evolve - embrace brand evolution. The Sponge - master brand makers - embrace brand evolution

Recently it has come up in conversation that our brand design process is unique to that of our competitors. While we agree that it is a highly successful process, because it is the only way we know, it seems the natural way to work.

To understand what sets The Sponge apart and how time after time we achieve such striking and more importantly effective results, you can simply immerse yourself in the following narrative of our uniquely creative process and imagine how well it will work for you too.

Soaking it up

One of our friendly team meet with you to discuss your goals and objectives, as well as a carefully selected set of questions, focusing special attention on your Vision, Mission & Values. Our first and most important goal is to uncover your core message, or the pieces from which it will be masterfully created. This only comes through a comprehensive understanding of who you are (as an organisation/business) and what you intend to be as a brand. Only those who are prepared to invest the necessary resources, honestly bare all and then trust us to deliver will make the cut.

Each of the key members of our senior creative team is briefed with your answers.  We openly discuss them in the first of many forums in preparation for our chilli chicken session (a ritual of brainstorming over spicy Thai cuisine), so that each of us is crystal clear on the objectives. Any questions that arise are asked immediately of you via phone, email, or IM and the answers hungrily devoured.

Studying your competition helps reveals how and where you fit in the marketplace. If it is unclear, then we focus on what you do differently and/or what makes you unique, so as to position you in a space of your own. The team playfully explore “sticky” (memorable) words, or phrases that best communicate your position, to find a core message/positioning statement to build your identity around. The ideas generated here are shared amongst the team and used to fuel for the pre-brainstorm deep dive.

Pre-brainstorm deep dive, or lateral researching, readies the team with many possible design directions. We do this by deep diving in thesaurus, dictionary, quote books, Google search, photo stock, etc. Each new link is laterally explored, following each connection until we hit an end, then we jump back to a fork and follow a different connection until all avenues are exhausted. Every moment an inspired idea is revealed, it is documented or sketched for discussion at the chilli chicken.

Chilli Chicken

Even if it simply becomes a part of a custom typeface in a logo type, designing the symbol first is our first objective when creating your brand. A huge amount of potential communicating power resides in a strong symbol. We believe in thinking globally for your brand because of global trade and the reach of the internet. A graphic symbol crosses some borders far easier than words, for example we all know the flying kangaroo and we know the golden arches. There are a great many factors that come into consideration when designing an international symbol, i.e.  the nationalities and global demographics you are targeting, or hope to target in the future and their social, religious or cultural differences. Another veritable minefield is the international trademark databases and processes that need to be checked and navigated.

An open forum begins where each team member shares their findings from the deep dive and ideas and concepts are voiced. Ideas are quickly sketched with coloured markers onto the largest pieces of bond paper we can organise, the aim is not to create a masterpiece, but simply to convey the core ideas and open up a free flow of creativity. Dozens of ideas are scribbled down, discussed, improved, diversified, contracted, discarded or marked for development. Each idea is continually measured against the core message/positioning statement. Once we have well and truly pushed past the point of exhaustion of directions, as a group we decide which concepts are worthy of being taken to screen.

To Screen

The ideas that were selected are worked up in black and white in illustrator by our skilful designers.  It is important to get the design right in one colour first, for its many applications i.e. Engraving and Stamping. It also forces a certain level of simplicity, and enables a brand to own a single colour, something that is common amongst many of the world’s top brands i.e. Coke, IBM. Dozens of versions of each design are explored. Painstaking variations in size, shape, proportion, stroke, etc, are tested, each projecting a subtle change in response.  At this stage the concepts undergo further scrutiny as to whether they best communicate what they are intended too and what possible changes may enhance their appeal and concept strength.

From these many refined visual ideas we funnel down once more and select what we as a team consider to be the three most powerful and compelling visual ideas to progress onto typographic application. Careful thought is taken to choose a varied selection of fonts and typographic layouts that compliment the brand’s image and message. With thousands of typefaces to choose from, there are usually a handful that, with a little modification, capture the essence of the brand and compliments the icon well. If a suitable typeface cannot be found, a custom typeface will be designed.

