BOLD BRANDS GO WITH THE GUT

Last week, I had the privilege of sitting with the godfather of branding, Marty Neumeier, Director of CEO Branding at Liquid Agency and author of bestselling books including The Brand Gap, Brand Flip and Zag and the Dictionary of Brand.

We assembled in Marty’s comfortable study (albeit via Zoom).

25 best of breed creatives gathered, alert and hungry to be baptised in the accumulated wisdom and knowledge that Marty has gained over an incredible career that was birthed with some of the world’s leading tech companies in Silicon Valley as an expert software packaging designer.

I was immediately struck by Marty’s humility and generosity of thought and ideas.

We worked through the concepts and 5 disciplines presented in Marty’s book The Brand Gap, Marty shared his accumulated wisdom. It’s one thing to read a book, but entirely another to have those lines on the page come alive with the person who wrote them.

We were reading between the lines and that’s where the magic happened for me.

CREATE A DISRUPTIVE BRAND IN 3 DAYS

These moments with Marty were only one component of our experience. The rest of the time was spent in small group work collaborating across time zones, continents and in extenuating circumstances due to COVID for some, to produce a disruptive brand in 3 days.

We had never met each other or worked together but somehow in a very short time frame we were able to take what we were learning and apply it to the category we were tasked in disrupting. Producing a compelling business model, effective names and meaningful mission and values wrapped up in a convincing visual presentation of how our brand would look and operate in the marketplace. I learned collaboration can take many forms and be fruitful even in the strangest of circumstances.

With Marty’s expert guidance and constructive feedback our brands became elevated. By the time it was presented on day four, these brands had a beating heart, tons of soul and strong legs.

Putting all of this theory into action in a pressured time frame was for me at least, a mini big bang. Collaboration is a powerful beast.

And so….

…STRATEGIC BRANDING CREATIVES BELONG IN THE BOARDROOM. 

Mic drop.

Creatives in the boardroom? Are you crazy, lady?

Ha. Ha. Now that I’ve dropped that little bomb, it’s probably a good moment to correctly define what branding is and is not. Branding is not your logo or identity kit; it’s not marketing and it’s not advertising. It’s not what you think you should be telling your customers about you.  Are you getting the picture? Start thinking about branding from your customers GUT FEELING about your business.

Brand defined is, “a person's perception of a product, service, experience, or organisation”. A person’s perception. Not an organisations perception of their own products, services or experiences.

It’s how your customer’s feel about you in their gut.

So now we have cleared that up, let’s go back to branding creatives in the boardroom.

Many senior staffers and leaders may still see this as a radical idea – the might say (not you of course, dear enlightened reader) “those creative types are not to be trusted with ACTUAL decisions, we’ll bring them in once business strategy and planning are done and dusted”. But Marty’s message is clear and he, along with Level C co-founder, Creative Director Andy Starr are on a mission to see more organisations embrace the function and importance of brand and create room for CBO’s (Chief Brand Officers).

So make room. Creatives belong at the boardroom table.

RIGHT OR LEFT?

It’s time for right-brain and left-brain thinkers to make decisions from the top. It is time for organisations to think with a WHOLE BRAIN.

There is a reason why some brands become memorable, why they rise to the top, why we have positive experience with them. They’ve discovered the sweet spot between science (right-brain) and magic (left-brain). And that alchemy happens when the need for good branding is understood, valued and recognised. It can’t just happen externally; it needs to be captured and realised by every person in the organisation.

As someone who started out as a graphic designer, then completed a Management degree, it makes perfect sense to me. When creativity understands business and business understands creativity, powerful magic happens. Every business after all is in the business of satisfying a customer need. And I believe that the imagination and original thought that creatives bring to the table provides ideas and an insight into the customer that is simply not addressed by the other functions. And that role is what Marty Neumeier and Andy Starr call a CBO or Chief Branding Officer.

In a scalable context, it’s simply keeping sight of brand being about not what you say but what your customers are saying about you and this is where a brand specialist can offer a unique perspective on how you can keep sight of your customers perception and help you to continue to delight them for many years to come.

Roslyn McKay is a the founder of Bold Type Creative and resides in Perth, Australia. She holds a BA in Arts Management from Edith Cowan University and is a Certified Brand Specialist with Level C founded by Marty Neumeier and Andy Starr.

Footnote:

Be Kind - There are silver linings everywhere on this otherwise cloudy year.

We again find ourselves in a transformational age and there is opportunity to change the way we do business. Move away from the idea of consumer culture and address the needs of people culture instead. At Bold Type Creative, It’s my personal mission to contribute to what Mary Portas calls The Kindness Economy .