January 31, 2012
Simplify your Company’s Message
By Derek Boman
Recently I was on the phone with a man trying to explain my credit score. After one particular point of nonsense, I complained about the obvious complexity and backwardness of the system. He said, “I know, but that’s just the way it is.” The ridiculous conversation reminded me of a TED talk I once watched. Alan Siegel, of design firm Siegel+Gale, described a challenge issued by President Obama after signing the Credit Card Bill of Rights into law. The President challenged the credit card industry to create a consumer-credit agreement that everyone could understand and that took up only a single page. Siegel found the concept compelling, locked himself in a room, and designed the one-page document. He claims it has been tested and is legally sound.
October 17, 2011
Caught-up in our own Web
Modern8 launches new website
Today marks the public launch of our new Website. It’s a complete overhaul and a dramatically different design strategy. With the recognition that we are living in a mobile, always-connected world, we created the site in a grid-based layout that changes automatically to fit different monitor sizes, whether on a smartphone, tablet or desktop.
July 5, 2011
Delivering the Art of Brand Design from the Science of Brand Strategy
A Presentation to the Utah Technical Council
In introducing our firm, I often use the phrase, “We bring together strategic and creative services to achieve a shared goal.” I was asked to speak last week at the marketing forum of the Utah Technical Council on the subject of Delivering the Art of Brand Design from the Science of Brand Strategy, which seemed tailor-fit to our distinguishing position. I’m sharing with you some of the main points of my presentation.
April 27, 2011
Launch Your Brand Internally First
How a great story can turn your employees into brand ambassadors
Brands are expressed in many ways, including in the actions and behavior of your own people. In fact, employees are crucial to the brand experience, particularly in the B2B space. Inasmuch as a brand is the totality of all your perceptions about a business, obviously, employee actions and attitudes have an impact—everything from answering phone calls promptly to product knowledge. But it goes beyond customer facing employees. Employees don’t just represent the company, they are the company. The depth of understanding each person has about brand values and purpose is reflected in productivity. The workers of strongly branded organizations literally “live the brand”, giving them focus, motivation and a guiding direction.
February 24, 2011
Branding 101: Your Logo Isn’t Your Brand
And other brand myths dispelled for B2B companies
Last week I gave a presentation to the Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) entitled, “Your Logo Isn’t Your Brand”. If you subscribe to the modern8 newsletter or read the blog, the subject may not be new, but it is worth repeating.
January 20, 2011
You Don’t Name Your Kid “A Blue-Eyed Boy”
Picking the right brand name
Back in early ‘90s I designed the logo for Associated Foods—the “cart in the A”—that you see on big trucks throughout the Intermountain West. So I was quite interested when Associated Foods adapted my logo for the identity of the Albertson’s chain of grocery stores that they acquired in 2009. The company-owned stores were named “Fresh Market using the “cart in the A” inside an apple. They didn’t ask for my design help (I certainly wouldn’t have put it inside an apple.) Nor did they ask my opinion on the name.
December 23, 2010
How Branding Stole Christmas
And why, like it or not, it’s not prone to change.
According to NPR, you can now follow through with the empty threat waged at children worldwide during the holidays. “You’re going to get a lump of coal for Christmas.” A company called CoalGram is offering to ship a lump of 100 percent pure anthracite coal to the transgressor of your choice. And you needn’t limit it to naughty kids. The company suggests your boss who didn’t give you a raise, your boyfriend who forgot your birthday and the politician who is driving you nuts. Each specially wrapped chunk of coal will cost you ten bucks.
September 15, 2010
The Perception Gap
The distance between seeing and understanding
Last week we presented design proposals for the packaging of a new retail product. While discussing the relative merits of one design concept compared with another, I was asked by the client about the value of intrigue in design solutions. The client was wondering if design effectiveness was enhanced by certain amount of ambiguity in the solution, which sets up a cause to be interested, or curious.
