Does 'Branding' need a new brand strategy?

Whether you’re a mompreneur, or a multinational, brand has never been more relevant, and more misunderstood. 

Branding, let’s face it is as much shield as it is strategic advance.  The word can be a deft and evasive sweep over much of marketing, pr, design, and in between. You want to talk about a product’s positioning? Talk about its brand.  You want to launch a fluff press release just for visibility? Write about brand. The CEO gets caught singing karaoke while bombed on Mai Tais? Spin it around the brand. Seriously? For as much as it is credited with creating business longevity and viability, branding is fast becoming the Heidi and Spencer Pratt of media. It’s no wonder small business owners snort in derision when someone (say, me) starts to address their brand strategy. “Apple has a brand strategy. I don’t need a brand strategy.” Other sound bites: “I have a solid marketing plan. I have a logo. I have a brochure. I don’t need a brand strategy.” Hmm. How’s that working out for you? I never knew differentiation tactics could be so.. well, so conformist.

First, I admit, I’m biased. But as a brand strategist and business consultant, I often get treated as a designer with a god-complex. People often ask me to ‘do a logo’ or ‘some cards’ or (my favourite) ‘make this pretty’ and I always cringe internally. Then they cringe when I launch into my ‘branding is not just applied design’ monologue.  But it’s true. All too commonly small business owners leave brand development to the end of the line, making it more a slapped on façade than something that is infrastructural to their business strategies. So when I start to explain that brand is actually a composite sensory experience of any or all of your market touch-points, I generally get a nice, succinct, ‘huh?’ in response.

It is a shock to the system, I know. You should be developing your brand alongside your key business strategies. Why? Because for each and every business strategy, there is an equal brand strategy. Branding is actually more martial art than it is  slight-of-hand sideshow. Branding is born out of the way you do things. It translates policy, procedure, mandates and principals into a handshake.  Yes. The ‘way’ you do things has its own font. Its own copy style. Its own graphics, colours, and iconography. Its own customer service experience design. When a brand is successful, you do get the bulldozer impact of large corporations. Apple is a fine example. But just because you’re a small business it doesn’t mean you can’t take cues from an extremely successful strategy. I am a firm believer in big strategy for small business. Leading a firm of 3 people is just as important, and it doesn’t mean that you don’t deserve recognition for your consistent, powerful messaging, and positioning. Likewise, it also doesn’t mean that you have to use what has become touted as a strange go-to small business marketing mix: logo, business cards, brochure, website, and if you’re living on the edge: a fridge magnet. Sorry folks, but a fridge magnet does not a brand strategy make.

My advice? Before you go to a designer, think about your brand. Revisit that ‘solid marketing plan’. Think about the way you do things, and more importantly the way you don’t do things. Ask yourself how your visual and experiential identity reaffirms those mandates.  How do you want to be received by your consumer community? Do you really want to set yourself apart with the same tri-fold brochure as your competition? Will Tweeting about your lunch give you the relationship you want with your clientele? Does your 12pt standard MS Calibri font really say that you’re a discerning specialist? Does the light blue and brown combo communicate that you’re a partner at a law office? How about those fridge magnets? Again. How’s that working for you?

On my part, I vow to try being a better brand manager for Branding. In the sea of ‘oh-my-God-Justin-Bieber-has-a-line-of-nail-polish’, ‘Heidi-Montag-has-an-album’ , and ‘Kim-Kardashian-is-a-style-expert’ I will try to be an educational beacon, and I know, so will my colleagues.

Branding is what makes your business tactile. It’s the signage, and wayfinding that gets people to you. It’s the web presence that gets people to experience your culture. It’s the story that got you where you are and the story you are writing (both internally and externally) to get you to where you want to be. It’s what creates calm, smooth, client-side procedures in the face of harrowing business busts. It is what engages the fickle ‘I like it’ sensor in both your employees and end-users, and what affirms a big esoteric ‘Yes. That brand (read ‘that way’) is the way I do things too.’

