Wishing you and yours a truly, deeply festive season from all of us.
It is that time of the year when the age old question is asked by children all over the world, do you believe in Santa?

Santa is an amazing brand in many ways. It heavily relies on a vast number of brand ambassadors from parents to department store Father Christmases to deliver the brand, whilst at the same time lacking authenticity as most of the world doesn’t actually believe in it.

Despite all this the Santa brand has brilliant storytelling, an instantly recognizable brand visual language, creates a powerful sense of brandticipation and consistency of brand experience – I don’t know about you but my December 25ths have a definite groundhog day feel to them.

The Santa brand continues to capture the hearts and minds of hundreds of millions of people – perhaps making it the most powerful brand in the world. And with a share of the wallet estimated $450 billion plus of Christmas spending in the US alone each year, I’d love to see Interbrand calculate a value for Santa’s brand equity.

For those interested in the exercise of brand thinking with a touch of Ho Ho Ho, take a look at the Santa Brand Book from Quietroom we came across this week:

Here is an online presentation of the Santa Brand Book or you can also download the complete PDF.
Thank you to the Quietroom for bringing a little brand joy to the world.

If you’d like to talk to some people who spend way too much of their life eating, sleeping, thinking about brand
give us a call.

Cassandra Gill
Director of Design.

Recently on a trip to Europe I had the pleasure of hearing a presentation by American author and strategy consultant Joseph Pine on authenticity in branding. Pine has co-authored several books in the brand space. Namely the ‘Experience Economy’ and his more recent offering simply titled ‘Authenticity’.

Pine believes that people increasingly evaluate the world in terms of real and fake, based on their own views of what is and is not authentic. ‘Real’ is important for many consumers because of the role brands play in confirming their desired or perceived self-image.

But distinguishing between real and fake is not always easy. At a recent brand workshop we were conducting with a regional wine and food group in country Victoria one of the participants, a successful micro-brewery operator, was bemoaning the fact that the very large commercial breweries attempt to position some of their brands as artisan inspired boutique beers. It makes it tough for the ‘real’ artisans when the big commercial brands mimic their boutique cues.

Joseph Pine raised a few axioms that he thinks is relevant to authenticity. Firstly, he believes if you are authentic, then you don’t have to say you’re authentic. Related  to this is it’s easier to be authentic if you don’t say you’re authentic. Secondly, if you say you are authentic, then you better be authentic. Thirdly, and interestingly, he believes it’s easier to render offerings authentic, if you acknowledge they are inauthentic.

Heritage and years since having been established is frequently used as a way of claiming some sense of authenticity. It for this reason the I loved the two retail offerings pictured above, I came across in Berlin. To a large extent they apply Pine’s third axiom and claim their authenticity by poking fun at their years of establishment.

Peter Singline
(Real or Fake….?)

All Brands Have Meaning
Whether carefully and strategically considered or by default, all brands hold associated meanings in the minds of the market place. Well considered brands establish a competitive brand proposition (their brand strategy) with layers of meaning to both differentiate themselves from their competitors and to connect with their audience. These brands reinforce their meaning through all of their actions or brand touch points and their brand design. As a brand agency we help brands to define their meaning and create their unique brand design for all their communications in order to create a consistent association with these layers of meaning in the hearts and minds of their customers.

adidas Vs Nike
Today we compare the brand associations of spots apparel icons adidas & Nike.

A Snapshot of Brand Association
The clever people at Brand Tags have been busy collecting a comprehensive list of more than 1.7 million associations that people from around the globe have with brands. The result is a unique opportunity for those brands to compare the meaning and messages of their brand communication strategy with the brand associations of a cross section of the market.

A Comparison of Brand Associations
As to be expected, both brands have a high level of association with terms such as ‘shoes’ and ‘sports’, but interestingly, from their they depart into some interesting and differentiated territory. Both by design and through unintended association, the two sports apparel brands have quite distinctive meanings with the market. Interestingly adidas‘ German heritage has a strong association, where-as Nike is seen as a global brand without a clear link to any particular country.
What I find most astounding is given the insane amount of investment these two brands, but especially Nike plow into endorsements for the highest profile athletes on the planet, only Nike with Jordan at No.8 retain any significant brand association relative to these other more dominant associations.