August 17, 2010
Personal Brands
Recently we met with a successful entrepreneur who had sold his company to a competitor in a related industry. He is now employed by the acquiring company, but it isn’t going well and he is leaving 90K on the table to jump ship and restart his old business again. He told us, “This time I’m going to do it different. I don’t want to be as big as before. It’s really all about me anyway. I’m the rainmaker and the one with the technical skills.”
June 16, 2010
Designing Web Sites for Architects
No architect would begin designing a building without knowing the purpose of the structure: how it’s used, for whom and to accomplish what? Successful buildings are aesthetically satisfying and serve the needs of their inhabitants. A well-designed space can make our lives easier and happier.
Web sites are no different. What’s the purpose, how is it used and by whom? If the Web site is well-designed, “inhabitants” are happy and can find their way around. (more…)
April 21, 2010
An Ideation Session and Design Thinking
A day-long immersion in small group innovation thinking
A few weeks ago I was invited to participate in an ideation session by a Park City-based strategy and innovation-consulting group. The purpose of the all day session was to develop innovative ideas for a major manufacturer of ready-to-eat breakfast cereals. Together with nine other individuals, some in marketing-related businesses, some not, we gathered in small groups of three or four and brainstormed ideas about improving the product or packaging, promotional and merchandising ideas and new product possibilities. (more…)
January 26, 2010
Seven Attributes of a Highly Effective Brand
I attended our client Mercato Partners’ Sales Summit last week (an event for which we created the identity, Web site and signage) where I heard a number of great presentations, and connected with others. Among the presenters was Mark Hurst, a long-term business associate, who I’ve known since the early ‘80s. Mark talked about the relationship between brand strategies and sales strategies. After dispelling common brand misconceptions, showed a slide listing seven branding definitions—really more like branding attributes. Here they are, with my own elaborations and thoughts about each attribute. (more…)
December 26, 2009
The Red Iguana Effect
I recently read in the paper that the thing a visiting rock star was most looking forward to when in Salt Lake, was going to dinner at the local restaurant, the Red Iguana. And it wasn’t the first time I’ve heard a similar story. Sure, the Red Iguana is highly rated on Zaggat, but as one reviewer said, “It’s a real ‘hole-in-the-wall‘, and be prepared for a wait.”
Of course, the line out the door certainly indicates it’s popular. But do locals and rock stars like the Red Iguana because it’s truly good or simply because everyone else likes it—so hey, it must be good.
In 1949, Robert Merton, a Columbia University professor, coined the phrase “self-fulfilling prophecy”, the explanation for how a belief or an expectation, correct or incorrect, affects the outcome of a situation and the way a person behaves.
In an article titled “Group Think” in the current issue of Wired magazine, Clive Thompson describes how recent studies, (also from Columbia), tested the theories of the self-fulfilling-prophecy in pop culture. His conclusion? We’re often just sheep. If we think others like something, we do too.
The implications for brand and marketing managers are numerous: Testimonials are an obvious way of saying “others like us, so will you.” Social Media provide opportunities for building consensus.
And lastly, the expectation and belief of a potential customer can be influenced significantly in the buying process by their perception before the sale. That perception comes frequently through intangibles like design, look and feel, but also—as in the case of the Red Iguana, because of the line out the front door. Would the Red Iguana experience be the same if the “horrible décor” described by one reviewer, was upgraded to something more hip and modern? Maybe not—because design, I hate to admit, is not the always the answer.
November 25, 2009
Ingredient Branding
This spring I bought a road bike and spent the summer pedaling my way to health and happiness all around the valley. I tested several different makes and models before reaching a buying decision. Different factors played into the final selection. I had never actually heard of the bike brand before (Time, made in France), so I strongly relied on the opinion of the retailer, but I was already familiar with the manufacturer of the bike’s major components—Shimano.
The Japanese company Shimano, is known for supplying the cycling components to many of the finest bike makers in the world and is an excellent example of ingredient branding, i.e. an essential ingredient or component of a product that has its own brand identity. Chevron’s Techron, NutraSweet and Dolby are other examples of ingredient branding. Each are essential ingredients of the end product and each possess its own independent identity, marked by its own logo.