Flex your brain by checking out some fun tools, and rethink your approach to brand. Check out my free downloads at http://www.spintheidea.com/tools

And yes, for the record, I made them pretty.

Type A Personalities, Typography, and Typos: Why Spelling Makes the Difference

During portfolio critiques, one of the most common areas for improvement I point out is attention to typography. I don’t personally care about your familiarity with umpteen grunge fonts, or if you’ve pledged eternal devotion to Helvetica. But please, please, please, make sure you take another look at the body/header relationships, your use of white space in editorial layout, and your leading, kerning, and tracking. My Type A personality is so strongly tuned to the font fork, that a whole design concept can fall flat if I see a ligature being mistreated, or if I notice a cavernous oblivion between 2 characters that hasn’t been kerned. My god, to me that’s like a cuticle begging to be ripped off with ones teeth but annoyingly ever out of reach. Gack.

So yes. Typography is that important. And why not? Language is the medium of your content. It’s what drives knowledge home with your audience because it’s what they read. And it can be the crowning glory of a piece if you spend as much time on it as you do on any other component of your work.

Still, there’s one other thing that can make your piece de resistance plummet gracelessly like so many tons of concrete just when you thought you’ve finally nailed it. Spelling.

Spelling it out.

I know, I know. You work with whatever content they give you. The copy is their job. Yada, yada. For the love of god people, do yourselves a favour and offer up the power of another pair of eyes to keep things fresh. First of all, most clients have read their content a million times and are completely blind to their own typos. In fact, most of their own internal editors have the same problem. It’s true that - unless you are a bonafide copy editor – when it comes to internal marketing teams everyone is an editor and that means QA is not handled externally until it gets to you. So, chances are if the final version of content submitted over to you for placement is talking about how the ‘CEO is an excellent manger’, the 5 people who had to proof that piece and sign off on it have let that typo slide.

In my experience there are 2 types of people. The designers that won’t say anything because they know that when an authorizing stakeholder or whoever goes to sign off and notices ‘manger’ they will be able to bill out another hour for editing or author’s additions; and the people who will say ‘Hey there, unless your CEO was the infant crib to Jesus, you have a typo. Let me change that for you.’

In all instances, you should strive to be the latter. Now, if client content is laden with typos and grammar issues, or even if it’s unfinished or still in point form, by all means do call your client and tell them that it appears the scope of work has now changed and you will resubmit your quote based on the editing and/or copy writing you will do for them.  If it looks like you are doing one round of edits, give a flat quote. If it looks like there will be back and forth, set up an hourly rate and track your time and edits.

Clients, like anyone else, respond to honesty and professionalism. As designers working in brand application, you are not only managing your client’s identity, you are also managing your own reputation, and your own brand when you take the ethical road. Sheesh, who knew ‘spelling’ was such a loaded issue.

One more sore point. Or Five.

Ok, so it’s one thing when your client gives you content that needs editing or is riddled with Spell Check omissions. It’s completely another when you hand in a proposal that has spelling issues. Here are some common oversights that chill my blood and reinstate that OCD ‘must rip off the cuticle’ feeling..

