Brand Who? Brand Yourself!

Today’s challenge was to look into at all the brands that we buy into and list them. The list is not exhaustive but should include brands within the following categories: food, clothing, cosmetics, entertainment, and service providers. The aim of this challenge is to think and observe how these brands define us as a human being and a consumer.

CONTEXT

According to the Cambridge Dictionary (n.d.), a brand [noun] refers to giving an identity to a product or service made by a particular company. The American Marketing Association (AMA), a brand [noun] is a “name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competition.” (Keller, 2013). However, marketers in the field of marketing and communication look at a brand [noun] as a marketing tool to increase brand awareness > brand image > brand response > brand resonance, Keller’s Brand Equity Model (Keller, 2013). So, it appears that a brand can either be referred to as a marketing tool or elements creating the identity of a product or service.

From a marketing perspective, brand management refers to the development of a strategic plan to maintain brand equity (the value that a company creates through a product/ service) (Keller, 2013). To create brand equity, a company must make the product/service memorable, easily recognizable, reliable, and having a superior quality than its competitors (Amstrong and Kotler, 2012). In the end, brand management is a tool used to building a consumer strong loyalty, being unique and indispensable in the eyes of the consumer.

Looking at a brand as a verb, the Cambridge Dictionary (n.d.), it is to say that you think someone/ something is a sort of person/ something. Thus, to brand can be regarded as to label or mark someone with something. So, thinking about brands that we are buying into, can it really define who we are as a consumer and as a human individual? Can we label or mark someone after looking at the brands he/she is buying into?

CHALLENGE & REFLECTION

To fulfil this challenge, I listed on a piece of paper all the brands that came into my mind during my recent buying experiences. To sort all these brands, I chose five categories based on the brief which are known as followed: food brands, clothing brands, technology/ IT brands, cosmetic brands, and entertainment brands. These categories represent the best my daily/monthly/yearly product and service consumptions as a consumer. The following illustration provides a summary of my brand list.

For the past 6 years, I became a newly independent consumer, because my parents were no longer paying for my utilities as I started to live by myself. Thus, my journey as a consumer began influenced by my parent’s habit in buying more than we actually need for the sake of ”just in case we don’t have it any more at home”. However, I slowly became aware of my responsibility as a consumer in this society of consumerism. I realised the importance of reducing our consumption to preserve our environment and its eco-system.

Now, when I look for a (new) product or service, I want the brand to be socially responsible and if the brand is, I would be more loyal to this brand than a brand not questioning its moral intentions. In this illustration, these brands are:

• Food brands: Innocent, The Original Oatly, and Nos Régions Ont Du Talent from Leclerc.
• Clothing brands: Fjall Raven, Monki, Dr Martens, and I visit a lot of vintage stores.
• Technology brands: Adobe, Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Ecosia, and Qwant.
• Cosmetic brands: Beauty Kitchen, Kat von D, Bambaw, Salt of the Earth, and Yves Rocher.

Not all the brands in the illustration have been mentioned because they aren’t showing social and/ or environmental engagement. I choose those brands because I think that they are respectful to my body from the inside to the outside but also the environment (recycled clothings, noble material, cruelty-free cosmetics). Again, this aligns with my conviction to reduce my carbon footprint by lowering my consumption of meat and fish (flexitarian), and looking for durable & natural products. In this illustration, these brands are:

• Food brands: Nakd Wholefood and Eat Natural. I visit food markets to buy vegetables & fruits in bulk. I also try to consume seasonable products to reduce my carbon footprint.
• Clothing brand: Thirdlove.
• Technology brands: Asus and Wacom.
• Cosmetic brands: BareMinerals, Bobbi Brown, and Sanex.

The last brands are either bringing back memories or for personal pleasure. This is particularly the case for food brands. Regarding the other brands for clothing, technology and cosmetics, they are a matter of preference and personal taste. Lastly, the entertainment brands can also be divided into different sub-categories like learning, amusement, informative, and social.

