Archive for January, 2009
The Superpower of Trends
An excerpt from ZAG
by Marty Neumeier, author of ZAG
You can certainly build a brand without harnessing a trend, but you won’t get the raw, youthful energy of a zag. When focus and differentiation are powered by a trend, the result is a charismatic brand that customers wouldn’t trade for love nor money. It’s the difference between paddling a surfboard and riding a wave.
What trends can you ride? The variety is virtually endless, since each industry, region, and subculture spawns its own trends. Sometimes a trend is a reaction to a previous trend that has lost its cachet, such as the way rock stars replaced crooners in the fifties. Other times it’s the result of a technological innovation, such as the manufactured molecule Kevlar igniting a revolution in textile manufacturing. Some trends, such as democracy, are still gaining strength after hundreds of years, while others, such as body piercing, may end up as a half page in the history of fashion.
Examples of current trend-riders are Samsung with high-design gadgets, Anthropologie with eclectic clothing, Progressive with self-service insurance, Dean & Deluca with gourmet groceries, Aveda with prestige eco-friendly cosmetics, Design Within Reach with neo-modernist furniture, and Volkswagen with its new “transparent” factory and car-recycling facility. When you look under the hood of a high-performance brand, you almost always find it’s powered by a trend.
Download a PDF that illustrates a few trends you might recognize. Steal it. Post it in your office. Instigate a conversation. Put it in your next presentation. Start a “trends” trend in your business.
No commentsDesign Matters Interview
Marty Neumeier’s Interview On Design Matters
Listen now or download the podcast.
Design Matters with Debbie Millman is an opinionated and provocative internet talk radio show. The show combines a stimulating point of view about graphic design, branding and cultural anthropology. In a business world dependent on change, design is one of the few differentiators left.
Explore the challenging and compelling canvas of today’s design world with Debbie Millman and her weekly guests live every Friday from 3-4pm est. www.sterlingbrands.com/DesignMatters.html
No commentsBrand Names That Zag
In ZAG I offer a list of brand names that I classify as either strong or weak. Who says they’re strong or weak? Well, I say. But rather than let my assertions just hang there unsupported, here’s a brief critique of each name, according to the criteria below:
A strong name is:
1. Differentiated. It should stand out from competitors’ names, as well as from other words in a sentence. This is sometimes called “speech-stream visibility”, the quality that lets the eye or the ear pick out the name as a proper (or capitalized) word instead of a common word.
2. Brief. Four syllables or less. More than four, and people start to abbreviate the name in ways that could be detrimental to the brand.
3. Appropriate. But not so descriptive as to sound generic. A common mistake is to choose a name that doubles as a descriptor, which will cause it to converge with other descriptive names. Actually, a strong brand name can be “blind”, meaning that it gives no clue as to its connection with the product, service, or company it represents, yet still “feels” appropriate.
4. Easy to spell. When you turn your name into a spelling contest, you introduce more confusion among customers, and make your brand difficult to access in databases that require correct spelling.
5. Satisfying to pronounce. A good name has “mouthfeel”, meaning that people like the way it sounds and are therefore more willing to use it.
6. Suitable for “brandplay.” The best names have creative “legs”—they readily lend themselves to great storytelling, graphics, PR, advertising, and other communications.
7. Legally defensible. The patent office wants to make sure that customers are not confused by sound-alike names or look-alike trademarks. A good name is one that keeps legal fees to a minimum.
How will brands survive and thrive in 2009?
2008 saw many established brands disappear. Lehman Brothers is no more. Neither is Linens and Things. Aloha Airlines went bye-bye. Bear Sterns is gone. So is Mervyns.
OUCH! 2008 was a tough year. And 2009 promises not to be much better. Some analysts predict that more retail stores will close down this year than at any other time in the country’s history. And the side effects of this will hurt many other businesses.
Yet, I think that all this turmoil will be good in the long run. That’s because I believe that great brands are the ones that survive. Great brands, in my opinion, are the ones that are managed closely and know how to adapt to changing marketplace conditions.
I believe that successful brands are constantly evaluating their audiences, the competitive landscape, the economic situation, and their offerings…and making shifts to address these conditions in order to stay relevant with their audiences, build loyalty with their customers, and stay one step ahead of their competitors.
This does not mean that brands should constantly change what they stand for. On the contrary, once a brand defines its essence and vision…it should stick to it. Yet, a brand is more than just the products and services. I define a brand in terms of the relationship of trust that it builds with its audiences. A trust built by being consistent to its vision and by delivering on its promise.
For example, I think that the American car brands have failed to stay relevant to consumers and have created products that are no longer in touch with the needs and wants of their audiences. On top of that, they have failed to run their businesses in a manner that is financially responsible.
What does “made in America” and “American car company” mean today? In many ways I believe it stands for an industry that has not invested in innovation in terms of manufacturing processes nor product development. And that, is not consistent with what those brands should be about.
Instead of adapting to the changing needs of consumers and the changing economic landscape, the American car companies became obsolete dinosaurs and are now suffering the consequences and looking for bail outs.
I like to think that things would have been different if the American car companies had focused on developing fuel efficient vehicles that were well designed, safe, inexpensive and reliable. “Made in America”…should have meant leveraging technology to create manufacturing efficiencies and innovative products.
In my opinion, the changes I have suggested would have enhanced the value of those brands and would have lived up to the expectations consumers have of American ingenuity and creativity.
I believe that many of the brands that have failed recently, have done so because they have not been true to their vision. They have been victims of corporate greed and mismanagement. They failed to adapt to the economic conditions… they did not deliver on their promise, and they did not build trust with their audiences (customers, investors, analysts, etc.). Many of these brands should have failed long ago.
Undoubtedly, the year ahead will see many more brands fail. Yet, I believe that the brands that will survive are the ones that know how to adapt and evolve. And, those brands will emerge stronger and more valuable than ever.
So, our advice to our clients is to focus on the basics: Remember what you stand for and deliver on that promise in accordance to the needs and wants dictated by the current economic and social conditions. Be innovative, be agile, be open to change. This is what great brands do all the time, and great brands will survive.
So, let 2009 be the year of the great brands.
Please let me know what you think.
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