The adidas Brand
adidas is clearly associated with soccer. The predominance of the association with the word ‘soccer’ suggests the associations have a North American (and possibly Australian) skew as most of the globe refers to the world game as football. Perhaps as a result of its European (German) heritage – certainly be strategic design, adidas (always spelled with a lower case ‘a’) has a stronger link to football than to any other sport. adidas’ German heritage too is recognized with a strong association, linking the brand to the positive aspects of quality and European history.
The first association with adidas‘ visual language comes-in at brand association No. 7 with the word ‘stripes’. This suggests adidas has the potential to strengthen the role their stipes plays in theri brand communication to increase the level of association with their proprietary visual property.

The most distinctively unique associations with the adidas brand flow from the fountain of cool. With the association of ‘sneakers’ and No.4 and ‘Cool’ at No.6 we get a sense of the level of cred adidas has developed strategically over the years. Further association with Rappers Run DMC is reflected further down the list of brand associations due to the preference of Run DMC for wearing the sports shoe and their track; ‘My adidas’.
adidas continue to imbue their brand with cool through creative collaborations with musicians and artistssuch as longtime partner, French artist Fafi. Using adidas products as the canvas for her well-known, whimsical graphics, Fafi brings her street styles to an adidas range of footwear and apparel for girls.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Nike Brand
The association of the Nike brand are enough to make any brand designer proud as punch. The two strongest Nike brand associations are ‘Swoosh’ and ‘Just do it’, reflecting just how effective Nike has been in establishing and owning these two unique brand properties. Regardless of what follows, we have to acknowledge any brand who achieves that level of recognition of identity and positioning.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you’d like some help to define the meaning for your brand and create your communications in order to create a consistent association with these layers of meaning in the minds of their customers, why not drop us a line?

David Ansett, Brandamentalist
For regular updates of our brand thinking follow me on Twitter.
Brand Designers

London’s aBuzz About ‘Unpackaged‘
London has long been one of the worlds greatest retail cities – a place where new concepts are launched and sunk every day with barely a ripple to mark their passing. As they say in the classics – ‘If you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere…’. Into this buzzing retail landscape, old school food store ‘Unpackaged‘ was quietly launched four years ago as a market stall and over the ensuing years has grown to become a much loved and powerful little retail brand in a charming shop at 42 Amwell Street, London.

Great Brands Are Spoken About
What began with little fanfare has slowly but surely become a full symphony of brand reputation as media and customers alike have gone ‘bonkers’ for the brand. Unpackaged has been featured on BBC Breakfast, BBC London News, Channel 5 News, Capital Radio, BBC Radio London, Radio 4’s PM program, Radio Romania, CBS Weekend News, The Independent, The Guardian, The Observer, The Evening Standard, Style Will Save Us, The Telegraph Magazine, Time Out, The Daily Express, Design Week, Wallpaper.com, Metro, thelondonpaper, The Islington Gazette, The Islington Tribune, Packaging News, The Grocer, Which Magazine and lots of green blogs. Their vintage tea cup candles have been in Vogue and Catherine was voted number 32 in the Observer Food Monthly Top 40 Eco Food Heroes.

Tracking the Tide of Traditional Sentiment
By fortune of timing or stroke of strategic brilliance, Unpackaged has floated to success on a stream of traditional sentiment. In the global brand landscape of the last two years, few trends have been seen as consistently or strongly as a return to embracing old fashioned values. Brands across the spectrum that connect with our sense of a safer, calmer time when life seemed less complicated and more in our control have benefited from a time of vast global uncertainty.

Step into the picture Unpackaged – a store that looks and feels like the corner grocer of our collective childhood, a brand who’s values reflect those of a more grounded mindset and who’s very reason for being seems to bring a sense of calm and peace. In their own words; “We want to make it easy for our customers to do the right thing – the right thing for themselves and for the environment.”