1. Stationery versus Stationary
   Alright everyone, here’s the deal. I’m only going to say it once. Stationary means ‘inert’, as in standing still and not going anywhere. Stationery (yes, please note that it’s spelled with an E) means Letterhead and other key print components to a business or personal venture. Now which one do you want to do a proposal for?
   The absolute worst is when I’ve seen people talking about ‘providing a dynamic treatment' to a client's stationary. Oh, the full-blown irony.
2. Canadian versus U.S. spelling
   Spell Check defaults are set to American English – remember that. If you are responding to a Canadian RFP (that’s Request For Proposal to newbies), you should be writing in Canadian English. Case-closed. That means you’ll be writing ‘labour’, ‘colour’, and ‘judgement’ among others. If you are responding to an American RFP, you will be spelling colour without the ‘u’, and discussing ‘judgment’. That’s the winning protocol. Don’t mix genres. And if you are stumped, then there is nothing wrong with asking your contact how they prefer things spelled out. It’s just like verifying the spelling of a client’s key executive names (which you should ALWAYS do before you submit a proposal, even if you think you’ve got everything figured out).
3. Letter Transpositions (The Untied States)
   It’s a rule of nature really: only the most embarrassing letter transpositions are the ones that don’t get picked up by Spell Check. This is how ‘united’ becomes ‘untied’, or ‘fired’ becomes ‘fried’. This is why you want someone on the outside to read your work for you.
4. Capitals and More Rules
   It’s always good to check that everything that’s supposed to be capitalized, is. But this extends beyond your rule for proper nouns. This applies to your own rules within the document. For example: if you are referring to Phase One throughout your proposal, then that should remain capitalized throughout. Switching between Phase One and ‘phase one’, makes it confusing. Phase One has become a proper noun, while ‘phase’ remains regular and refers to phases in general. Have someone go through your work to check for continuity throughout before you hand your final documents over to a client.
5. Spaces
   Inadvertent spaces between parts of words (e.g., a pple), can usually be caught during Spell Check, but not always. You want to check and double check this because it not only looks careless, it also looks like you really screwed up your kerning. Another similar issue is that of hyphenated or two-word phrases, and compound word mistakes (e.g., full-text or full text vs. fulltext). Wherever possible get the correct spellings, and apply throughout. If there is some debate as to hyphenation then ask around. At the end of the day consistency wins. If you make up your mind once, then stick to your guns throughout the entire document. I’ll share a little hands-on experience. When you read about financial tools and tax advantage products in Canada, you see articles about flow throughs, flow-throughs, Flow-throughs etc. It’s ridiculous. At the end of the day, you and your client just have to sit down and pick one, or tailor a spelling that either everyone agrees on, or that fits in with the brand. After that, it should become hard-wired into the corporate vernacular and be the only spelling in all of their documentation. My client and I decided on ‘Flow-Through’ to formalize the concept. Is it right? For us it was. Consistency wins!

The last thing I want to share with you is a link to the top 25 commonly misspelled business words. It’s a quiz, so have fun with it. It’s also a bit of a jolt if you’ve become dependent on Spell Check and auto-correction to do your work for you. It’s good to get shaken up once in a while though. http://www.businesswriting.com/tests/commonmisspelled.html

Typography is a beautiful art. And while I hesitate before bestowing a similar compliment on Grammar in general, I do have to say that typography and syntax go hand in hand from the beginning. My word of advice to anyone with a message to broadcast, is check, double check, and spell it out for your audience.

Kat Inokai
Creative Director
SPIN THE IDEA LTD.

1.      Letter Transpositions (e.g., "Untied States" )

Video killed the PowerPoint Star.

Microsoft clipart wielding virtuosos, you have had your day. Say goodbye to your star-wipes and ‘bounce in left, fade out’ animations. The love affair is over.

“Imagine a widely used and expensive prescription drug that promised to make us beautiful but didn't. Instead the drug had frequent, serious side effects: It induced stupidity, turned everyone into bores, wasted time, and degraded the quality and credibility of communication...” So wrote Edward R. Tufte, professor emeritus of political science, computer science and statistics, and graphic design at Yale, in his aptly named article ‘PowerPoint is Evil’.[i]

I know, I know. “But a PowerPoint is so professional!” you’re thinking. Indeed. To those who seek to spice up number-news or make forecasts and reports look more interesting than they are, it will be difficult for you to follow this initially but stay with me.

I remember the time I had the privilege of hearing Gary Gray speak. Gary, as you may or may not know, created the ‘Got Milk’ campaign, and wrote the Smarties jingle. You know the one. 'When you eat your Smarties..' That's right. We sat mesmerized as he told us the story of how he got inspired to write that jingle; by noticing how little girls always saved the red ones for last so they could ink their cherubic lips with the spit-moistened, colour shells.

