It's All About You

I met with a prospective client recently. She’s a Harvard educated powerhouse, an accomplished musician and recording artist, has a wellness brand and is exploring starting a museum - from scratch.

In our meeting she shared the personal motivation and meaning behind her music, her wellness practice, her museum idea. She shared how they were all integral to one another, synaptically connected. Her musical/creative/wellness/education narrative was important to capture in branding them!

While capturing her philosophy does fit into the equation, I am encouraging her to shift her focus. The motivations of the customers for each of these businesses are quite different. One wants to buy a song. Another wants to de-stress with body work. Another wants to take the kids someplace that will fascinate them for an afternoon.

Your brand narrative needs to capture your passions, but what's key is how you will fulfill your customers desires. Great brands weave the two seamlessly together in a motivating and emotionally evocative way.

photo credit: flickr: rafa_luque

You Are A Package

I’ve done a lot of work in consumer packaged goods. The biggest challenge is getting consumers to choose your product from all the others on the shelf. Recently, in working with entrepreneurs and mid-sized businesses I have noticed how many of the guiding principles of CPG translate directly to their branding challenges. Here are three:

Shelf Pop: When you are on display, as an individual or business, you have to know what your competition looks like. What shape are they? What colors do they use? Iconography or photography? Bottle or box? You need to differentiate yourself in a way that makes you jump off the shelf when a purchase decision is being made.

Communication Hierarchy: At most, you get 3 levels of communication. Brand, variant and flavor. You have to make hard choices about what you want your customer to know. What motivates them? A functional or an emotional benefit? Are you going to make them look sexier? Make them smarter? Define what your label says. 

Shopper Journey: How do customers shop for you? Impulse buy at checkout? Always right next to the sunglasses? Are you with your competition or are you charting new territory in a different aisle to stand out? Create an intuitive path to help people find you.

These days, the physical and digital worlds are packed with brands to choose from. Your goal is getting picked. Becoming someones favorite. How will you make it from the shelf to the cart?

Reclaiming Americas Soul: Our Social/Industrial rEvolution

I was listening to a TEDx talk by a trend consultant friend recently and she mentioned how she thought that our consumption model is broken and that America is missing its soul. I think she’s right. But, how did that happen? Where are we headed now and what does it mean for the brand landscape?

America came into its own during the Industrial Revolution. Our factories, workers, products and standard of living was the envy of much of the world. Other countries wanted to be us once. Whether they really want to admit that now or not.

We lived the Industrial Model. 

But, over time our desire to own more and more things in order to attain our ever-inflating image of prosperity, drove us to need products to be less expensive. Less expensive because Americans middle-class wages have stagnated for the last 30 years, as former Labor Secretary Robert Reich pointed out in his eye-opening video “The Truth About the Economy”. Sadly, our wages have not kept pace with our appetite to own more things.

So, we out-sourced our production overseas. But the price we paid was dear. Entire industries in the US crumbled. Furniture making, textiles, steel production, automobiles, electronics, the list goes on and on. Physically and culturally it decimated our heartland. Look no farther than Detroit, but we all know the list is much longer.

We began to discover that not making things hollows out your soul. 

We’ve become a nation of middle-men and service providers. In fact, 86% of jobs in America are in services and 14% are in goods production and manufacturing. But there are huge numbers of our population who don’t have the skill sets or the desire to become white-collar workers. So the collective pride of the worker begins to die along with their cities.

The white collar workers find their work rooted in technology. Entire industries are living in the digital domain. Employees, initially enthralled by the computer and its magic have become surrounded, ruled and overwhelmed by the technology they once coveted. 

At the same time, big box stores became the norm and Mom & Pop businesses disappeared from Main Street. Every town in America looking like every other town - the same collection of retailers, only with different weather.

But there is a renaissance happening. 

People have begun to want to create something they can touch. Something you can’t send in an email. There is a new makers movement, a movement of people wanting to get back in touch with making actual things. Reviving dying trades, artisan skills, mills and factories. There are printers, wood workers, bicycle makers, textile designers and manufacturers, blacksmiths, craft brewers and jewelers.

People driven by a need to create. Their souls are fed by it. To produce and distribute goods bound by an ethos of sustainability, craftsmanship and local trade. Market places, pop-up stores and curated websites (digital, I know) are springing up with a decidedly anti-chain, pro-Mom & Pop, pro-local personality bent. Consumers want a human face and a name to go along with a product. For it to come from a place that they know how to find on a map. And most importantly, todays consumer wants these products. They value a true story.

Witness the Social/Industrial rEvolution being born. 

Big brands are desperately trying to find a voice for themselves that is credible in this new model. Trying to use social media and acquisitions to make themselves appear much smaller, with a human face and a genuine narrative. Take Clorox’s purchase of Burt’s Bees for example. But for the most part the consumer public is seeing through the facade. The only way to sound local is to be local. The way to appear small is to be small. The way to be hand-crafted is to get your hands dirty. 

This new model is built on quality over quantity, knowing where its materials came from, knowing where it was made, knowing a little about the person who made it. With all the digital connectivity we have at our disposal, what we have come to miss most of all, and want to get back is connection. 

Physical and emotional connection is the heart of the Social/Industrial rEvolution.

This rEvolution is about being true. Brands that embrace this evolution and live by its ethos will win a place of honor in consumers lives. Because we want to feel we are once again makers, doers and creators. We want to truly own our success. We want to play a part in reclaiming Americas soul.

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ADDENDUM: On the flip side of this coin we have the "4th Industrial Revolution" which is the digital evolution of our society and economy. Thanks to John Hawthorne, for sharing this article that comes at our societal evolution from a different perspective.