The Visual Language of Brand Design
From the simple, traditional type design of the brand mark to hand-written blackboard on the footpath, every visual expression of the Unpackaged brand has been carefully designed to tell the brand story. The store interior, the theater of the retail space, even the unbranded packaging and merchandise have been sensitively stage managed by the brand designers. The quality of the brand design and the careful attention to design detail turn this traditional concept into a contemporary retail brand experience complete with multiple unique brand properties available to be leveraged to the advantage of the business.

They say great brands are built on great products – differentiated offers that have a unique customer benefit ‘baked-in’. From conception to the very last scrap of hand-lovingly designed execution, Unpackaged is a remarkable example of this brand principle.

If you’d like to have a chat about how to bake greatness into your brand, give us a call – together we can build something as unique as it is successful.

David Ansett, Brandamentalist
If you’d like daily updates of our brand thinking, you can follow me on Twitter here.
Brand Design.

The Rising Tide of Brand Strategy Speak
It seems the brand and marketing industries are no more immune to the rising tide of ‘business speak’ than any other industry. Over the last year I’ve collected examples from around our brand agency and the web and researched the trends to bring you a list of my favorites. The good news is I think you’ll find them as imaginative and entertaining as they are informative.

Egonomics, Satsficing and other Freaks of  the New Brand Speak

Allodoxaphobia. Fear of opinions. Brands suffering this phobia will wither and die on the vine.

Baked-in brands. Those with an intrinsic value to their customers which as a result don’t require traditional advertising

Beamvertising. Guerrilla projections – brand messages and ads projected onto buildings in urban areas, usually from a moving vehicle. A powerful new brand design canvas from Santiago, Chile.

Blank Brand Canvas. Previously unidentified and un-utilized brand communication opportunity, ie. ‘Your out of office reply is a blank brand canvas – if i ran a juice co. mine would say: “out picking berries for our new summer berry smoothie.”’

Brand Acceleration. The Starbucks brand is 13 years old, Maxwell House is 108 – enough said.

Bold Brand Gesture. A brand communication or experience driven from your brand DNA making a particularly memorable impression through a combination of brand relevance, originality and uniqueness.

Brand decode. Breaking the visual code of brand design that sits beneath all categories and markets in order to successfully position a brand’s corporate image relative to its competitors.

Brand Mapping. Visualisation of the brands an individual consciously or subconsciously chooses to reflect themselves.

Brandthropology. The study of the laws of nature applied to brand extensions, especially for FMCG products.

Disruptive Branding. Paradigm busting mind-set providing a competitive advantage to any business not locked-into a straight jacket corporate mindset.

Egonomics. ‘Me branding’ – a fading trend in many ways the opposite to the growing trend of Ethonomics; ‘We branding.’

Emotionomics. The use of emotional connection through brand strategy and brand image to build commercially successful brands.

Farmwashing. Derisive term for big food companies who attempt to give the brand image of their mass-produced fare a dollop of fresh-farmed, country authenticity

Fameball. C-grade celeb with zero redeeming talents, no conscience and a shameless, unquenchable desire for fame.

Flashmob. Seemingly random but usually choreographed guerrilla experiential marketing performances that pop-up in public spaces to create memorable brand gestures.

Food Insecurity. Trend driving consumers to grow more of their own vegies, herbs, fowl, etc.

Fighter Brands. High risk, high reward brand strategy to knock-out cut-price competition and protect a premium market positioning.

Frugal Fatigue. People tired of saving their money due to the recession begin to loosen the purse strings.

Green graffiti. where street art and the environment collide, a new canvas for brand communication appears:

Greenwashing. Re-branding old, often inferior products as environmentally friendly.

Hackintosh. Apple fanatics hacking a cheap notebook and muscling it-up into mac a clone.

Hyperfoods. Superfoods, health drinks, added-value foods that improve well-being, prevent disease & the effects of ageing.

Hyperlocal. Brands of any size that customise their offer & tailor their communications to individual & unique markets.

Joywashing. Brands highlighting the positive and optimistic dimensions of their offer to appeal in the face of the recession.

