You can see the trend in supermarkets everywhere—moms in aisles probing deeper and deeper into product labels. Knowing where something comes from and what it’s about is increasingly important to consumers. And a new survey says people are now more than willing to do the detective work to figure it all out.
Weber Shandwick recently surveyed consumers and business execs in the U.S., U.K., China, and Brazil and found that 70% of respondents stay away from a product if they don’t like its parent company. What’s more, transparency has become a necessity. 56% hesitate to buy a product if they can’t find information about the corporation behind it.
Though consumers and executives both agree that social and environmental responsibility are important talking points, consumers are also becoming quicker to point out the cognitive dissonances between what a brand says and what their parent corporation does.
A Fast Company story on the research singles out Kashi’s problems relating to its parent Kellogg: “One of the ingredients in Kellogg’s FiberPlus Berry Yogurt Crunch—the preservative BHT—gets a thumbs-down from Kashi’s Ingredient Decoder tool.” Can’t you just see your mom’s disapproving nod?
As customers, communities, and shareholders use new criteria to make their judgements, companies that are seen as irresponsible or creating products without purpose will get punished. And companies that get it right will get rewarded. Havas media documented that more than half of all consumers worldwide are prepared to reward responsible companies by choosing to buy their products—and that percentage keeps rising.
Of course, this reveals a huge opportunity for brands to distinguish themselves. Only 28% of consumers worldwide think that today’s companies are working hard enough to solve our social and environmental challenges.
How and where will businesses find responsible growth? Game Changers, an upcoming Wolff Olins report, looks at this issue from companies’ perspectives and highlights the key behaviors that are now shaping the future of business.
Which high-growth companies are stepping up to distinguish themselves by being both commercially and socially minded?
What will happen to brands that don’t innovate to create new value?
More to come. Stay tuned for Game Changers, coming soon to WolffOlins.com.
In centuries past, branding a makers mark on ceramics and hand made goods was done to prevent copies or recreations of the real thing. Their purpose was to guarantee the future integrity of their brand and encapsulate the design and style from which they stemmed, (timelessness). Todays marks do just that for businesses; a successful visualization of a business’ experience ensures its longevity through the ages and cements its purpose in the future of a modern social environment.
On Friday November 5th, we attended the first Brand New Conference in NYC. The event was created as an extension of the identity blog Brand New, created by Armin Vit and Bryony Gomez-Palacio through Under Consideration.
The speaker lineup consisted of many design heavy hitters including:Michael Bierut and Paula Scher (Pentagram), Michael Johnson (Johnson Banks), Connie Birdsall, (Lippincott) and Christian Helms (Decoder Ring).
Michael Lejeune (LA Metro Design Studio) spoke on how small moves can add up to big change in a brand and public perception, raising awareness of LA Metro to 98% in the city one bus at a time. Tom Dorrestejin of (Studio Dumbar) showed exciting work, making most designers in the room swoon; Armin moderated a Q+A with WO’s Jordan Crane and Karl Heiselman on AOL and London 2012; and the steal of the show was legendary type designer, Erik Spiekermann (Edenspiekermann).
A FEW NOTABLE QUOTES FROM ATTENDEES THROUGHOUT THE DAY: See more photos from the event on our flickr.
“We share identity with others. Personality is unique. Should we be personality, not identity designers?” Tom Dorrestejin, Studio Dunbar
[On hammering out a brand] “If you’re digging a hole in the wrong place, making it deeper doesn’t help.” Michael Bierut, Pentagram
“All designers are strategists. We just don’t charge for it.” Paula Scher, Pentagram
“Using a typeface with some depth & character, plus a strong color, can sustain a corporate identity program.” Eric Spiekermann
“Keep your story simple so other people can tell your story for you.” Connie Birdsall, Lippincott
“Typefaces are like your children, you let them go and they get out of your control.” Eric Spiekermann
“You can’t order people to do great things — you have to provide the conditions, inspire them, understand them.” Karl Heiselman, WO
“You’re probably not doing the best work of your life if everyone is ‘OK’ with it.” Jordan Crane, WO
I’m getting old. When I first started making stuff with technology and the Internet, things like Internet Explorer didn’t exist. In the insane calendar of Moore’s Law, it was an age ago. A little later I worked in places that called themselves ‘web design’ or ‘Internet agencies’. We built web sites, and other exciting stuff for things like ‘Interactive TV’ and ‘mobile’ using WAP 1.1. Driven by new technology, anything seemed possible.
Fast forward to say 2006, suddenly, everyone is talking about Digital. Digital referred, not to one’s and zero’s, but primarily to the Internet in its many fixed and mobile forms, the things living in it and connected to it. It was a term coined to describe new things that certain business didn’t quite understand, and were scared of…
Now fast-forward again a little, but only a year or so: did I hear you say Post Digital? Post digital was coined as a term to describe the fact that the Internet, or vague ‘Internet connected digital thing-a-ma-bobs’, were now so prevalent, normal and accepted in business and society that we are living in a ‘post digital age’ amidst an ‘Internet of connect things’.