Image Credit:  Anna Zoromski/Miles @ flickr.com

In Praise of the Cube: Creatives Need Privacy

I'm a bit of an introvert. Maybe more than a bit. I find group activities somewhat draining. I find solitude rejuvenating and I do my best creative work when I'm alone. 

Given that, it's kind of funny that I've spent my career leading large groups of designers and artists in creative settings, Fortune 500 companies, global brand consultancies and learning institutions. 

I began weaving the web of my career as a painter, a fine artist. A solitary pursuit for the most part. When I needed to find a path to make a better living I got my MFA so I could teach. I loved teaching because I love learning. I love sharing how to travel a path of learning with others. 

Later, I found that being a creative director was a lot like teaching except you made more money. Also, your work and the work of your teams are enjoyed by people all over the world. No artist wants to work in a total vacuum.

But with this transition came a need to be more outgoing. To be more often involved in group pursuits than individual ones. I built up that muscle. And it took a lot of trips to the gym.

Susan Cain, in her book "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking" writes about how in the 20th century as our society moved from agrarian communities in the country to the cities, we changed. We went from working with a small group of people who we knew well to living and working in large groups of people we didn't know. Being "outgoing" became the goal. Our hero's became the great salesman of the world. Our bible, Dale Carnegie's "How to win friends and influence people". 

This evolution brought with it physical changes to where and how we are working. In the corporate world and particularly design studios, the move to create open floor plan work spaces has reached a critical mass. In a knee-jerk reaction to breaking down the walls of de-personalization that the Dilbert-esque office cubicle seas wrought, we have lost something that was worth protecting. Solitude. Designers need solitude. They need quiet and privacy to ruminate and ideate and play with ideas. Without distraction.

The casualties of this evolution are everywhere. You can see them in any design studio in the world hiding under their noise-cancelling headphones. They aren't just getting into their own jams. They are trying to escape the constant noise and distraction the crumbling of the cubicle walls has brought down on them. 

One designer on Whirlpool articulates what I have heard over and over in my years as a creative leader: 

"I work in an open-plan office, and hate talking to the people near me. I just don't want to annoy everyone else. So instead, I hole up at my desk, earphones on all day. I email people who sit five feet from me. Whoever designed my office has absolutely failed: Instead of making people more collaborative, it separated them. This trend needs to stop."

The results of this trend are also quantifiable it turns out. Finland's Institute of Occupational Health reports a decline of 5-10% of the performance of cognitive tasks like reading, writing and other creative work when in an open office setting. Management might be too drunk on the work-pod Kool-Aide and the cost savings in office furniture. Or the shoulder-surfing tabs-keeping on "what the hell are these people doing?". 

Or that open office plans just look cool. And I have to say they do look cool. Because if we look cool and modern, we are cool and modern, right? I mean, can you imagine a design firm with cubes? I didn't think so. This, it turns out, is a big part of the problem.

The facts increasingly point to this: Companies see open, collaborative spaces as an extension of their brand image. They are more interested in how it looks, than how well it actually works. Solitude is just out of fashion. Simple as that. And for creatives and designers that's a problem. 

It should be a problem for their companies, too.

All this is outweighing optimal creative productivity. And since when has business turned it's back on improved productivity? Especially when in today's business world, creativity and innovation are what separates the winners from the also-rans.

The fact is people whose work is distracted make 50% more mistakes and take twice as long to finish. Maybe that has something to do with the complaint that we are working longer hours than ever.

Plus, most designers don't like it. You've heard "A happy wife is a happy life"? Well it goes triple for designers.

The real question is: What does work? The answer is choice. Balance. Companies and agencies need to give designers access to both kinds of work spaces. If I were to place a bet, I would bet that the spaces that afford designers quiet, uninterrupted concentration and a reasonable amount of visual privacy will be the ones being fought over. Tooth and nail, if I know my designers. 

The pendulum of open floor plan offices needs to swing back to center.

In re-watching Susan Cain's amazing TED talk about the power of introversion, one statement jumped out at me. "There are no revelations without solitude."  

What design revelations and innovations have we already missed by removing our creatives space to think?

photo credit: Ben Mautner, @flickr

Sensory Packaging: Beyond the Box

I was interviewed by Packaging World Magazine about "sensory packaging" last year. I think that the topic is more important that ever. Everywhere you turn brands are engaging a broader range of senses to elevate the customer experience, improve engagement, driving trial and purchase. 

I had a conversation with Microsoft a few months ago about how they might be able to "consider" with much more intent and attention the experience people have when they open one of their products. They have come a long way from the days of "What if Microsoft designed the iPod packaging"  but they still have a way to go. Their Surface box is really quite sexy with a really nice use of clean lacquer on black matte.

I discussed Apple with them, of course, how could you not? That's who they are watching and chasing of course. Who isn't? Apart from the admirable visual cleanliness of the pack design, the tactile experience, the tightness of the box seams, the nesting of the product, the feeling in your fingers when the box top pulls off is all completely "considered". Even the smell of the interior. 

Have you ever smelled the interior of a new computer box? You probably wouldn't even mentally register it, but I would bet that you have a olfactory memory of it.  There is even a company that makes a USB device that exudes smells. Imagine if they offered a "new Mac smell". I'd buy one. Just like the car "scent pine trees" that smelled like "new car". 

Olfactory memories are the most indelible that humans have. Every time I smell Chanel #5 I think of my grandmother. Every time. She passed 20 years ago. Every time I smell root beer I think of Deerhorn Camp in Wisconsin (long story…)

Here's my extended interview "The Sentient Side of Packaging" from Packaging World Magazine Anne Marie Mohan was a fantastic interviewer and I thank her for making sense of my ramblings where I discussed everything from scratch and sniff to velvet flocking.

You can download a pdf of the interview here.