BRANDING IS DEAD. LONG LIVE BRANDING

Jean-Honoré Fragonard, *The Swing*, 1767

Branding is the answer. Most agencies aren’t

Recently there has been a backlash on brand initiatives throughout pretty much all industries. CMOs and CEOs have rightfully recognized that big investments in brand strategies, visual refreshes, and expensive, time-consuming evolutions as part of a company’s larger marketing efforts have not moved the needle much — and if so, only marginally. Once repositioned, refreshed, and relaunched, many brands are quickly back to the same margins and the same pre-rebrand numbers. By now we should have realized that neither an actionable brand strategy nor an effective design solution can be successfully developed without immediately considering a product’s quality and promise — and certainly not without considering the fluid nature of technologies through which the brand will communicate. Not recognizing the sensitivity of being able to understand what a product is and what the brand needs to be is the root of the failure. Having worked with the most prestigious agencies as both head of strategy and creative director, and having led global agencies from small to large, I can wholeheartedly say that given the general outdated processes of most agencies the disillusionment in marketing-led branding is completely deserved and understandable.

Let’s explore some of my thinking, as I believe that ‘branding’ in the sense of being an ultimate value exists, but not in the way the mainstream views it — and not in the way it has been delivered up to today by mostly unskilled marketers and co-dependent agencies that simply don’t understand how it actually works. In other words, many lack the training and courage to do something very unique to solve a problem that requires rare skills. With that, I declare that success in branding boils down to the true skill and mastery of extremely rare individuals and studios that can be participants and maintain an objective distance to solve problems simultaneously. A select few people who understand that they are working with dialectic dynamics: With movements that happen in the vision of executives, in parallel in the mechanics of products and ultimately in the heads of customers as brand perception. A mind that has the paradoxical power of spontaneous depth of perception. There are very few constants and many variables, and to recognize the one nucleus in millions of options of what a brand should be to be loved requires a one-in-a-million talent and agency.

Brain Solis, JESS3, Conversation Prism 5, 2024

Marketing is not branding

Without recognizing that marketing is not branding, failure is imminent. Marketing is about selling something. Branding is about being something. Marketing is about numbers. Branding is about emotion. Both need to be aligned and should never be out of sync. To exist for the sake of selling will always fail and defies the very definition of quality. For years, I’ve heard brand consultants — specifically brand strategists — call themselves “marketers.” Never, ever hire an individual who confuses the two. Branding and marketing need to be completely symbiotic and in harmony with one another, but they should never be seen as the same thing. Marketing will never create love — at most, it will conjure up appreciation or entertainment. If you want your brand to be loved, you need to connect on a deeper level than a price or a deal. Branding is about creating an intuition, a deep connection, something so clear and true to its promise that you can’t help but fall in love. It’s about giving something a soul. Finding that one completely actionable, direct, core nucleus that brings about desire and serves to justify the connection.

Marketing is about taking the soul of the brand and finding ways to popularize it — exploring the most appropriate opportunities to enable love to happen. Branding is the Why and What, and Design is the How. Marketing is about utilizing or transforming infrastructures of communication to do the brand justice. In effect, with the analytical historiography of marketing leading the charge, ‘pleasing’ takes priority. Things have become so dull and without any edge, point, or angle to wake the customer up. Brands are failing because, of course, no one is excited to have (or worse, no one can even imagine that there should be) a piercing element to an identity or a campaign, something to shake us up and engage our senses. Brand expression which exists to serve short term marketing goals is unremarkable, just pretty wallpaper — and painfully, it’s the majority of what we see today.

“You are not a drop in the ocean; you are the entire ocean in a drop” Rumi, 1273

A brand is the soul of the product’s body

From tech to consumer products, from hospitality to finance: no brand can be desired without a product that holds up to the brand’s promise. Aesthetics should never lead the conversation. An individual’s taste has no place here. This is about giving form to a body that has its own character, purpose, and needs. Design is in service of giving the brand story, our aforementioned nucleus, a form and should only be considered successful if it does so completely and unmistakably. Strategy, design, experience, and marketing need to be of one mind. And there can be no liberties in extending meaning through abstractions or patching up missing pieces through visuals.

Agencies have completely dropped the ball here and fallen into the twin traps of both not pressing strategists on actionability and pushing designers away from decoration. The ambiguous, safe cover of interpretation is particularly dangerous here as things can easily become vague and nonspecific, the exact opposite of what brand success aims for to be effective: to tell a story as quickly and as clearly as possible. Interpretation is a noble thought that often serves as a substitute for art which fails to deliver intention and effect. When was the last time anyone saw a logo that is courageously direct?

A good example would be the recent downgrading of Boston’s Houghton Mifflin Harcourt identity, which went from a clear, universal statement about discovery and curiosity (courtesy of the author) to a generic, confusing, and weak abstraction that lacks any form of statement or belief. This is not to say we have to be literal. In skilled and masterful hands, abstraction can become an ultimate clarifier. The connection of the product to the brand and the promise they have to each other should never be underestimated. If we can create experiences that 100% represent the product, then we don’t need branding — and that really would be the best branding of all time.

