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Tag: Branding

The Real Cost of Brand Transformation

Posted on by Tracy Lloyd

Oftentimes, branding is seen as just another expense. Another project that needs budgeting. Another to-do to check off the list. Additionally, a brand’s visual identity and its implementation are often seen the same way—but they shouldn’t be.

Branding is only costly to a company if the company doesn’t fully tap into the brand’s value. Likewise, if you leave your brand’s visual identity to flounder in a presentation deck, it remains an untapped value. Understanding the value of your brand and what its visual identity means is key to shifting the conversation from a business cost to its transformative value.

Symbol of Change

Before the introduction of the visual identity, the rebrand is just words on a page, insights explained, or a strategy outlined. People can’t visually see their brand in action. It hasn’t come to life. That’s why the visual identity is one of the most exciting phases of the brand strategy process. It’s the first time business leaders really get to see the strategy come to life, and it’s oftentimes exhilarating, empowering, and transformative for them.

This is where the visual identity becomes a symbol of change. It represents what’s to come for the organization. It shows how the brand will flourish in the future. It demonstrates growth potential, transformation, and exciting possibilities. It emotes the brand’s promise. Executives can finally visualize where their brand is headed, and this new frontier is intoxicating to watch unfold.

In a successful visual identity presentation, everyone in the presentation is on their feet. The room is filled with excitement and ideas are flowing. Everyone is imagining the look and feel in real-time.

The Cost

The difficulty is that before this stage, leaders often can’t fathom their budget because they haven’t seen their brand come alive yet. This is why it’s important to prepare them for this moment early on. Help them understand that a visual identity might change everything, and that advanced planning is needed to support the upcoming shifts of this wake-up call that’s right around the corner.

Approaches like a phased roll-out or touch-point conversation might help prepare them for discussions about what aspects of their brand might hold the most impact. What are the most important elements to implement first? What’s the sign of change for the media? What’s the most transformative aspect internally? This kind of prioritization will help them get ready for what’s to come.

More Value

The value of branding will transform your business. It will touch every aspect of your organization and, through the visual identity, everyone will be able to see a part of themselves in it. So, it’s critical that the brand—and visual identity—be valued from the start.

Plan for cost, but focus on value.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco branding agency.

For more reading on our point of view on branding, check out this post.

Looking to Design Better Brand Experiences? Consider the Potential of Experience Design

Posted on by Saja Chodosh

Big Challenges in Branding

As a brand strategy and design agency, we’re deeply immersed with what’s happening in the brand world. Sometimes, we are so focused on building the best solutions for our clients that we have to remind ourselves to take a step back and assess the big-picture challenges facing brands today.

Emotive Brand, did just this and attended the Design Gurus Summit and the Digital Design & Web Innovation Summit in San Francisco. Four days, many talks, panels, and iPad notes later, here’s what David learned:

Nailing experience design is what may make or break a brand moving forward. Read what it is, why it matters, and how to get it right today.

Experience Design Defined for Today

It’s clear that experience design has evolved. Historically, experience design was all about building a single, compelling experience. It was focused and neat. 

Now, experience design is evolving into a way of thinking. Using brand as a compass, experience design can identify and build experiences around differentiated value. This way of thinking considers how all products, services, solutions, and people play a role in delivering that value over time.

Every stage of the customer journey becomes an opportunity to provide further meaning to customers. Complementing innovation, this framework can help brands explore where to push beyond the traditional guardrails. Bringing in the challenge of time, it considers the implications and interdependencies of all touchpoints at all moments.

Why Experience Design Matters: Customers Taking the Driver’s Seat

Brands today are complex eco-systems. What we think of as the original customer journey (something linear, trackable, and controllable) is harder and harder to pin down. Customers are taking greater control of the brand experiences they want to drive and how and when they want to drive them. This means that brands that fail to deliver the ultimate experience at every point will be left by the wayside.

“From social ads to clothing labels to the welcome screen in your car, we are engaging with more brands than we can even keep track of,” notes David.

“But no matter where we choose to engage, we all want the same thing – a good experience. This changes the game for companies who must design for every moment, every scenario, every interaction, possibility, and new relevant channel to compete.”

So How Do You Nail Experience Design Today?