• Food brands: HandsOff My Chocolate (pleasure), Whittard (pleasure), Pringles (pleasure), Mister Kitchen (pleasure), Bonne Maman (memories), Kinder (memories), Lu (memories), and Maggi (memories).
• Clothing brands: Urban Outfitters, Clarks, Systemaction and KendoStar.
• Technology brand: Sennheiser.
• Cosmetic brand: Guerlain.
• Entertainment brands: Duolingo (learning), PlayStation (amusement), Netflix (amusement), Neko-san (amusement), Magic Gathering (amusement), France Inter (informative), and Facebook including Instagram, WhatsApp and YouTube(social).

As a consumer, I attach a lot of importance on the brands showing and taking on social and environmental responsibilities. Thus, I would brand myself as someone conscious of its carbon footprint when consuming. However, after reflection, it appears that I am more inclined to close my eyes on these moral values, especially for brands in the food and entertainment sectors. Regarding some of the food brands, I grew up with them and they remind me of memories of my childhood (the madeleine of Proust). The other food brands are my little treat creating a moment of instant pleasure, but these brands could be replaced by alternatives if I looked for them. Regarding the listed entertainment brands, it becomes difficult to find substitutes because they often have a monopoly in the market. The real question is, do I really want to look for these alternatives?

This challenge made us think about our consumer behaviour and observe the brand we are buying into. The illustration shows a brief summary of all the brands that I am consuming. There are many and diverse brands, but it does not mean I am consuming them heavily. Like many other consumers, I am looking into living in a minimalistic lifestyle. A minimalistic lifestyle means living with fewer material possessions and focusing on what’s important, so according to the Minimalists (n.d.), we can find happiness, fulfilment, and freedom.

Looking at my behavioural consumption, I believe that brands will increasingly be called upon to take responsibility for resolving some of the world’s problems such as climate change, preservation of biodiversity, consumerism, human rights, health issues like obesity and malnutrition, food dumping, fake news and many more. More consumers are increasingly looking and wanting brands to be socially responsible (Hesse, 2012).  Brands must play a role in encouraging customers to live sustainably.

A tool for (personal) brand analysis

During one of the lectures at UCA, tools were shown, which could be used when conducting a (personal) brand analysis. The Personal Branding Canvas will help us understand and define our Personal Brand.

As mentioned before, a brand is referred to the concept, visuals and perceptions that distinguish one product from others in the same market. When looking at a personal brand analysis, we are looking at how you speak, work, communicate and write creating this identity/ personality that distinguishes you from others. The Personal Branding Canvas is a useful tool to start thinking on how you want to be perceived by others.

A personal brand is having your own voice, a voice that when people hear it, they know it is you! I believe it is important to cultivate our personal brand by determining: what do you wish for people to associate with you when they think of your name? By asking this question, it pushes us to think about our expertise and general qualities. According to Hyde (2014), a strong personal brand is dependent on a strong narrative. In my quest of strengthening my personal brand, I am currently looking into storytelling and illustrative branding, check my Master Project Bibliography.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Amstrong, G. and Kotler, P. (2012). Principles Of Marketing. 14^th edn. New Jersey, USA: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Cambridge Dictionary. (n.d.). Brand [Online]. Available at: Retrieved on October 27, 2018, from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/fr/dictionnaire/anglais/brand (Accessed: 27 October 2018)

Hesse, J. (2012, July 16). Consumers Are Defining Brands [Online]. Available at: https://www.raconteur.net/business-innovation/consumers-defining-brand-values (Accessed: 27 October 2018)

Hyder, S. (2014, August 18). 7 Things You Can Do To Build An Awesome Personal Brand [Online]. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/shamahyder/2014/08/18/7-things-you-can-do-to-build-an-awesome-personal-brand/#55d8e4763c3a (Accessed: 27 October 2018)

Keller, K. L. (2013). Strategic Brand Management, Building, Measuring, and Managing Brand Equity. 4^th edn. Harlow, England, UK: Pearson Education.