Because of its unmatched achievement, the most well-known example of a successful branded ingredient originated with an ad agency in Salt Lake City. Before Dahlin Smith White suggested the tagline, “Intel Inside”, no one knew—or for that matter, even cared what kind of microprocessor was inside their computer. With the help of DSW, Intel became the first PC component manufacturer to communicate directly to the computer buyer and eventually became one of the top ten known brands in the world, in a class with Coke, Disney and McDonalds.
Ingredient branding is most useful when it is aimed beyond your immediate customer to a downstream stage of the value channel. For example, Intel’s immediate customer may be Dell Computer, but by communicating directly to the computer buyer, Intel can pull their product through the distribution channel.
A more limited application of ingredient branding is seen in any product or service named, identified and marketed as a distinctive part of a larger brand. modern8 asserts the trademark on its own strategic methodology, the Perception Branding 5D Process™, to bring attention to, and distinguish the service from our competition. Shimano, Intel and even modern8 enhance the value proposition and points of differentiation for all products and services using ingredient branding.
October 25, 2009
Branding in the Age of Social Media
Recently modern8 has been experimenting with social media networks Twitter and Facebook. (Subscribe/join below.) From a brand strategy point of view, the most valuable aspect of these new media is the interaction between the brand and the customer. Successful brands maintain a dialogue with their customer and social media make it easier.
Good brands have always listened to their customers, but instead of a top-down system where the brand solely determines what to provide, the customer is now helping shape the products and services.
Nike has involved the consumer in a phenomenally successful integration of running gear and technology in their Nike+ communities, where thousands of runners track and post their running statistics using their smart phones and connected Nike products.
Tucker Viemeister says the field of brand strategy needs to change, because the customer is changing. “Branding is no longer about internal focus for consistent product broadcasting—now brands are a team effort. Future brands will be more like ‘cloud computing’,… or ‘open source’, using a concurrent input of different agendas, approaches and priorities—with little centralized decision making. Brands of the future will be both more personalized and more communal. New brands will be virtual clouds of symbols, products and places, with customers using digital technology to build open source experiences.”
September 1, 2009
Design Thinking: A New Way To Develop Innovation
Innovation has been recognized as survival strategy in today’s business climate. In the newest issue of Business Week magazine, an excerpt from a book by the CEO of the design firm IDEO, points out that the need to innovate is nothing new—but how to accomplish it, is new—design thinking. When I started my design business nearly 30 years ago we didn’t talk about design thinking. (In fact, we didn’t talk about much of anything outside of the arcane methods that were required to get something created and printed at the time.) Since then, the influence of design in the business world has grown dramatically.
The methodologies of the designer: brainstorming, mock-ups, user observations, storytelling and scenario building are all useful in building innovation. Tim Brown of IDEO says it is time for this type of thinking—design thinking—to migrate outward and upward into the highest levels of corporate leadership. Business leaders seeking innovation need to adopt the methods of the designer, just as designers are broadening their scope from just creating “things”, to the shaping of services, experiences and organizations.
Designers typically approach problem-solving somewhat differently. They’re more intuitive and emotional, and less logical and analytical. Instead of going A > B > C > D, designers may start at Q > D > K and end up at P. The logical thinker hires market researchers to describe how the world is; design thinking describes how the world could be.
David Butler, Coca-Cola’s vice president of global design, applies design thinking way beyond the design of Coke’s brand. “I love big, giant, enormous systems, no matter what they are,” he says. “In the past, design had been focused on straight forward problems: Come up with a drinking vessel, say. But now it was being asked so solve multipronged problems: How do we get clean drinking water? We’re moving from linear problems to wicked problems.”
Brown concludes by saying, “The design thinkers I have described here are not minimalist, esoteric members of an elite priesthood. They are creative innovators who can bridge the chasm between thinking and doing because they are passionately committed.”