As that ultimate brand experience becomes more important to customers, so does nailing experience design for businesses looking to compete.

1. Join Forces with Brand Strategy

It’s critical that experience design be informed by brand. Having a clear, differentiated, relevant brand is what is going to bring every brand touchpoint together into one cohesive, emotive, and meaningful brand experience.

Without a clear idea of your positioning, how you want to make people feel, and what differentiated value you offer, you can’t begin to design the right overall experience for your customers. Leveraging your brand strategy to keep you on course can help your whole experience flex to customer’s needs while still staying true to the heart of what makes you different.

2. Organize Your Brand for the Experience You Want to Build

Often, companies aren’t structured to consider the whole experience and this is a problem. Design isn’t talking to marketing and marketing isn’t talking to HR and HR isn’t talking to customer service and sales isn’t brought to the strategy table…Everyone’s living within their silos, on their floors, and no one’s talking.

Businesses are structured like disparate pyramids while customers are operating like villages. It’s not neat or siloed. It’s messy, chaotic, and people are entering and exiting all over the place. Everything is in flux and organizations must be able to ebb and flow accordingly.

As new digital channels pop up and old channels shift, businesses will have to become more more agile, more flexible, and more able to see the big picture at play – breaking down walls and bringing everyone around one table to assert the question: what experience do we want to design? And how can we design it together?

Designed for Benefits

Reconsidering the importance of experience design today means reaping the benefits for your business. Higher loyalty, more meaningful engagement, greater relevance – that’s what positive experiences build.

“I think smart organizations might reconsider its power. I am,” says David.

“Businesses that nail experience design will be the ones that learn to navigate the most efficient course, keep their passengers the happiest, build engines faster, all while keeping the plane in the air. That’s the potential, and it’s big.”

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design agency.

Investing in Brand: It’s Never Too Early

Posted on by Sara Gaviser Leslie

Many of our clients call us after they’ve got a working product or once they embark on a sales effort in earnest. They see branding as an expensive and time-consuming exercise that they’d rather postpone.

In almost every case, we wish they’d reached out sooner.

Branding is not a one-time exercise; your brand is a muscle that you strengthen over time. Most high-growth tech companies go through several brand iterations over their life cycle. Knowing that, we believe it’s never too early to invest in your brand.

In fact, when you invest in branding early in the life of your company, you’ll tap the benefits of a strong brand—market recognition, customer loyalty, and sales growth—even earlier.

Raise Your Next Round of Funding

When you fundraise, especially for an early-stage company, you need a compelling story. It’s more important than your logo and a critical part of your PR. Seriously, how can you ask for millions of dollars when you can’t explain it effectively? This is why when we create a brand, we often include a narrative that an organization can rally around internally and use as the basis of its pitch.

Unite Leadership and Employees

A brand development project has an added benefit of internal consensus building. When clients tell us they want a brand strategy, we often discover that executives’ goals are not consistent. Again, it’s a part of the process. Some people will have to give up their sacred cows; others will finally be able to share a revolutionary idea. In the end, teams gain alignment.

Get the Attention of Gartner

What could be better than a mention in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant? Many of the high-growth tech companies we meet are disrupting existing categories or even building new ones. When you show a new and better way of doing things, a strong brand makes you credible and attracts analysts’ attention.

Plus, when you launch or relaunch with a killer brand in a new category, you give newcomers a standard to emulate and make it easier for these competitors to enter.

Learn More About Your Market

In addition to internal interviews, we reach out to your prospects and, if appropriate, customers. We hear their thoughts about the market and also pressure-test your initial brand positioning and messaging. This forces you, via our work, to “get out of the building” and test your hypotheses right away.

Honest feedback is priceless. Because we are not the ones building the product, external stakeholders feel more comfortable about sharing their positive and negative reactions. And, by testing your brand with the market pre-launch, you gain reassurance that your messaging will stick.

Better Return on Your Marketing Dollars

Speaking of marketing, that function is rarely an early investment at startups. But, eventually, you’re going to focus on this effort. How great would it be if your first marketing hire received a one-pager with your brand architecture when they arrived at the company?

Brand positioning and messaging are also the foundation on which you build your brand’s look and feel—everything from your logo to your website. When your website doesn’t reflect your brand, your market will have little impact or longevity.

