As a client, how should you choose your branding agency? Advertising agency?
(or any creative agency, really)
It’s a tough decision. At the top, agencies will mostly look the same. But, on any shortlist, your candidates could seem interchangeable.
It recently occurred to me that the 4 Fs that agencies often use to evaluate prospective clients* can be flipped over client-side quite effectively:
Branding was born to make things simpler. A collection of clear signs, telling a focused story, replacing complicated explanation. It helps your audience recognise you, hire you, and understand what makes your company a better choice. It’s fundamental stuff. Hopefully, the right branding influenced the right brand perception. And, according to Keller’s definition of brand, your brand supports the creation of ‘a mental structure to clarify decision’.
Brand platforms were born to articulate the ideas driving your branding. Your team and your agencies could then understand what it was all about, so they can deliver on it. Create the communications that tell your story. Design experiences that deliver the promise.
But somewhere along the way, things went horribly wrong. As marketing professionals were working on making things clear, consistent and easy to use, for many companies things were getting complicated. It started with something positive – a wider recognition of the importance of brands. Continue reading
Visual design is a vibrant, ever-evolving world. It always combines timeless principles with new tools and changing fashions. Contemporary design operates within a global culture that has been getting increasingly visual for over a century since the early days of mass media.
Brand identities, specifically, now spend a large part of their lives in digital environments. These environments offer both opportunities and challenges, but are we really seeing the amount of innovation we’d expect? The kind we’ve seen in product design or interface design. What are the key factors shaping brand identities in digital environments? Continue reading
Businesses are always looking for new competitive advantage and have started to catch on to the employer value proposition (EVP) as an attractive differentiator. This is a powerful tool for attracting and retaining talent, but is fraught with problems if handled badly.
However, there are really only three aspects of successful EVP that need considering:
The EVP must work together with your brand strategy
Just like a successful brand strategy, a successful EVP doesn’t just reach out, it reaches out to the right audience, so you can engage not only with the best talent, but the right talent that is best for you.
The war for talent, however, isn’t won on recruitment alone. For your existing workforce it serves as a reinforcement that they are at the right place; and it fuels their commitment to a long term career with you. With the cost of finding and replacing senior talent easily matching twice their annual salary, a strong employer brand is not just a nice to have, it’s an essential investment.
Your overall brand strategy already defines what your company is about. It taps into your history and culture and leverages your tone and points of difference. If you develop an EVP independently of your brand strategy, you will essentially split your brand in two. Instead, create a platform consistent with your brand strategy that clearly communicates what it means for talent. With multiple strategic frameworks involved it can get tricky. Continue reading
The recent launch of Google’s brand identity evolution brings back to light questions around the impact of digital environments on brand identities.
Visual design is a vibrant, ever evolving world. It always combines timeless principles with new tools and changing fashions. Contemporary design operates within a global culture. One that has been getting increasingly visual for over a century since the early days of mass media.
Brand identities, specifically, now spend a large part of their lives in digital environments. These environments offer both opportunities and challenges, but are we really seeing the amount of innovation we’d expect? The kind we’ve seen in product design or interface design. What are the key factors shaping brand identities in digital environments? Continue reading
Marketing Babylon 