Summary: The definition of Brand is changing online. We are continuing to adopt technologies that strip company communications of their look and feel. Feeds are taking over browsing and email applications are blocking designs – stripping out what is to be considered the visual aspect of a brand, leaving only what we have to say in it’s place. Companies should reexamine how potential and current customers will perceive them and how they should strengthen their brand based solely on the premise of communication – leaving design to fall to the wayside.

Brand Does Not Equal Design

Wikipedia says:

“A brand is a collection of images and ideas representing an economic producer; more specifically, it refers to the concrete symbols such as a name, logo, slogan, and design scheme.”

I was appalled when I first read their definition and this obviously shows there is a widespread misunderstanding of what “Brand” really is.

There’s a great presentation from Marty Neumeier entitled The Brand Gap. To quote him:

“A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or organization.”

This definition is spot on and really plays to how we should be developing Brand Strategies.

Brand identity was, and still is, defined almost completely through the look and feel of marketing materials, while the actual communication and style of writing are a secondary notion – often varying from communication to communication. Going forward, writing will be the only focus to what we use to wrap up in fancy packages.

The First Point of Contact

Companies are still going to distribute print materials, design websites, and run web ads. Often times consumers will never see a brand beyond their first or first few touch points – Allowing technology to deliver the future messages. We need to hone in on what’s delivered in follow-ups, putting more emphasis on the message and it’s content than how it looks.

Where Did the Design Go?

I stopped going out to websites and seeing if anything new was put up. Many other people have done the same, and more and more people are learning to adopt feeds to pull information from around the web. Feeds deliver out content without the design of the website to pretty it up.

I used to get tons of sales-oriented emails trying to sell me new products loaded with big photos and fancy designs. I almost forgot that those ever existed. Nowadays I get some of those same emails – with the option to ‘enable images.’ But guess what, I don’t. I don’t care about what it looks like, I’m just there to read whats in it. And you know what, lots of people feel the same way.

I used to see a lot of animated web ads but in fact it’s now known that text ads perform much higher. We’ve all learned to ignore most online advertising.

Even though I’m a designer, this doesn’t pain me that much. Pretty doesn’t influence me.

A Recent Experience

A few years ago I stumbled upon the Sitepoint Website which, along with being a great resource for web designers and developers, sells books.

When I visited the site initially, I looked around at some of their tutorials and read a number of articles. I found them to be quite intelligent in the information that they push and subscribed to their feed to keep up to date. I was officially a potential customer at that point.

Over time, I learned to enjoy their “brand” and when they published a new book that was of interest to me, I immediately set out and purchased it.

It was the value of their brand that lead me to become an actual customer. I found their articles to be extremely thorough, thought out, and on top of the industry. It came quite regularly, it lived up to my expectations and many times exceeded it. I knew that a book written and published by them would be the same.

They didn’t have to bombard me with web ads or email me every week about new books. Because I found their material to be so interesting, I was actively going out and grabbing it.

So how do I push my brand?

Where will brand live as the growing number of consumers stop seeing designed emails and websites and only see our feeds and text only emails? The simple answer is – the content.

To figure out how to push your brand, you want to figure out what you want your brand to be. How do you want to be perceived with the content that you produce? Do you want to seem friendly or very business like? Do you want to come off as being an influencer or a follower? It’s your decision and should match your target audience.

Content is going to have to drive how consumers will perceive you and can simply be done through:

• Simplicity or Complexity of Language – are you clarifying a topic or confusing it?
• Breadth of Content – is it brief and to the point or is it your master’s thesis?
• Credibility – should we take your word for it or are you providing other resources?

Rethink It and Target!

It’s time that we rethink the importance of a visual medium to establish ourselves in the minds of consumers and put more emphasis on how we can help them instead of ourselves.

Don’t try and lure as many people as you can with fancy, over-the-top campaigning – it’s more about nurturing potential consumers and delivering the right messages – not cramming a fancy look in their faces.