A strategy is a careful plan or method for achieving a particular goal usually over a long period of time. The following chapter explains how these processes work in order to put theory into practice. By understanding these frameworks, their strenghts and weaknesses, it is possible to apply them and provide improvements if they were to be identified.
The strategy that precedes a design process works for the recognition or appearance of the brand. It has a long-term character and its most important aim is to maintain a consistency in appearance that results in a more recognisible product, service or company. Saffron Consultants (2015) divides branding projects into five different categories: Re-positioning, re-structuring, specialised focus, creation, and revolution. They explain that branding is a process of discovering a business. This understanding increases up to the point where the strategist considers there is enough evidence that can be reduced to a very specific message. Mushtaq (2017) considers of great importance to understand the subject around a product or service, its audience and what is already been done with similar products. It is a process of finding a balance between what makes a company unique, what it is that their competition cannot match and the needs of their audience. The whole process is about focusing on what makes them different, which might be a very small part of what they are, but much more relevant and with more importance than the rest of it. Fontvila (2016) carries out a workflow involving research into the background, structure, concept, personality, positioning, and target audience. Very similar to 'Core' (Do and Caballer, 2014) in essence - discussed later -, his conceptualisation of the brand relies on the definition of the concept through values, attributes (considered here as physical characteristics) and emotional benefits. He uses the brand value pyramid, which highlights the importance of beliefs and values, followed by the benefits and gives less importance to the physical characteristics. The reason is that these features are difficult to manage when it comes to creating a differentiation from the competition. For example, it is impossible to make a company that makes biscuits stand out for making biscuits with chunks of chocolate, as there are many others doing the exact same thing and is probably more popular than them.
The strategy that precedes a design process works for the recognition or appearance of the brand. It has a long-term character and its most important aim is to maintain a consistency in appearance that results in a more recognisible product, service or company. Saffron Consultants (2015) divides branding projects into five different categories: Re-positioning, re-structuring, specialised focus, creation, and revolution. They explain that branding is a process of discovering a business. This understanding increases up to the point where the strategist considers there is enough evidence that can be reduced to a very specific message. Mushtaq (2017) considers of great importance to understand the subject around a product or service, its audience and what is already been done with similar products. It is a process of finding a balance between what makes a company unique, what it is that their competition cannot match and the needs of their audience. The whole process is about focusing on what makes them different, which might be a very small part of what they are, but much more relevant and with more importance than the rest of it. Fontvila (2016) carries out a workflow involving research into the background, structure, concept, personality, positioning, and target audience. Very similar to 'Core' (Do and Caballer, 2014) in essence - discussed later -, his conceptualisation of the brand relies on the definition of the concept through values, attributes (considered here as physical characteristics) and emotional benefits. He uses the brand value pyramid, which highlights the importance of beliefs and values, followed by the benefits and gives less importance to the physical characteristics. The reason is that these features are difficult to manage when it comes to creating a differentiation from the competition. For example, it is impossible to make a company that makes biscuits stand out for making biscuits with chunks of chocolate, as there are many others doing the exact same thing and is probably more popular than them.
In relation to what others have said about doing the opposite of what the competitors are doing and highlighting what is different about them, Fontvila (2016) uses a semantic differential scale. This helps to clearly see how a company is different from the rest and how they can exploit that difference to create a unique position in the mind of the customers. These differentiators are called creative axes and they are used to build the band upon based on the distinctivity of the values, emotional benefits and attributes in this order of importance. On the example below, the most noticeable difference between this company and its competition is the creative and emotional aspect in opposition to a more classic and rational competition.
Saffron Consultants (2015) explain that the nature and aptitude of the brand will inform the attitude it will have towards their customers. The values and personality create the idea of the brand, the essence: the briefest and straightforward expression of what a brand represents; the core thinking that rules every other action and brand expressions. Mushtaq (2017) argues that the way a brand expresses itself can be by purposely challenging conventions, and that can inform the colours, fonts, imagery, a tone of voice that amplifies the message that needs to be conveyed. Lusensky (2010) points out the importance to keep these expressions flexible in order to be modified depending on the company's initiative or market situations. Sinek (2009) defends the same point of view as Mushtaq and explains that successful companies like Apple understand that they have to do the opposite their competition is doing. Normally, companies say what they do, how they do it and why they do it, but if this message is delivered the other way around it becomes much more powerful. For example: 'We make great computers, beautifully designed and simple to use. We like to think differently and challenge the status quo' is the wrong way of a more powerful option. It should be: 'We like to think differently and challenge status quo using beautiful design and simplicity. We just happen to make great computers as a result'. Sinek (2009) is very clear about this, and claims that "people do not buy what you do, they buy why you do it". Adams and Morioka (2006) call this the company's mission, and they should reflect why it is worth doing what they do beyond economics. The goal for a company is not to do businesses with whoever needs what they have but to do business with people that believe what they believe. As discussed in the first chapter, consumers buy meaning.
