The Visual Brand Is Dead
You just handed it to the community
I don’t have answers… but I sure as hell have a conclusion based on experience.
When I designed and built for a living it was all brochure sites, control & throwing money at ideas without much consultation and seeing what stuck. Rarely did anyone, say something ‘failed’… failure was never one persons fault. The Marketeers did their thing, the Designers did their thing, the Developers did theirs, the PR was spun, the advertising was all there… yet the customers, looked at it and went ‘Meh’.
Now it’s all “share ‘this’ and share ‘that’… get in their spaces, be present, join in, show we’re still here… micro-sites may have died, but we can still have a page on Facebook, if only we brand it up! It’s gotta look like us, otherwise how will people know?”
Has anyone put this timeline together yet? The visual brand is dying on it’s arse… Not only is it being diluted across a zillion social spaces, it’s the last thing that we’re still trying to control like it’s 1994. Does the consumer really care, they are interested in who is helping, being friendly, building relationships and doing good things (either in the community the consumer cares about or outside in the real world)
Companies are hanging on to the visual identity because we haven’t the foresight to gamble on what is next on the horizon. Well, maybe the intelligent few, which I consider you lot to be part of, may like to consider.
Lets consider that no-one can be bothered to visit your precious website, the traffic dies down to a dribble, a purchase is made on someone else’s space like Etsy or Amazon or a Facebook shop were you have almost zero control of your branding visuals. Conversations and dialogue is what cements relationships with the lovers of your business. The branding has reduced to an avatar and a ‘www’ that is barely clicked… a /facebook is much more favourable.
What now? Where’s your investment?
If I make someone laugh, am I a comedian? Maybe. If I make 100 people laugh, probably. If I stand on a stage in front of 5m people and no-one laughs, am I still a comedian? No. I have given myself a title based on the relativity of my community. The day that community isn’t impressed or decides to call me a ‘fool’, I am forever labelled as such.
Is that scenario possible for a brand? We’ve already seen evidence of the visual aspect of a Brand being diluted to an avatar on a Facebook page, what happens if the only thing we have left, our ‘voice’, is lost too? The general consensus these days (social media powers employees to engage with communities and fuel business) means that the brand will need to be injected into pure dialogue we use to qwert our way throughout the Interwebs.
Staff will need language courses. I kid you not. Marketing will be handing out brainwashing exercises to keep us in check, whilst HR will be scouring the Web and communities to hire the best advocates that are already branded in their dialogue. We will be hiring based on the understanding of why the company exists, what it stands for and the ability to echo that understanding in social spaces.
The power of the written word doesn’t seem to have disappeared with all this influx of dynamic content… if anything I’m still just as ticked off by an advert in video form as I was by an animated gif… and I had to build those ugly things for a living.
Sure, MacDonalds creates ads for various demographics of it’s customer, but how many of us can afford to do that? The more personable the Web and respective communities become the more we will have to face the fact that text in the form of a comment or tweet will have more impact (long-term) than any brochure, billboard poster, TV ad or website design… those things get redesigned all the time anyway. The only consistency is the logo… and we even replace those if it’s deemed not working.
Employee’s on the other hand… and when I say employees I mean the future employees that love and endorse a brand like they would their own kids, will stick around until they die. Branded for Life. That is what we’re all seeking. Skateboarders all over the world brand themselves with the logos of the companies they love and die for. Search out Santa Cruz, Independent or Thrasher tattoos… evidence that a brand has truly got under the skin of its users. For those that realise the look means fuck all, they will succeed in the future and are probably on their way to succeeding right now.
For the rest of us, what are we hanging on for? Pride? A pay packet? Or are we defiantly in denial? Because we sure as hell aren’t being as effective as we could be. How many of the brands have you been involved with, have the customers gone out and got themselves a tattoo of the company logo, knowing that the only thing to remove it is a laser, flames or maggots? With exception to Apple, I believe not many of us can be proudly associated to this level of branding.
Branding is here to stay. But jeeez, lets see it for what it is and start planning to get it under people’s skin, by being good and great and friendly, helpful and amazing. Yep, some people will never be interested in your business offerings, but that doesn’t mean you can’t stand up for what you believe and damn everyone else.
Me? I’m waiting for the time when I find such an incredible accountant or supermarket that I want to get their logo literally under my skin.
How do you feel about the brand, where is it going? Are you annoyed at the limitations of social spaces to brand them how you want? Are considering a redesign because your impact is ‘Meh’? What’s your story? Don’t sit on the fence, I don’t want you to ‘like’ this, I want you to pick holes in it, laugh in my face or resonate with me. Bring it on in the comments.
February 7th, 2011
Very interesting article! I’ve never given this much thought, but I can see how the visual brand is dying. I think this makes perfect sense. Fascinating article. Thanks for sharing your perspective!
