Branding, beginnings and the art of the conversation
Branding and strategic design often become the nest for deep discussions about who “we” are — as a company, a brand, an organisation — and who we want to be. In this way, brand identity processes is the place where culture, image and vision meet.
There was a time when the word “branding” was considered a dirty word in certain circles. And maybe legitimately so. The original take on branding was more about the packaging of a project than the quality of the project itself. The early stages of marketing and branding had the advantage of a monolithic media machine with the bandwidth and authority to claim that its product was great without having to actually prove it. It has been said that the current US President Donald Trump is the anachronistic poster boy for ol’ school branding: “I have the best words”, “I am the best business man”, “I have many friends”, etc. — all one-sided claims of greatness that seem unconcerned with the truth or verification.
That kind of branding and marketing is a magic trick that is otherwise nearly impossible to pull off these days.
Today, branding is a two-sided motion of control and surrender. Control because it is prudent to attempt to control or at least influence the story being told about you or your product; because the world does not really care if you consider yourself the owner of a brand or not, it will form an opinion regardless. And therefore: surrender.
There is no such thing as a bulletproof brand with immunity to popular belief and discourse — whether true or false. All you can do, as brand owner, is to create a brand that is as smart, accurate and truthful as possible and then surrender yourself to the tides of financial fluctuation, political agendas, popular opinion, and general disruption of the world as we know it.
Is identity just ol’ school branding?
Sometimes people ask us: Why not just call it identity — and get rid of the word “branding”? Surely no-one objects to the word identity. But what if identity is just a new form of ol’ school branding?
In the western world, we are witnessing a surge in identity claims. Where identity used to be based on verifiable and objective facts, it now seems to be a highly subjective claim, based on feelings and personal beliefs. You may choose to identify as a different gender or non-gender or with an ethnicity that consists of maybe 1/10 of your genetic make-up. What used to be called hobbies, eating habits or just plain old personality traits now have the ability to offer you some sort of identity. You are a flexitarian, you are a gypsetter, you are an introvert. Your identity, your choice — and much like the claims of Donald Trump, no-one is able — or allowed — to challenge or question your identity. It is a monolithic message delivered with sovereign power.
Marketing people, rejoice! Having people voluntarily classify themselves into separate target groups is almost too good to be true. Surely, this makes it easier. But alas, the modern user with its elastic identity expect the same from its products. It expects more. The modern user wants consumer goods to contribute to the on-going personal branding on various social media platforms. So in fact, marketing and branding has never been more complex.
Begin anywhere
In all of this excitement, it is easy to lose sight of the basic components of a sensible branding strategy. If your target group is a bouquet of identities that your product has to appease, where does that leave your brand?
We have found that simplicity enhances sincerity. When we embark on a branding process, we only have one credo: Coherence! Does the vision match the behaviour and does it show? If not, you may have fallen into old habits of monolithic branding: “I am whatever I say I am” and your brand does not stand a chance. We tend to use the good old VCI model developed by Majken Schultz from Copenhagen Business School.
The benefit of this model is that its simplicity allows our clients to group their considerations into three categories and focus fully on each of them. Seeing that we often deal with old and powerful institutions or large companies, simplicity is key. Having to change the internal culture or visual identity can seem daunting and insurmountable. But as music pioneer John Cage famously suggested, when faced with an overwhelming assignment: “Begin anywhere”! As long as coherence and alignment is your overall goal, it matters less where you begin.
In our experience, the first initial meetings with a client tell you everything you need to know about where to begin. Regardless of good intentions, empirical evidence and good common sense, it is easier said than done to bring about important change in an organisation. Resistance lurks in the corners and the opposition can be vocal and yield a more powerful sword than that of the ambitious branding strategist. So the questions are: How can we initiate and motivate necessary change without alienating core people in the organisation? Carrot or stick? Process or visible results? Co-creation or recommendations? What will be the most efficient driver for change?
Opening a great big can of worms!
Very often a brand strategy process starts out being about something else. “We need a new website!”, for instance. But a website is of course nothing more than a communication tool with which you express an overall brand strategy. So the question is: What do you want to express with your website? And who are you performing for? Let’s talk about that instead of the website.
Urgent.Agency subscribes to the art of the conversation — not unlike a therapeutic session with plenty of tough love. We take our time to get to the bottom of the matter: Who are you, who do you want to be and do you behave accordingly? Done properly, this exercise leaves the client with an almost cathartic feeling of clarity — even though they may have had to open a few cans of worms to get there.
To move the therapeutic process forward, bringing in views from the outside world can be a powerful tool. Our clients often fluctuate between elation and mortification, when they hear what their peers or users actually think of them — for better or worse.
If coherence is the objective, the outside experiences and views add valuable insight to the entire endeavour and reminds the client of the fact that a vision, mission, strategy or visual identity means very little if the outside world is not picking up on it.
Your brand is not what you say it is. It is a constant negotiation between what you put across and the way you are remembered.
Purpose-washing?
Many have heard of white-washing and green-washing, but what about purpose-washing? Could it be that “purpose” is the new stale vision/mission of corporate strategy? As in, the act of articulating the purpose is sufficient? Along with a long line of bad habits of using the vision/mission as a symbolic gesture and hanging the brand platform values on the wall in nice frames instead of acting on them?
The blame for that tendency is to be shared between clients and consultants. Some words simply don’t pack a punch. They lack the inability to materialise into something tangible and therefore remain glossy punchlines or feel good statements about “courage” and “innovation” on corporate corridors.
A branding strategy needs to offer a platform that moves from words and images to perceivable action. Do the designers actually design based on the brand platform? Do the communicators communicate? Having a highly cross-disciplinary team is a constant reminder of that. You might even say that we at Urgent.Agency are the actual litmus test of the branding strategies, we help create.
This article is an excerpt from “Urgent.Practice — Culture design and design culture in the 21st century”. Read more interviews and articles from the publication here on Medium or click here to download the full publication.
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