Most companies see brand building as a process of addition, where every touch point adds to the overall experience. They summarize that each point of contact adds to their brand’s overall equity. Yet, branding is not based on the process of addition. It’s based on multiplication. The greatest return doesn’t come from improving the variables with the most value but rather from improving those with the least. In fact, a single point of failure can negate everything.

Building an effective brand requires that the organization shifts its point of view to see each and every action it takes as a multiplier. We want to be very clear about this; we don’t believe that building a brand is a mathematical equation! What we are saying is that if you view your efforts and actions as multipliers, you’ll approach the problem differently and find those efforts to be more effective. So now that that’s been established, let’s do the math. (more…)

Why do redesigns receive so much flak?  Because people are passionate and largely resist change. Even a “great design” may be rejected if it violates consumers’ sense of “how things should be.” That’s because the human mind sees good and bad through a lens of context. Branding works because people have a basic human need to distinguish one thing from another. People either accept or reject changes in brand identity based on how well those changes align with their own experience and expectations of that brand. A new identity that violates what the mind knows to be true is often met with disappointment and disapproval.

Consumers use brands as a method of augmenting their own identities, and a change considered “off brand” can clash with the consumer’s own sense of self. However, there is a far more utilitarian benefit to a consistent brand identity – wayfinding.

(more…)