Stop. So we went from Digital to Post Digital in a couple of years? I know technology moves fast, but here’s the rub: for many businesses, being digital was and is hard. Embracing technology in and outside of an organisation is not easy. But what if we can adopt the notion of post digital? That sounds easier! It implies we got digital, then moved on! Or rather, back to business as usual.
Sadly, there are more problems with this term. I give you Exhibit A – The Nabaztag. So post-digital is all about digital being so normal right? Well The Nabaztag is a Wi-Fi enabled, Internet connected, talking, white plastic Rabbit. Say that aloud: A Wi-Fi enabled, Internet connected, talking, white plastic Rabbit. A Wi-Fi enabled, Internet connected, talking, white plastic Rabbit IS NOT NORMAL!
Exhibit B – Access to the Internet and technology outside of the developed world. I wont bore you with the stats, Google them. But if you don’t believe me, travel to a country where people have to charge their Nokia via bicycle power, then look at their blank faces as you show them your Nabaztag. I rest my case.
So where are we? Somewhere in the early to mid 90’s the basic technology foundations of the Internet we know today were laid, lets call it Web 1.0. In the mid naughties, everything got standardised and connected into a web of open data, Web 2.0. Today, we approach Web 3.0, an Internet of connected ‘applications’ underpinned by a web of semantic data. Exciting enough on it’s own, but now there’s a difference: Internet access devices and interfaces are finally beginning to meet expectation and deliver on the promises envisaged for them back at the beginning. Technology now works, and it works well. If we can work on equal access then we’ll hit ground zero, the beginning.
Post digital? Bullshit, we’re just barely getting started. Lets do some awesome stuff…
(Nathan Williams) @nathanawilliamsNathan Williams is a Strategist in Wolff Olins London. He likes technology, and delicious cake. Photo courtesy of Lisamarie Babik via Flickr Creative Commons License.
In his New Yorker piece “The Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted,” Malcolm Gladwell presents a critique of social media’s ability to create real cultural and political change. He argues that Twitter, Facebook and other platforms have failed to produce the kind of paradigm shifts that the 1960s protests did.
While I appreciate Gladwell’s attempt to play devil’s advocate, I often find that people too quickly embrace the effects of social media without any critical analysis. However, I think the changes social media has created are difficult to measure. The social impact it has is much more subtle and embedded in our everyday lives.
One of the most important social areas it has transformed is the relationship between brands and people.Because of the reach and speed of social media, information that was previously kept from the public eye can now spread quickly across communities. As we have seen this year with BP, it is in the best interest of brands to be transparent and honest. Research has shown people – particularly millennials and teens– are increasingly skeptical of advertising. Brands can not rely on slick images, but must create valuableproducts, services and experiences.
Furthermore, Twitter, Youtube, and other platforms have empowered the user with the tools to influence and co-create the brand in ways that facilitate the change they want to see in the world. Brands can help curate these conversations, productions, and changes by creating platforms for users to make a difference. For example, with corporate citizenshipat the heart of many of its marketing efforts, Timberland has created an Earthkeeper, an online community for individuals who are interested in reducing their eco footprint and promoting sustainability. Through social media-driven projects like Pepsi Refresh, brands can support individuals who have groundbreaking ideas that have a positive impact on communities.
Social media may not lead to a widespread social revolution – in the traditional sense, but it has transformed the ways in which brands and people interact. We should approach the effects of social media with a critical eye, but understand the potential it has for creating social change in and through brands.
Dopamine is a chemical associated with reward. In it’s worst form, it results in addiction. However, one of its many beneficial outcomes of its release is that the brain becomes primed for a perfect state of learning. But I suspect, without any hard evidence to back me up, that even the feelings of novelty and newness are related to it. Sociologists describe this experience as flow, which is best understood as those points in time when work flies by, when productivity is best and when we stop looking at the clock wondering when’s lunch.
Games have proven to be very good at initiating flow. The result that follows is accompanied by that desired sense of learning. Even in the most entertaining game franchises there is proof that gamers are learning certain skills. The coming proliferation of gaming will be born from the targeting of skills to be learnt and defining which types of games can deliver the desired information or skill to be communicated to the learner.
The role of game mechanics in our everyday lives is growing along with the Millenial demographic. For many of us, growing up with video games may seem to be the integration of pastime into real life. When I look back on my own moments playing games, I realize that many of these were ones of intense concentration where time stood still. Fun, play and learning come together at these moments and make for memorable experiences and connection.
Over the past ten years the role of brand has transformed. It’s no longer simply a logo or a tagline, but has become a position from which we deliver experiences that connect and inspire. Gaming has a role to play in how brands build these connections through unique and useful experiences. Our challenge is to determine how gaming can best create these connections.
From Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare to the rss feeds which are filtered to us through our aggregators and devices. Managing global data on our local monitors and touch-screens, we maintain social networks, follow breaking news and share our location. Today, it’s not just those that are in the design world that consider a screen perhaps the most vital tool in creation and collaboration.
There have been tablet computers before but the release of Apple’s iPad this past spring led to a breakthrough in application design for literature, gaming, and education. What could possibly be next? Iain Roberts, co-leader of Ideo talked about consumer electronic design in Dwell magazine. He stated that “The dominant element in a lot of the products we are designing is the screen: It’s changed the way we design and now we’re needing to build the product around it. We’re looking to tie the physical and graphical interaction together as closely as possible, paying new attention to materials, surface, finishes, and details as well as focusing on sensory aspects such as touch and sound. We’re looking to products to engage all the senses.”
Here are a few new ways screens will enter our lives:
My Ford Touch will soon change how drivers interact with their vehicles. Consumers will use “touch-sensitive buttons, touch screens, and voice recognition.” In addition to this, OnStar is adding voice-command Facebook and SMS status updates.
What’s thrilling is finding out that those who are lacking the sense of sight can engage and thrive with a touch-screen tool. Austin Seraphin, blind since birth, explained in June how the iPhone changed his life forever. He recently posted about rejoining the Apple family of computer users and shared his experience with the Color Identifier app on his Behind the Curtainblog.
Some offices think that open spaces foster creative collaboration. Others believe that the less contact you have, the more work you get done. Yanko Design shared an idea developed by Zhang Wei of an electronic imaging screen embedded within an office wall panel that displays programmed messages.
Sony has produced a fantastic flexible 4.1 inch screen. Readius has developed the pocket e-reader with a rollable display screen. IDEO released an intriguing video showcasing their vision for the future of the book. Their three concepts provide greater interaction, relevance, and content discovery than ever seen before in a touch-screen device.
How will screens affect your life in the near future?
Social network activities reward the user and promote your brand.
Have you ever thought about buying or selling items with a Tweet? Would you like to trade for stuff with all those Foursquare badges you earned? Your activity on social media platforms could become the newest form of brand currency.
Imagine being able to reach a network of thousands by providing goods in exchange for 140 characters. Expertly crafted, a Tweet can become the perfect word-of-mouth promotion. Easily spreading, click by rewarding click. Pay with a Tweet is an organization that promotes paying for products via sharing on Twitter and Facebook platforms. This is where the value of the user’s network becomes a powerful delivery tool. Musicians, authors, businesses, and brands can all take advantage of this modern exchange to promote their art and/or identity. A perfect example is the Hotel Domspitzenwhich allows you to receive a locally brewed beer upon Tweeting.
Foursquare check-ins reward users with a free item or discount. Chili’s restaurant offered free chips and salsa with a check-in on Foursquare. This caused a 200% increase in check ins, increased revenue, and greater amounts of foot-traffic. Check-ins amount to badges now, but could trading those badges in for actual goods in the Foursquare store be just around the corner? Suddenly a virtual badge has potential buying power. The latest upgrade to the Foursquare platform includes an Add to my Foursquare button that you can apply to your website to promote tips, deals, specials, and events for your brand. The user now can save that clip for later use within the mobile app. Sharing between network connections just got even more flexible, informative, and rewarding.
These new methods to monetizing the Internet are creative and engaging. Barriers to marketing and brand-building for small businesses, musicians, entrepreneurs, and artists are broken down. New currencies have emerged. Now brands can partner directly with their most loyal customers to reach new ones.
Innovation is the word on every CEO’s lips. It’s the new corporate mantra: communication innovation! New product development! Customer engagement improvement! New business model! Bigger, better, faster products! Most companies are stuck on the competitive treadmill and innovation seems to be their energy drink. Surely we have more product choices today, but if you ask consumers, they think it’s more of the same. 80% of CEOs believe their brands offer a unique and differentiated experience – only 8% of customers agree (Bain, 2009).
Why? Because most companies focus on adding features to their product-line, or releasing a newer version of the same thing. This is not innovation. At best it is augmentation. As a counter to this, game-changing companies are choosing to keep the consumer at the center of their attention, thus building a brand around their customer and fulfilling the need to create more meaningful experiences. At Wolff Olins, we call it brand-led innovation.
A brilliant example of brand-led innovation is Gilt Groupe. What started as an exclusive online clothier has now evolved to include luxury home-goods, vacation destination packages, and five-star restaurants. Their newest offering is the Gilt MANual, which is a smart, informative “daily guide to permanent style.” Featured sections include essentials on etiquette, how-to and advice columns on topics ranging from growing a beard, and giving an unforgettable toast, to washing raw denim. Writers and editors produce timely, relevant, and educational pieces that engage their consumer-base and beyond. Rather than segmentation or augmentation, they’ve turned their sights on true innovation. They’ve developed Gilt Man as a brand itself, building equity and showing a greater understanding of their audience in the process.
