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03/04/2011 AllAboutBranding.

com : The Added V…

The Added Value of Design

Contributor - Rachell Simmons 2006


O ctobe r
The pow er of design and how to use it to achieve greater success in the
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marketplace is currently misunderstood and undervalued. This paper March
discusses four principles that w ill help companies recognize the value of 2005
design in the 21st Century and how to successfully integrate it into a wider De ce m be r
business strategy. The four concepts discussed are as follow s: Design Se pte m be r
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Identity, Design Strategy, Design Equity and Design Differentiation.
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DESIGN IDENTITY - The face of a company's brand and strategy May
March
Mission statements that provide direction and inspiration are becoming 2003
common practice within organizations. Compelling visions nurture cultural May
alignment, which in turn can lead to the development of a strong internal 2002
brand. Similarly, organizations should actively seek to ingrain a coordinated July
design identity within their cultural fabric. Every visible representation of the June
May
organization and customer touch point should powerfully convey the
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company's design 'DNA.' Janua ry

Brands build pow er through consistency and awareness because contrary to


popular belief, people like the familiar and the known of a relationship.
Naturally, a desire always exists for the next new thing and there is a
pressing need to stay prevalent w ith current design trends. However, many
companies make the mistake of having a multitude of design messages sent
out at one time without any coherent connection. Design is a w ay to carry a
brand's heritage into a new service or product offering while simultaneously
presenting a unified message. It is quite incredible how much a design can
be recalibrated and be injected with fresh ideas, yet still retain its
fundamental soul and recognizable as the original face of the company's
brand. When this is done well, the design confirms and strengthens a
relationship with the customer, saying essentially, 'What you know and like
about this relationship, you can count on'.

As brands experience rapid globalization and try to extend across cultural


differences the need for a vehicle that can consistently convey an
organization's core values and defined associations becomes increasingly
pressing. Design has this power. A common look and feel among the
products, graphics and environments that represent a corporation's vision
can create unified cultures and consistent customer experiences.
Virgin excels in this category. Virgin has a very clear and compelling design
DNA: fun, edgy, innovative, approachable and personal. Its logo, a
handwritten signature at a rakish angle, is the design glue under w hich span
a host of different services and products, from record stores to airlines to
clothing to colas. It is extraordinary how far the Virgin brand has been
successfully stretched. A significant anchor for these sub-brands is Virgin's
unmistakable design identity and how this design DNA successfully thrives
w ithin every new venture and expansion A customer always knows when
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w ithin every new venture and expansion. A customer always knows when
they are experiencing or buying a Virgin brand.

A clear and strong design identity can represent w hat an organization wants
their brand to stand for now and in the future. Design can provide an
external picture for customers and can act as the internal face of business
strategy.

DESIGN STRATEGY - Direction and innovation through design

Design is currently undervalued in its ability to help define strategic thinking


and illustrate ideas. Very often, if you can understand and see what the
dream should look like, then the steps required to make the dream real
become clear. A metaphor expressed through design can be a very effective
w ay of conveying the promises and perceptions you want your customers to
feel about a product or service offering.

The mysterious quality that makes something excell in the marketplace is


often intangible, and how people connect and convey this quality differs
significantly. It is therefore extremely useful to quickly come up with an image
that captures the essence of what a range of different departments and
people within an organization are trying to say. For example, w hen
Starbucks w as initially trying to create a coherent design vocabulary, it came
up w ith the image of the Siren or 'the White Goddess,' as she later became
know n. Sirens carry strong connotations of mythology and story telling, both
of which lie at the heart of the coffee house experience and the Starbucks
brand. Today, whenever you intercept the Starbucks Brand - a coffee mug, a
bag of coffee, a CD - you will encounter the same distinct visual and graphic
language.

Designers themselves have an innate talent for making connections and


distilling information into its essence. They are often dreamers and
visionaries who are natural drivers of direction and catalysts for solving
complex problems. The nature of their w ork is conception, development and
implementation. The good ones know how to ship innovation. Designers are
also very often the customer's advocate and should therefore be allowed a
stronger voice as the champion of the user. Organizations wanting to
leverage these skills would benefit from becoming become more active in
including designers in the strategic and developmental processes. In
addition, designers are very often given second-handed insights to work
w ith, which have emerged from the conceptual stages of a project and
required to work with this information to generate the finished product.

Tw o major problems can arise from this pattern. Firstly, it can be hard for the
designer to tap into the soul of the product or service because they were not
a part of the team that established the core needs, values, target audience
etc. This in turn can lead to lack of consistency - and economic synergy -
between overall strategy and design identity. A vast amount of time and
money is then spent trying to marry the two. This can feel like trying to fit a
circle back into a square and thus the project often ends up back on the
drawing board. A solution to this problem is for companies to actively appoint
a design strategist, a person w ho acts as a bridge betw een the designer

and strategy team. Design should be at the heart of a holistic, organization-


w ide strategy.

Design is regularly used as band-aid that is added at a completion of a


project. Often when one element misses the mark, the weakness will be
camouflaged with beautiful design. More to the point, by not fully integrating
design into the strategic process, many companies are not taking full
advantage of the serendipitous discovery that happens during design. The
tangible quality of design gives people the feeling of possibility that
something really is going to happen Does it not therefore make sense to
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something really is going to happen. Does it not therefore make sense to
generate something visual, even if it only communicates the first stage of the
strategic process to create momentum?