A strong brand will boost the effectiveness of your public relations. Every time a company communicates publicly before they’ve developed their brand, they end up continually recreating their story. Build the brand first and you’ll have a better ability to sustain a consistent message in the market.

Helps You Attract Talent

It’s a sellers’ market for talent; great employees can pick where they want to go. A strong brand raises your profile and intrigues your prospects. And your recruiters will thank you for making their job easier.

Is it ever too early to focus on your brand? Should you wait until you have a product? Perhaps, but we’ve had clients that, in the process of brand development, actually realize they need to adjust their focus and pivot to a slightly different product or service. The process of creating their brand makes their company stronger. If you think you’re too small to have a brand strategy, it’s time to reconsider.

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design agency in Oakland, California.

Branding for Internal Alignment

Posted on by Imri Larsen

Much has been written about the power of brand and its role in successful businesses. Brands can help a business build relevance and loyalty, but the process of brand building has value in and of itself. One of the most overlooked advantages of the process is how it can create internal alignment along the way.

Uncovering Difficult Truths 

Whether we are creating a new brand or refreshing an existing one, our first step is to gain a deep understanding of its dynamics among both internal and external audiences. We examine the various perspectives that exist within an organization through stakeholder interviews. We then talk to customers, read analysts’ reports, and dive deep into the reality of the product experience. Based on the learnings from this process, we land on a diagnosis.

This research often uncovers previously unknown and difficult truths that need to be faced about a business’s brand. Most of the time, the learnings will give voice to issues that everyone knows but no one has found a way to properly address. Recognizing this misalignment is where the real work begins.

Reconciling Differences 

A crucial part of creating a powerful brand comes from clearly articulating what your company does, how it provides value, and why it should matter (to customers or the world)… Sounds like it should be a pretty simple task, right? If it is easy for you, consider yourself lucky. For the rest of us, the branding process highlights different, opposing perspectives.

As organizations grow and mature, it is natural for groups to become laser-focused on their own unique view of the company. Recently we were working with an international company that creates software for project management and visual collaboration. As we talked with the cofounders, head of marketing, and other key stakeholders, we noticed something wasn’t matching up. We quickly realized that there wasn’t a clear mission statement that employees could point to when asked about their purpose as an organization.

Before moving forward with articulating their positioning in the market, we worked with the CEO to express the company’s mission in a way that would help unify efforts across departments. Despite everyone’s best efforts to do their job and build success for the company, teams were getting caught in our own echo chambers. Sometimes it can be helpful to get an outside perspective.

A well-known case study of a brand with internal misalignment is Uber. In 2016, the ride-hailing company launched a new visual identity that left many users scratching their heads. The new design system had different app icons depending upon whether you were a driver or a passenger. Every city had its own system of colors, patterns, and photographic style. For those of us who were watching from the sidelines, it looked like they were saying nothing by trying to be everything.

In 2017, Uber’s dirty laundry was exposed for all to see. The company was accused of misleading regulators and taking advantage of customers with surge pricing. At the heart of the problem was a culture where mismanagement and competing interests threatened the future of the company. After purging leadership and thoroughly improving their culture, the company signaled its change by introducing the clean, simple, and transit-informed visual system they continue to use to this day.

Alignment Fosters Empathy

Once you are able to identify the different views that contribute to the misalignment, the first result is increased empathy. Maybe executive leadership didn’t understand how the broader organization was resistant to their vision for the future. Maybe product teams felt uncomfortable with claims being promised in-market. Whatever the case may be, this newfound understanding creates an environment where teams can start creating a better path forward together. Empathy proves to be the most effective way to communicate and foster change.

Once teams are on the same page, work like brand positioning, messaging, visual identity, and other programs can come to full fruition. More importantly, aligned teams create a singularly-focused brand that gets expressed consistently on the outside. And the more consistent the brand is externally, the more powerful it becomes.

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design agency in Oakland, California.

Photo Credit: https://icons8.com

Is It Possible to Ever Truly Be Brandless?

Posted on by Chris Ames

There’s No Brand Like No Brand at All

At its heart, branding is about clarity. When we do our job right, we deliver clarity of purpose, message, and design. In this space, minimalism is something that is hard earned. The paradox is that it takes decades of tireless work to reach a stage in which your brand is so ubiquitous, it’s nearly invisible.