August 1, 2009
Positioning Brand Strategy
Back in the early 1980s, a friend of mine in the printing business loaned me a book that I never gave back. The book is the now-classic, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout. I didn’t give it back because I didn’t want to. I felt like I had to hang onto this simple volume that so profoundly changed my point of view (as well as a half-million others). One reviewer said, “If you can grasp the simple truths in this book, you’ll understand what 90% of marketing people don’t: it’s the customer, stupid”.
What Trout and Reis pioneered 20 or 30 years ago is now a universally accepted (and most would say, the most important) discipline in brand strategy. Brand positioning literally means to “position” your brand in your customer’s mind. The spot you want to find is the strongest position you can claim relative to your competitors. Finding that position means you must, of course, understand who your customer is—your target market—and how they behave.
In business-to-business marketing, it can be difficult for a large, complex, multi-product, multi-service company to find a common denominator. It’s easy to find companies that failed the effort. Just read their position on the home page of their Web site. Is it more than empty phrases? Is it just a lot of “hot air”? Even more enlightening may be to read the position of one of your competitors. Does it sound a lot like your own?
In Marty Neumeier’s book, Zag, he asks “What makes you the only…”. He says complete this sentence: Our brand is the only _____________ that ____________. In the first blank, put the name of your category (sign company, reading glass distributor, medical clinic). In the second blank, describe what makes you different (that has multiple offices in the West, that combines fashion with function, that is locally owned). If you can’t keep it brief and use the word “only”, then you don’t have a “zag”, or a defendable position.
Once you’ve figured out your position, you don’t change it. It’s not like an advertising campaign or even a tagline that might change every few years. In the words of Philip Kotler, in B2B Brand Management, “A brand can only have one true position. An effectively positioned brand communicates its core values to all stakeholders, internally and externally. Positioning a brand is not a tactical activity but rather a strategic process aimed at creating a sustainable competitive advantage.”
July 1, 2009
My City is Better Than Your City
I was reading tweets in modern8′s new twitter account, when a link caught my attention regarding the city of Melbourne’s adoption of a new brand identity. The article indicated that the Melbourne brand suffered compared to Sydney’s, the better-recognized Australian city. The effort to raise public perception of Melbourne was reflected in a new logo for the city.
Of course, the whole of idea of cities branding themselves would have seemed preposterous 10 or 15 years ago. Not that cities haven’t always had a brand–because brands exist whether you manage them or not–but now we’ve got cities applying the principles of brand strategy, once reserved for commercial products and services, to the very neighborhood in which you live.
It may seem odd at first, yet cities are competitive just like that brand of cereal you had for breakfast. Cities compete for residents, tourist dollars and corporate location decisions. It only makes sense to manage municipal perception so you can affect the behavior of your target audience.
Salt Lake City’s new mayor, Ralph Becker, dumped the logo his predecessor, Rocky Anderson, had used on everything from business cards to meter maid vehicles. Becker returned to a previous seal-like identity featuring an image of the historic City and County building–in my mind, a vast improvement over the amateurish skyline logo used by Rocky.
I suspect neither Rocky’s or Becker’s identity was implemented with any strategy behind it–that is, asking what kind of message the city wants to send with its identity. Clearly Melbourne was striving for progressive modernity in its mark, rather than traditional, homespun values. For Salt Lake, it would be an interesting exercise to do the research and strategy and reflect it in a new city identity. It might be a challenge though, because the city is often divided along cultural and religious lines.
Other local municipalities have sought to improve their brand. South Salt Lake has recently engaged a firm to help the image of their city and distinguish it from their neighbor to the north. The shared name in fact, led to discussion on whether South Salt Lake should consider a name change. I’ve always liked the look of Murray City’s logo, created a few years ago, though it references smoke stacks that are now gone and I can’t help but wonder about the appropriateness of the reference.
While we have yet to be asked to brand a city, we’re confident we can.