Luxury Shame. Reflecting a conservatism towards outward displays of luxury consumerism.

Masterchef Effect. The popularity of foodie TV programs is positively impacting the health of food brands across the spectrum.

Mom & Popism. Individual micro retail that creates a unique collective community

Microsizing. Backlash to supersizing trend; TGI Fridays in the us has ‘right portion, right price’ menu – dishes 1/3 smaller and 30% cheaper.

Multiplicity. Describes the many layers and dimension of meaning brands need to connect. Also totally forgettable Michael Keaton film.

Nudevertising. When supermodels take it all off for a cause.

Review Revolution. Social media provides a real-time snapshot of what people are thinking, feeling & reviewing around the world becoming a new and powerful influencer of consumer behavior.

Satisficing. Sacrificing brand richness to get broad stakeholder approval – the quickest way to bland your brand and corporate image.

Simplexity. The answer to the challenges of Multiplicity – Simple solutions to complex brand problems.

Staycation. Recession-driven trend in which consumers are opting to stay-in rather than go out.

Toyobaru. Subaru announces a new hybrid sports car to be built in conjunction with Toyota.

Tryvertising. New breed of product placement in the real world, introducing your goods and services into the daily lives of potential customers in a relevant way.

Womenomics. The economic/brand/design/market/political power of women – you get the picture.

If you have more Brand Speak examples I’d love you to email them to me.
If you’d like some help unraveling the complexities of brand speak and figuring out what it all means for your brand, why not get in touch.

David Ansett, Brandamentalist
Graphic Design Melbourne.
If you’d like daily updates of our brand thinking, you can follow me on Twitter here.

A Packaging Icon
Few brands boast packaging that has gained iconic status – the ability for cultures all around the world to identify the product purely from the form of its bottle. Coke has long understood the brand equity within the proprietary bottle shape, maintaining the authenticity of their packaging as it has evolved over the years.

Here’s a photo that shows the evolution from Coke’s first bottle, through to their current packaging – a snapshot of the fascinating visual history of this most valuable brand property.

If you’d like some help with identifying and developing unique properties for your brand, why not give us a call.

David Ansett, Brandamentalist.
If you’d like daily updates of our brand thinking, you can follow me on Twitter here.

At the end of a long hard day have you ever sat back and dreamt of escaping the constraints of modern life? I know I have. It’s what makes all the sea change programs and stories so appealing. So when recently I found myself watching a TV ad that set out to appeal to exactly that sentiment, I was intrigued. It was long at 60 seconds, but was well produced with stunning imagery.

The ad began by showing a baby swimming, this is the freedom we are all born with.

Then the images became grey and hum drum. This is the reality of our lives. The baby is soon behind the bars of a cot, a man is just one of dozens sitting in identical work stations in an open office, miserable commuters are standing on a packed train etc. You get the picture.

But wait, there is hope. The mood of the ad lifted. Imagine a world without borders, a world where you can cycle off to the horizon down a sunny country lane, flowers bloom, a girl laughs as she is soaked by a hose, a man dives into an azure blue ocean… I get ready for the punchline, it’s got to be Queensland, or New Zealand or at the very least a brand who will offer me the secret to a wonderful, rich and carefree life.

Roll end frame and the big reveal – it’s LG and it’s an ad for a TV.

Sure it’s a really nice TV, from a really good company. In fact it’s a borderless TV, the latest innovation from a company renowned for it. The ad signs off with ‘Life’s Good’ so there is a connection to the LG brand there. But for me this is a case of an advertiser getting carried away by a big budget, feel-good ad concept and loosing sight of their strategically-driven brand strategy in all the excitement.

But the thing is LG has spent many years and many millions of dollars building equity around ‘Life’s Good’ by showing they’re innovative in everything they do and that the technology they deliver enhances the quality of the life you lead today. Their ads heavily feature LG technology in the home, busy improving the quality of life and demonstrating that ‘Life’s Good’ is more than just a punchline. The creation of their brand image has been consistent and I love LG and their products, I’ve been a great admirer of their ads, but for me this ad misses the mark. From the perspective of a brand building professional, there are few things more frustrating than seeing a brand that’s invested so much in building a unique market proposition and a strong brand image, distracted from their path by the glittering prize of a flash ad. Have a look at the ad and let us know what you think.

