“How much cheese do you take off the pizza until you have no customers left?”

Gordon Bethune, Continental Airlines turn-around CEO (circa 1994)

Defining Value

Financial results and brand experience – the two are inextricably linked in the equation of profitability. Whether or not they are completely understood and embraced, shareholder results and brand value are ultimately both the responsibility of the CEO.

CEOs who place a premium on brand design and brand experience realize the most sustained return on shareholder brand value. While task-oriented responsibilities for creating brand and shareholder value can be delegated, the final responsibility for valuation outcomes can not be abdicated.

“We push innovation
and design very strongly.”

Bob Ulrich, Target Chairman and former CEO

Particularly in an age of socially distributed messaging, if your product is faulty or lackluster in form and appearance, your service is sub par, or your price inequitable, your profitability, brand and shareholder value will eventually suffer.

A Brand-colored Vision

Withstanding the effects of business fluctuations is often dependent upon remaining true to a vision for your brand. Steve Jobs famously refused to relinquish the reins of Apple to an accounting-minded CEO after a product flop.

Investors and Wall Street alike have always recognized that Apple’s stock price is tied directly to Jobs’ final say and his dogmatic defense of brand design and belief in its business value. CEOs who focus on financial responsibility alone myopically neglect and erode brand value.

However, assuming a CEO holds and adheres to a vision for their brand, as filtered through the eyes of their customers, the resurgent moments can be something to behold as the visionary listens, refines, and launches the brand’s design anew.

“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.”

Steve Jobs, CEO Apple

A History of Brand Design and Business Value

CEOs who embraced brand design as a means to brand and business value abound: Virgin’s Richard Branson; Yves St. Laurent; Continental’s turn-around agent, Gordon Bethune; Martha Stewart; Target’s Bob Ulrich; and Starbucks’ Howard Schultz, just to name a few.

From product design to packaging, usability to interface design, remain steadfast in your adherence to brand design and its importance to your institution’s value.

How do you rate your brand’s design, your customer’s perception of it, and your vision for where it needs to be?

Image: SixyBeast

As important as a project road map is – things can, will, and should change.

The Struggle

I’ve been a homeowner for nearly 5 years now. I’ve done every massive remodeling project that one can do – kitchen, bath, landscaping – you name it. And, when I say I’ve “done itâ€? that doesn’t mean that I bossed around some contractors (unless my husband counts). I spent hours on end in my “messyâ€? clothes, painting, tiling, planting, laying stone, etc. Each project was vastly different, from its functionality to the materials used. But each project had these things in common: Deadlines came and went, and no matter how well we anticipated, planned, scheduled and prepared, something unexpected always came up.

Remodeling a brand isn’t much different – or any easier. To do it right you have to completely immerse yourself in the project, get your hands dirty, sweat a little. Evaluate your current state and determine:

1. What needs repair
2. What needs a makeover
3. What new elements will have to be utilized
   to make the remodel a success

Count the Cost

You’ll find some elements that appear salvageable – a simple coat of paint will save some dollars and seem good as new. Don’t be fooled and don’t make these decisions too quickly. Think it through and weigh the cost, both monetarily and mentally, of trying to refurbish that piece of your brand. You may find that it’s okay to let it go and begin anew. Or, you may find that there’s such a fond association and quick recognition with that element of your brand that giving it a face-lift, as badly as you think it’s needed, would jeopardize the very essence of what you’re working so hard to maintain.

Be Adaptable

Be patient and be flexible. As important as a project road map is – things can, will, and should change. Those things that “come-up� and throw you off track will make up for the derailment by teaching you a little something that you didn’t know before. Go with it and chances are your brand makeover will be more successful than you ever imagined.

Image: Jenni, of course

Eventually, your logo becomes
a touch point by which your audience
either recognizes or mocks your brand.

The Struggle

Many businesses struggle through the development of their business or product logo because they believe the logo is their brand rather than understanding it is but one representation of their brand. No logo can carry your brand without additional context and meaning.

The Context

Context is built in the way your brand conducts itself out in public—obviously frequent and consistent exposure in target-rich environments, but service, quality, aesthetics, ethics, price points, messaging and human and online interaction—in essence, everything defines your brand. That’s your logo’s context for representation.