Brands like Nike, Mastercard, McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Shell all utilize wordless logos, the end result of a process that’s sometimes called “debranding” or “decorporatizing.” The benefits of reaching this iconic tier are innumerable: nameless logos evoke more personal and immediate reactions, stay in your memory longer, and allow your brand to flex with the future.

In addition, symbolic brands have a way of winning over consumers who are increasingly skeptical of big corporations. A recent survey by the public-relations firm Cohn & Wolfe found that 80 percent of global consumers now consider brands neither open nor honest. “Consumers are jaded about advertising in a way they weren’t several decades ago,” says Adam Alter, an Associate Professor of Marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business. “It is harder to appeal to them than it used to be, and they tend to see through overt marketing pitches. Companies have had to learn subtlety.”

Brandless - Mastercard

The Illusion of Brandlessness

Perhaps it’s these two forces, the desire for clarity through minimalism and the need to cut through the noise in an authentic way, that has led to the bloom of “no-brand brands.” If you spend time on Instagram, chances are you’re already acquainted with Brandless. Launched in 2017, this San Francisco-based company offers lower prices on basic household goods by cutting out what it calls the BrandTax™: “the hidden extra costs you typically pay for a retail brand,” which encompass both logistical and branding expenses. With a minimalist aesthetic and self-descriptive copy, the company is betting on products that are purely functional and seemingly generic. How’s that bet working? Well, they’ve raised over $290 million in funding so far.

The idea of “brandlessness” is no new thing. MUJI is a Japanese retailer with a mission to deliver “no brand quality goods.” M/F People, a cosmetics and clothing startup, was founded with an emphasis on owning just a “handful of valued things.” They offer an array of luxury, non-gendered products, aimed to take the chaos and choice out of your morning routine. And then, of course, there’s no name – a line of yellow-clad Canadian groceries with, you guessed it, no name. (See also: Soylent, The Ordinary, etc.)

Brandless - Soylent

Sorry, But There’s No Escaping Brand

Like it or not, Brandless, MUJI, and all the other “no brand brands” are, of course, brands. As writer Will Partin says in his piece for The Outline, “Despite (or because of) its minimal aesthetic, it’s obvious great care went into designing the look and feel of Brandless’ products. Likewise, the company’s ‘I’m-not-like-other brands’ shtick is meant to communicate something about the values of those who buy those products, which is branding in its purest form.”

Even if it’s all a ploy, what is it about our present moment that makes the illusion of brandlessness so seductive? For one, brandlessness feels like clarity. It’s a disruptive shortcut to an end-state that normally takes decades to reach. Brandlessness seems to:

  • Deliver clarity of purpose, message, and design.
  • Elicit meaningful differentiation in a crowded market.
  • Leverage a challenger mindset.
  • Articulate values to consumers that make them feel unique.
  • Reject consumerism (while still participating in it).

brandless - m:f people

Purpose Over Product

To see the way brands have minimized their presence over time, consider the difference between two advertisements for Dove soap, separated by 56 years. In an amazing spot from 1957, we’re given a mathematical breakdown that every bar of Dove is one-quarter “cleansing crème.” It feels closer to a science experiment than a commercial. Flash forward to 2013, and we have Dove’s viral “Real Beauty Sketches,” a 6-minute short film that explores the gap between how others perceive us and how we perceive ourselves. Dove soap appears exactly zero times – and that’s the point. What matters most is how the brand associates itself, and those who use it, with a message of social empowerment that reaches far beyond “cleansing crème.” You feel Dove throughout the whole ad, yet it’s practically invisible.

The mirage of brandlessness is a place of elevated meaning. It means your brand’s place in the hearts and minds of people is so secure, you can afford to leave your name at the door and focus on everything else: your associations, your beliefs, the impact you’re looking to make on the world. It’s brand nirvana, and while startups today are rushing to get there, the truth is there are no shortcuts to real meaning.

Only time will tell if Brandless and its ilk will survive in the long run. Whether or not your brand decides to employ brandlessness as an aesthetic is up to you, but there are lessons any company can glean from this trend:

  • People crave authenticity and meaning.
  • The right brand assets can get a powerful message across, even without a logo.
  • In a world of clutter, simplicity can be radical.