From the assortment of typographic options of each of the final concepts, a further grading is done by the team. This new shortlist of designs conveying different character and strengths are carefully tested for balance by inverting on black so that the negative shapes become the focus. This highlights the balance of the shapes that create the logo, both internally and externally and enables further refinement. The designs that have the opportunity too, are refined further and tested again, and we still haven’t introduced colour yet.

Concept Podium

We move those concepts on to the next level of refinement where taking into consideration the tone we believe you need to convey, we explore colour applications and layout many variants and combinations. Each is judged by our team for the emotional and logical response the colour options command. Further suggestions are made and trialled. An official vote is conducted amongst The Sponge team as to which option works best for each of the three final concepts. The final choices are worked up as finished concepts and displayed in our proprietary Concept Podium presentation system. This is where we apply your new potential brand identities to present to you, showcasing them in various applications to give you a feel for each design and demonstrate the flexibility of each concept. The concepts are placed on the Concept Podium in our recommended order of Gold, Silver & Bronze as democratically voted by our team. The Concept Podium also provides a detailed written rationale of each idea and its intent.

We are yet to find a client who has not been exhilarated with our concepts and we challenge you to test our abilities. We love to be challenged and we love understanding new and different businesses.

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We have received some great feedback and now the new and improved BrandPulseCheck tool is officially live. Thank you for your help! Now it is ready for you to use it, benefit from it and share it!

This new tool allows us to freely share our knowledge with millions of people and gives you the ability to check your brand’s pulse in less time than it takes to make a cup of coffee. In that short time you can have your own personalized report, bursting with actionable information in any area which could do with improvement. The brand pulse check and personalized report are all completely free.

Enjoy!

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After some solid blocks of work we are ready to show you our brand new online tool. It is called the Brand Pulse Check and it does just that. When you visit BrandPulseCheck you will spend less than 6 minutes answering multiple choice questions about your brand.After you are done with the questions you are given your Pulse (and a breakdown). You are also given a personalised PDF report with information and action steps for the areas in which you have room for improvement. The best part for you, it is FREE!

We have not officially released it yet and I would love to get your opinion on it before we do.

[Much respect to all the business people and authors whose ideas have inspired our practises and this tool.]

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(I say) It is People, it is People, it is People.

[NOTE: This post is about people… …or recruitment actually]

Working on the copy of our book, I was reminded of a well known Maori proverb that translates to the headline and opening line in this post. For us it has significance on many levels, but in this instance it prompts me to blog about recruitment. Ask anyone managing a business to list their biggest challenges and you will find somewhere at the top words to the effect of ‘finding and keeping good people’. It is not only a time consuming process, considering all the interviewing and reviewing of CVs. It can also be a significant investment to use a recruitment agency and when, after a role has been advertised for months, the best applicant fails the probation period, how can the agency expect their policy of replacing that person to even look like a reality, or an immediate solution.

This post is part about our own recruitment and part about recruitment branding, one way in which we assist our clients. In “Built to last”  by Jim Collins and Jerry L.Porras they found four common themes that visionary companies display (greater that their competition) which makes them more able to find and keep the right people. They are: fervently held core company ideology; indoctrination; tightness of fit; and elitism. To work for your business these themes must be authentic and implemented throughout your entire company culture, no easy feat if it does not exist yet.

A client of ours recently engaged us to create a new recruitment brand for them. Our objective was to take their well known industry brand and evolve it to communicate their core ideology and strong culture to new entrants to their market, specifically university graduates and interns. These bright young people have not yet been exposed to their reputation in the market, so in the brief exposure they get at uni, there needs to be a clear conveyance of these aspects - succinctly and engaging!

This particular client has a genuine culture that resonates loudly and is fervently held by its people. Focus groups and interviews revealed commonalities that we explored to create a powerful and engaging campaign. I have to admit that the first concept we presented missed the mark completely, and we learned that with a resounding “no”, it was the common approach that could work for any of their competition. When we approached this project with it’s people and culture in mind, we not only a created a concept that we liked and could really dig our teeth into, but on every level the people whose culture it is we were selling bought in.