February 8th, 2011
Thank you Mark for your passionate speech and quest(ioning)about the state and pathways of (visual) “Brands”
I had to read it a couple times…to follow all your “hyperlinks” in your thoughts (quite some in there ;)
you say:
“…the brand will need to be injected into pure dialogue we use to qwert our way throughout the Interwebs”..
“..Conversations and dialogue is what cements relationships with the lovers of your business.”
“..We will be hiring based on the understanding of why the company exists, what it stands for and the ability to echo that understanding in social spaces.”
That echoes with my own thoughts of the “goings of brands”
1st
The ancient “Who am I?” (Who are we?)should be the core quest(ion) of organizations. Brands had been to busy with the question “Who should we be for….” based on research about their target groups. “Honey, who should I be for you ?” might sound romantic in relationships but will fail in the long run, cause that partner looses authenticity and personality.
2nd
From the deep quest(ion) “Who are we?” comes self-awareness which flows over into authentic expression/creation/products/services/communication. The “brand” is alive, it´s juicy, it has spirit, it´s amazing. In that we could forget the whole “target group” concept and update it with “resonance group”. If the brand stands for what it (deeply) is, it creates resonance waves along the social cross media spaces.. it builds relationships where both serve each other – cause they love each other.
Then – we´ll suddenly recognize that our customers are an integral part in our company and within the Core Quest(ion) “Who are we?” as we grow along together in times of change.
The “Visual” is just one tiny expression of the whole process mentioned above. In my opinion there is no such thing as a “visual brand” – maybe it died for me already a long time ago ?!
February 8th, 2011
Hmmm… as I said yesterday, whilst packed into the longest train journey of my life, your post made me think. As someone fascinated by brand in all its forms (tho’ certainly no expert… you may get this from my forthcoming comments!) it got me thinking… and indeed frustrated.
Are there really rights and wrongs in the world of branding? Of course, I know there are some but do we all need to conform to a view that the visual id is dead? Or is it rather, that depending on your business, the message and voice your brand aspires to – depends on how you may implement or position your visual id?
Take Chanel – its a brand that many people aspire to. If you desire a Chanel product, you desire the association that goes with the brand. Their id is instantly recognisable, and the only reason people buy many of their products… ok, maybe not the only reason – but would you still pay several hundreds of pounds for a Chanel handbag if it didn’t have the Chanel logo on it somewhere? The logo, in itself is the ‘thing’ that people are paying for… A brand led here – I believe – by its visual identity. One that, if it lost its visual identity – or changed it significantly, could see an impact on customer spend… Whether we like it or not, people don’t usually aspire to these things for no-one to know they have them.
Or alternatively – M&S, whose visual branding has seen somewhat of a shakeup over the years. Up until relatively recently, Marks & Sparks (as my mother calls it) refused to advertise, believing that they did not need to – because their wider brand relating to product, personality, service, voice, experience etc was strong enough to sustain their customer base. By the mid to late 90’s, this brand started experiencing major problems, reduced customer spend, an unsustainable demographic and bad PR relating to the quality and experience within store…(hmm reading this back – perhaps this argument is about to prove your theory right!) …resulting in a need to overhaul their brand, in the widest term. A refreshed brand/id allowed them to enter the advertising market with a refreshed look, supporting their desire to expand their audience. Each sub-brand within the wider has its own look and feel – targeted specifically to the demographic they believe will be attracted to the particular product. Be it the colour combinations, the font, the image treatments or the whole brand id together – these things are recognisable – even if we dont think they are, or wish not to be so easily swayed. When you enter an M&S store – you are steered to the area your demographic may be interested in by the layour and brand aesthetic within store. Granted, that doesn’t stop you looking round, but it would be interesting to know how long each segmented customer group spend within each particular area of the store. By and large – when seeing these individual, or collective elements of the brand, we usually (there are exceptions I accept) get the feeling and confidence that their wider brand is committed to – one of quality, VFM, customer service and confidence. Could they have achieved all this without some kind of consistent visual identity that supported their wider message?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that evolution of brand id isn’t important. I think smart people developing identities these days consider how the visual id can evolve and grow with the business, audience, position of products and position of communications – but surely some visual consistency, supports all those other aspects of brand that the modern customer is searching for?
We know that different people respond to different factors, some respond better to audio, others visual and others physical touch. In remembering or learning things, consistent approaches to taking on new information through one of the three factors helps us to embed that information in our minds. I refer slightly to NLP, but in relatively lose terms I guess. The point is, schools are finding new, creative ways to teach young people traditional subjects as they realise that often, for example in the case of maths – creatively visual representation of a particular mathematical notion, are better learnt than straight numbers, equations ( failed maths – I have no more mathematical references to offer here!) etc in their basic terms. Does that make sense – maybe Im going off piste – I suppose what I’m saying is, in order to ensure that our brands are embedded into peoples’ minds be that conscious or sub-consciously, a visual representation of sorts, supports all the other elements of the brand communication.