Do and Caballer (2014) carry out a process called 'Core', another approach to strategy that helps to design a brief, as many times clients know about their problems but not the solutions they need. Many studios hand to the client a list of questions in order to gather information for the development and conceptualisation, but 'Core' is more about a psychological session consisting in designing a strategy using what the clients already know. Also, it allows stakeholders or multiple decision makers to define common objectives. Adams and Morioka (2006) also highlight the importance of the opportunities for the growth that the client may have already identified. 'Core' (Do and Caballer, 2014) consists of three different stages. The first one is to provide a framework for the client to define their brand attributes with adjectives. These adjectives must fall into these categories: General aspects of the company, its culture, users, the tone of voice, emotional benefits and values. Those adjectives are written in columns as shown below.
Once this process is finished, the words have to be shortlisted down to three for each column, and then to only one. This will help the owners of a brand to define it in their own words. By using the shortlisted words, they can create a sentence that summarises the concept: '(Brand name) provides (product/service) to (users) customers in a (culture) environment with a (voice) voice helping them feel (emotional benefit)". An example of this is "Tea Haus provides custom teas to health-conscious customers in a sophisticated environment with a wise voice. Helping them feel mindful and re-energised'. The second stage of 'Core' consists in a definition of the target audience to the maximum possible level of detail that includes the demographics of the target, the story and background, their needs and how to surpass those needs they have. Positioning, as previously discussed, is about aligning values with clients, and these can be profiled based on their interests. The process would be to profile consumers, learn about their businesses and how they behave. This allows marketers to increase the price of a product depending on its location. For example, a Coca-Cola is 300% more expensive at shops that are nearby beaches because there is where they are really required. That is why Lexus, Toyota, and Scion are the same company. Their purpose is to cover different audiences and that is how they find the right position for their wide range of products. Do and Caballer (2014) claim that it is important to match and mirror them, release a message and stick to it. If the motivations are aligned, consumers will feel they have a purpose shared with a company. Sinek (2009) contradicts this idea of matching and mirroring. He defines it as asking friends "what should I dress for you to like me more". Organisations should say and do the things they actually believe in and they will attract people with similar values, and that is where authenticity can be an added value. Authenticity is strictly related to what Packard (1957) called 'the sense of roots', which was to pack in a product a feeling that humans collectively associate to what they consider a better past time so they can relive it by buying the product.The third and last phase consists in making a list of priorities for the company's revenue, awareness and efficiency in order to design a well defined brief that will use the information about brand attributes gathered in the first stage, a detailed profiling of the target audience in the second one, and a clear vision of the company's goals to be tackled down with the branding project.
The processes that have been explained can be combined into one that enhances the strengths of each one and covers each others' weaknesses. The process of 'Core' combined with the use of a semantic differential scale gives the designer a clear view of what needs to be done for a brand to do what is expected of it. The awareness of the importance that intangible features of a brand have over the physical attributes in order to create a unique position for it is already implicit in 'Core', but it is one to always consider when dealing with an overcrowded market. Nowadays, Roberts (2005) predictions of brands evolving into something that customers truly love and remain totally devoted to are happening. He named them "Lovemarks", and there are three main factors for this evolution: storytelling, sensuality through all the senses and dialogue. Storytelling is already happening through different media, especially graphic design. By assigning certain colours, typographies and other visual elements to brand attributes and personality the brand creates a meaningful way of expression that is unconsciously detected by the audience. Social media is providing the dialogue between companies and customers not only by having a space to chat, but by creating interactive content that send messages in both directions. It is a matter of time that technology will evolve for humans to experience brands through smell or touch from their computers.
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