The Minimalists. (n.d.). What Is Minimalism? [Online]. Available at: https://www.theminimalists.com/minimalism/ (Accessed: 27 October 2018)

Good vs Poor Design Branded Campaigns

Today’s challenge is to defend what’s good and poor design using six examples. For this challenge, I decided to focus on my interest in branding. I chose three viral brand campaigns, where I looked at their good and poor design conception.

To base the critics, I looked at the most known core design principles guideline by Sullivan, used by many designers from around the world, to define whether the brand campaign is good or poor. The focus is principally put on the analysis of the use of ”feelings” to generate a positive and adequate emotional response amongst the targeted audience. Please view the presentation and read the rest of the article to gain a better understanding of my reasoning.

https://prezi.com/view/0v0sRUso5lBlEkqQYW3H/

CONTEXT

The core design principles started from Louis Sullivan (1895-1924) who popularized “Form follows function” in the 20^th century. Form and function is a starting point considered by every designer when developing new work, rather than focusing on aesthetics. According to Sullivan, a great design follows these principles (Craven, 2017):

• Form
  
• Function

FORM looks to the visual appeal using harmonic colours and a well-chosen typeface. FUNCTION refers to the work’s purpose, its easiness to read, understand, and to execute in a given media.

• Feeling

There is a third subtler factor that plays in design principles, which is FEELING (Elaver, 2012; Pence, 2004). FEELING refers to the message, the mood-evoking an emotional response to the audience. Many designers think about it subconsciously but it is rarely expressed as a priority in their design thinking. Storytelling is a common tool to convey emotions through the use of a narrative. Using a narrative approach helps to build emotional connections between customers, brands and its product/ service (Huang, 2010).

Thus, in my opinion, a good design is able to tell a story without words creating an emotional response to its audience.

EXAMPLES OF GOOD/POOR BRAND CAMPAIGNS

1. Volvo FM Truck Campaign

In 2013, Volvo launched a new campaign that portrays Jean-Claude Van Damme performing a split between two reversing trucks. The video was created by Swedish agency Forsman & Bodenfors, one of Sweden’s leading creative agencies.

Goal: To demonstrate the stability and precision of the dynamic steering making Volvo FM easy to drive. The goal was to make a number of different Live Test films to break with the traditional-looking advertising.

Aim: To create awareness and ”pave the way for further marketing in Volvo Trucks’ 140 local markets” explained Lars Terling, Volvo vice president marketing communications, “(…) we were looking for a strategic partner that could help us out-smart our competitors with an unconventional take” (Carter, 2014).

In the end, Volvo’s marting communications department and Forsman & Bodenfors tried to create multi-level storytelling to appeal on an emotional level to both the general public and to truck experts. It received a Bronze Lion at Cannes International Festival of Creativity in 2014.

2. Benetton UnHate Campaign

The marketing campaign was created in 2011 by FABRICA, an Italian communication research centre as a part of Benetton Group, for the UnHate foundation (founded by Benetton Group) using controversial billboard posters.

Goal: To break the barriers of racial, ethnic, religious backgrounds, educating and enlightening people on political and social agendas (though one-sided beliefs) across diverse socio-cultural demographics.

Aim: To increase brand awareness and equity to help revitalize and reinvigorate the United Colors of Benetton brand. Raise awareness and equity of foundation by promoting peace and dialogue. The billboard campaign pictures the following:

• Nicolas Sarkozy, ex-French President of the 5^th Republic, kissing the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel
• Pope Benedict XVI kissing the Egyptian Imam, Ahmed el Tayeb
• Barack Obama, American president kissing Hu Jintao, the Paramount Leader of the People’s Republic of China
• Kim Jong-il, Supreme Leader of North Korea kissing Lee Myung-bak, President of South Korea

Focused on the theme of the kiss, a universal symbol of love, the series of these symbolic images portray reconciliation, and a profound reflection on how politics, faith and ideas, even if they are opposed, must lead to dialogue and un-hate (UnHate Foundation, 2012).

According to Alessandro Benetton, the UnHate campaign wanted to send a “message about the need to overcome the culture of hate, through dialogue and the understanding of differences (…)” (UnHate Foundation, 2012). It received a Press Grand Prix at the Cannes International Festival of Creativity in 2012.