Marc Hohmann / Lippincott, HMH, 2014–2024

Large agencies are too conventional for our new world(s)

We’re living in many worlds now, with microcosms of generations popping up every day: trad-wife TikTok stars, luxury hypemen, meme brokers, GRWM skincare vloggers, hyperactive Twitch streamers. Big scales and slow processes work against us. They functioned well for one-world idealists in need of central broadcasting, but in a time of fluidity and media channels as oceans, we need to balance true skill with speed. As research has become more compressible, media-centric, and immediate, it has simultaneously become more substantial.

The creative palette has changed from design techniques to holistic storytelling through accessing, curating, and using as much visual media as possible. Strategists are design thinkers as much as data analysts. The days of many mediocre ‘experts’ mulling over decks are over. Get to the core fast. Build strategic hypotheses and prototype design with personal, agile teams that are critical and have the openness of thought and the undeniable power of judgment it takes to create brand love. New agility brings choices on how to structure and staff projects and have them be mutable to change all the time. Access all resources and screen them to narrow down to use the best of the hundreds available. This is not about careering and years-in-agencies to get up the food chain. The days of Mad Men are gone. With the right makeup of real-time know-how and experience, we no longer have to sacrifice quality for speed. This means establishing an undeniable foundation for clients that lets them make the right marketing decisions which in return means connecting the brand.

Would you rather hire an old-world agency that delivers a convoluted mash of mission, purpose, values, and interpretive design solutions in six months — or work with an agile firm that gives you a clear and actionable strategic brand foundation and bespoke, ready-to-go, experiential brand assets in one month?

One key can open all doors

Once CMOs really understand the value of branding outside of being a risky investment and just an OKR box to be checked — and recognize the immediate ways it can be conceived and substantiated — they will find a new and true appreciation for how contemporary branding can intelligently inform marketing tactics and drive the bottom line. The downturn of and disillusionment with large, ineffective brand programs, evolves, and refreshes is justified. The avoidance of developing a brand story with which customers can emotionally connect in order to believe in a product or service isn’t. But how much does a brand really need beyond understanding itself? Agencies have long failed to hire the right talent and scope realistically, not to mention distill and focus their services and products to match the needs of modern market dynamics. They add on to the old ways instead of rebuilding their operating system to rely less on guidelines but more on adaptability. Today, brand consistency is only golden if it addresses the soul and just only the outer dress. Unfortunately, most agencies are still operating top-down and slow internal hierarchies with barriers of pedantic brand formalism instead of fluid and dynamic collaboration. Their internal, hierarchical complexities distract the process even further.

But let’s make it simple. In the end, what’s this all about? To have customers believe in you and to have you become a symbol for that belief. If we know what it is that people can believe in and what your brand can deliver on, all we need to find is a way to show that very thing as directly as possible — or maybe even find a symbol for it. It’s always complicated and difficult, but with a unique mix of skill and know-how, it can be fast, compact, and of utmost value.

DON'T CONFUSE VITALITY WITH COMPLACENCY

The art of fostering ambitious brand teams

Oskar Schlemmer ‘Interior with 5 figures’, 1928

Embarking on a journey and moving forward together

Lately I’ve been speaking to quite a few design agencies who ask me to help them achieve the goal of becoming more relevant in terms of process and product. I’m assisting their evolution by inventing smart and minimally disruptive processes and ways to become more prolific and business driving. Having led agencies and internal teams over the years equips me with insight, and I pretty much spend most of my time thinking about the challenges and pitfalls of composing THE team and THE agency of today. Every company wants to stay relevant and only few have the courage to put teams together that have what it takes. The heart of the problem is that we’re almost always dealing with firms and teams who still are, or once have been, successful. Unfortunately, along with their new objective of evolving with the times, their success (and a deceptive sense of security based on the glory of ‘proven methods’) becomes their worst enemy.

The danger is to confuse a comfortable ‘culture’ with an ambitious one. Teams are not at full throttle just because they remain in a static, comfortable zone, but because they manage the challenges on the journey they have embarked on together. They are moving forward together in the same vessel and need to reach a goal. That goal should be to achieve respect and influence through their work. The whole idea of embarking and moving is to keep adapting and evolving as the new and constantly changing terrain of their journey requires them to modify processes and tactics to reach their destination. This surely requires harmony, but it also requires the willingness to let go of what has previously worked so well. The point is, we always move on and then move even further.

Design means to solve the difficult questions; not to sustain a harmony that avoids them

The captain, the Creative Director or Brand Leader needs to keep the crew motivated through appealing to their individual passions and spark their curiosities. His/her objective towards them is one word: Vitality. Vitality means not keeping everything comfortable as is, but to continuously inspire to move forward. To bring infectious courage and new convictions for the teams to believe in. We need to be critical of yesterday’s successes as tomorrow will require a totally new set of tools to move forward. Teams and clients need to constantly ask the difficult questions. We are strategists and designers to solve the difficult questions and not to avoid them. A team member who is too inflexible to be critical may be a comfortable friend, but would you lean on them to bring anything new? Or would you call on him to seek out new opportunities?