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design firm in Oakland, California.

What Does the Agency of the Future Look Like?

Posted on by Chris Ames

Last week, Emotive Brand celebrated its ten-year anniversary. Naturally, the milestone has led all of us here to reflect on the last decade and ask what it will take to continue to be successful moving forward. Today, Founding Partner and Chief Strategy Officer Tracy Lloyd and Creative Director Thomas Hutchings tackle that very question. What does the agency of the future look like? How does it behave? And how do we continue to push the envelope of what’s possible?

How have you seen the agency space shift over time?

Thomas Hutchings: Gone are the days of real arrogance, where an agency could rest prim and proper on its name alone. In the beginning, when there was far less competition, you could get away with being very demanding and say to clients, ‘It’s our way or the highway.’ Now, the space is so diverse and versatile, agencies try to provide the best experience possible. It’s a much more malleable and friendly relationship where you really immerse yourself in the client world. Keeping those worlds separate is an old way of thinking. In a sense, it’s kind of reversed: the agency is now the client and the client is now the agency. In addition, there’s been an increase in robust in-house teams that are strong, educated, talented, and bring something to the table. Perhaps some would see that as intimidating, but I think it’s great. We seek to inspire one another and be an extension of your team.

Tracy Lloyd: It’s a much more agile relationship that agencies are having with clients. There has been a shift from agencies dictating how long a project will take to the client driving the time frame. And at the same time, the problems agencies are being asked to solve are getting more complex. No longer are agencies able to lean on old methodologies. Solving the business problems of high-growth companies today requires having the right frameworks that can be adapted in real-time to keep pace. It’s about leaving your ego at the door and acknowledging that our clients are sophisticated, educated, and have a lot of the same skills agencies have. You must be prepared to be collaborators – not dictators.

What’s the value of bringing in an outside agency?

TH: While brands and their in-house teams have definitely become more robust, agencies will always bring a lot of muscle to the game for one key reason. Brands are cursed with having to focus on themselves 100% of the time. We have the privilege of working on so many different projects across a myriad of verticals. We have a 360-degree view of the landscape and can leverage solutions from other fields or spaces. That’s a very unique power.

TL: We are asked to solve some tough business, product, and brand problems for our clients. As an agency, we bring a very senior team that not only dedicates time to fix those problems but solve them in unique ways. You need that outside perspective, that diversity of thinking, and that unique pool of talent that agencies bring in order to see the problem for what it is. It’s the fastest way to ascertain the strategic shifts you need to make to get back on the right track.

What have you been most surprised by?

TH: It’s been fascinating to see the small to medium-sized agencies become the new champions of this era. They are the ones getting the big clients, and the giant branding firms are wondering where they sit in this space. It’s almost akin to what’s happening in the retail space, with big box stores versus small independently-owned businesses focusing on experience. Clients are looking for the weird and the wonderful – not just the cold, stark efficiency of a massive branding firm. The agencies that create brands that actually mean something, rather than just exist and churn, will be the ones that survive in the long run.

TL: We work with mostly B2B brands. I think there are some B2B companies that are raising the stakes. The branding out there is getting more interesting, more experimental, and less corporate. That’s really nice to see. With the bloom of smaller digital agencies, there is a lot more competition out there – but I think it’s incredibly inspiring. I feel energized and inspired by our peers and am happy to be pushing the envelope of what’s possible alongside them. I think this year will be revolutionary for what we will see from B2B brands and the agencies that serve them.

What does the agency of the future look like?

TL: Agile. Smart. Nimble. Focused. I think the agency of the future, especially those agencies that work with B2B brands, will be two-fold. First, they will be the ones who can bring the same level of strategic problem solving and creativity of B2C agencies. And second, they will be known for developing those big ideas that create new categories, new markets, new revenue models, and build brands that people want to buy, work for, and talk about. That’s the agency of the future we are trying to build.

TH: The best agencies are the ones that keep their minds open and are willing to take a brand into any avenue. The more you pigeonhole, the more stagnant your agency will be. That’s easier said than done. Much of that comes down to surrounding yourself with people who have a natural hunger for curiosity. Those who ask, ‘What if it went there? Why can’t we do this?’ You need to embrace a challenger mindset to upset preconceived notions and conventions if you want to make something that really resonates.