3. Dove Campaign for Real Beauty

Real Beauty Sketches was created in 2013 by agency partner Ogilvy & Mather for Dove owned by Unilever. It is the perfect example of a good design campaign showing how emotions and personal story to drive social engagement and shares around the brand. It became a viral marketing success and the 4^th most shared advertising ever on YouTube (Stampler, 2013).

Goal: The advertising was part of the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. The goal is to improve women self-esteem by showing that the only barrier to beauty is their own self-perception. To do so, the campaign to underline the contrast between how women view themselves and what others see.

Aim: To find a way to convince the other 96% they are also beautiful, thus showing how the brand cares about its female audience.

Women were asked to describe themselves to FBI trained forensic artist Gil Zamora (from behind a mysterious curtain), who drew a portrait of them based on their description. 

Most advertising campaigns don’t evoke clear emotion but only communicate about a product or service benefits. The campaign became very successful because it taps into deep-seated emotions. Furthermore, the commercial elements are barely present.

Ogilvy & Mather received a Gold Lion at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity (Asset Ogilvy Public Relations, n.d.).

BONUS. One Dollar Shave Club Campaign

In 2012, the start-up Dollar Shave Club became successful thanks to its ‘’Our Blades Are F***ing Great’’ in its promotional video. To steal market share from razor powerhouses like Gillette and Philips. The CEO, Michael Dubin, promised a better price point: for $1 a month, you will receive a high-quality razor (AAE Speakers, n.d.).

Goal: To create a crude and goofy viral video to support the launch of his new and disruptive business model. ‘’ I think what we wanted to do is not take ourselves too seriously, and deliver an irreverent smart tone”, explained Michael Dubin, thus trying to put yourself from a consumer’s perspective

Aim: To increase brand awareness and equity to rivalries with competitors on the market by showing a young and transparent image of the brand. The video shows the CEO who wrote the advertising to stand out from brands that take themselves too seriously.

Any company can study and design a clever marketing campaign regardless of brand awareness or marketing budget. Beyond the FORM and FUNCTION, a good design must be able to convey FEELING or EMOTION to drives an audience’s response.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

AAE Speakers. (n.d.). Michael Dubin, Founder Dollar Shave Club [Online]. Available at: https://www.allamericanspeakers.com/speakers/420501/Michael-Dubin (Accessed: 28 September 2018)

Asset Ogilvy Public Relations. (n.d.). 13 awards for Ogilvy Public Relations at Cannes PR Lions 2013! [Online]. Available at: http://www.ogilvy.gr/en/asset-ogilvy/13-awards-ogilvy-public-relations-cannes-pr-lions-2013 (Accessed: 28 September 2018)

Carter, M. (2014, June 18). How Volvo Trucks Pulled Off An Epic Split And A Game-Changing Campaign [Online]. Available at: https://www.fastcompany.com/3031654/how-volvo-trucks-pulled-off-an-epic-split-and-a-game-changing-campaign (Accessed: 28 September 2018)

Craven, J. (2017, October 23). The Meaning of ” Form Follows Function” [Online]. Available at: https://www.thoughtco.com/form-follows-function-177237 (Accessed: 28 September 2018)

Elaver, R. A. (2012). Form, Function, Emotion: Designing for the Human Experience, International Conference On Engineering And Product Design Education, p267-272.

Huang, W., Y. (2010). Brand story and perceived brand image: Evidence from Taiwan, Journal of Family and Economic issues 2010, 31(3), p307-317.

Pence, J. (2004). Narrative Emotion: Feeling, Form and Function, Journal of Narrative Theory, 34 (3), p273-276.

Stampler, L. (2013, May 22). How Dove’s ‘Real Beauty Sketches’ Became The Most Viral Video Ad Of All Time [Online]. Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-doves-real-beauty-sketches-became-the-most-viral-ad-video-of-all-time-2013-5 (Accessed: 28 September 2018)

UnHate Foundation. (2012). Press Grand Prix for the UNHate Campaign [Online]. Available at: http://unhate.benetton.com/unhate-campaign-2011-press-gran-prix-winner-at-cannes-2012/ (Accessed: 28 September 2018)

Is the Future of Branding Personal?

