Clients often discover, the hard way, that naming a new brand entity, whether an organization, service, process or product is a surprisingly difficult activity. I was reminded of this by this interesting Fast Company article by Dan and Chip Heath about the specialist naming company, Lexicon Branding. It is rare that the name just pops up in a brainstorming session. It usually takes a diligent process and several iterations of exploration before the right name is arrived at.

Over time, dd|a has developed a process to help us conceive naming solutions, as well as a few rules to keep that process, and the client, on track. Some of these guidelines include:

• Bar negative comments at the early stage. Too many good names are killed by some sarcastic remark before that name has a chance to be developed.
• Don’t aim for a name liked by everyone. Aim for a name that provokes conversation among those that like it and those who do not.
• Additionally, see if everyone can remember the names after a few days. If they can’t, then the names are not memorable enough.
• Find a name that excites, even incites. Risk aversion has no place in this process.
• Understand the brand promise. The name must evoke the brand’s core idea. This means you will have to fully understand the brand, its audience and its market landscape.

With these rules in place, you can begin to (more…)

You may now sit down. [You did stand up, right?]

The British Monarchy recently added a Facebook profile to its existing social media expression. The Facebook page is approaching 300,000 “Likes” already, building on nearly 3 million views on The British Monarchy’s YouTube channel, about 87,000 Twitter followers and several thousand views of its Flickr photostream. What makes this social media engagement so interesting is that it bucks the usual social media dogma that the medium is all about a conversation; engaging your audience in a vibrant, interactive dialogue. The British Monarchy has demonstrated that it stands outside that framework.

In a way, though, The British Monarchy is being more true to its “brand” than many other entities that are stumbling around social media channels, ineffectually expressing their brand without authenticity to their audiences. The British Monarchy is an institution that is so intrinsically entwined with society, culture, history, governance and, indeed, the entire concept of a national identity that the premise of a dialogue is anathema. The British Monarchy’s brand is not about engagement; it is an iconic representation of an ideal.

In that context, The British Monarchy is admirably honoring its brand, but using social media to inform a new, younger audience in the mediums in which they communicate. The world has always been fascinated by the British Monarchy, and now it has facilitated that through a 21st century online medium, while maintaining its lofty distance.

Long live the Queen.

Maybe it is because I am a Gen X’er that I am a little paranoid. It certainly helps explain my skepticism. So, when in the remarkable documentary, The Virtual Revolution, Douglas Rushkoff states that, “The product online is not the content; the product online is you,” this naturally aroused both my cynicism and curiosity in a business-minded Web.

The issues raised and discussed in The Virtual Revolution also appeared in discussions at Creighton Business School’s 7th Annual Business Symposium. Not only did I have a chance to speak to and with business students, I had the opportunity to hear other innovative business thinkers talk about areas of their own insight into online consumer privacy, ecommerce and business innovation.

A large number of business students and business leaders indicated agreement with the idea that trading their online likes, dislikes and other behavioral information for a free Web is acceptable. Indeed, the targeted and personalized advertising resulting out of this trade is seen, reasonably so, as beneficial. The $6,520,000,000 net profit realized by Google in 2009 is testament to the fact that most of us tacitly accept this premise.  But what many of us fail to recognize are the potential negative impacts of this bargain. (more…)

So, I’m not even going to comment on the design integrity or quality of the new-now-rejected Gap logo. I am going to comment on the process – or possible lack thereof – that resulted in its ultimate rejection.

This is the nightmare scenario that every brand strategist and designer fears. You work your ass off for months, along with many other team members on both your side and the client side, and you launch a new brand. Then “boom,” the planet explodes. People resoundingly reject your work.

This should never, ever happen. Period. Particularly to a brand valued at $4 billion with brand equity out the wazoo.
When making any changes to an entrenched brand, a proven process should be used. A process where the customer, brand owners, and the competitive environment are all thoroughly researched and evaluated. Then, that research should be properly distilled into a brand platform or what we call the Brand Core. Next, all positioning and creative work should be built with painstaking care on that foundation of discovery. And lastly, the proposed designs should be tested with customers. We have refined this process over many years and consistently use it with the confidence it has earned.

Last year, we repositioned and redesigned a major food brand (see our Omaha Steaks blog post here). The change has been wildly successful for the client and has been embraced by their customers. The process to which I referred underpinned that work. However, we were criticized by some respected peers for not having taken advantage of the opportunity, and (more…)

After my last post about crowd sourced design, I rather enjoyed Rob Walker’s Consumed article “Banana Democracy” here in today’s New York Times Magazine. The piece explores Chiquita’s public competition for designs for stickers on its bananas. Arising out of the popularity of a web-based design-your-own sticker tool (some 25,000 people took part, apparently), the company decided to extend it into a competition. Public voting on the 1,355 entries starts tomorrow.

Walker goes on to refer to the “pop” nature of this design framework. DJ Neff, the Chiquita art director for this campaign, is quoted as describing this as the creation of “a familiar association with an unfamiliar dynamic.” Walker, in turn, suggests that “A big part of being ‘pop’ anything these days is prodding the masses to participate directly.” It is this element of the crowd sourced design competition that makes me wonder about the authenticity of connections between the brand and its audience. My last post queried the ethical nature of these public design frameworks, but Walker identifies another aspect, which is the brand stewards’ desired enhancement of attachment and meaning between a brand and its audience through this sort of interactive contributory evolution. (more…)