As an agency we spend much of our time helping clients to build brands that shine through in the creative process. If you’d like to talk with ua about how we can help make your brand shine, give us a shout.

Malcolm Harvey

I got home one evening recently and I had 4 envelopes in the post box. They were all pretty much the same size, but there the similarities ended.

The first envelope was plain, brown and unaddressed, except for the ominous warning ‘To the Home Owner’. The second was a plain white window envelope addressed to me. The third had the brand mark of my mobile phone provider and the fourth the logo of the travel agent we went on holiday with six months ago and carried a message ‘Exclusive offers and packages for our VIP customers’.

So I took out my ‘stethoscope’ and  listened for a brand heart beat from each envelope.

Envelope 1 – no, dead ,dead,dead – I didn’t even bother to open it, life’s too short.

Envelope 2 – for a moment there I thought I detected a beat…. I opened it but my level of expectation was set at ‘likely to disappoint’… my spirits rose briefly though, it was from my car dealer reminding me that it was time to get a service… but there was  no offer and the model listed was the wrong one. The brand was briefly resuscitated but died in the ambulance.

Envelope 3 – now there was definitely a sign of life. I have a great mobile phone, I’m always after the latest models and I’m on the top plan because I need all the bells and whistles – I like the brand because it makes me feel really cool. Uh-oh! The letter screams out ‘ Pre-paid plans from $29 per month’… as I switch off the life support.

Envelope 4 – The brand is alive and well. This is a really smart pack. With a family I’m looking for deals and yet I still want to feel important. I open it and the brand heart is still pumping strongly. The letter references my last holiday, the detail is correct, it makes me an offer at the same hotel, and at the same time of year, and there are similar offers at other hotels and destination types. This is really smart marketing combining direct marketing and brand skill sets — even more to be commended because travel and tourism is such a competitive market – I’ll buy a similar holiday this year to the one I did last year, but unless I’ve fallen in love with the travel agents brand I may go elsewhere. This is brand in the hand.

The lessons here may seem simple, but they are the basis of bringing your brand to life when you communicate to your customer.

1. Be smart about using what you know about your customer ( your data) to make them feel special and to demonstrate that you believe you have a relationship with them, that is alive and well. This will have a positive effect on their loyalty to your brand.
2. Be smart about using  your values, personality, look and feel (your brand) to emotionally engage the customer —  they came to you in the first place because they liked your words, deeds and how you looked.

Now go and check the pulse of that communication you’re about to send out — is it saying things about you, you don’t like — or missing out on saying something you really should be saying ?

Please note no brands were harmed in writing this blog — if you’d like to get a better understanding of how to get your brand message delivered effectively to your customers — give us a call.

Malcolm Harvey

Continuing the theme from an earlier blog, which sang the praises of enduring storytelling of the comic series Archie, here is another example of superb creativity expressed through a comic series. What is interesting here is that this particular comic series truly drives brand preference. It is a Japanese Manga comic series  with a very novel plot. Called “The Drops of the Gods” it follows the main character Shizuku as he learns about wine, allowing the reader to do the same.

At the start of the series, Shizuku has rebelled against his father, a famous wine critic, by refusing to drink wine and working instead for a brewery. Suddenly, though, his father dies and leaves in his will a description of 12 wines he considers the world’s best, comparing them to the disciples of Jesus. Pitted against his adopted brother, who happens to be a sommelier, Shizuku must catch up in his knowledge so he can find the 12 wines mentioned in his father’s will and inherit his father’s vast cellar.

Created and written by a middle-aged Japanese sister-and-brother team, Yuko Kibayashi, 49, and her brother, Shin, 46, writing under the pseudonym Tadashi Agi, they came up with the series while collaborating on another comic four or five years ago. Neither has any professional wine-tasting credentials; they say they are interested not in using the sommelier’s jargon but rather in describing wine from the average drinker’s perspective. But they do smack of authenticity. They have long been wine lovers — so much so that they rent an apartment just to stock their 3,000-bottle collection and pay for an earthquake-warning system to protect it. Passion is a great driver and they are driven. The comic — which appears every Thursday in Japan in a magazine called the Weekly Morning and has been compiled into 17 books thus far.