It became more clear during my last internship that branding as evolves into creating a trustworthy, personal and transparent brand image to its consumer. I am curious to know more about the relationship between being personal and branding, so I started to browse on the Internet.

I first encounter Waller’s TED Talk. Dr Talaya Waller, international personal branding consultant, speaker, and award-winning research scholar, discusses the issue of personal branding in building consumer trust and its power to develop brands that are authentic and personal. Nowadays, consumers are overloaded with information and making it difficult to make a decision on their own. Thanks to digitalisation and especially thanks to social media, we are now able to share our opinion, guiding others in their decision-making. I have also noticed in my internship that consumers lose their trust in corporate branding. I was asked to look for influencers to contribute the brand, thus to market its products. ”Branding has shifted from humanising objects to influencing people with other people they know, like and trust” confirms Waller.

According to Waller, everyone has a personal brand but not everyone manages it strategically, effectively and consistently. Personal branding is about what you want to be known for! It is important to self-reflect to be self-aware. To do so, she advised to position yourself in these three self-reflective categories: your strength, your passion, and your opportunity. I have learned that it is very important to focus on your passion and develop knowledge and skills around. ”People are tired of curated perfection and would rather see something that is more realistic and relatable” continues Waller. She explains that successful brands became difficult because they showed their differences and what they truly stand for. So, it is important to embrace our authenticity and share your story!

In relation to Waller’s TED Talk, Tai Tran continues on the idea of a personal brand. Tai Tran, brand and graphic designer, discusses why personal branding matters to him and shares his perspective on how to construct a unique identity for yourself or your company. Many people think that personal branding is a fake representation of who you are. But, what is a personal branding? According to Tran, a personal brand is not shaped by you but it is formed, shaped by what people say about you. In other words, a personal brand is an interception between reality and perception. Remember, you are at the heart of the brand.

You need to create value for your audience and create a lasting impact in their memories. Tran explains that you need to position yourself in the market and show interest, enthusiasm in the field that you are or want to pursue. Thus, self-development and self-initiative to increase your knowledge, stay in phase with the latest trends, and to create career opportunities. It is crucial to remember sharing your stories, through social media, to generate interest among the market you are trying to reach. It is also important to create a dialogue and building a quality network, not only from your industry but also people in your proximity such as your colleagues, peers, friends etc. In the end, ”it is less about what you know, but about who you know”, affirms Tai Tran.

I follow Gary Vaynerchuk on his social media channels and came across with one of his quotes, ”your personal brand is your reputation. And your reputation in perpetuity is the foundation of your career”. Gary Vaynerchuk, chairman of Vayner, CEO of VaynerMedia, and 5-time NYT bestselling author explains in various of his videos how to build your brand and more particularly a personal brand. Check Vaynerchuck’s article on 5 strategies for personal branding online. He clearly explains that successful brands ever try to “convert” you into buying their products or services, instead, they are creating an experience around their brands like the iPhones from Apple. In today’s digital age, it is very easy to create content, you should create helpful, educational, entertaining content to your audience/ consumers. It will ultimately lead to an increase in your audience or long-term sales.

Through my research, there are no manuals for building a personal brand, but Tran describes it as the best representation of you with your flows, successes, challenges and triumphs. Gary Vaynerchuck advice when you start building a personal brand, it is important to be self-aware about what you have to add to the conversation, what you do and the things you want to talk about and share with your community. It is important to stay true to yourself instead of faking until you make it, especially if you pretend to be an ”expert” without showing shreds of evidence. In the end, ”embrace your identity, thus you will become successful in growing a personal brand”, says Tai Tran.

After listening to all of these experiences, I feel empowered and want to start creating for developing myself without losing myself. Let’s enjoy the process through this blog and my other social media channels. Time to be creative!