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Preface
In a century rife with the predictable, the dehumanizing, the
dispiriting, Jazz affirmed the fresh, the human, the hopeful
and it came to represent humanity at its best.
—John Edward Hasse, Jazz, the First Century
Design is to branding what jazz is to music. As people clamor for
more emotional
brand experiences, the world of branding has been slow to respond
to
these new demands. Most corporations are managing their brands
through
disconnected communications departments, which ruptures brand
perceptions
in the eyes of the public. Often a brand personality comes
across as splintered
in its offering because broadcast advertising, product design,
public
relations, promotional strategies, Web promotions, and buzz
programs cannot
deliver a consistent voice. The desires created by TV commercials
often fall
flat when people face the reality of unexciting products and
the uninspired
environments in which those products are sold.
The
almost-exclusive reliance on a narrow and limited form of communication
–broadcast advertising–as the major outlet for communication
is failing
to engage consumers in a more sensorial and surprising way.
Focus-groupdriven
research is the dominant form of relationship made with the
market,
where unprepared and unsuspecting customers are secretly watched
answering important questions about a brand’s future in
the most uninspired
and cold environments. Marketers, customers, advertisers,
and communications
groups are looking at each other with mistrust and frustration.
Brandjam
is the concept that brings all these forces together around
a coordinated approach that opens up the dialogue between brands
and people in
order to bring a new level of consistency, stimulation, and
excitement to the
brand experience. This new vision promotes a jazzed-up collaborative
and
trusted partnership between marketers, consumers, and designers
as a new
element in the marketing process. It shows how a true creative
dialogue can
exist between people and brands, and how jamming around a brand
brings
out the best in people, allowing for the creation of the most
innovative ideas.
Brandjam bolsters the opportunities that are born when a brand
communication
or narrative is consistent and richer and explores new ways
to stimulate
people beyond the thirty-second TV commercial.
Transformative
Jazz
When American jazz swept across France—where I was raised—and
around the
world, it inspired its listeners’ cultural spirit,
their aspirations. It opened the
door to a new way of thinking, of being, that not only
refused convention, but
also made innovation, improvisation, and imagination their
own institution.
Jazz music
was transformative, creating new sounds with traditional instruments
around a clear understanding of engagement. Then it was pleasure
and
freedom, exploration and magic, new voices that reached our
senses, a music
that relied on an organic participation on the part of the
player, and that was
based on sharing emotions through sound–“jamming,” as
we call it. As an
amateur guitar player, I have participated in jam
sessions that began with one
tune, evolved into explorations of entirely new sounds, then
wended their way
back home to the original melody. Jamming is about different
people playing
in harmony, the sensation of joy when new music starts to emerge,
and the
elation of coming to the end of the journey. It is an ongoing
process, constantly
evolving and experiential. The instruments are worked in order
to go beyond
the norm; the musicians must take risks with the notes in order
to explore
new harmonies as a group, and they know when it’s good.
Eyes are shining,
hearts are pulsing . . . Yeah! The crowd loves it
too. The music resonates with
body and soul.
Brands today
must shift from “communications” and “commodities” to
emotion
and inspiration. We must revive our exhausted,
overly familiar offerings.
It is time that branding embraces the same philosophy that
is at the heart of
the jazz culture and starts “jamming,” or more exactly, “brandjamming.”
Brandjamming
is a metaphor that I use in this book to support the idea that
brands need to connect with culture and reach people’s
hearts. Brandjamming,
not unlike the musical comparison, relies on
collaboration, innovation, intuition,
and risk. Brandjamming is about making brands motivating for
the
players and the audience. Brandjamming is about bringing
in diverse talents
to build iconic cultural brand phenomena, breaking rules and
changing
people’s perceptions by energizing their minds. Brandjamming
is an inspiration
for brands and people as it advocates the transforming
impact brands
have on an audience.
In my first
book, Emotional Branding, I emphasized the importance of connecting
with people’s hearts. The book explored a variety of meanings
and
expressions that reveal how consumers’ expectations
are changing. I suggested
that design could help companies fulfill those
changing expectations.
Since then, the most potent development has been the emergence
of design as
a communications tool, as the best “instrument” now
out there for jazzing up
a brand.
This book is
about design inspiration and how it brings a heightened level
of
excitement to people in a new world of consumer engagement.
It is about
design’s power and meaning, its transformative impact and
positive message
of progress. Emotional branding needed a
new lead instrument in order to
build a new “brand sound” that would energize people–heart,
mind, and soul.
Design is that new instrument, that new tune,
the influence, and for some corporate entities it is the expression of an entirely
new culture–a culture of
innovation and advocacy that focuses on human well-being.
The
New Sound of Design
We keep hearing it from the visionaries. Proctor & Gamble’s
CEO, A.G. Lafley,
is transforming the culture at P&G to endorse design
as the main product communicator.
