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DESIGN: Brand design--the antidote to category camouflage

Jan 9, 2009 | Marketing Week | Andy Black.

As budgets are cut and tough questions are asked, design can make a difference by getting a brand noticed, standing out from the competition and engaging consumers.

The coming year will be played out against the backdrop of our beleaguered, stumbling economy as it descends into crisis. For brand owners, the effects can be dramatic as the competition rise to the challenge and markets begin to struggle. We have already seen significant consumer migration: from the high street to in-home; from high-end supermarkets to value; from premium brands to own-label.

While most marketing directors would acknowledge that it is precisely at times like these that brands need investment, they often find their hands tied with reduced budgets and tough questions to be answered, not least of which will be how to engage consumers with their brand.

More than ever, brand design can make the difference. It is no longer good enough for brand owners to rest on their laurels and expect the goodwill of loyalists to see them through the tough times. Worse still would be to arrogantly display their identities like designer badges without explaining to consumers why they are different. Given that, for many packed-goods brands, packaging design is often the most enduring consumer touch-point for communication, more attention should be given to getting the right message across and conveying it in the brand's own unique tone of voice. At Springetts, we believe that good brand design is not simply about delivering aesthetic appeal, or about being different for the sake of being different. It should satisfy three basic functions.

Create an impact

Many product categories are shopped by consumers operating on auto pilot, with the purchase decision made at home on the mental shopping list or in fractions of seconds at point of sale. Where loyalty does win out over promiscuous purchasing behaviour, the consumer is blind to alternatives. In increasingly difficult financial times, consumer purchase patterns can be more prone to fluctuation than usual, as they stock up on deals and respond to the language of promotion. Design has the ability to cut through and grab attention.

Brand distinction

However commoditised the category is, brand design can deliver the means through which long established and generic visual codes are challenged, so that distinctiveness can be established. Leadership can only be achieved when brands focus on those attributes that distinguish them from the competition.

Consumer engagement

For any brand to survive in today's aggressively competitive arena, it must deliver something that not only fulfils a consumer need more effectively than others, but that strikes the right emotional cord.

The difference can come from those things beyond the rational benefits of a product. For example: the values of the business behind the product; the personality of a brand and the empathy it demonstrates to consumers; or its philosophy and how it shapes the integrity of its products and services. These things can transform a collection of commodities into a powerful and evocative brand statement. The battle to win a purchase can be won or lost in the blink of an eye, because to be chosen is to be understood and desired in an instant.

For example, when faced with increased competition from other fish suppliers, we helped Young's Seafood reposition their brand to capitalise on their leadership in fish. We used design to break away from commodity and distance them from their generalist competitors. They are making fish more accessible to consumers, as demonstrated by their "cook from frozen" natural fillets range, and taking a leadership position on issues such as their "Fish for Life" sustainability program and the natural, health benefits of fish.

Ocean Spray is another brand that has recently used design to shed the category camouflage. Transforming from a passive brand that said little more than its competitors, to one that proudly demonstrates through simple iconography, its "ownership" of one of nature's most effective antioxidants. This has been achieved by challenging generic category codes and by simply capturing the benefit to end users: "Ocean Spray helps protect you inside". In a simple, visual statement, standout, distinctiveness and engagement are achieved.

In 2009, brands will need to use design to capture their proposition more strongly than ever, as other forms of communication, such as media, may be lost in the brutal reality that is the cut budget.

Brands that fail to invest in design will find themselves distanced from their consumers and, even if they do survive this recession, may find themselves in a poor state of health in the revival.

Andy Black is managing director of Springetts Brand Design Consultants