GR M10 Module 9: What is a Brand?

A Brand is an idea, not a thing. It is a shifting set of perceptions and associations

that can be influenced, but not controlled. Memorable brands, such as Altoids or
Starbucks thrive on a coherent set of products and a strong, identifiable design
approach. A successful Brand connects to its audience on an emotional level,
representing a feeling, an idea, a way of life. Use design to shape your own brand,
whether its your band, team, gallery, or personal hair-cutting service. Mike Weikert
(http://books.google.com/books?id=rWuict_SE-8C&pg=PA51&lpg=PA51&dq=A+Bra
nd+is+an+idea,+not+a+thing.+It+is+a+shifting+set+of+perceptions+and+associa
tions+that+can+be+influenced,+but+not+controlled.&source=bl&ots=T1vgH_8hnU
&sig=_FPqDmem0KPUmJ_pbDdMKpSwqBc&hl=en&ei=BfUmSsHtDYeItAOwvKCOBg
&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1)

Brand Next Manifesto by Wolff Olins

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(http://www.wolffolins.com/index.php)
The brands of the future arent glossy marketing gadgets, but practical platforms
for action. They help more people do more, and do better. We think brands need to be
less controlling, more generous. Wolf Ollins
BRAND = PLATFORM
Brands started as a stamp on a product, and became a gadget designed to get
people to buy, an emotional lever. Now theyre becoming something bigger and dif-
ferent. Brands are becoming platforms.
More and more, customers are invited not just to buy things but also to do things.
On the platforms of eBay, Wikipedia, flickr and YouTube, people sell things, share
knowledge, and broadcast visual ideas. Through Zopa (http://uk.zopa.com/ZopaWeb),
people lend to and borrow from each other. On Sellaband (http://www.sellaband.
com), you can launch your favourite unknown band, and then share in the profits.
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Sony Ericsson shows how its mobiles enable people to do what they love. Peugeot
now invites customers to become car designers, and crowdspirit gets large numbers
of people to invent new electronic products.
Newspapers like the Guardian have become less promoters of an ideology, and more
a platform for a spread of voices, including those of readers.
Across the developed world, consumers are becoming active, even activists, and
brands their platform. Its a less emotional, more practical relationship people dont
love eBay, though they love what it allows them to do.
As consumers are invited not to buy but to work, functionality really matters. Creating
a brand, and designing the service behind it, are becoming inseparable.
 BRAND = LINK
Its not just individual customers who use these platforms. Other organizations do
too, and brands increasingly link organisations together. The corporation of the new
century is more like a constellation, and brand is becoming the link, the multiplier.
Amazon may seem like a bookselling corporation, but actually its a constellation of
retailers of electronics, homewares, toys and more plus the wider constellation of
people who review and recommend. Creative people increasingly work in consortia,
forming communities through conferences like TED (http://www.ted.com) or websites
like worldchanging.com. Cities like New York are creating a city brand to connect and
multiply the impact of the myriad of agencies that promote the city.
Fairtrade (http://www.fairtrade.org.uk) is a German charity whose brand is a multi-
plier for 600 producer companies. Companies from Gap to American Express have
created new products for (RED): a percentage of profits go to treat AIDS/HIV in Africa.
The London 2012 brand (http://www.london2012.com) embraces sponsor and part-
ner organizations.
This new world of branding isnt about self-contained citadels, or force-fields that
repel other brands. Brands like (RED) embrace the organizations they work with.
As brands become less the property of an organisation and more the banner of a
movement, ownership will become even looser. Logos will be things other organiza-
tions, and individuals, can borrow and adapt.