“Design is a really big part of creating the experience and
the emotion,”
and his company has embarked on one of
the farthest-reaching
business transformations by embedding design
at the center of its business
strategy–a revolution for a consumer-goods company. So why
beat the drum
now, and why is it so relevant to understand the experiential
connection
design has with people and its transforming power in a business
culture? This
is the question I want to answer in this book.
I will explore
how brands have become cultural phenomena and individual
messages for people, and as such need to build up an emotional
soul as part
of their message. I will explore how design is the reflection
of the true nature
and personality of a company and its window to the world. Most
importantly,
the changes in our world and the postmodern societal evolution
that privileges
the individual in democratic societies will be at the core
of my observations.
As a metaphor,
I use jazz to show how a well-designed brand can connect with
people in a more visceral way than traditional broadcast commercials
and
how the instinctive nature of a participative creative process
leads to unusual
solutions that make people gravitate toward a brand and make
brands resonate
with people.
Ideas That
Are Fundamental to Brandjam
In my first book, I volunteered some of my insight and feelings
about the emotional branding theory and its impact on our world.
My observations were the
results of years of work in the design field, building brand
expressions for
major corporations worldwide. I also reviewed some of the most
insightful
global visual research we did that gave me a clear vision of
the new expectations
people have for brands. Since then, my continued branding experience
has been enriched by the numerous conferences and intimate
dialogue I have
had with leading corporations as the consequence of their interest
in my book.
Those connections have led me to a new mental process, revealing
the fact that
people have such tremendous expectations from brands and that
brands have
transforming powers beyond the simple delivery of products
or benefits.
Through my
passion for design and the creative process, I suggested a new,
more sensorial way to think about branding. I was then, and
am now, especially
committed to “the designer’s way,” which mixes
instinct, sensory experiences,
and visual analysis in a relentless
quest to understand the role brand
design plays in human culture.
At the core
of Emotional Branding lie the following ideas, ideas that will
be
fundamental to this new book:
1. The marketing and service shift: The fundamental
change in our
economy from a factory-based, capability-driven, production-focused
model to a consumer-based model. This leads to branding as
a new language,
in which flexibility, innovation, agility,
and speed to market have
become the competitive edge to reckon with.
2. Consumer rule: In an emotionally driven economy, the importance
of
moving from mass marketing to the marketing of one.
We must leverage
the power of customization as it applies to different cultural
orientations
and beliefs. Brands need to acknowledge ethnic groups,
gender, age, and
other factors’ influence on perception and desire. I was
one of the first
writers to speak about the gay
market as a leading force in moving
new
ideas and the power of women as the new “Shoppers-in-Chief.” However,
the consumer never stands still, and the present book will
bring the demographics
and cultural shifts up to date for today.
3. Design reframes experiences: This is the ultimate,
provocative expression
of a brand. Through experience it escapes commodity and market
sameness. Sensory design is the most provocative way to shift
in brand
expression on the level of emotional desires.
Sensory design is the inspiration,
the research, the message, and the commercial, a provocative
way to
bring aesthetics and beauty into our lives.
4. From head to heart and gut: Emotional branding
is about exploring more
intuitive ways to reach and connect with people. Understanding
the subconscious
aspirations of people leads to innovative concepts
and ideas bringing
differentiation and excitement. Inventive and experiential
messages emerge
here, from within emotions, instinct, and intuition. This
requires marketers
to think more with their guts and feelings in order to innovate.
And it
demands that executives learn to trust and support their designers.
5. Brand citizenship starts at home: Corporate culture’s
commitment to
society is absolutely integral
to success. Emotional branding
is about trust and
involvement, commitment and leadership, making our world a
better place.
These five underlying concepts
have inspired many corporations. Entire books
have developed more specific facets of these ideas. However,
writing
Emotional Branding was only a part of the larger
goal of seeking design solutions,
innovative research methods, and breakthrough creativity techniques
in
branding. I never looked at Emotional Branding as
the holy grail of marketing;
it was a way to challenge ourselves, provoke our own creative
decision
making, and bring richer innovations to our clients.
Writing on
branding is never easy: it requires developing theory, but
also transcending the clean and neat “ideas” to bring
real products to life. Branding is
messy! But my relentless passion
for advancing the understanding of
brands
has paid off and is still my focus and my love. When people
ask me what I do,
I answer, “My job is to make people love brands.”
Why Another Book?
This book takes the emotional branding concept
further, going in depth to analyze
the new languages that have been and could be created to communicate
an emotional message–the language of design. This is the
most powerful of
all languages in terms of business today.
It informs and transforms, seduces
and reassures. Design brings a human touch to the products
we buy. This
book is about design and its irresistible message.
Design puts
the face on the brand: the curves of the Mac reveal Apple as
the
thinking, creative brand. The new BMW factory designed by Rem
Koolhaas
expresses that company’s commitment to reinventing the
culture of car manufacturing.