Since coming out of nowhere four to five years ago, this 20-something Japanese would-be sommelier has quickly become the most influential voice in Asia’s wine markets. In Japan, wine sellers grab copies of the magazine as soon as it comes out on Thursdays, quickly showcasing a featured wine in their stores or on their Web sites. People regularly enquire about specific wines that are referenced in the comic series.

The wines featured in the comic are selected by the Kibayashis, who say they have no sponsor. They do, however, accept free bottles from wine importers, although no guarantee that they will appear in the storyline (but a great way to add to their wine collection and force them to build their property portfolio!). In general, French wines have gotten the most attention in the series. The Kibayashis are unabashed Francophiles who say they do not feel American wines have the Old World’s depth. But the good news is that some Australian wines cut the mustard. In fact as reported in The Age recently the comic has been extolling the virtues of d’Arenberg’s 2006 Laughing Magpie, hand-cultivated shiraz viognier blend. The story has the main character Kanzaki traveling aboard to sample the Laughing Magpie, resulting in the following description of the wine, ‘ it’s spicy and overflowing with energetic life. It’s both exotic and made for normal people at the same time.’

And you guessed it, the Laughing Magpie is in deed laughing. The 200 bottles available in Japan sold out immediately, and since then demand has exceed supply, with d’Arenberg winery having to move into an early release of the 2007 vintage.

The Drops of the Gods is a wonderful example of imagination and creativity.
It has developed a superb story plot to enable it to explore the joys of wine discovery. Forget, that it is a comic or that it is about wine, simply take it as a challenge. A challenge to create an imaginative vehicle or medium that allows you to evolve a storyline for your brand that is both flexible and engaging. Five years ago in Japan there was no comic series called the Drops of the Gods. Imagination has produced an amazingly powerful voice on all things wine. Where will your brand storytelling magic reside?

If you would like to share a glass of the Laughing Magpie and kick around some ideas on how best
to evolve your brand’s storyline get in touch. At the very least you will get to enjoy a few Drops of
the Gods.

Pete

The hidden code
All brands project an image through the visual language of their brand identity. Customers and markets use the code contained within their visual language to make logical and emotional associations that drive their responses to trust, lust, aspire and desire the brand… or not. A well designed brand identity utilizes the visual language code of its market to pin-point the positioning it wishes to own in the hearts and minds of its customers.

When we talk about a brand’s visual language we refer to its brand mark (logo), brand colours and typefaces, and every visual expression of the brand on-line and off including; advertising campaigns, packaging, store design, product names, web site, uniforms, and marketing and shareholder communications. The scope of visual language is unique for every different brand.

Our Visual Decode Process
At Storm and Brand DNA we have become masters of the art of decoding the visual language of brands. This process plays a critical role in the way we position brands once we have defined their strategy and established their market proposition. The visual decode process provides the science that allows us to communicate a brand’s proposition, market positioning and personality based-on the visual cues of its brand identity. The process framework also allows us to provide clients with an informed assessment of the cues currently being provided to the market by their brand identity. The insights provided by this process are often surprising, always informative, and provide a valuable tool for organisations to tweak, adjust or overhaul their brand identity to better serve the objectives of the business.

Grill’d for Success
The Grill’d chain of burger stores in Australia are a case study in how to build a fast growing business by creating a new market segment and launching a highly-tuned brand into the over-crowded fast food market. Here we review how the Grill’d visual language positions the brand within its competitive marketplace?