In short, what we found was three major benefits of joining our client are: Experience, Diversity and Reward: Experience - being able to work directly alongside industry elite; Diversity - the wide array of service areas covered;  and Reward - monetary and acquisition of global skills. Because this elite financial industry values intellect, we created the headline: “We are growing and looking for great minds” and to support this we have illustrated a section of the unique open office floor plan to identify some of the great minds of the organisation and to illustrate exactly where a new hire might be positioned in relation to these minds.

Another way of defining it is: It’s about alignment. By identifying the company’s ideology and ambitions clearly in all recruitment efforts, the majority of respondents are ‘the right people”, and the pretenders are quickly found out in the interviewing stage. As for The Sponge, we too are growing and have added our new internship program and three new roles to our holding pattern site.

Heading these roles is a newly expanded upon set of Core Values. In them we have done our best to identify our company’s core ideology and ambitions. While we love to meet new and talented people, we are only looking for people who are the perfect fit for our company. We don’t want to waste anyone’s time trying to fit a square peg into a droplet shaped hole. We are always looking for more people with big hearts and minds and ambitions in sync with our own. When we find that person, we are more than happy to explore with them how we can create a role to suit them if one has not been advertised. In other words we understand the value of having the right people on the bus.

I’d love to hear your thoughts…

After thought: Seth Godin wrote that recruiting is most often not treated as the important marketing it is considering you are betting the future of your company on it. It only takes 10% as much effort to hire someone in the bottom 90% of the class. And it takes the other 90% to find and cajole and retain the top 10%. Isn’t it worth the extra effort?

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I was recently invited to speak to some talented design students at Australia’s best design school [ Enmore SIT in Sydney ]. Here is the introductory video I used to set the tone and demonstrate what it is that we do at The Sponge, that is we make brands.

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I was speaking to a gentleman that I respect last week about branding. During this discussion we touched on many critical things, but none more than the importance of a brand culture within a company. If it is not there, then it is near impossible to create a brand identity.

Why is it critical that you stand for something? Because your brand is not your logo, unless you are a faceless, voiceless, automated commodity , then it is your people and your company culture. Your customers, clients, suppliers, distributors and even your people are immersed in your company culture every day. If you have a misaligned company vision (or no vision at all), or a similarly misaligned, or meaningless set of core values (or no core values at all), then what can you honestly expect the attitude toward your company to be?

An inspiring example of an empowering Vision and Values set comes from Southwest Airlines. It is one of many examples from “The Art of Business - in the footsteps of Giants” by Raymond T.Yeh and Stephanie H.Yeh

Vision: “To provide the best service and lowest fares to the short haul, frequent-flying, point-to-point, non-interlining traveler.”

Which Yeh translate the Tao as: “Liberating people to fly - democratizing the skies”

And the Values as lifted from http://www.southwest.com/careers/culture.html

Warrior Spirit
Work Hard
Desire to be the best
Be courageous
Display a sense of urgency
Persevere
Innovate

Servant’s Heart
Follow The Golden Rule
Adhere to the Basic Principles
Treat others with respect
Put others first
Be egalitarian
Demonstrate proactive Customer Service
Embrace the SWA Family

Fun-LUVing Attitude
Have FUN
Don’t take yourself too seriously
Maintain perspective (balance)
Celebrate successes
Enjoy your work
Be a passionate Teamplayer

These values and the commonly held company vision empower every member of the Southwest Airlines to act for the good of the company within a clear set of guides. This is the culture from top down and they insist on hiring only those people with the right attitude that fit the vision. This ensures that the dream lives in every employee. In fact Southwest Airlines has created an entire committee to nurture the culture called the Culture Committee.

It is this kind of company culture which enables a design team the ideal platform to create a Corporate Identity that is substantial and tells an authentic story. It is this kind of company that is our ideal client. If your Company is lacking in these areas, fear not, it is something that you can develop with the right direction. And the difference in productivity and profitability as a result can be astounding!

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Your consultant needs to be an exceptional listener. You need to be able to trust him with one of your company’s most valuable assets.

