Brand.New

A new approach to building modern brands

Why should Fjord talk about branding?

Our expertise is not just in design and innovation, but at the intersection of culture and technology, people and businesses.

Because the world around us is changing fast, we need to transform the way we think and build brands. Brands can no longer be static, or created in an ivory tower. They are living entities providing experience and value to people interacting with them. The brand becomes the sum of all these experiences, interaction after interaction.

Why new?

We live in a new world in which reality is being synthetically crafted. The mixed reality is already here and is so much more than just a technical implementation. It’s the blurring boundaries of truth and how we value it.

We could say the link between authenticity and truth has been broken. So, how does a brand can evidence the value of authenticity when the fake might be more interesting or just as valuable?

Genuinely knowing and relating to customers, reinforced through trust points, becomes even more essential. The slightest slip up into “fake personal” territory risks customers consigning you to the fake brands category.

So, how can brands deal with these multiple realities?

Brands must understand their ecosystems and be aware of how it can be used and abused; they also need to be able to adapt in real-time from broad to tailored promises and create bespoke experiences in the right context.

“A friend of a Mark walked into the kitchen and said to Alexa, add batteries to shopping list, then left the kitchen. The next day batteries arrived. Alexa never asked which brand to get, so it ordered Amazon Essential. Later he discovered that 90% of battery orders are Amazon own brand.

Just like that, the Bunny died”.

Industry after industry has gotten turned upside down. It comes from two angles, technology and people. Technology shakes everything, including brands. At the same time, people demand relevant and valuable experiences, also from brands. Brands that can consistently focus and deliver valuable experiences will be successful.

It Is in fact a great opportunity for brands to show higher permeability than in the past. And in the process become more relevant, more valuable, and, at the end, more authentic.

Three big battlefields to embrace

Tension at the heart of brands.
The tension is between the degree to which a brand is its own thing, defined centrally and unchanging, and the degree a brand adapts around the world, specifically around the user to be more like that person.

The need to be much more adaptable than in the past.
The skin of brands is getting thinner. So, the expression and adaptation to the context, whether is cultural or technological, has become much more of a need compared to the past, when brands could be much more monolithic.

Crisis of relevance.
Brands need to stay relevant to their customers — one of the biggest challenges in the digital age. At the same time, we, as individuals struggle to understand why we are relevant, at all, in the world.

If you wish to know more, check at the series of articles.

The industrialization of experience

Experience becomes an important trust point for brands and services. It is how people create intimate relations and form a brand image. But in the era of Liquid Expectations, a great experience in all channels will be the expected one.

Creating holistic experiences is a huge task. The means to achieve certain goals when it comes to brand and experience are relatively simple to point to — yet, execution is where most companies are failing. You know success when you see it, like Airbnb and the usual suspects, but it’s unclear just how you become the next success story. Some of the ingredients includes Living Services and Living Business as the delivery for organisations.

Brand experience strategy: simple & actionable

Create the vision for the brand strategy and a set of practical tools to bring that vision to life through experience.

1 — Define an authentic purpose and brand personality through research, co-creation and insights gathering in order to create a unique brand DNA supported by business strategy.

The strategy will be translated in real experience. If your brand is “transparent,” what does it mean in terms of customer experience? What do transparent customer service interactions look and feel like? Translate the strategy into tangible elements.

2 — Experience the brand’s unique personality into a set of behavioral, visual, and sonic principles, which will be translated into UX patterns.

It’s not a linear process, but each part of the brand experience design phase feeds each other. You may want to start by defining the signature experience first and derived the brand identity and guiding principles afterward.

3 — Execute the experience through concrete design system. Proving, guiding and inspiring future design development.

Bridge the gap between strategy and execution. Make it tangible by prototyping and validate. Create a brand experience magazine and prepare the ground for design system guidelines.