The Miami Files
Why Good Design is Organic
By Patrick van Schie
Brand Director LATAM at VBAT
Every person is unique. We all have an inimitable mix of character traits and contextual factors that make us different from others. If we build connections with different people it is often not easy to explain why we like one person above the other. We all have building blocks that define our identity, but those are not easy to make explicit.
With brands and organizations this is exactly the same. Building strong and attractive identities for brands is more an art than a science. Important is that identities are grounded in the essence of what the brand or organization is.
For the crazy ones
An identity is the distinguishing character or personality of an individual, brand or organization. And while we all have a unique identity, many individuals do their utmost to blend in and become part of the grey mass. For brands and organizations this is the same. They are often more a reflection of category codes than a demonstration of uniqueness. Brands and organizations that take this strategy should also accept that they will be received as middle of the road, nothing special and more of the same.
If you want to make impact you need to be willing to stand out. “Here’s to the crazy ones” is a campaign that fully embraces this thinking. The uniqueness of Apple is manifested in all its touch points. Consumers are so enthralled with their Apple devices, that there are more videos on YouTube of people unpacking Apple devices than unwrapping Christmas Gifts.
Standing out creates superior value, if done well. To stay with Apple, their strategy of offering uniquely designed devices at a premium, is paying off. Apple scoops up a 93% of all smart phone profits while it is selling less than 20% of these devices!
But standing out is easier said than done. It is the consequence of building a strong and credible identity that emphasizes the uniqueness of the brand or organization and is highly relevant for consumers and customers.
And that is exactly where design comes in.
Design is not only about creating a logo, to create a recognizable representation of a product or corporation. Design should bring the identity to life in an ownable and distinctive way for the brand or the organization.
Great design also loops back to consumers and customers by connecting the identity in a relevant fashion to their desires and expectations. Once you’ve seen the design, you should immediately get a notion of the identity. Obviously, this works through visual language, through associations that the design leaves as an imprint on the recipient. In other words, design often has subtle cues which are not all consciously registered by the receiver, but work on a subliminal level.
Strangely, if you look to the total spending towards communication assets, Design often only represents a small portion of the total. It’s like with building a house: foundations are critical and define what can be created on it and what not. Foundations are the expertise of experts.
Empathetic wisdom
This makes design the work of professionals. If you take your brands or organization seriously, you will need to work with parties that have the empathetic wisdom to understand and translate the desired identity into a meaningful design. There are not many parties that are consistently good at this. It requires a way of working that puts intuitive reading at the center. This is difficult, since it is not a science.
So how could we get some grip on this process and secure the best outcomes for a design project?
The most important notion is that design should be organic. The design should be rooted in the DNA of the brand or organization and be a representation of core values.
A good briefing talks about the DNA: those intrinsic components that define the brand or organization at its deepest level. Linked to this “genetic material” are the “values” of the brand. See those as the defining attitudes and principles the brand or organization lives by.
Attributes are the brand proof points
Tangibly, the DNA and values should be translated in “attributes”, the concrete and specific manifestations and proof points of the brand DNA and values. To illustrate, the Passion for Quality which is one of the key values of the Heineken brand, is demonstrated in the use of the Heineken A-yeast. The application of the A-yeast is mandated across the globe and flown to every production location from its original stem in the Netherlands, giving the brand its unique crisp and refreshing character.
The “personality” is subsequently the characterization of the brand or organization in the context of their stakeholders: a personality is a characterization among others. The personality traits include the contextual dimension and in it should demonstrate to what extend the brand or organization really wants to be differentiated versus its peers.
During a design briefing all these elements should be extensively discussed.
A brand that wants to reposition itself, should continue to be respectful towards its DNA and values. Like people, brands can develop over time, but only from a place of strength and definitely not by inventing traits that are completely new to the brand. Opportunism and building an identity are not working well together.
It also means that every marketer should know their brand(s) inside-out. You can only be a true guardian for the brand, if you make the effort to study its heritage and production process, to talk with the people that have been nurturing the brand over time and to assess its role and performance in the context of the category and the perception of its users.
Unfortunately, often marketers don’t make these structural investments when they start working for a brand. The risk is that the personal agenda of the marketer, takes over from the natural evolution of the brand, with the danger of not progressing the brand via its organic routes.
Evolutionary and revolutionary design
We are living in a dynamic context. The world is changing rapidly with new technologies, demographics, economic realities and other contextual changes. Consumers are reactively and pro-actively responding to that. Brands and organizations are part of this world and should thus also anticipate and make adjustments towards these new realities.
This doesn’t mean that all design should be evolutionary.
Often revolutionary design is necessary and will lead to stronger market impact. Particularly for brands that didn’t stay current and ahead of the curve, a revolutionary approach is often needed. Nevertheless, also a revolutionary progression should be rooted in consistent brand truths. Differently put, both evolutionary as revolutionary design should be organic. If an identity is adjusted through revolutionary design, it is usually the brand personality or a certain value that is sharpened and made more specific and distinctive versus competition. The link with the brand DNA always needs to be maintained.
Good design is organic. The best brands and organizations have a strong identity, whereby they occupy a unique and consumer relevant territory versus standard category codes.
The identity is the foundation for the progression of the brand and an important source of value creation. Hence also for the development of new innovations and brand activations. Brands that value design are usually the most valuable brands. Those organizations understand the foundational value of having good design to build a strong identity.
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Written By Patrick van Schie
Brand Director LATAM at VBAT