The Gates by Christo and Jeanne Claude captured New York City’s
spirit and optimism in a post-9/11 world. Design permeates all
aspects of life, delivering memorable messages that inspire
life and fuel emotion.
My goal is
to bring you ideas you haven’t thought
through before. I will show
you some of the objects that
have inspired my own creative
work. I want to
bring you closer to the brand innovators who shape your life
and your brands,
and open up your thinking about their vision.
My goal will be to demonstrate
how designers think and arrive at their conclusions, showing
why instinct and
gut creativity triumphs over the numbers
game. You will discover also how
billions of dollars are wastefully spent by brands in research
and communication
by using the wrong research technique and obsolete
media vehicles in
an emotional economy.
If I am successful,
I will even help link branding to the larger intellectual currents
of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
The concomitant rise of
branding and postmodernism is no coincidence. Branding, finally,
is not
modern, but postmodern. Branding rejects dogma
and elitism and pursues a
people-driven politics of design. Corporations do not own brands
anymore
–people do! Brands need to look and most importantly
feel the part.
I will let
you inside the world of design creation and show you how designers
think. You will discover the creative process through the
designer’s
eye and
see how the powers of
observation and critical
analysis complement traditional
methods.
I place designers
as equal partners and decision makers in marketing and
business policy. I show how design
impacts and motivates people emotionally.
I will show how visual research is the most inspiring and insightful
research
possible when done by visionaries and
interpreted by designers. Far too little
thought goes into the relationship between branding and design
today: this
book redresses that shortfall.
Some readers
will pine for the hard data that has obsessed so much brand
management today. Some may cringe, charging me with simply
speculating,
using intuition and inspiration to shape
my “impression” of
branding. So be
it! I leave such
critics to their
calculators and slide
rules, where they
will
measure markets but never invent one.
Looking over
my years of close work with top executives at Coca-Cola, AOL,
Victoria’s Secret, IBM, Este Lauder, Unilever, P&G, Abercrombie & Fitch,
and
others, I am happy
to admit the fragile
and tenuous basis that
my entire
industry builds itself upon: brand design is based on instinct
and feelings, it
is based on intuition and belief, the
curves of desire, the wax and wane of
beauty, and the slope of inspiration, because all of these
make up the inspiration
process.
Shifting Your
Vision to Resonate with People
This book is about meeting shifting consumer
expectations through new ideas
and design language. Brands that are successful will reframe
their image
through a unique, differentiated
visual and verbal vocabulary, in
the process
crafting original messages that reach the heart. Design visionaries
like
Starbucks, Red Bull, Apple, Virgin, and
even the Bush administration have
changed our perceptions through communicative strategies that
inspire belief.
To understand this, this book will lead the
reader through a series of topics,
such as:
• How design has become the most powerful communication tool
in branding
strategies
• How to connect the world of business logic to consumers’ emotions
• How you can “imagine” your brand through a better
understanding of the
world of emotions
• How to bring out your “inner designer” in a collaborative
way to create
brand innovation
• How the leading designers have successfully changed the corporate
cultures
and business practices
of their companies
So, here’s to inspired reading–and brandjamming. Introduction
Coca-Cola’s New Wave
In 2000, Coca-Cola’s Doug Daft (president and CEO), Steven
Jones (chief marketing
officer), and Steve Crawford (global marketing director) selected
Desgrippes Gobé to redesign the Coca-Cola brand with visual
graphics
inspiring to a new generation of untapped cola enthusiasts. A cynic
might have
suggested that our task was tantamount to transforming an aging
Vanna White
into the sex symbol for a generation raised on MTV, Maxim, and
Internet
gaming. Fortunately, we were blessed with a great design team and
strong
leadership at Coca-Cola, and we discovered branding’s closest
equivalent to
the fountain of youth: the Coca-Cola mythos.
Smart design and good
branding never come out of a vacuum: branding
requires a commitment supported by a rich corporate culture, a
dynamic
engagement from top executives, and a passion for innovation. Steve
Crawford’s presence was a tremendous boon on all fronts.
In the cultural partnership
between client and designers, there’s no substitute for inspired
and
visionary partners immersed not only in the “numbers” but
also the actual
affairs that inspire real people. Crawford brought culture in spades:
an avid
sportsman, an African American, and an intuitive designer, he also
understood
trends in hip-hop, extreme sports, and youth culture. His extensive
worldwide
travel infused his perspective with a peculiarly transnational, “wired” sensibility
that shared much in common with the so-called MTV generation raised
on fast-paced, international fashions and product cycles. Steve
brings this rich
palette of life experiences to bear on all his work. His famous
work on Sprite
exudes his hip, urban, “attitudinal” visions. He manages
brands from the gut,
no two ways about it.
Desgrippes
Gobé was
awarded the project in a most unusual fashion. Knowing
that other competitors would bend over backward to get this plum
assignment,
we were beating ourselves up over the best way to “wow” this
major account.
