Creating Natively Digital Brand Experiences - LMA15

Creating Natively Digital Brand Experiences

Kalev Peekna Managing Director, Strategy One North Interactive @OneNorth, @kpeekna

Nathan Denton Managing Director, Creative One North Interactive @OneNorth

#LMA15

Is Brand a four-letter word?

It has to be the most misused

—and least understood—word

in the business of . . . well,

branding.

—McGhie, Austin

Legal

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Legal Responses: “How is your Brand?”

“There’s no way I could get them to shorten it.”

“It’s fine. Everyone hates it. It’s not changing.”

“The last time we did anything with it we spent $300K and ended up with the same colors.”

“Looks good on a golf umbrella.”

“I’m glad you asked. Can you make it bigger?”

“Needs to be more modern, clean, traditional, sophisticated, relaxed. I wish it popped more.”

“Is there a way to refresh it without anyone noticing?

“You can’t change the logo, colors, imagery or type. Or the messaging. But everything else is fair game.”

“What do you mean by brand?”

“I hate taglines.”

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What your Brand isn’t Logo: Identity/Name:

Name, Name, Name, Can’tRead & Name LLC

Tagline:

Tomorrow’s law, today. Together.

Colors: Fonts:

Times New Roman

Arial

All of these artifacts are part of the expression of your brand. These are visual and verbal signifiers of your real brand—triggers created for users to attach feelings to.

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So what is brand?

Pick your definition. Here are some we like:

•  “A brand is present when the value of what a product, service or personality means to its audience is greater than the value of what it does for that audience.”

•  “Living business assets, brought to life across all touchpoints, which if properly managed, create identification, differentiation, and value.”

•  “Brand is what people say about you when you aren’t in the room.”

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Brand Framework

Essence and Purpose

Voice, Brand DNA and Actions

Activating the persona to achieve specific outcomes

What we will say and when

Logistics of executing the strategy

The foundation of everything, the only thing that really matters

Brand Idea

Brand Persona

Brand Strategy

Communications Strategy

Tactics

Overall Customer Experience

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Digital is the Zero-Day of Brand

“The need to position your product or service so as to differentiate it in ways that create competitive advantage has not and will not change over time. How you accomplish this, however, is where all the change resides.” —Austin McGhie, Brand is a Four-letter Word

Digital has already changed the way we think about marketing budgets, skills, and tactics.

Now it is changing how we develop and express our brands.

DIGITAL

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Essence and Purpose

Voice, Brand DNA and Actions

Activating the persona to achieve specific outcomes

What we will say and when

Logistics of executing the strategy

The foundation of everything, the only thing that really matters

Brand Idea

Brand Persona

Brand Strategy

Communications Strategy

Tactics

Overall Customer Experience

Staying the same

Changing Now

Already Changed

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Rise of Digital: By the Numbers Despite “restricted budgets” across all marketing, the increase spending in digital has not relented:

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 33% 35% 28% 28% 27% 27%

Yearly average increase in digital spend.

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

$1330 $1796 $2298 $2942 $3736 $4745

$1K spent in 2009 on Digital would now be:

Digital spend is now almost 5x the levels in 2009

Source: Oracle, Marketing Budgets 2015 https://blogs.oracle.com/marketingcloud/new-2015-marketing-budget-benchmarks

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How is Digital Changing Brand?

•  Changing & Multiplying Contexts: Website, email, social, video, mobile, search results, etc. – they are all brand experiences.

•  Staying Close: Digital is in your pocket, on your arm, in your bag, on your desk, in front of your couch...

•  Fragmenting Experience: Each interaction is shorter, but happening at multiple discrete moments.

•  Participating: You can do more than consume in digital. You can change, contribute to, and use the information you find.

•  Transforming Expression: Everything you learned about what your brand looks like is now obsolete or irrelevant.

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Traditional Brand Approach

Mission Principles

Logo Palette

Typography

Style Guide

Tagline

Print Artifacts:

Copy

Playbook Imagery

Ads

Brochures

Business Cards

Homepage

Swag

Digital:

Social

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Why doesn’t this work?

•  Nothing translates cleanly. Color, typography, and logo all look slightly off.

•  New brand expressions–movement, video, social copy—are absent.

•  Brand expression is fragmented as each digital designer adjusts for media that wasn’t considered.

•  Everything comes out looking like the static “tests”: ads, business cards, brochures, coffee mugs, etc.

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A Tricky Transition to Digital: Hermès

Product: Luxury fashion, “sporting” goods Focus on materials + design

Concepts: “Give time to time”

“Craftsmanship is its own reward” Persona: Chic, Exclusive, Timeless,

Understated

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Hermès Visual Platform

Logo(s):

Color(s):

Type(s):

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Our (Radical) Suggestion Move your consideration of digital brand:

Digital From Here: To Here:

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Digital Up-Front: What to Consider?

Let’s Get Digital!

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Let’s take a look at digital up-front…

Brand Guides

Design Considerations

In Action

DIGITAL UP-FRONT BRAND GUIDES

DIGITAL UP-FRONT DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS

Logos

JPG SVG

Colors

Color One Color Two Color Three

Color Four

Fonts

The Fox The Fox Garamond – 72px Georgia – 72px

“Anything from 45 to 75 characters is widely regarded as a satisfactory length of line for a single-column. The 66-character line (counting both letters and spaces) is widely regarded as ideal.” - webtypography.net

Imagery

Interaction

“The details are details. They make the product. The connections, the connections, the connections. It will in the end be these details that give the product its life.” - Charles Eames

Dan Saffer’s new book, Microinteractions, makes the case that design is in the details – the very small details that make systems friendlier. - Fast Company

http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/sonos-brilliant-new-logo-appears-vibrate-when-you-scroll-thanks-optical-illusion-162546

DIGITAL-FIRST IN ACTION

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In a Nutshell •  Your first and most frequent brand interactions are now digital. Your

brand should be designed for those digital moments.

•  Test new brand ideas in a digital context. Try things out in web pages, email, and LinkedIn.

•  Expand your understanding of brand visuals. Take advantage of digital’s dynamic approach to color, shape, imagery, typography and movement.

•  Print still matters – but do that after you nail digital.

•  Users experience a single brand, no matter how many different kinds of interactions. Consistency creates seamlessness.

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Q&A