so shape your products and services to fit within peoples everyday life. Mindset: “I choose this product due to its very nature of fitting into my everyday life and more, making it more aesthetic. I expresses my character” 

Summary: Aim for a aesthetical layer of all your products or services. Big or small, design them to enhance and embrace your consumers.

New Work: Hits Hurt Records

Just finished an identity job for new record label Hits Hurt Records. Check out the details here