Guidelines are the guidebook or owners manual for your new identity. They are critical to communicating what key players need to know in order to handle your new brand identity properly. The task of developing guidelines can seem overwhelming, though. So make it a little easier and consider these 10 questions; they should prepare you to go into the adventures of guideline development with confidence and ease.
Ripped jeans. Tattered. Torn. Faded. Frayed. Your mother might say they look like they came from a garage-sale free box. They should be less expensive than crisp, denim bright blue jeans, right?
WRONG. Take this example of a pair of Colette Selvedge Abercrombie and Fitch brand jeans.
These fashionably distressed jeans cost $198 off the rack.
Brand managers are thinking about how they should position or reposition their brands and products in this down economy. What stores are consumers shopping at these days? How are people viewing value versus cost? What do consumers think about the design of the package or product in terms of what they are willing to pay for? Some are designing up to make their brand or product stand out. Others are designing down to make their brand or product look not quite so expensive.
I agree with Steven Heller, the new Tropicana redesign is a good example of redesigning something to make it boring. Taking away the brand’s iconic imagery — the orange with straw in it — makes the packaging bland, and then I look at the package and think, “The orange juice tastes is bland, like the design.” Seriously, which would you want to drink? Sad!
Images courtesy of The Daily Heller
If you are familiar with brand platforms, you’ve probably noticed that they are often illustrated in a pyramid format, such as the one above.
Because of this, I’ve often correlated the brand pyramid with the Hierarchy of Needs Pyramid, which illustrates a theory proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation.
In his paper, Maslow organized human needs on five levels. The lower levels hold the crude needs of basic survival; the top is considered idealistic — a place where many people never get.
In a brand pyramid, the lowest levels are associated with the basics of the brand – they are very feature focused. As you move up the pyramid, the personality of the brand is revealed. Sadly, the top of the brand pyramid is a place where many brands never go and those elements are under utilized.
It’s tough when the glory days have gone by, when your brand and your product are no longer the talk of the town. Trying to reclaim the good old days is not such a bad idea from a brand’s perspective. Theoretically, you’ve got fans out there who used to love the product and the brand, and you want to leverage any brand equity that’s out there. Unfortunately, some marketers forget that the good ol’ days might not have been so good for everyone and trying to leverage old-fashioned ideas just ends up insulting people.
Such is the case with the current Schlitz ad campaign, which proclaims, “The Cars were Cooler; The Girls were Hotter; The Music didn’t Suck; The Beer was Better.”
Sometimes one of the first and longest lasting brand or design decisions involves color selection. Every color has a different feel, look, or emotional resonance. Colors will evoke strong feelings towards a brand or design, so it is vital to choose a color that will represent an identity effectively.
“Research reveals people make a subconscious judgment about a person, environment, or product within 90 seconds of initial viewing and that between 62% and 90% of that assessment is based on color alone.”
- Why Color Matters
(via SwissMiss)
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