Up until the last minute we were coming up with new ideas, tossing
them out,
and resuscitating old ones. Since my first book, our group has
been known for
emotional branding, but how do you translate this into a compelling
presentation
for the top executives of the number-one soft drink company in
the
world? It’s one thing to sell an idea to the public, but
entirely another to sell
to a small group of important people. The whole spirit of emotional
branding
is premised on an intimate, tailored encounter with consumers,
not brand
managers. Frankly, although the measure of any campaign’s
success is the
public’s response, reaching out to the client first may be
the hardest step (a
dilemma I hope the present book will help alleviate by bringing
designers and
brand managers into a closer understanding).
Usually a firm lands
a job by hosting the client, bragging about its success
alongside a slick presentation, and then highlighting the talents
of the team
working on the job. The routine really has not changed that much
since
Darren’s desperate tactics on the 1960s TV show Bewitched.
Darren, of course,
was married to Samantha, a witch who time and again used her magical
powers to land Darren a prize account. Although Desgrippes Gobé’s
innovative
brand vision was strong, and our global network a major asset to
help
jazz-up the brand, we still hadn’t found our Samantha for
this one: that magical,
supernatural inspiration that goes beyond the rational commodity
and
touches both client and consumer. We needed something special,
something
inspired and different.
We worked a
full week preparing for this meeting, brainstorming about strategic
angles and outrageous ideas, like painting the entrance to our
lobby Coca-Cola
red. (You don’t know how far firms like us are willing to
go to win such an
account. If someone had argued for Coca-Cola-laden parachuters
landing on the
roof, I probably would have listened intently!) Indeed, one difficulty
in emotional
branding is not getting caught up in flashy, obnoxious stunts
that can be
so in your face that the sensitive, emotional encounters with
consumers are neglected.
Fortunately, level heads prevailed, and the final decision was
to give an
international presentation showcasing who we are: we would assemble
twelve
people from our group, including representatives from Europe
and Asia, to
show our broad-based, personal, and emotional commitment to the
project.
Everyone was
on pins and needles when the client arrived. Steve Crawford has
an impressive presence and a truly sharp marketing mind so we
had to be
great, unique, and “sans bullshit.” After about ten
minutes of friendly professional
introductions, we prepared to present our work. These presentations
are the bread and butter of design firms: full of PowerPoint
slides and carefully
crafted images, they showcase the firm’s strengths in a well-planned
manner. If they’ve done their homework, an agency can put
the PowerPoint on
autopilot and let the work speak for itself. Design firms love
such exhibitions.
However, while sense and formula dictated following this course,
my
designer’s gut abruptly overrode my executive’s rational
sense of judiciousness.
The facts, planning, discussion, expectations, and data called
for a
sober presentation, but the emotional brander in me realized
I had to jazz it
up: this encounter needed to be personal, idiosyncratic, and
inspired.
Emotional branding has always been about inspiration, personality,
and connection,
and this occasion needed to embody that. To my colleagues’ surprise,
I pushed aside our presentation and asked for everyone’s
memorable
experiences of Coca-Cola.
What was meant
as a brief, unscripted aside led to a spirited two-hour digression.
In accounts traversing the sublime as well as the ridiculous,
the subliminal,
and the rational, my team began recounting what Coca-Cola meant
to
them. We could not stop talking about Coca-Cola, and even Steve
was drawn
into what quickly became a brand-loving jam session among friends.
Everyone
poured out their feelings about the brand in a most revealing
fashion. Our
account director recalled getting lost in the desert of Morocco,
seriously wondering
whether she might make it home, when she discerned a Coca-Cola
sign in the distance that suggested a mirage but instead provided
safe passage
home. Others offered up interesting insights, including a designer
from Tokyo
who told us that the existing graphics–a Coca-Cola bottle
gushing cola–suggested
decapitation for Asian audiences!
For my own
part, I recalled discovering Coca-Cola as a young kid in Brittany,
on vacation from my rural village in France. This recollection
of the first rush
of “coke,” that strange American elixir, elicited the
whole room’s interest and
engagement. Desgrippes Gobé had never before had such a
personal and
broad-ranging conversation, and I wished that everyone
from the company
could have been there. It was truly intimate, and a tribute to
the designers’
trust in one another.
And then: the client left for another meeting.
I thought I had blown it. We had presented no work, did not mention
anything
about the firm, and had bizarrely collapsed under a frenzy of
emotional sentiment.
Our rigorous approach to brand building fell entirely by the
wayside.
Instead of images of excitement, Steve went away with pictures
of decapitation
in Asia. Though others felt the meeting went well, I wasn’t
so sure.
The client had told us they would get back to us in a couple
of weeks, and I
went to bed that night anticipating two long weeks of stewing
over my misstep.
But a call came the next morning: Coca-Cola had cancelled its
appointments
with other agencies and told us that our belief in the brand
and our
vision for its needed shifts made us the right partner. We were,
needless to say,
dancing all day and night.