The Paralysis

Often a sort of paralysis sets in as those uninitiated to the development process wrestle with how to cram an entire brand into a logo mark that has no brand yet. A common inclination is to use a design-by-committee approach and crowd source it by inviting the opinion of anyone and everyone.

Of course, if you ask fifty people for their opinion you’ll get fifty opinions. This method can further confuse and often derail the process resulting in delivery delays and unsatisfactory results as typically, elements from a number of logos are mashed together into one design to appease everyone’s input.

The Summation

A logo is one symbol of your brand, so it’s critical to get it right. Weigh, assess and classify your input, then discuss it with your design professional. If you’ve hired the right firm, they’ll have the demonstrated experience and expertise to take into account all the pragmatics and issues involved with properly deploying not just a logo, but an entire brand.

Eventually, your logo becomes a touch point by which your audience either recognizes or mocks your brand. It is important to get your logo right, but don’t expect it to be your brand from the outset.

“Let’s get small.â€? -Steve Martin

Get Smart, Get Small

While worldwide mobile phone sales slowed in early 2009, media-rich smart phone sales are on the rise both globally and in the United States.

In ever-increasing numbers, across a wide spectrum of demographics, people are plying the web primarily on mobile devices. If your site and digital strategies are not mobile capable and/or optimized to load properly – your brand, for many, may not exist.

“Smartphone sales surpassed 40 million units [in Q2 2009], a 27 per cent increase from the same period last year.” – Gartner

Worldwide mobile phone sales totaled 269.1 million units in the Q1 of 2009 – an 8.6 per cent decrease from Q1 2008. However, according to Gartner, Inc., “Smartphone sales surpassed 40 million units [in Q2 2009], a 27 per cent increase from the same period last year.”

In three days Apple sold over a million iPhone 3G S smartphones and 6 million people downloaded the new iPhone OS 3.0 update after it released.

Add sales of the iTouch and other portable phone-less devices to these statistics and you have a significant emerging market for your brand messaging.

2008 Smart Phone Sales (US)†

† RCRWireless | .think Nov 2009

A Medium in Motion

Many early adopters are opting to invest in mobile applications first – desktop applications second. In fact iPhone Facebook application interfaces have been said to navigate better than Facebook’s own standard web version.

And mobile-based interactive media delivery is here to stay. Flash Lite, Adobe’s mobile-ready Flash player, is already deployed on over a billion mobile devices – with plug-in versions licensed to many popular mobile browsers and an Apple iPhone version rumored in the works.

Just this past week, at the Adobe MAX 2009 conference, Adobe demoed CS5–the next version of it’s widely popular creative suite of applications. Flash CS5 will soon offer customers the ability to export Flash-developed content as native iPhone applications to be distributed through the iTunes app store. Just one more reason why any excuse to avoid mobilizing your brand just won’t fly.

Small Interfaces, Big Variations

Whether developing a mobile app or formatting your current site for mobile delivery it’s important to account for a wide range of mobile screen dimensions to ensure proper readability.

Additionally browsers have greatly varying abilities. Modern smartphones like the iPhone and phones running Google Android have fully functional browsers – other smartphones, do not. As with any digital development testing is crucial. Online emulators can be helpful in assuring your media is suited for delivery vehicles – your audiences’ preferred mobile devices.

Mobile Watering Holes, Captive Audiences

If your customer, constituent, or product base is built heavily on affinity groups, or community, developing a smartphone application can prove particularly beneficial in terms of engagement and retention.

Developing a branded smartphone-ready application or tool, such as an Phone app, can help promote your brand messaging via promotion platforms such as AdMob (mobile ad medium), AdWhirl (mobile ad aggregator) and Mdotm (iPhone app promotion), help facilitate a mobile extension of your brand, messaging and campaigns – often to a new mobile-inclined user base.

Get a Move On

The confluence of exploding smartphone use, video, music and text sharing popularity, and the proliferation of every imaginable mobile game, tool and app means your audience can encounter your brand messaging or purchase your wares just about anywhere.

Assuming you are there to greet them.

Contact Brainstorm for more information on taking your brand mobile.

Image: Miss Karen