If you could start over and build from this agency from scratch, is there anything you’d do differently?

TL: This is a hard one to answer. In many ways, we are doing the same things we’ve always done, just on a bigger scale. Our clients are the C-suite. The companies are bigger, global, and recognizable by name. The stakes are higher, and our team is more senior. But in principle, we are operating the same way. The tenets of Emotive Brand have always been about finding the perfect blend of emotional and rational strategies to help change how people feel about the brand and to ensure they are activated in the ways business need.

We’ve worked hard to make the experience clients have with our agency different in every way. We’ve used our own methodology to deliver on that, and every employee from day one knows how to deliver on that. I’m glad we were clear from the start, and I’m proud to know it still drives our behavior as an agency today. We continue to lean into a sales-led approach to solving positioning and go-to-market strategies for our technology clients because that’s just how my brain works. And it’s working. Our references are not just CMOs and CEOs – CROs love us, too. As an agency, it’s helped us become recognized as a go-to B2B branding agency. And that means something to me. Because delivering growth is how our clients measure our success, and theirs.

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design agency in Oakland, California.

Image credit

The Key Difference Between Graphic Design and Branding


Posted on by Chris Ames

Graphic Design vs. Branding

Brand is a dirty word. It’s misunderstood and misused by people in and out of the industry. Some people think it means a new logo. Others, an advertisement. And as a company that has “Brand” in its very name, we spend a fair amount of time educating exactly what this word means.

Today, we dive into a key distinction: the difference between graphic design and branding. That may seem basic, but you’d be surprised by how many projects are stymied by this lack of clarification. Understanding this distinction is a crucial first step in creating a visual identity that is both gorgeous and strategically informed.

Graphic Design Is the Skeleton

When thinking about what makes a brand, it’s natural to start with the visual cues: logos, headers, business cards, websites. In truth, these elements are only a very basic skeleton of what makes a strong brand.

Great designers are the guardians of your visual identity, taking great care to make sure that each element – colors, shapes, typography, and yes, the logo – is compelling and consistent across all environments. When done right, graphic design ensures that everything is cohesive and in its right place, like a proper working skeleton.

Branding Is the Body and Soul

But of course, a business can’t run on bones alone. To keep the metaphor going, branding is the entire fleshed out body. Not only one’s muscles and clothes, but one’s beliefs, behaviors, and personality. It’s everything from how your customer support answers the phone to the stock photography in your sales deck. Branding is any action a corporate body makes, and the art of branding is making that movement as deliberate and harmonious as possible.

Graphic design and branding are inextricably linked. Aesthetics mean nothing without a solid strategy, and a solid strategy means nothing if it can’t be expressed. As an agency, we constantly have to balance these two forces. Sometimes, that means choosing between something beautiful and something purposeful. In a perfect world, you’re able to get the best of both worlds, but at the end of the day, every decision must be made in service of adding depth to the brand.

Aesthetic vs. Function

So, how do you navigate those difficult conversations? It can be tough, especially when as many as 80% of entrepreneurs believe that graphic design and branding are the same things. While creative decisions will always feel subjective, it’s important to remember that branding goes far beyond the visual. It handles the entire customer experience on all levels, senses, and dimensions. No matter how technical or granular, no element is ever “just a mark” or “just a logo.” It’s a nuanced, interconnected system that is involved in an active conversation with your audience.

Simply put, graphic design feeds your brand, your brand feeds your business. If your visual elements are competing with one another, you’ll never win the competition for your customer’s attention.

Emotive Brand is a brand strategy and design firm in San Francisco.

Generation Z: A New Generation With New Challenges for Brands

Posted on by Saja Chodosh

Gen Z, Already?

For the past several years the spotlight has been on one generation: yes, millennials – the most studied and arguably the most sought after (or talked about) generation by brands and businesses to date. We, for one, have discussed: what brands they love, where they put their money, where they put their loyalty, why where they work matters, if all the “millennial advertising” hype is even worth it… Now, it seems the focus is shifting. The internet, advertisers, and marketers today are starting to pay a little more attention to those millennials’ younger siblings: Gen Z.