Emotional Design
In this project the important step, from an emotional and design
perspective,
was to “observe” the audience we needed to communicate
with. We had to
determine what deep subconscious values young people were
looking for.
Furthermore, we had to identify and understand what deep subconscious
emotional values Coca-Cola was best positioned to respond to.
Understanding
how young people live, the music they listen to, the sports
they like, and the
moments they treasure was crucial. With these answers we might
begin
answering the key emotional branding questions:
• Who are we?
• Are we loved?
• What’s our passion?
• Who do we want to share our passion with?
• Are we believable?
From these questions, it is possible to establish an emotional
personality that
lays the groundwork for an inspired design language.
Coca-Cola’s
own research data, accumulated from consumers worldwide,
complemented and enriched our insights. However, we also
relied on our
international offices to get our own readings and perception
of the brand and
its reputation abroad.
We also undertook
a visual audit, taking stock of the brand’s
philosophy and
personality. The visual audit systematically traces
the look and feel of the
brand across many sites and platforms. For Coca-Cola, the same
graphics
were used on the shelves of supermarkets, in nightclubs,
at the beach, and in
sports stadiums, regardless of the different experiences people
had at each
venue. The same ubiquitous graphics were displayed universally
without any
regard for “site-specific” harmony with the environment
and its experience.
Coca-Cola’s visual narrative
was based strictly on the green glass contour
bottle, imposing a rigid message that did not make
room for people’s
interpretation
or imagination. We thought this was too dogmatic.
Furthermore,
people’s perceptions of the brand revealed that this contour
bottle was perceived
as dated by younger consumers. Something new, but
also consistent
with it’s rich legacy, was called for. The evolution of the
graphics of a brand is
not an unusual thing. Logos are updated every so
many years. Look and usage
varies. Nike famously disconnected its iconic symbol from the
logotype.
Our design
team knew that our exploration would have to look beyond the famous
green
glass contour bottle symbol without losing the importance of such
an icon. But such endeavors are a sensitive, intuitive affair: the
right design must come from the heart,
the brand community, the best of the corporate culture. Furthermore,
one
must keep in mind that that final decision will reshape and
redefine the brand
expression to the world, becoming a permanent part of the brand
legacy.
The bold task of shaping a new visual, emotive narrative excited
my team. Its
brand already resonated with people in an emotional way, and
yet it could do
so much more. There were so many audiences to whom Coca-Cola
was in
danger of being seen as another sugary commodity, in a world
of refreshment
that was evolving toward noncarbonated and healthier drinks such
as fruit
juices and water. Coca-Cola, we believed, had a premium value
and lifestyle
appeal that could help shape a new path for the brand; this was
our chance to
intervene. We wanted to help audiences recognize it as a beacon
of optimism,
energy, and diversity, and such elusive, ethereal sentiments
are best conveyed
through thoughtful emotional design. We were there to craft the “feel” of
Coca-
Cola in a new consumer reality.
Our challenge
was to humanize the iconography in new, more powerful emotional
ranges. Graphics would be tailored for consumers according to
our now
famous emotional lens: an emotional need to be reassured
(head), the desire to
be socially responsible (heart), and the craving for visceral
engagement (gut).
Our new emotional
model dictated a new design that responded uniquely to
consumers’ life moments. We recognized and leveraged the
way consumers
respond to brands differently at different times throughout their
lives, and also at
unique sites. Vending machines, billboards, delivery trucks, blogs,
sporting
events, beach placement, retail environments:
each elicits unique matrices of
expectation and engagement. Through meeting these site-specific
needs, we
could shift the brand’s iconography from sameness
and ubiquity to dynamic,
evolutionary involvement.
How Can We
Not Change?
An interesting aspect of Coca-Cola’s design history struck
us as we worked.
We spent countless days in Coca-Cola’s
Atlanta archives reviewing libraries
of the brand’s history. Tracing out the brand’s
myriad visual iterations, the
color yellow kept dancing before our
eyes. On delivery crates in the 1930s,
promotional materials in the 1940s, even actress’s dresses
in the 1950s.
Coca-Cola was truly a defining and innovative
brand by then, but one aspect
of the brand that caught our eye and helped change the look of
the brand
was the yellow wood crates used to carry the coke
bottles at the beginning
of the last century.
Instinctively
and intuitively the team was excited about the idea of bringing
yellow back into the visual narrative. We even considered
making an alternate
yellow can, a promotional bottle. Perhaps yellow coke trucks
could speed
across highways in the summer! The question was, how
far would people be
willing to go to enjoy and experience the brand? What bold steps
would excite
their desires to delve in? Once again visions of parachuters,
this time with red
caps and yellow cans, were tempting to us. Ultimately, however,
we were
starting to unlock the energy and fun nature of the brand in
ways we would
not have thought possible.
But first we
needed to focus on leveraging the existing graphic equities.