Finally, design is an excellent channel for risk taking and for rapidly pushing
the barriers of an organization. Failure can occur quickly in the design stage,
but in most cases the designer(s) w ill 'fail forw ard' - the mistake leads to
learning, w hich allow s the team to succeed sooner. One of the most powerful
components of design is that people form fast relationships and responses
to it, positive and negative. It is amazing how quickly cross-departmental
teams can discard a design because it isn't quite w orking. This in turn
enables them to move the ball forw ard and close the gap between the idea
and the successful product/service. Design should therefore be viewed as a
fast prototyping method that simultaneously raises the level of innovation
w ithin an organization and helps create a culture that achieves success
quickly.

DESIGN EQUITY - The direct value of design

Design is undervalued in a lot of organizations because it is currently difficult


to directly measure its impact. Naturally, companies know through sales
w hen a product or service is successful, but how much analysis is done to
measure the extent to which these results can be attributed to design. So,
how could Design Equity be measured? It could be defined as the extent to
w hich a brand is identified by its design fabric. The dimensions that David
Aaker in 'Brand Leadership' applies to measuring Brand Equity could be
applicable to measuring Design Equity: awareness, perceived quality,
associations and loyalty.

Design Awareness: How familiar are people w ith the distinct visual and
graphic language of the organization/brand? To w hat extent is design the
face of the brand?

Perceived Quality: How accurately do people associate the quality of the


brand/organization w ith the quality of the design?

Design Associations: What attributes, situations and connotations do people


associate with the brand through the design? To what extent does the
design connect the customer to the brand?

Design Loyalty: To what extent will a person buy a product or services purely
based on the way that it looks or feels?

The value of developing distinct, clear ways to measure design equity is that
valuations w ould highlight where companies are failing to connect with
customers and where potential opportunity lies. For example, say an
insurance company develops an umbrella as their logo w ith the intention that
it conveys protection and safety, the essence of the brand (Travelers). Yet, a

design equity survey reveals that customers associate the umbrella with
rainy days and gloom. This may offer some form of explanation as to w hy the
company is having problems selling the quality and safety of their service.

DESIGN DIFFERENTIATION - Designing emotions that make 'the difference'


in the marketplace

As we progress tow ards an economy that thrives on personal and customer


relationships, companies need to understand the value of design in creating
emotional connections with customers. Great design can provoke new ways
of thinking and feeling, and is often the most potent expression of a brand.
Increasingly, the rationale behind purchasing decisions is less weighted
towards function and more tow ards form and style. It is almost as if the more
w e are bombarded with coldness of high-tech and standardization, the more
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w e crave personalization and a human touch.

Many companies today have yet to grasp the pow er of design as a strategic
tool and as a direct vehicle for increasing sales. The famous designer,
Raymond Loew y, once said, 'There is no curve as beautiful as a rising sales
graph!' Contrary to popular belief, designers do understand the need for
pragmatism and that design should be customer centric. They also
understand that great design can go further in the sense that it can create
yearning for a brand, self-confidence and security through ownership, and
make us feel as if we belong to a larger group. Arguably, it is not just the
design that evokes the emotion but rather the w hole brand or image of that
product. Design, however, is in essence emotional and there are very few
elements of a brand that have the power to be as responsive to people's
needs for sensory pleasure and to promises of delivery.

Design can define a relevant, differentiated and credible value proposition.


Especially in markets w here there is a high degree of competitive
convergence, the visual impression is often the deciding factor as w hether
the customer buys your product or service or your competitors. Design can
make the difference. Apple's iMac is a beautiful example of a product that
entered an over-saturated market, yet managed to enchant customers and
add a w hole new dimension to the personality of a PC.

Research has show n that people relate to brands in a very similar way that
they relate to people. They form relationships w ith others based on
personality, appearances and trust. The same dimensions can be applied to
brands. They project a certain style and image, have a unique name and
personality and ultimately they try to engender loyalty through trust,
aspiration and differentiation. Most brands' distinct DNA is channeled through
design. Great design has real personality and w e almost define the type of
person we are by the type of brands that we buy.

CONCLUSION

In a marketplace where compelling messages, consistent delivery and


emotional experiences are at the heart of a brand's success, organizations
need to actively develop fully integrated and pow erful design strategies.
More research needs to be conducted on the ROI of design, specific
measurement tools, and how it positively impacts the value of a brand. A
shift in current thinking from regarding design as a soft service function to a
cornerstone of business strategy also needs to occur. Design is an incredibly
beautiful vehicle that has the power to tap into the emotional potency of
products and services while simultaneously creating layered, textural
experiences in our lives.

Notes:

Aaker, David.A, 'Brand Leadership,' (New York: The Free Press, 2000)
Bedbury, Scott, 'A New Brand World,' (New York: Viking Penguin, 2002)
Gobe, Marc, 'Emotional Branding,' (New York: Allw orth Press, 2001)
Kelley, Tom, 'The Art of Innovation,' (New York: Random House, 1995)

Contributor: Rachell Simmons


An artist at heart, Rachel is fascinated by the qualities of brands that
emotionally connect with people. Her professional passion and focus is
helping companies fully integrate creative thinking into strategic processes. A
graduate of Oxford University, Rachel than w ent on to study and research at
Harvard University on ways to lead innovation. She is currently working as a
freelance writer and brand strategist.
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Email: rachellsimmons@aol.com

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