There are three major narratives floating about Gen Z:

1) The generation is just an exaggerated version of millennials: more distrustful, more digital, and more diverse.

2) Gen Z is not like millennials at all. They spend less, collaborate less, and care less about brand names.

3) Some combination of the latter. So, what is it?

Who Is Gen Z and Why Even Pay Attention?

When you dive deep into the available research and stream of news articles making claims about who Gen Z is and isn’t, it’s hard to make out fact from fiction. When it comes down to it, we just don’t know enough – yet. The studies ask too few people in too few areas at too few ages to make any kind of definite conclusions.

What we do know for sure is this: Gen Z is still young and developing. The oldest of the Gen Z generation is just about to enter the workforce – that means late teens/early 20s. Gen Z grew up during the Occupy Wall Street Movement. They were young when 9/11 happened. They don’t remember life without the internet or social media. Now, they are a generation of about 70 million – the most diverse and multicultural of any generation before – and everyone is paying attention.

New Spotlight: Generation Z

As a branding agency, we are excited to keep up-to-date on this emerging generation. Based on what we know and the current research out there, here’s what we can predict about Gen Z.

Experiences Aren’t Forever

We’ve talked a lot about building resonant brand experiences. However, Gen Z might be demanding a different type of experience than generations before. This is a generation who lives on SnapChat. And what differentiates SnapChat from other social media platforms? SnapChat’s entire identity is based on its impermanence. The photos disappear. And it doesn’t stop at SnapChat. Other platforms like Whisper and Secret are among the most popular with Gen Z – both of which offer the value of privacy within the guise of being “social apps.”

Our guess why? In a world of information-overload and constant availability, fleeting experiences feel unique and special. Brands that embrace the ephemeral might find new success with this generation – think experiential events, mixed medium, VR …experiences that allow individuals to shape them. This is exciting for brands who must step up with creative, innovative, fresh, and brief but lasting ways into this generation’s heart.

An Entrepreneurial and Innovative Spirit

Gen Z seems to be a notably independent generation. A recent HBR study found that ¼ of Gen Z students display interest in starting their own business. And according to Gallup, 8/10 kids want to be their own boss, and 4/10 want to start their own business. In fact, 70% of teens are already their own boss – self-employed and making money by teaching piano or selling clothes on YouTube – showing an increase from generations before.

This means businesses and brands are going to have to work hard to keep up. Innovation is even more of an expectation. Companies who want to attract young talent are going to have to work hard to tailor jobs that allow Gen Z to create, innovate, and disrupt.

Dreams With A Price Tag

Initial studies have shown one big difference between millennials and Gen Z: Gen Z cares more about money. According to a Lincoln Financial Group study, around 60% of them already have a savings account and 71% say they really want to focus on saving in the future. Many articles note that this generation worries more about college debt.

Two interesting examples of brands who are catching on to this thrifty nature are Spirit Airlines (a budget airline) and Stayful (an app for competitive boutique hotel rates). Both brands pride themselves on transparency and value – in short, you get what you pay for. And both have found immense success with targeting this emerging generation.

It’s not necessarily that Gen Z is scared to spend, they just want to make sure what they are buying is worth it. This means brands who are transparent about value should find success with this younger generation as well. We also expect brands who are able to offer and demystify financial planning tools will thrive with this generation.

Brand Is A Given. It’s What You Do With It.

What’s most interesting about Gen Z for brands today is the generation’s general mistrust of them. Especially the big ones. Claims aren’t enough for this generation. Neither are ads. They always look closer – because they can. The technology and the resources to dive deeper are right there. What’s the culture really like? Is it inclusive? What are the work conditions? How does their CEO behave?

Like millennials, authenticity and transparency are values that sit at the heart of this. That’s why we see this generation trusting individuals more than institutions. That’s why this generation cares about what’s in the news surrounding the brands they buy from. And that’s why just sticking a logo on a clothing line is not going to cut it (not that it did before).

Brands who want to succeed today have to work even harder to build their brand from the inside out. Invest in the culture and the leadership that will drive you in the right direction. Adapt more transparent practices. Figure out new ways to personalize. Don’t just rely on a logo (Gen Z isn’t interested in being a walking advertisement). Say what you stand for and let people experience your brand in a different way – in their way. Recruit and retain talent that exhibits the creativity to do so. As Gen Z evolves and comes into view, we believe brands have a big opportunity to do the same.