Pushing the limits of a brand expression is a process of evolving
the graphic
narrative and often leads to interesting discoveries. But at
this point presenting
a bold idea might distract the team and puzzle the client. I
did not want to get
a rejection for an idea that might be more profitably offered
later.
Such varieties
of “creative flirting” are practiced
often, particularly as a way of
floating modest ideas before a
client before moving to the bigger,
potentially
disturbing ones. This prepares the right context to eventually
showcase larger
ideas. We decided to include “Coca-Cola yellow” in
a modest way at first. It
was used to highlight the brand’s packaging,
making it more energetic, but
also reframing and foregrounding
Coca-Cola’s “full
red.” Yellow helped to differentiate
and make more inspiring the dominant
red. Moreover, the touch of
yellow brought a surprising energy and optimism that could enhance
the
imagery and packaging. Though difficult to
measure or demonstrate “objectively,”
our design team felt its power.
However, the
yellow was barely talked about, so as to avoid threatening the
client. Instead it was our little secret weapon and insight,
embedded in the
graphic image. But from our own perspective
and intuitive feelings, this little
color yellow was a huge step in complementing our other big idea:
the return
of the “dynamic ribbon.”
The Dynamic
Ribbon Returns
In evaluating the brand’s visual assets, we realized there
was a powerful but
abandoned icon that emotionally
trumped all others: the dynamic
ribbon, or
“Swoosh”! This powerful, abstract visual icon, created
in the 1970s, was truly
a brilliant idea; it almost suggested
the action painting of a Jackson Pollock
in its sprawling, dynamic flight, and was predecessor to the
Nike logo. We recommended
bringing back this icon but evolving and energizing
it to sensually
and emotionally connect with today’s markets with a new
design
language, particularly with the addition of
effervescent bubbles to enhance its
refreshing image.
We recommended
replacing the contour bottle displayed on the coke can with
this dynamic ribbon. Created in the 1970s, the white ribbon
signified the identity
of Coca-Cola until the 1990s. When launched in the 1970s, the ribbon
was
part of the company’s growing global brand visual vocabulary.
As non-Western
characters were introduced onto the coke cans and bottles in growing
foreign markets,
there was a concern that its visual iconography
and identity would be
diminished. The dynamic ribbon became part of an international
graphic
language that could be understood by everyone
around the globe.
Putting the
Project into Perspective
The entire project took about two years to complete, including
revisions in
design as we tested consumer feedback on the new iconography.
Coca-Cola
worked with Censydiam, a research group from Antwerp,
Belgium, that
brought a qualitative approach especially suited to and compatible
with the
insights of emotional branding. Censydiam’s approach, as
I will explain later
in Shift 5, is not based
on asking consumers to judge
a design, but rather in
observing and discovering through in-depth interviews and interactive
visual
exercises how people respond to given presentations.
Results are gauged by
the emotions and feelings people experience with a particular
design. This is
vastly superior to soliciting “design evaluations,” which
at best provide skewed
rational accounts of a
design idea.
Design evaluation
by consumers is a surefire method to miss out
on the best
potential of a design. The danger with the traditional qualitative
techniques is
their tendency to selectively reinforce
familiar ideas while downgrading or
underestimating the appeal of newer concepts. The unfamiliar is always suspect
in
these rational, explicit measurement techniques and surveys. In this way, design
evaluation
is inherently conservative and inappropriate for brands that see their future
course charted in growth, expansion, new markets, and expanded imagery. The
Censydiam techniques, by contrast, leverage the past while charting new, more
promising
paths in the future. We wanted a design that would “catch on,” that
would come to elicit
more powerful consumer responses. Censydiam’s psychologists believe that
the
more relaxed the atmosphere, the more conducive it will be for people to share
their feelings. Their approach is in depth, and entails spending four hours
with individuals, patiently peeling back the layers of emotion and response
until a more powerful, unconscious kernel comes to the surface. For this study
alone they talked to 160 people worldwide. On a continuous basis, designs that
scored best featured our added yellow
color. It seemed to communicate the
most energy and vitality even though
people interviewed did not relate their comments to the yellow
color specifi-
cally. Our design was particularly appealing
to young people and women.
Needless to say, we were thrilled. I am not sure our clients
understood rationally
the power of this yellow “artsy” touch, but they
understood the positive
response. The combination of the positive
surveys and the client’s
trust in
our design team advanced
the project to the launch
stage. Yellow, according
to Steve Crawford, “communicated globally particularly with
Latin cultures;
it was the sun, the warmth
of a relationship, the energy,
the togetherness and
the ‘we’ moments that coke needed to communicate. This
yellow addition
was right on.”
Setbacks
Then to our surprise,
the company demanded
to have a meeting in
our New
York office to discuss another set of quantitative results that
contradicted the
Censydiam results. If you haven’t ever attended
a quantitative research presentation,
it’s hard to explain how daunting and intimidating
they are in general,
never mind when they
generally contradict
what you otherwise believe.
