The greatest change branding agencies have faced in a generation
The digital transformation of today’s brands has forever changed the branding agencies that work for them, says Principals’ Tim Riches.
Once upon a time, a branding project would be triggered by a merger or a demerger, shifting competitive dynamics or maybe even a scandal. But digital transformation in itself has become a driver for brand change. It’s an entirely different trigger, as it’s typically tactical rather than strategic.
When organisations begin a major digital transformation, at some point, they will start looking at visual concepts of new websites, apps and so forth. That’s often when the discovery is made that the brand isn’t really standing up in those environments.
An incredible sensible and smart article!
Nice one Tim. A well written article that poses some great questions.
Answering this key question, “So how do we build on best practice and usability but still help brands to be distinctive overall?”, is a particular challenge and is less of the ‘what’ and more of the ‘how’.
People interact with digital products with expectations built from their combined experience of all the other platforms that have used. They arrive with pre-conceptions that as a designer you need to be very careful messing with.
As example, we know from UX testing that there is high degree of expectation that the Search tools and Shopping Bag/Cart appear on the top right of a website. Tweaking their location comes at a high cost, so leave them be and put those decisions under the guise of best practices for usability.
Therefore to help brands be distinctive, look at how the ‘mental models’ of people can be better met based on ‘how’ the digital experience is delivered. How well designed is the flow that is inviting participation? How is the user helped and nudged along their individual journey? How is the experience personalised, intuitive and delivered in a dynamic manner? How does the microcopy, validation and error messaging keep the user engaged, on task and maybe even entertained?
These are some of the places to differentiate and to tease out to create an emotional response to the brand. I feel that many of the digital to consumer brands (Casper, Oscar, Lemonade etc) try harder to come across as human to the degree that they are often trumping more human powered brands.