So, I guess I’m not disagreeing with you entirely – in order to build strong, sustainable relationships you need to do what you do, well, and your audience/customers will build their own view / identity / relationship with you, one which you must then mutually maintain in order to sustain that relationship. But surely part of that is visual to support the rest of the brand elements – no matter how fluid or evolutionary that visual representation may be…?
You end your piece by inviting us to pick holes in your theory. I dont offer you the same generosity of spirit as I’m deeply lacking in confidence and to pick holes in my response would exacerbate that. Thanks for agreeing. ;o)
February 8th, 2011
In addition – I do think that this has the makings of a really interesting conference. Social Media and the Death of the Visual ID. Im registering interest as I type.
February 9th, 2011
Hold on there, cowboy…don’t go throwing out the look-and-feel baby with the cyber-storefront bathwater. In the clicks-and-mortar world, plenty of people will interact with a product or a company on multiple platforms-and in both actual and virtual reality. So the visual component of those interactions is one of the commonalities of a customer experience and directly affects their relationship and comfort with the organization.
I agree that all the time and effort spent on designing the look and feel of virtual-only business websites is probably going away as we spend more time on Facebook and do more ordering over Ebay, but that’s far from the whole business world.
Fer instance, a small bookshop owner with a great social media presence will benefit from an avatar/pic for social media interactions that matches the physical shop, so it connects quickly in the minds of passerby (which, after all, is the point of any kind of visible branding or logo). And for those big companies with HR departments as large and adept as you mention, most will still have a physical product that needs to somehow embody their values and uniqueness when touched/held/used in a non-cyber context.
A visual brand becomes the meme for the quality, service and engagement levels you’re talking about, as well as connecting, as Anna mentions above, to those who respond more to visual than written stimuli.
February 9th, 2011
Oooh, Didnt Joshua put it so much better than me! :o) Nice work.
February 9th, 2011
@Andre
Indeed the visual brand has eroded away from me as well over time. I no longer absorb advertisements by choice (the subconscious is unavoidable), actively flicking past the crap ads in magazines, scoffing at the terrible marketing puns that are clearly not aimed at me. If anything I pick holes in the messages – I also agree that I’m not the average man here ;)
I believe the brand is more fluid than it has ever been, back in the day I had to design for print & web, from Billboard to 16×16 pixels for web icons. Now? well maybe a Designer could tell me how the landscape has changed?
In the absence of the visuals, conversation needs to be branded appropriately too. This for me, comes from hiring people from the heart first and the products / services or ‘job’ second. Once we are hiring people who resonate with the heart and soul of a businesses existence, the dialogue will be truly consistence across social spaces.
If social media continues to demonstrate its effectiveness (compared to firing a 100k leaflets through a mailing campaign) then conversation in communities will become so powerful that more branding energy will be thrown behind that dialogue.
thanks for your thoughts Andre.
February 9th, 2011
@Anna
Wow, what a brain dump! Thanks for all that. I think I must first point out that I don’t believe that all visual branding will disappear or is useless. My post title is a provocative one for a reason… Marketing! I am in fact referring to the visual online brand. It’s one of the first things that client have a heart attack over, controlling their public image. ‘It must look like ‘us”, ‘can we get rid of their logo?’ ‘we’ll need to redesign it first’ etc. All are met with ‘why’s?’ and ‘no’s’.
Understanding that control is lost the moment you begin operating online is fundamental to being effective. Oooff… I’m going off on a tangent now!
(mark pulls it back a bit…)
I can’t help feeling that in a Capitalist economy (not a bad thing) that Marketing and excessive branding has been allowed to flourish, throwing more and more money and messaging across so many points of our eye line that its necessity has been warped. We can be effective with less. We don’t have to throw a million pounds at something to push it so far in to our brain cells that we no longer love it anymore. Take for example the build up time a music track will get aired over the radio before being released. By the time it’s available to purchase, we’re sick of it. A great example of marketing / branding excess, oui?
Ok, back on branding.
Lets consider audio branding. Those ringtones, computer sound effects when we start up and shut down… we’ll all recognise the Intel ‘sound’ that comes on the TV no matter where in the room(s) we’re looking. Audio is so powerful, we’ve been used to it for decades, yet we often overlook it, because it isn’t visibly tangible.
Could conversation go the same way?
Great thoughts from you… and its already kicking off more thoughts in my head. A conference you say? I agree, would anyone turn up if we don’t brand it correctly? ;)
Thanks again.