Keep posted for more about this emerging generation and more.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy and design agency.

5 Common Mistakes in Brand Design Today

Posted on by Paulina McFarland

The Brand Design Journey

If you’re looking for a brand design or redesign, you’ll need more than a logo or a new website. Brand design is bigger than that. Designing a brand entails designing every moment and experience people have with your brand. It’s about every touchpoint, and these days nothing goes unnoticed. Brand design reflects how your brand looks and how it feels.

This means colors, graphic language, typeface, photography, and your logo. In the end, brand design is what brings the brand to life. It’s what makes your brand recognizable and powerful to the people that matter to your business. Because developing your brand design is no easy task, it’s easy for businesses and the people behind them to fall into common design traps. So before your brand engages in design work, consider these five common mistakes, why they are problematic, and how to avoid them.

1. Designing for tomorrow and not today

In a world where digital innovation and advancement is critical to a brand’s survival, brands need to be designed for new technology. Fluidity and flexibility is key here. The digital landscape requires adaptability. And in order to maintain brand relevance, brands need to anticipate how they will compete in the future market. Stagnant brands simply don’t create powerful brand experiences. Every touchpoint and interaction counts. Designers who want to design a powerful brand with a strong emotional impact, one that will stay relevant over time, and drive business in a sustainable way need to design with the future of the brand in mind. This means taking an adaptable, dynamic, digital, experiential, and always forward thinking approach that aligns with the brand’s vision and aspirations.

2. Playing lookalike

Differentiation in branding is of great importance. Yet many brands take the safe route. And as a result, brands end up looking similar to competitors or adapting to the short-lived design trends of the month. Even though design is supposed to help brands stand out, the design landscape continues to be filled with brands that quite honestly, look and feel the same. And sameness doesn’t move a business forward. Designing a brand requires taking risks. It takes courage. You have to be bold. And we know it’s not always easy. Challenge yourself and your clients to design brands that aren’t afraid to say something different. 

3. Forgetting about guidelines

Your agency or company could build the most prolific visual identity, pick the perfect colors, or create a logo that could change the entire game. But the fact is, a brand can’t come to life if the visual identity isn’t rolled out correctly. Businesses often overlook the importance of brand guidelines because they aren’t easy to create. No one wants to create or read a manual. However, people need a roadmap for keeping the brand consistent and powerful. Brand guidelines give businesses the tools people need to bring the brand to life, keeping it clear, consistent, and recognizable. Brands without brand guidelines often end up inconsistent, valueless, and unable to grow. If you want to make the brand rollout a success, you need guidelines.

4. Overcomplicating it

Simplicity and clarity is key for brand design. Complicated brand design ends up diluting the brand’s overall emotional impact and making the brand less recognizable to the people who matter to its success. However, it’s important that when straying away from overcomplicated you make sure you understand your audience and don’t dumb it down for them. Simple doesn’t mean banging your audiences across the head. Working as a team and eliciting feedback at multiple points of the process can help move the design towards clarity and simplicity.

5. Ignoring Strategy

Tying strategy with design is one of the most important things a brand can do. Use strategy as a guiding map for how the brand should come to life visually. Even though strategists and designers often have different toolboxes, marrying the two skillsets and ways of thinking can help build a more impactful, purposeful brand. Often times, clients want design that has nothing to do with the strategy that’s been developed. Make sure you explain the impact that strategically informed design can create, and demonstrate the power of strategically informed design. By bringing design and strategy together, your brand becomes more valuable and impactful.

Brand Design for Maximum Impact

Design a brand that engages your target audience and generates demand. One that will be able to adapt to digital advances, increased customer experiences, and heed off competition. Use your visual identity to help your brand stand out and highlight what makes you stand out. Keep it simple. Use your strategy to lead you in, and don’t forget to create the guidelines the brand needs for a successful rollout. If you avoid these five mistakes, the brand will be more powerful to its audiences, and more able to move business forward. The brand design will support the brand as it grows and prospers in a competitive design landscape.

Read another post from our design team: Brand Identity: What’s Your Type?

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy and design agency.