Gary spoke for a full hour with nothing but the hall spot lights on him. No slides to change, no handouts to follow, no bullet points appearing out of the animation ether. And even without all that, I still remember his words in as crystalline a state that almost 10 years will let me. His favourite movie (at least then) was The Conversation. He was writing a book for his grandkids about astronauts, and his father was a marquee changer who used to let him hang out at the theatre all the time which is what in part ignited his passion for media. He also owned an island. I remember that he was wearing a grey suit, and a bow tie. And I remember his voice. His unadorned and undeniable presence was possibly the best pitching tool ever.  His message is still engrained in my mind.[ii]

We had about 30 key-speakers in that lecture series.  Speakers from Umbra, from Alias Wavefront.. I think we even had Nick Shin come in and speak about the Mordechai Richler font he was then still designing. All of them had great presentations but I don’t remember anything beyond that general ‘good’ mental grade I gave them. I remember they all had PowerPoint’s though. They all stood behind the podium and half entertained, half begged their audience to stay alert in the darkened room.

Lesser Evils

Now that we’re fully entrenched in a new kind of ‘broadcast culture’ the stakes are even higher. Airtime snippets have conditioned our attention spans to disconnect in less than 3minutes, if that. Yikes. So how are you supposed to get someone to sit through a 40 slide PowerPoint and retain anything, let alone stand prop-less and just ‘present’ in a packed auditorium?

In a private study of 10 participants, only 2% were able to accurately recall the last PowerPoint slide they had seen just 5 minutes earlier, but when asked what the last 3 YouTube spots they had previously watched, 80% were able to answer without any difficulty, and even engaged in lively discussion about specific uploads.
Hmm. Video, 1. That PowerPoint you gave on Best Practices, K.O.

So where does this leave you when next you have numbers and figures to share with your boss and their boss?

We can’t all be Gary Gray on the captivation scale. But we can make sure that we use his principles of engagement in combination with our presentation technology and even expand our tech scope to gain more of a recall with our viewers. Remember, the key to every great presentation is actually respecting the audience.

Here in the business world, chances are you will still have to do a slide show of some kind, most likely sometime soon. But here are a few ways to breathe life back into your colleagues short-term memories.

Don’t think in Slides, Think in NARRATIVE.

Think about the story you are telling – the information that you are relaying. It will be interesting, because it is vital. If it’s not vital, then take another look at why you feel compelled to include it. On the flipside, when you run through your presentation, do you find yourself repeating points that aren’t mentioned in your slides? Find a way to incorporate those.

Find the DRAMA of your Content.

Rev your content by presenting an analysis, instead of just ‘reporting’.

The difference? Last year’s performance is meaningless until it’s been shown against the year prior, or against the leading competitor. The latter context gives you room to engage the audience, asking what they think contributed to the successes or setbacks you experienced.  Conversation and an element of ‘controlled spontaneity’ is much more memorable and engaging than a bout of stale rhetoric followed by “…does anyone have any questions?”

Design Presentations to STAND ALONE.

Slides are not cue cards. How many times have you read through the handouts of a meeting where nothing actually makes sense once you remove them from the context of the presentation? How many of you have seen slides and handouts like this: 

FOCUS 2008

-          India

-          Untapped

-          New advancement

This is not a game of word association, this is actually where your content goes. Write the complete story for your audience instead treating content solely as the memory triggers for your next point. Treating the presentation (and therefore the handouts) as a stand-alone piece means that the audience will refer to materials after and actually know what they mean after the fact.

Know  the scope of your audience as well. Do you have experts in the crowd? Any newbies? Are you writing to impress your boss or are you making sure that 100% of the people there understand the concepts you’re using? If you gave your presentation in handout form to a stranger, would they be able to follow it? They should. Just like a logo should always work in black and white, your presentation should work outside of your sphere of immediate interaction. If you have doubts about what works and what doesn’t, hand your presentation over to someone for some Quality Assurance before you bring it out for the big guns.

LABEL your Illustrations.