Some of the key aspects you should look for in a design firm are:

The hunger to completely understand your business. A holistic understanding that is, including your business direction, culture, process, goals (short and long term), target market, industry and your competition. This understanding must be sound, well before any ideas are generated. A skilled consultant will help you share the information with him by asking you and the key members your team a series of structured questions. This is where all the information and inspiration is contained.

Timeless Approach to Identity Design. Powerful brands will stand the test of time. Consider that when you choose your design team because they need to believe what they will create will be around long after you have left this earth and that it will be standing strong. This makes understanding your long term goals critical, otherwise it is next to impossible to create anything meaningful that will last.

Powerful Design Skills and Ability in many mediums. It is invaluable to find a design and marketing firm that has the ability to implement the new brand through your entire collateral material, whether it is print, live or online. A firm with equally talented staff in all areas of design can offer you commanding branding at every client touch point. A touch point is any element of your business that your client touches, whether it is a business card, a sign, your website or even your voicemail.

By doing so you can eliminate the weak links created when using multiple independent firms. The weak links will occur when the creative direction has to be translated again by a new creative team and is misunderstood. It can often be purposely modified with new “creative direction” because of a “was not done here” mentality. This intentional misdirection weakens your message and dilutes your brands story.

In summary, you need a firm with a hunger to understand your business and a desire to create you a timeless brand with the ability and team to implement it powerfully across throughout your company. Simple!

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For many the turning point when your brand starts failing to accurately represent the business passes by unnoticed (to those in charge) like a cloud in the night sky. The sad thing is that these failings contribute to irreparable poor first impressions, gross misunderstanding of your offerings and less and less new business of the type you want.

There are many reasons your brand can become misaligned with your business. From the experience of The Sponge, here are the top 10 signs that it is time to rebrand your business.

1. You are embarrassed by your current brand
2. Your business has moved in a new direction
3. Management or ownership has changed.
4. The logo was designed by an inexperienced staff member or designer
5. Potential customers/clients cannot distinguish you from your competitors
6. Potential customers/clients cannot see you as compatible to their needs.
7. Your employees are not proud of the brand they work for. Simple test: If you print your brand boldly on a t-shirt, would they wear it? (Without threat of firing)
8. Your brand was designed using a typeface or a design style that was a fleeting trend and now appears dated.
9. You have bought another company and have inherited new elements that should be represented in your brand.
10. You have developed a new Company Vision, Mission and/or Core Values that change the way your business works.

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All purchasing decisions are emotionally driven. Rationalizations are all made after that moment of decision and are usually only to justify that decision. Ultimately it comes down to how you feel about it. This is why an emotionally driven message, or story, is the most important element in your print material, apart from the initial attention seeking headline or graphical alternative. Your story must address your target audiences world view, engage them and create a burning desire to want to do what you ask. Remember, the only way to get anyone to do anything is to make them WANT to do it, if you don’t achieve this, they won’t!

So the 3 keys are 1. get attention, 2. make an emotional connection with your audience with a story they identify with and creates a desire, and 3. then finally you give them ONE easy to follow instruction to carry out. This can be a direction to “Call this number now”, “Visit an outlet”, “Visit our website - www” or “Send in this coupon”, or anything else that drives them to take immediate action. Keep it simple and don’t leave it to them to work it out.

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If you are still here then you are one of the smart people. You understand that your branding and marketing material needs to be unique and creative so it can stand out from the daily clutter that comes before your target market and vies for a moment of their precious time. Then equally as important, it must be highly appealing and emotionally stimulating to these citizens so that your message is received and acted on directly.Understanding all the ins and outs of your business and fine points of your products, or services is what we thirst for and so should you. Only once you are armed with this information can anyone create highly alluring designs, a holistic marketing strategy, and specific micro strategies to convey an emotionally charged message directly to your target market. An emotionally charged message can strike a chord with your target market, increasing their understanding of the benefits you provide them and elicit a direct response, ultimately generating you more profit.

You’ve made it this far so we believe that you can be the best and brightest in your industry. Developing powerful designs and a focused marketing strategy will help you get the results you crave. Strive to create the most creative, intuitive and remarkable designs for your specific needs. Your ultimate goal should be to significantly increase your profit and add value to your life and business. Ours is!

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