February 9th, 2011
Conversation cant go the same way (reads back in 50years and scoffs at the innocence) We are human beings whose survival is based on interaction, a need to communicate in one form or another. Conversation – in one form or another – is essential for business, heart and soul. I know, you know this.
The moment anyone, in business (or life) attempts to take control over outcomes, plans or results, is the moment they lose the battle – maybe not in the short term, but most definately in the long term. Strategy and planning are essential, as is the ability to be taken on a journey that is outside of your plans, or comfort zone – the question for businesses when that happens is is this the right shift, or is it a distraction? If it is a distraction, is that distraction ok? I think in some cases, online marketing has become a distraction that may appear to benefit, but in the long run may not (- you may not be the average man, but I suspect as time goes on you will become more average than you think.. clearly this post is now starting to agree with you – dammit). But only a distraction because of peoples need to continue to control it even when being led by it.. does that make sense? e.g. those organisations who use twitter, facebook, flickr etc but use it only to present the corporate line. So my previous point about fluid visual identities means that the look and voice of the organisation remains prevalent, because the elements of an appropriately fluid id afford the freedom to be implemented at any given time, in any given way. In the same way that if you employ the right people in the organisation – as you say – the need to control diminishes because you can trust them to deliver. Is this easier done in a micro, small or medium enterprise tho? Can those larger internationals do that so easily? Maybe… Possibly… possibly not – its unlikely that the wider human nature for ego and control will diminish as a result of online developments, so perhaps for now its left to those smaller organisations, who’s ego (lets face it, we all have them whether we like it or not) happen to fit in with the current trends – allow them to make the most of technology and online communications. And in doing so, make the most of this current marketing trend…
still thinking.
(Id only go to the conference if the logo was right)
February 9th, 2011
@Joshua
“all the time and effort spent on designing the look and feel of virtual-only business websites is probably going away”
Totally agree. My blog post is completely referring to the virtual brand, but I also believe that in time, traditional businesses will re-evaluate the benefit of a consistent identity, when the audience is in complete control of of the brands true ‘image’ by the power of their conversations. Take Egypt for example, the people have spoken up, the establishment is rattled, the brand of Egypt is shattered beyond all recognition (for how long remains to be seen). I’d can’t wait to see the next Egyptian Tourist Board advert for Cairo completely ignore the media and the people by shoving a few Pyramids back on the Brochures like nothing has happened. How about the BP oil disaster. Watch carefully in future for all advertisements, that will try to steer us all back to their ‘green’ agenda, whilst the public scoffs into their coffee’s and find another Garage Forecourt to fill up in.
These are extreme examples for most business concerns, but I love extreme thinking :)
The brand is already diluted today, its going to be very fragile in future and possibly in the extreme future so ingrained into peoples mindsets that we know, instinctively what the company is all about.. we won’t need it in our faces anymore, it will just resonate from birth based on the attitudes of our parents, conversations in the living room, and obviously online too.
I absolutely love it that virtual brands have been given the luxurious opportunity to dismiss traditional advertising (37signals) and branding (winelibrary.tv) spends and focus on the community, their love for the product / service and the power of conversation to fuel future business direction (Maverick Industries).
The Brand is stronger than ever… and it’s evolution is still in good shape, but I believe it’s only a matter of time before wearing it is so 2015, wearing it on or under our skin will be the sign of a true advocate.
Thanks for your thoughts… this one could run and run :)
February 9th, 2011
The large majority of companies are way too small to have a “brand”. Let alone distinguish the subtleties of a “visual brand” (does that mean logo in simple person’s speak?)
For sole-traders, SME’s, in fact for practically 99% of companies the word “brand” should be replaced with “reputation”. Few get to be the size (and have the budgets) of a Chanel or Intel.
Reputation is something that is more realistic (and understandable)for the smaller organisation. Now, if we focus on reputation – it transcends the visual – and is ideally placed to be grown and nurtured on-line in an open space and within open communities.
Who cares about the logo? What’s your reputation like?
February 9th, 2011
@Trevor
Reputation! Damn… great angle to come in on. That resonates more with me. Maybe your thoughts are already positioned where ours are merely leading towards?
I think new businesses will have a totally different way of presenting themselves as the old business mentality shifts and the long tail entrepreneurs rethink what really works effectively for their operations. I’m still in favour of personal branding under our birth names and building a community of passionate followers based on everything we exist for since day one…
…Or is barcoding babies taking things a little too far? ;)
February 11th, 2011
‘In the end, we’re all fucked anyway…’ so the passing (=’loss’) of one more commercial element shouldn’t be that big a deal… ‘cept, as a very thin sliver of a very very long and far-reaching wedge, it *is*.
Now, where’s those chairs so’s I can watch the iceberg…?