Don't forget about the Brand!

[Joss]

I am currently sharpening up my branding credentials by doing an online course on branding. It is a free course which is being put together by the Open University (a remote access university in the UK) under the moniker of Future Learn.

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/secret-power-of-brands-2014

(The course will be restarting in the new year if anyone wants a go  - it is very good.)

Doing the course has reminded me that often the technical considerations of a website perhaps do not take into account the needs of the brand and its relationships with brand followers - the customer, mostly.

So, I thought I would note down a couple of paragraphs of observations that although probably not new to most of you here, might also serve as a reminder about how important the brand is and how both the developers AND the clients should not be sidetracked by this wonderful new technology into undermining the brand, or losing the opportunity to reinforce the brand.

Big Brands and Little Brands

It is very easy to assume that a brand is something that only belongs to a colossus of a company - Coca Cola, Ikea, Virgin, Woolmarts. These brands pour huge amounts of capital and service expenditure into promoting and sustaining their brands and have built them over many years,.

But a tiny company, organisation or even a single crafts person can also benefit from all the rules and ideas that are used to help large brands; it is but a question of scale.

For instance, Coca Cola works hard to seek consistency of product throughout the world. As global travel has become easier and cheaper, this has proved invaluable as the loyal customer can enjoy the same drink, at the same quality, wherever they go.

In a smaller but equally important way, a local builder/decorator will do better if his "brand," basically the person themselves, has a reputation for consistently good work. If they slip up on a job then they undermine their own brand and lose market positioning - their formally loyal clients will go find another builder.

The words associated with branding actions may seem idiotic when applied to just one bloke with a paintbrush, but they are no less valuable.

So, just because the website your are designing is for a local group of fisherman rather than a supermarket chain, does not mean that the brand can be ignored (even if the client does not realise they have a brand)

Brand Types

There are various versions of branding:

1. A mark or label saying that you own this brand

2. Guaranteeing quality by building a reputation for quality

3. Promising Pleasure - your life will feel better by owning this product

4. Inviting belonging - basically, building a brand in such a way that you build loyalty; you make people feel like they have ownership of the brand

You can see that these are more or less in chronological order. The first version is how brands first appeared a few centuries ago. The second is something that grew up in the late 19th, early 20th century, the third version is something we recognise as much more modern and the fourth is very much the new approach to branding.

The fourth is especially important to modern, large, multi faceted companies where they can build confidence in the main company brand that will then influence all their main products. A great example is Virgin where the "Virgin" brand informs us about how we feel about their planes, trains, record shops, broadband, cola and so on.

Wally Olins, a world leading brand practitioner, defines a modern brand as: "Branding is a profound manifestation of the human condition. It is about belonging: belonging to a tribe, to a religion, to a family. Branding demonstrates that sense of belonging. It has this function for both the people who are part of the same group and also for the people who don’t belong."

It is very easy to see how this might relate to some of the functionality that is possibly with a reactive and interactive web policy...

 

The Fifth Brand 

The most recent version of a brand expands on version four to take in modern social media and the general interconnectivity that has come with the growth of the internet. 

This is where Brand can be seen as a platform, where the brand is making things useful to the user rather than being just about ownership. Ebay and Google are both good examples of where a brand is more than a product but is something useful too. 

Version five is a difficult fit for a lot of business out there with very traditional products and services but that does not mean it should be ignored. When we create a website for a brand, taking time to think about or quiz the client about how their product/service is viewed and used by their clients and how the website can connect with not just the client, but connect with how they use the brand, might mean that the website becomes more than just a brochure for the brand, but becomes PART of the brand.

How can a website be the brand?

Obviously, an website for an online shop where the shop is the brand, is the brand itself. It is not representing the brand, the brand is the shop.

That is a bit of a no-brainer, you would have thought. But I have seen enough online shops that seem amazingly divorced from the brand. They use a very obvious template, take people through the catalogue in a very common way and give the shopper exactly the same "chopping" experience that every other online shop does.

Oddly, bricks and mortar shops tend to do the exact opposite. They will work very hard at giving shoppers a unique experience, within a unique environment, all designed in such a way that the exercise of shopping becomes not just efficient, but enjoyable. The experience of shopping must have the same brand values as the very products themselves.

Can not an online shop take into account the same criteria so that it too not only sells products associated with the brand but reinforces and becomes part of the brand?

This same criteria can be taken away from the online shop and applied to any other kind of website. Again, just as with the shop, the website should, as part of a modern brand, become a useful thing. It should be an enjoyable and informative experience in line with any other manifestation of the brand. The website should offer the user (the client or visiter) the ability to be involved with the brand, to take ownership of it and to feel like they belong to it. But, this should be within the confines of the specific brand. It must have the tone and feel that the brand needs because the site will BE the brand, not just be reproducing the brand.

Shared Value

Companies, big and small, will often get involved with local or national issues either by offering time for nothing or by being philanthropic; giving donations to local causes and so on.

Shared Value is the idea that a company can, rather than just give stuff away, design their product, services and the brand itself so that it brings benefit to society, local community, environment and so on without doing a give-away. 

By building the brand using the principles of shared value, the company can bring together the ideas of being beneficial while making a profit - rather than these being two mutually exclusive elements of the brand.

Simple examples of this is, for instance, a company deciding to use energy from renewable resources or recycling any waste from manufacturing. These are written into the operating costs of the company and will benefit the brand and benefit the environment, for instance, at the same time - and this will help increase profits.

Small companies can also use the idea of shared value. A local company, for instance, can, as much as possible, use local suppliers - benefiting the local economy directly while also selling to the local economy. The two work hand in hand without being philanthropic and so create profit directly.

If a company decides to work in this way, then this should be taken into account with the website. Can the design process of the website use the companies specific philosophy of shared value? Does the website highlight how the brand works and is supported through Shared Value?

For more on shared value, see this presentation on YouTube - it is long and badly filmed, but if you are into branding, then it is a must watch:

So, there you go. A very short thought on branding and how, when creating a website, you should start with the brand and not with the technology.

Personally, this is where ProcessWire is useful. Simply because it does not limit how your web design might work, it allows you to look at the brand in detail, work out how the brand should be embodied in this thing called a website, then use ProcessWire to quietly achieve not just a Web Site, but a Brand Site!

(I should copyright that...)
 

Joss

[ryan]

Great to have you back here Joss, and fantastic epic post! 

[kongondo]

Welcome back Joss (you and me both  )