BRAND = THEME
As brands become platforms and links, they get used and abused. People want to
make them their own which means they may no longer be the same everywhere.
Brand becomes not one tune, but a theme with variations.
As ideologies compete, as cultures become more multi, organizations are getting
much more sensitive to context, to localness. Even Starbucks the great exponent of
a repeated formula now believes in identity, not identical.
The BBC has moved from uniformity to create distinctive channel brands. Mandarin
Oriental (http://www.mandarinoriental.com) thinks of its hotels as a family, not a
chain, so that San Francisco looks and feels different from London and Hong Kong,
though theres a unifying oriental sensibility.
Brazilian telecoms company Oi has different ways of being with extreme, mass
and business customers. The London cultural venue Southbank Centre (http://www.
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southbankcentre.co.uk) has a new logo that has an infinite number of variations.
The new brands have many ways of doing things, many ways of speaking. They
experiment and change over time. The brand is not a perfect blueprint, and brand
creators are less architects and more inventors, learning by adapting. What unites the
organization (or constellation) isnt the surface logo but the underlying idea.
The Brand Called You by Tom Peters
(http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/10/brandyou.html)
Big companies understand the importance of brands. Today, in the Age of the Indi-
vidual, you have to be your own brand. Heres what it takes to be the CEO of Me Inc.
Its a new brand world. That cross-trainer youre wearing -- one look at the distinc-
tive swoosh on the side tells everyone whos got you branded. That coffee travel
mug youre carrying -- ah, youre a Starbucks woman! Your T-shirt with the distinc-
tive Champion C on the sleeve, the blue jeans with the prominent Levis rivets,
the watch with the hey-this-certifies-I-made-it icon on the face, your fountain pen
with the makers symbol crafted into the end ...Youre branded, branded, branded,
branded.
Its time for me -- and you -- to take a lesson from the big brands, a lesson thats
true for anyone whos interested in what it takes to stand out and prosper in the new
world of work. Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business
we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are
CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job
is to be head marketer for the brand called You. Its that simple -- and that hard. And
that inescapable.
What makes You different? Start right now: as of this moment youre going to think
of yourself differently! Youre not an employee of General Motors, youre not a
staffer at General Mills, youre not a worker at General Electric or a human
resource at General Dynamics (ooops, its gone!). Forget the Generals! You dont
belong to any company for life, and your chief affiliation isnt to any particular
function. Youre not defined by your job title and youre not confined by your job
description. Starting today you are a brand.
Start by identifying the qualities or characteristics that make you distinctive from your
competitors -- or your colleagues. What have you done lately -- this week -- to make
yourself stand out? What would your colleagues or your customers say is your great-
est and clearest strength? Your most noteworthy (as in, worthy of note) personal trait?
Go back to the comparison between brand You and brand X -- the approach the
corporate biggies take to creating a brand. The standard model they use is feature-
benefit: every feature they offer in their product or service yields an identifiable and
distinguishable benefit for their customer or client. A dominant feature of Nordstrom
department stores is the personalized service it lavishes on each and every customer.
The customer benefit: a feeling of being accorded individualized attention -- along
with all of the choice of a large department store.
Your next step is to cast aside all the usual descriptors that employees and workers
depend on to locate themselves in the company structure. Forget your job title. Ask
yourself: What do I do that adds remarkable, measurable, distinguished, distinctive
value? Forget your job description. Ask yourself: What do I do that I am most proud
of? Most of all, forget about the standard rungs of progression youve climbed in your
career up to now. Burn that damnable ladder and ask yourself: What have I accom-
plished that I can unabashedly brag about? If youre going to be a brand, youve got
to become relentlessly focused on what you do that adds value, that youre proud of,
and most important, that you can shamelessly take credit for.
 When youve done that, sit down and ask yourself one more question to define your
brand: What do I want to be famous for? Thats right -- famous for!
Whats the pitch for You? So its a clich: dont sell the steak, sell the sizzle. its also
a principle that every corporate brand understands implicitly, from Omaha Steakss
through-the-mail sales program to Wendys were just regular folks ad campaign.
No matter how beefy your set of skills, no matter how tasty youve made that
feature-benefit proposition, you still have to market the bejesus out of your brand --
to customers, colleagues, and your virtual network of associates.
(4) Instead of making yourself a slave to the concept of a career ladder, reinvent your-
self on a semiregular basis. Start by writing your own mission statement, to guide
you as CEO of Me Inc. What turns you on? Learning something new? Gaining recog-
nition for your skills as a technical wizard? Shepherding new ideas from concept to
market? Whats your personal definition of success? Money? Power? Fame? Or doing
what you love? However you answer these questions, search relentlessly for job or
project opportunities that fit your mission statement. And review that mission state-
ment every six months to make sure you still believe what you wrote.
No matter what youre doing today, there are four things youve got to measure
(5) yourself against. First, youve got to be a great teammate and a supportive colleague.
Second, youve got to be an exceptional expert at something that has real value.
Third, youve got to be a broad-gauged visionary -- a leader, a teacher, a farsighted
imagineer. Fourth, youve got to be a businessperson -- youve got to be obsessed
with pragmatic outcomes.
Its this simple: You are a brand. You are in charge of your brand. There is no single
path to success. And there is no one right way to create the brand called You. Except
this: Start today. Or else.

EXERCISE:
(6) After reading the Brand Next Manifesto by Wolff Olins and The Brand Called You
by Tom Peters, please visit the Identities section at Chermayeff and Geismars site
(http://www.cgstudionyc.com/home.html) to see some examples of their work. (4)(5)
(6)(7)(8)
1. Choose one of the logos (visual identities) designed by Chermayeff and Geismars,
and try to figure out what kind of brand it stands for. Use MHGD, http://www.cgstudi-
onyc.com/home.html and Google for your research.
2. What kind of image does the logo project? How is this image articulated (meta-
phorical icon, type of business the company is in...)? How does the logo convey
(7) the brand credibility traits? What kind of type, shapes, pictorial icons, and the other
design elements have been selected?
3. What is it about the brand name that stands out? Is it an interesting spelling that
has been enhanced typographically?
4. If this brand was a person, what kind of person would it be? Please describe this
person as precisely as you could.
5. Describe one brand you are familiar with that meets some or all of the
requirements described in the Wolff Olins Brand Next Manifesto.
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