Let’s face it, no one is psychic. It might make perfect sense for you to show a squiggly line with some dots on a chart-type thing, but even though you’re wildly gesticulating at it with your new laser pointer tool, it’s not going to change the fact that no one knows what you’re talking about. This happens so much. It’s very important to include labels for all axes in a chart, as well as titles, and yes, even summary paragraphs describing what the newfangled diagram is indicating and how it ties in. This should pertain to photographs as well. What this lets the viewer do is differentiate between the content graphics and images, and the graphics and images you are using for design/embellishment purposes. You know, like your beloved clipart. Shudder. Do not even think about labeling those.

Design with DESIGN in Mind.

There is nothing worse than seeing a PowerPoint on a dark background, with drop-shadowed fonts being projected, except perhaps knowing that you will have to follow the ‘6 slides per page’ handout that accompanies it. Again, respect the audience.

1. Remember that your presentation will be projected as well as printed, and you don’t need 48pt font sizing for the titles, or 20pt for the body. Usually, 14-16pt will do for body and 20-28pt will do for headers. I’d say you can venture even smaller but I’m not sure you would feel comfortable with that just yet.
2. Sans serif fonts, such as Arial, Calibri, Trebuchet, and Tahoma, are easier to read when projected, and when used on screens/displays. Hint, hint.
3. Try and keep max 7 points to a page as that is statistically the most anyone can actually absorb anyways. (And by the way, the smaller font will make it look less crowded on the page).
4. Get over the drop-shadow. No one wants to see it. In a meeting everyone’s already cross-eyed from fatigue and stress. We don’t need to feel drunk as well.
5. Take the time to design each slide so that it looks like it was meant to be printed and the hand-outs aren’t just the doggy-bag of your presentation.
6. If you have to print handouts, print 1 slide per page and encourage sharing.
7. Alternately, let people know that they will be emailed post presentation with a PDF of the show that they can easily screen-read or print out should they choose. (By the way, never send or post a PPT file.. Never.) 

Consider VIDEO over another Page of Bullets.

Take that private study I conducted (ok, ok, it was actually a team meeting) to heart. Maybe it’s because ‘to respect the audience’ in this media-saturated world means giving them the format that they enjoy and have been programmed to remember the best, but video can pack a ton of information into a small amount of time, liven up presentations, and serve as a versatile tool after the fact. Stick with people as the primary focus in the frame, speaking to the camera. This will give the audience the feeling of team participation, as they make eye-contact and are seemingly addressed by a third party. Also, this frees you from your corporal bonds - and the freedom of being able to impart information 24 hours a day, from wherever you are, isn’t just convenient for you. It’s an incredible tool for your audience.

Confession and Penance

Do something for me now. Look through your hard-drive for an old PowerPoint you’ve created, and read it. Really read it. At what point did you stop reading and start skimming? When did you fall asleep? How many ‘filler’ slides could you cut? What design changes could you make? Where could you contextualize information so that it tells a story and doesn’t sling statistic-hash at the viewer? Where could you reframe information to include an interview or more personal video component? Where could you add more complete sentences or phrases to make up for the Haiku like points you may have?

Spin The Idea has played with the integration of video into our client branding mix and have been able to reach farther and provide more easily-digested, in depth information than with other methods.. Check out our new Panurban 112°W videos produced together with See Hear Feel Advertising to see how Accilent Capital’s Dan Pembleton, and Crossborder Realty’s Mark Dziedzic reinforce product content and connect with investors and clients. Take a peak at www.returnswithoutborders.com to see what I mean.

Enjoy.

Kat Inokai
Creative Director
SPIN THE IDEA LTD.

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[i] Wired Magazine, Issue 11.09 | September 2003, PowerPoint Is Evil It’s still posted in the archives here: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/ppt2.html

[ii] This is all true. Of course, I have no idea how much of it Gary was just whipping up for our benefit. The point is not the validity of the content it’s the fact that I remembered everything without the PowerPoint crutch. I went to 3 different rental stores to find ‘The Conversation’ incidentally.