Please don’t make the mistakes that have already been made.
In our interconnected digital world, it is amazing to think that we are still having analogue debates about branding which are focused on design and communications. There still appear to be marketers, designers and agencies out there who believe (overtly or covertly) that a brand is all about the logo, look, design or even a pure communication strategy.
Surely we have learnt that the historical “transmit model” of branding doesn’t work anymore. You can design lots of amazing logos, web pages, digital interfaces and the like, but our consumers moved on years ago. They have a different branding medium to respond to and it’s called customer experience.
It is not that the visual elements of branding are not important, we all want things that are beautiful, make life easy for us and are well designed. But consumers see brands in a holistic way and not as individual interactions. In other words they either engage with an experience that meets their needs or does not.
Delivering the brand promise is not a narrow band design concept but a multidimensional relationship that all brands need to recognise and understand.
I don’t recall seeing consumer feedback on the likes of TripAdvisor, praising the visual aspects of a brand instead they talk about the whole experience.
Critical to great design in any form is how we make the consumer feel at all points during their journey.
Great brands are far more than visual design
Great visual design is a part of any customer experience, but it is not the be all and end all. Fantastic design with a rubbish experience is a waste of that design effort.
As Carl Jung said: “You are what you do, not what you say you will do”
No matter how well Apple designs its products, without the human experience and community that has evolved around the brand, they just make computers, watches, tablets, and music storage devices. Apple’s success lies in their understanding of how their customers experience their products and services as a whole, and their dedication to responding to evolving needs.
A beautiful digital experience may excite us when we are online but this feeling must be reflected and continued into the real world when we collide with and interact with the business as a whole.
Can great visual design replace a call centre interaction during a case of “computer says no” syndrome? I doubt this very much, but consider how much better the call centre experience might be, if it was designed with the same care and passion that is applied to the visual aspects of the business’ branding.
The best designers I have had the privilege of working with have key similarities in their approach to creating great designs. Not only do they have a real desire to understand the product or service, but they also the holistic environment in which their work needed to standout and inspire consumers. They naturally immerse themselves in the consumer’s world and headspace, and work with the people of the business to gain an in-depth understanding of what they are designing for and how they want people to feel at every moment in the customer journey.
Design and the complete human experience
It is clear that as much attention needs to be applied to designing experiences which elegantly deliver the brand promise as to the design of all the visual aspects of the brand. To separate the two ignores how the customer consumes in the real world. If the design of the visual brand is a key part of making the brand promise, then it has a role in helping to deliver that promise too.
Ultimately the challenge is that the arbiter of what works and what does not isn’t you or I, nor is it a creative director or the judging panel at an awards ceremony, it is those people who, in the end, pay all our wages: the consumer. They will judge our brands throughout the human experience and never as just one moment of interaction, look, or design.
The consumer can be drawn to our brand if they are excited by how it looks and what that inspires, what the brand promises and all the greatest communications on the planet. But they will drop the brand like a stone if those expectations are left unfulfilled throughout the human experience. What a potential waste of all that design talent!
It feels to me that we should keep the words of Mr. Jung close to our hearts when we are seeking to build, manage and grow the brands we are responsible for.
By Andrew Stothert, chief executive and a founding partner of Brand Vista.
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