June 1, 2009
Brand Stories: Beyond Marketing
The thought of public speaking makes them weak in the knees. They prefer to stay in the background to avoid having to risk embarrassment. They don’t like going out of their comfort zone. Sound like anyone you know? Or perhaps a brand you know?
Brands, like people, can suffer from social anxiety disorder. Unfortunately, by their very nature, brands are supposed to be in the spotlight, speaking to the public everyday. Every chance a brand gets to show its personality is vitally important, yet many brands waste the opportunity by hiding who they are behind boring facts.
In contrast, the very best brands let their unique personalities shine through. They get out in front of the crowd unashamed and unafraid of how others will judge them. They understand that all of their weaknesses will be on display, but they also have unwavering confidence that their strengths will completely overshadow their deficiencies. Most importantly, they are prepared with a brand story to tell; one that is much more substantial than their most current advertising campaign.
A story is not only the best way of earning an audience’s attention, but its heart as well. It breaks down barriers, allowing people to understand you and forgive your weaknesses because they can see how your story relates to them. More than this, an established story is memorable and should encapsulate what the brand ideals are, and should be the blueprint for how the brand is marketed.
The real secret is choosing the right story for your brand. Just like any person, a brand can have any number of stories that defines it. These stories can range from seemingly insignificant, to monumental. Last year we were engaged by the School Improvement Network for strategic and creative services. During the 5d Process we realized that they had the perfect story to tell, and suggested they place it front and center on the new Web site we created. Their simple story of how two teachers started what would become a very successful company makes a powerful connection with their target audience, the education community.
The reason this story is important is because it’s sticky. Those who read it will come away with an impression of the company based on that story, and will bring that perspective to all other communications with that brand.
Chip and Dan Heath, authors and columnists for Fast Company magazine, expounded on what makes an idea (or story) sticky, and it’s a lesson that all brands can benefit from: Like School Improvement Network’s story, it is simple (current training wasn’t effective), unexpected (the need was filled by two public school teachers), concrete (they fixed it by taking matters into their own hands), credible (supported by research-based best practice), and emotional (the results are better teachers, and a better education for children). Not all stories have all these elements, but the more they have, the more effective they are.
Admittedly, finding that “sticky story” to stand out and connect with your audience amid so much clutter, may be daunting. For every good story out there, there are dozens of completely forgettable ones. All the more reason to put the extra effort into finding and telling a good story. If good brand story is worth having, it is worth working for.
May 4, 2009
Searching for a Different Tribe
“The fact is, we need divisions as much as we need ways to transcend them.” —Marty Neumeier
The recent recession has only led credence to the idea that we now live in a global economy. A few dominoes topple over in America’s economy, and the chain reaction is felt around the world. But does a global economy also mean that we live in a global village?
Not if “global village” means we are headed to a society with no economic, cultural or national barriers, branding author Marty Neumeier argues. According to him, as soon as globalism removes barriers, people will erect new ones. They need a sense of belonging he says, and he calls the barriers they build “tribes.”
Internet search engines are, of course, a big business. Google has done so well at this business, that in 2006 its brand name was added to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary as a verb. Even so, Microsoft has seen enough potential that it will soon launch its re-branded search service as “Bing.”
The lessons that Microsoft needs to apply to be successful are the same for any company. People align themselves with tribes because they are familiar, and they feel like they belong. Simply trying to “out-Google” Google will not work.
For instance, Ad Age recently reported that Google had conducted internal tests where it branded other Internet search results with their logo and layout. They found that users preferred results with the Google branding, even if the results were not Google’s.
What is the lesson here? The key is to differentiate. It is important to have a good product, or in our example, search engines. But it’s also much more than that. The reason people unite with the Nike, Apple, and Harley Davidson tribes is because they are different. What if these tribes used their branding on someone else’s product? Would it produce similar results to Google?
Without an obvious means to identify, we would say yes. It’s likely because, similar to Google, these brands have personalities, and joining their tribes is more than just buying their products or services. It also speaks to who a person is and what they value.
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