The brands we choose reflect how we see ourselves
Each day we make thousands of conscious and sub-concussion decisions about the brands we wish to include in our lives. Our choice of which brands we choose to connect-with is often a reflection of how we see ourselves and how we wish the world to see us. Some of these brand associates are more overt than others, but when mapped as a whole they create a sense of personal brand identity. ‘Brand Mapping’ as we call it forms part of the Insights process we use on our commercial projects. Brand mapping helps us to immerse our thinking into the lives of target markets our clients’ brands wish to connect with truly and deeply.
Here’s my brand map for Christmas Day 2009.
Try creating your own brand map, or have some of your closest clients and customers track theirs — the results are guaranteed to be interesting. Send us your maps, we’d love to see them too.
David Ansett, Brandamentalist
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Graphic Design / Brand Agency Melbourne
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David Ansett’s Brand Map concept is such a simple and powerful tool. Like a person on a diet writing down everything he actually eats during a day, the Brand Map shows us what symbols we actually allow in and integrate into our daily lives, not what we think we do. It’s an axiom of social science that research subjects are poor reporters of their own behavior. Enter the Brand Map and we have a starting point, in context, for exploring the connection between the “daily brands” we choose and the meaning we attach to them.
Add: Chocolate for breakfast? I like it. I also, in a sick way, identify with the Uniball/Moleskine combo at daybreak. I need a vacation.
I love how you mapped the brands over time. It really creates a great contextual understanding of what was happening that day that can really be looked at and understood. Too many charts just don’t say what they’re intending, this is way cool.
Craig, Thanks for the feedback — it’s a great tool and as you rightly point-out, it begins to shed light on the gap between the way people think they engage with brands, and how they actually do.
Craig, yep, chocolate for breakfast on Christmas day. It wasn’t until later as I transposed my notes from the day that I even realized — part of the beauty of the process.
Giles, the map works so well to an extent because of the simple graphic nature of all good diagrams. When it’s used as the basis for exploration around brand motivation and rationale for loyalty it becomes even more interesting.
Clever, but tragic way to look at christmas day.
I agree Christine — and it was my Christmas Day. I was torn between the fascination of what the mapping was revealing and the sense that it was no-where near the spirit of the day. But then, that’s what gave it a bit of an edge.