The complexity of analytical data is so sophisticated that it
is nearly impossible
to understand, particularly for
designers like me who are already
suspicious
of such highly “scientific” charts and graphs as they
relate to emotions.
In
a nutshell, after a two-hour presentation,
their recommendation was
the
absolute opposite of the qualitative Censydiam research. “Don’t
change anything.
The market is not
prepared to see Coca-Cola
change its graphics!
The
old design will do just fine!” was the new message.
All I could
think then was that people are never ready for any disruptive
bold
changes if you ask them. That’s why it’s called “bold” in
the first place; it transcends
people’s reality! Emotionally, people will
tell you a different story if you
know how to listen
and probe deeper into
their subconscious
to connect with
their hidden dreams. But no matter, we already thought we were
doomed!
There was a caveat that was unveiled
in the research by the Coca-Cola marketing
team that suddenly gave a new life to the design.
In the quantitative
research, the new design was not preferred overall (and
therefore the basis for not recommending
the new design) but was most
preferred with youth particularly after we had added more refreshment
cues
such as bubbles and condensation droplets
to the white dynamic ribbon. “As
we were losing in brand acceptance with youth, we knew what the
course
needed to be,” Steve Crawford explained to me. “We
were a bit panicked at
first, but the
overall quantitative
data was minor
compared to the
more decisive
impact on young people. We decided that the brand’s future
was with
young people,
and we decided
to go for it.”
Steve Jones,
the chief marketing officer representing Coca-Cola, and Steve
Crawford, Coca-Cola’s worldwide brand manager, listened carefully,
then
asked around
the table what
people thought.
After a few minutes
of tense conversation
it seemed to me that the group just felt better with the change;
it was
visceral and intuitive. After the
two Steves consulted with each other
for a few
seconds, Steve Jones said, “I appreciate the research but
how could we not
change? We
are moving
with the new
design.”
To see a project
like this come off was a watershed of relief, reward,
gratification,
and delight. Suddenly the sweat, blood, tears,
and passion came to life in
a new brand direction led by a cutting-edge,
emotionally compelling design.
The new design
had a far greater impact than anticipated. Because consumers
responded so well, the
new design also helped
shift the internal culture.
It
changed how people there viewed their brand. This bold change
opened doors
for people to innovate within the
company. That little bit of yellow backed
by
a floating ribbon unleashed the energy native to the brand. Good
design did not
reinvent the brand, but released the latent potential within its
image, its audience, and its company. The emotional energy of the
brand was brought to life.
I never felt
at any point that we were designing a new packaging as much as
leveraging the design process to see
how much potential for innovation was
inherent in the brand. The process helped the company’s
management team
to articulate its belief
that Coca-Cola was not fully
leveraging its emotional
capital and to rethink how to connect the brand with the youth
market.
One seminal
moment crystallized my impression: when Doug Daft,
Steve
Heyer (at the time, his groomed successor), Steve Jones, and
Steve Crawford,
while being presented
with new designs, engaged
in masterful and consistent
brandjamming to determine the brand’s long-term future. The
team was
coming
together;
they were executives
inspired by new visual
stimuli.
How That Little
Bit of Yellow Jazzed Up the Brand
Less than a year after the new can’s launch, I was bowled
over to receive a
copy
of Vogue Australia
featuring
a model on the
cover holding the new coke
can design! She was wearing the yellow and red colors of the
can. The new
design had itself become
a fashion statement! Inside
the magazine, a four-page
pictorial featured this same model with yellow and red fashion
accessories
likewise modeled after
the new can.
I cannot convey
the excitement we felt at the office when we saw
how our new
designs had reached the pages of a major fashion magazine–what’s
more, an
edition
from the
other side
of the globe.
You can’t buy this
kind of thing, and you
certainly
can’t predict it through research. In fact, it’s
precisely this kind of result
that
ultimately
shapes and determines
the public’s
perception of the brand. A
huge
error
in traditional
marketing research
is believing
that consumer
response and taste are a fixed target. In fact, they constantly
evolve and respond
to other cultural
changes. Something
like Vogue designers’ picking
up on the
new
design
of course is
good for the
brand, both
recognizing
and amplifying
its
design power. But more importantly, it helps cast a new aura
around the brand
that comes in the wake
of its design. These kinds
of changes, and in fact
most
of the important but subtle changes that create design success,
can’t be anticipated
in advance, which is
why intuition, emotion,
and the designer’s
sensibility
are,
at the
end of
the day,
the most
promising
resources
one can have.
Our inspiration
had worked. Our visual observation, our designers’ sense
of
magic
and the
future,
found an
insight that
was provocative. We had
been a
partner in bringing fashion style to the brand and changing perception.
This
was one of the
greatest moments
of my life as a
branding professional.
