A brand can provide a range of benefits – including emotional, functional, physical, experiential and self-expressive.

There are three parts to a brand: The brand promise (what we promise to customers through visuals, words and action), the brand experience (the sum total of all the interactions a customer has with us), and the resultant brand perception (how the customer differentiates and positions the brand in their mind).

The meaning of “brand” has evolved over time to become broader and more holistic in approach. A brand is an organisation-wide responsibility – including communications, marketing, sales, operations, production, finance, human resources and administration.

We can control the brand promise and many parts of the brand experience. The measure of success, however, is always in the hands of the customer and the brand perceptions they develop over time.

High performing brands rely on differentiation from their competitors. They must be remarkable in order to be noticed and sustain the continued loyalty of their customers. Consumers have also become savvy in the way they measure, rate and compare brands.

To be remarkable brands must be authentic, confident, aligned, involving, memorable, creative, human, relevant, evolving and responsible.

A brand is not communicated – it is experienced. A remarkable brand is not bought, it is earned.

Enjoy.

Why do some organizations look great… and get great results from their design efforts and ads… while others languish in mediocrity? I think it has little to do with who they hire and a lot to do with how they work with their agencies and designers.

Here are the things your design team wishes you would know:

1. If you want average (mediocre) work, ask for it. Be really clear up front that you want something beyond reproach, that’s in the middle of the road, that will cause no controversy and will echo your competition. It’ll save everyone a lot of time.
2. On the other hand, if you want great work, you’ll need to embrace some simple facts:
3. It’s going to offend someone. If it doesn’t offend them, then it will make them nervous. The Vietnam Vets memorial offended a lot of people. The design of Google made plenty of people nervous. Great work from a design team means new work, refreshing and remarkable and bit scary.
4. It’s not going to be easy to sell to your boss. That’s your job, by the way, not mine. If you want me to do something great, you’ve got to be prepared to protect it and defend it. Come back too many times for one little compromise, and you’ll make it clear that #1 was what you wanted all along.
5. You can’t tell me you’ll know it when you see it. First, you won’t. Second, it wastes too much time. Instead, you’ll need to have the patience to invest twenty minutes in accurately describing the strategy. That means you need to be abstract (what is this work trying to accomplish) resistant to pleasing everyone (it needs to do this, this andthat) and willing, if the work meets your strategic goal, to embrace it even if it’s not to your taste.
6. Help me out by pointing out the work you’d like this to be on a peer with. If you want a website to be like three others (in tone, not in execution) then point it out. In advance.
7. Be clear about dates and costs. Not what you hope for, but what you can live with!
8. You don’t know a lot about accounting so you don’t backseat drive your accountant. You hired a great designer, please don’t backseat drive here, either.
9. If you want to be part of the process, please go to school. Read design magazines or take a course from Milton Glaser or get a subscription to Before & After. By the way, that one link is the single best part of this post.
10. This one may surprise you: don’t change your existing design so often. Not when your kids or your colleagues tell you it’s time. Do it when your accountant says so.
11. Don’t get stressed about your logo.
12. Get very stressed about user interface and product design. And your packaging.
13. Say thank you.

Visit Seth here.

Original post here.

I was sent this, the follow-up to Cadbury’s brilliant Gorilla ad, of which many feel will raise some eyebrows (pun intended).

Here are a few thoughts as to why I think it’s just as brilliant as the Gorilla ad:

1. The brief is ‘Joy’ – simple and broad.

2. It has cut-through appeal, it is like nothing else.

3. It will be analysed and over-analysed by industry blogs.

4. People will share it, it’s fun.

5. People will try it and mock it.

6. It’s about the joy of chocolate ie. the joy of life. Cadbury will begin to own the concept of simple feeling joyous. Not a bad strategy at all, open to an infinite number of possibilities.

7. It’s simple and true.

Visit the Cadbury Eyebrows Facebook page here

Here is a clever spot of media planning in today’s Daily Telegraph.

I believe that every day is filled with little lessons that shape who we are professionally and personally – I’d like to capture these lessons right here in an ongoing post called ‘Some things I learnt today’. They’re brief, blue-sky and only my opinion at the end of the day, so take them at face value.

• Perception is reality.
• Loyalty can not be bought.
• Listening isn’t just about hearing, it’s about being there, in the moment, when someone is talking to you and understanding what they are trying to say. 
• Listening is very, very difficult.
• Paul Simon kicks ass.

I believe that every day is filled with little lessons that shape who we are professionally and personally – I’d like to capture these lessons right here in an ongoing post called ‘Some things I learnt today’. They’re brief, blue-sky and only my opinion at the end of the day, so take them at face value.

• A concept is not a layout.
• A layout is not a concept.
• A concept is an idea.
• If you don’t get the idea from a sketch, the idea isn’t as strong as you think.
• People are funny little things.
• Research is an integral part of the design process.
• Strategy is an integral part of the design process.
• Research and strategy are billable.
• A boutique brand is still a brand.

Here is our take on what brand architecture is and highlighting its importance to the design and branding processes.

Brand architecture is the discipline that focuses on the structure of brands within an organisation and their relation to each other, the corporate brand and the people who come into contact with the brand, day-to-day.

Brand architecture aims to differentiate an organisations brand portfolio and clearly communicate to customers, clients and staff, the relationships between each brand and the strategy behind forming of the structure.

Three generally accepted strategies exist in forming a brand architecture strategy:

• A monolithic strategy
• An endorsed-brand strategy
• A house of brands strategy

A monolithic strategy focuses on one master brand that is consistent across all branded relationships. The Virgin Group, Red Cross and Lego are clear examples of a single, monolithic brand across various platforms.

An endorsed-brand strategy allows a parent brand to add credibility to other brands it owns. An endorsed strategy also allows organisations who operate across a range of categories to differentiate the positioning of their different products. Sony Playstationand Nestle’s Kit Kat are examples of two endorsed brands.

In a house of brands strategy, the parent brand has little, to no prominence, sometimes remaining silent. Individual brands (sometimes considered sub-brands) are offered to consumers and the parent brand has no presence. Unilever owning Colgateand Toyota owning Lexus are two examples of a house of brands strategy.

In early 2008 I was able to work on the the Adshel brand architecture strategy which taught me a lot about the nuances this type of strategy can take in an organisation which engages in different types of dialogue with its different types of customers.

The strategy which we developed began with a simple master brand (Adshel) existing in a monolithic strategy. This was put into place to simplify the dialogue between audiences and ensure that Adshel was the hero in these types of B2B communications.

The importance of a solid brand architecture strategy is paramount to achieving a streamlined and clear approach to communicating what an organisation does.

Visit the Adshel Re-branding case study here.