Company: Grill’d
Market: fast food
Brand Canvases: Identity, Signage, Restaurant environment, Product naming, Packaging, On-line, Experiential marketing, Franchisee marketing

Code of Colour
Grill’d‘s primary colour is red. Red has a strong fast food heritage *(think KFC, Burger King, McDonalds, Nandos to name a few). Whilst not providing differentiation, Grill’d use red to effectively communicate which market they’re in, whilst taking advantage of the eye catching properties of the colour red. The smart use of white reversing out of the red for the Grill’d brand mark provides a cleaner, more contemporary and less mainstream look than the competition who typically add a yellow or orange to their palettes.
* In order to differentiate, a brand doesn’t necessarily need to avoid all the visual code cues of the market, it’s more a matter of consciously selecting which parts of the code to adopt, and which to avoid.
The secondary colour palette of ‘toasted burger bun brown’ and black create a unique feel when applied in-store.

Visual Language Code cues provided by Grill’d's brand identity colour palette:
• Fast Food
• Contemporary
• Warm, Rich, Sumptuous

Visual Language Properties
The Grill’d brand’s visual language is rich with unique properties, none more hard working than it’s playful use of illustration. The illustrations have an irreverent, Mambo-like quality to them, providing the Grill’d brand with a defining urban edge. The Grill’d brand mark is a logotype consisting a typeface only with no symbol. The type style is retro inspired, connecting the brand to the golden era of fast food, when the ingredients were pure and unadulterated. At a secondary level, the Grill’d brand identity uses scrawled hand-writing to communicated on walls, bags, menus and uniforms. These elements combine to give the Grill’d brand a look that is unique within the market. This rich palette of visual language allows Grill’d to free-style the application of its brand identity, providing a sense of authenticity and avoiding the ‘plastic wrapped look’ of the major fast food chains.

Visual Language Code cues provided by the visual language properties of the Grill’d brand:
• Retro Fast Food Heritage
• Urban Cred • Ireverant, cheeky personality
• Youthful attitude
• Authentic burger joint, not cookie cutter franchise

Dialing-up the Personality
The Grill’d brand personality comes through loud and clear through all of it’s communications. The Grill’d way of doing things is clearly unique to its competitive market, and whilst it has enough flexibility to remain fresh, relevant and authentic, it all springs from the same well of Grill’d-ness. We cannot complete an assessment of the Grill’d brand’s visual language without covering-off its brand language. Although not strictly part of the visual language, it provides a rich example of the use of rich brand language as a powerful market differentiator. The Grill’d brand language is personality filled with a rich youthful, urban attitude. Product names include the Kung Fu Fighter, the Hot Mama and the Zen Hen. The Grill’d tag line is ‘Healthy Burgers for a Healthy Mind’ and painted on the walls of it’s restaurants are brand positioning slogans like: ‘No drive through, no clowns and no goddamn Colonel’.

Brand positioning cues provided by the brand language of Grill’d:
• Urban Cred
• Ireverant, cheeky personality
• Youthful attitude
• Healthy burger offer

Step 01. Crack your code
Every industry has an underlying visual code that customers utilize to pin-point the position and proposition of the businesses that are competing in that market. Do you understand the code for the market your business is competing in?

Step 02. Clarify your Go-to-Market Proposition
Once you understand the competitive landscape of your marketplace, establish you most competitive position within that landscape. Determine what positions the leading brands occupy? What positions are available that you can own and dominate? Ask yourself, ‘is there a large enough market of customers out there for me to grow my business?’ (McDonalds and Burger King were competing for the burger market, So Grill’d created the Healthy Urban Burger market). And finally, do you have the skills, experience and knowledge to deliver on your go-to-market proposition?

Step 03. Leverage the code of Visual language
Decide which elements of your market’s code of visual language you will leverage, and which you will differentiate with. As a rule of thumb, a new player looking to quickly establish their brand in a market will leverage most of the visual language code of that market, whilst a dominant player wishing to create a challenger position (similar to the Virgin approach) will leverage as few of the cues of a market’s visual language as possible.

Don’t try this at Home
The process of decoding, development of a go-to-market proposition, and leveraging of your markets visual code can be complex. Our process and skills have been honed over nearly twenty years of working with hundreds of brands in almost every different market conceivable. If you find this process to be confusing, get in touch and we’ll help show you the way.

Dave.