Is Your Personal Style Getting In the Way of Your Message?

 

This fun, fresh and clean new look for Coca-Cola was designed by Turner Duckworth and won a first ever Design Grand Prix award at Cannes Lions. You may think that there isn’t much difference in the product design, but a professional product designer would say the difference is huge. You may say it doesn’t matter because Coke is already well branded and known world wide. A professional brand manager would say that they still have to protect their brand by doing those things that will keep the brand at the top.

Why did Coca Cola, after years of adding to their product design and branding Coca-Cola with cute polar bears, go back to a simple design? Because the market is crowded with flash and bang and people are tired of being yelled at. Coca-Cola trusted Turner Duckworth to simplify the brand and bring Coke back to the essence of its brand. Simple, if it doesn’t add anything to the brand, take it away.

To be unique, try being quiet, softer, less flashy, turn off some of the noise. Say what you mean, get to the point, be simple. Let your brand and your message take center stage and speak in a unique tone to the market. Offer what your audience is looking for. Stop wasting their time with fluff and get to the meat they are looking for. Be honest, be real, be strategic and present your brand in a manner that few companies truly understand and you will find that your message will be better received. Realize that your brand goes beyond how it looks and you will find that you are getting more and more customers (read Not So Secret Key to Branding Your Company).

The market we compete in is crowded. It is hard to make your brand stand out when there are hundreds of brand messages bombarding us everyday. As a professional marketer and internet consultant, I have seen many small businesses purposefully kill their branding. Why do I say purposefully? If I tell you that your Web site won’t be effective unless you have properly formatted HTML pages, would you believe me. You may or may not know if this is true, but do you trust that I am telling you the truth since I build Web sites as a profession? Well it is true and many people believe what ever I say when it comes to technical consultation.

If I say we should simplify the visual representation of your brand and not rely on your personal tastes to drive the creative process, I usually get a totally different response. If I say, we want to reach a broad market, so we need to craft a brand and message that may be contrary to what you want personally. I get resistance and usually end up following the advice of the person I am supposed to be consulting.

In fact, most of my small business customers don’t listen to me in terms of visual presentation and insist on doing it their way. I can give example after example of bad brand decisions that I have had to implement for customers that are no longer in business or failing. Are they out of business because of their brand, marketing collateral or Web site? Probably not, but I know bad brand decisions were a part of them not being able to get new customers. Now I am not some arrogant designer who is always right, I know many better designers than me, but if you want to cloud a design with every Photoshop trick and load a design with so many elements that it is hard to see what is going on, I think I know when a message suddenly makes no impact because it is more of the same noise we tune out everyday.

OK, enough ranting. What I am really getting at is I want to know how to convince a customer that their personal style may not work when trying to reach millions or even thousands of people with conflicting personal tastes? How do you explain that you don’t have to say everything about your business in the logo, you don’t need flashy designs, you shouldn’t over use Web site animations because they kill download time and search engine ranking, you can be professionally simple and deliver a much stronger message. How do you get them to trust what you know is true? I can show examples and case studies, sometimes I fight tooth and nail and still loose. Most times I just throw my hands up and just please the customer. Should I sell out or just sell it or is there another way to help my customers understand?

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Charles Bryant
URBANMarketingNetwork.com

Tags: Branding

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