Three months
later, I was watching a French news program on TV. Something
strange caught my eye:
the fall 2004 ready-to-wear
collection runway show
by
John Galliano featured what looked an awful lot like the new
Coca-Cola can decorating
the hair of at least three
of the models. Likewise, the
color scheme for
the makeup and accessories was coke yellow and red! In this fleeting
moment
my mind swam with delight. When
I looked again I seemed to have
lost it, and
the models were gone. I turned to my wife and asked, “Did
you see that?”
“See
what?”
“The
coke cans in the models’ hair!”
At this point
we both thought that stress had gotten to me and
that it was time
for me to see
some kind of
specialist. Obsessive
behavior combined
with
design delusions, even in the branding world, is not a good
thing. But, it was
too late for me;
I was already a casualty
of design obsessions.
So, I immediately
searched the Internet, and there it was: three gorgeous models,
each
sporting the
new can design
for the world
to see. This
was the ultimate
consecration
of Coca-Cola as a fashion statement and lifestyle brand. It was
now
up to the rest of the organization
to capitalize on this exceptional event.
Brandjamming
with Coca-Cola
The success of this brand strategy revealed again the fundamental
shifts and
attitudes that connect
a brand to culture:
• A company where the top management believes in imagination
and design
• An entrepreneurial spirit that was not afraid of risk
• An innate belief in the cultural impact design can have on
people
• A company culture that is ready to “brandjam”
“Brandjamming” resulted in the creation of Coca-Cola’s
inspiring new look,
intuitively
supporting
a new identity
and relying
on the combined talent of
the
group to make breakthrough decisions. Theirs was a dedication
to see the
brand reach out
for more, connect
emotionally to
new audiences,
and break
away from the expected.
A subsequent
CD brought this new identity to life with music and liberated
the
brand to be creative and innovative again.
The exercise was not only about
that color yellow or the gracious clin d’oeil John
Galliano gave to the brand; it
was
about
the spirit
and emotions
that were locked
up in the genie’s
coke
bottle
suddenly
being liberated
and reaching out
to people’s
desires. It was
about
an identity
that transcended
the design message
to be more about
the
feeling the brand can convey and the joy that is inherent to
it. Design
unlocked
that potential
for people to enjoy.
The Coca-Cola
cans on Galiano’s runway is the
product placement everyone
dreams
about.
Those ideas,
those connections
can only be found through
imaginative and intuitive thinking; the entry door to the world
of the
unconscious
is only
possible
through the creative
mind. The experience
taught me
that the corporate world needs logic and the consumer world is
driven
by
emotions;
this gap
needs to
be bridged.
Brandjamming
is the powerful
idea
that reconnects the business world to people’s subconscious
desires.
When a jazz
band
starts
jamming
on a melody,
you recognize
the tune
and the
premise, then it evolves and reaches out to new melodies, inspired
by a known
music piece
but then evolving
into a more
exciting, transforming,
and emotional
piece that leads you into a new mental and physical space. Not unlike jamming,
design
is the basis for connecting emotionally with people, and its most
powerful instrument. Emotional design is visibly sensorial
and reaches our
emotions faster
than any other
means of communication,
yet it is the most underleveraged of all communications approaches. Design
conveys innovation
in the most
potent way,
addresses our
social and
personal expectations, and builds loyalty for a brand, but the amount of money
invested in new products or in the
manifestation of a visual
identity is abysmally small compared to the budgets spent in broadcast media.
It’s
More Than Design Aesthetics
Effective branding is about the emotions design creates. “Brandjam” is
a perception
and
a vision,
a style and a
tone of voice. “Brandjam” is
an innovative concept
constantly
needing a new,
inventive,
and refreshed
vocabulary.
One must use
evolving aesthetics and style to forge a sensory language that
connects with
people’s desires to experience life in an uplifting,
changing, and positive way.
While
brandjamming,
here are a few thoughts
to remember as you
read
this book:
Think about intimacy and the disruptive power of a new shift
People will react to what they don’t know. If you see the
ocean for the first
time,
it is
overwhelming,
awesome, and entrancing.
Don’t
be afraid to show
people
the ocean,
even if
you have
to start out by limiting
yourself to one
narrow “ribbon” of it. The enemy of branding is ubiquity
and sameness.
Research
feelings,
not opinions
In doing research, it is
important to see how design
connects to emotions. It
is
not about visual like or dislike, but
making an impact at a profound emotional
level. Research
is not the thumbs
up or down of innovation
but a way to probe
people’s life experiences and hopes, a way to benchmark and
ground the best
creative
ideas. Research
is subservient
to the creative
process; it does not lead it.
Leverage design as a tool for innovation
By connecting to all the rational, social, and visceral experiences
people want
to have
with a
brand,
design
humanizes
it to connect
better
with people.
Design is the emotional touch that stimulates and
enhances a consumer’s
experience. Brandjamming
is a process of constant
discovery; it must be flexible
and engaging. When you leverage design as an inspiration for
your
brand
language,
you also
invite consumers
to redesign their
expectations. |
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