Recently, I’ve been speaking to two successful agency leaders whose courage to introduce new thinking quickly crumbled as soon as a mid-level director in their organization showed concerns as it would question his/her position. The reasoning on the leaders’ end was that they need a happy, unchallenged director more than they needed change. What a silly thing! I say challenge the director to evolve and reignite his/her passion for the craft and business! And as leaders, create an environment that values curiosity and courage as a glue that holds culture together. Complacency should never be confused with vitality. Not taking risks should never pass as harmony.

Oskar Schlemmer ‘Four figures and a cube’ 1923

Reaching relevance through vitality

What can a client get from an agency that lacks ambition? Not much. Expectations can easily turn predictable. We are no longer in a world where relationships mean a blind commitment that is disconnected from the world’s technological and social advances. The soul of an agency or successful brand team is relevance in time. There is no such thing as an approach or scheme that works now and forever. That is the very reason why a brand agency or an internal brand team is consulted in the first place - to help customers to stay confident as the world moves forward. That would require to pass confidence from the giver to the receiver. Are you confident your team is vital?

BRANDING TECH BUSINESSES

Many tech companies have great products but what about their brand?

Following almost three years of working in Silicon Valley and after many conversations on branding with both startups and post-IPO tech companies, I have made a few observations that I’d love to share with fellow brand and marketing aficionados. Please indulge in my very direct assessment below and hopefully some of my thinking will help provoke new conversations that will lead new areas of focus for marketing teams.

A good looking website is not enough

The most fundamental discovery I have made in the tech space is that there is a general lack of understanding how branding works and its relationship to design and business strategy. Most tech companies seem very much in the dark on how strategic branding can affect the bottom line. The majority of conversations subscribe to the thinking that a cute looking website combined with a dynamic campaign schedule, and a disruptive product marketing plan are enough to build a much loved brand. That couldn’t be further from how brands successfully connect to people, and I think it is the single biggest mistake most tech players make when it comes to resourcing the composition of internal design teams. It’s also the one flaw that gets harder and harder to address as companies evolve. Sure, edgy state of the art graphics and clever billboards will get businesses noticed for a minute, and repeated messaging about new features keep the conversation going. However, these types of qualities and assets are table-stakes in a world where 75% of tech companies have good looking websites and clever messaging headlines which, nowadays, can be produced by a dime a dozen agencies overnight. Fresh graphics can quickly bring an added value of hipness but without serving a purpose or without connecting to a deeper story, even the most polished look adds up to nothing more than just a beauty contest. All of that is NOT branding. Branding is a much larger take-away that speaks to an original essence, and how deep a customer believes in a company or product. So, the question should never be about how one should look like, but about what one needs to do in order to make someone believe. This means for a customer, not just to see and read a marketing asset, but to REALLY believe in the source that’s speaking.

Who are you?

Before any company can decide if a marketing asset or design style is right or wrong, they need to know who they are and what they stand for. They need to know ONE thing before they can do anything, and that one thing is the brand story. Only once we have clearly established who we are, we can make our customers really know us and only then, they will be able to believe in us. The brand story is the agreement between product and all product related marketing experiences. Web-, campaign-, event-, etc- design are all IN SERVICE OF this story and its strategic directives. Many tech firms think that design or the product alone are a story in themselves, but they are not. The common purpose of all design teams in marketing is to support the customer’s takeaway of the contact with the brand. The proof of anything the brand claims will have to be provided by the product. Without a product delivering the reality of a promise, there can be no magic and a brand can never be loved. Particularly, tech firms are so much more able to use design prototyping to explore solutions to test the validity of strategies and by doing so, investigate how their brand story connects best. I’ve noticed that this form of identity “exploration” is generally dismissed in tech as answers here are not easily quantifiable. However, I argue that tech firms can be way ahead on validation as their homepage is their main identity asset. For example, through A/B web-testing, messaging can be prototyped and tested very quickly. Here, we can get robust feedback on brand expression way faster than ever before which means it can provide real time input while a brand is built.

Spend as much time on ‘meaning’ as you do on ‘doing’

“Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” (Jeff Bezos). I believe that to create this brand “halo” is a key success matrix for long term marketing in which design, events, messaging, web, etc. all are part of. Every other tech brand I speak to wants to be a brand like Apple or Tesla - yet very few truly understand what makes those companies so irresistible. Apart from having a great product, a great brand is built by clearly communicating what it stands for. Then it uses design to amplify and clarify that message. (Apple’s legendary “Think Different” campaign comes to mind and in truth, anything from Apple since then has been more or less committed to being direct and clear). I also keep noticing that many tech marketers cannot differentiate between what the product DOES vs. what the product MEANS. In “what it does” is where we need to apply absolute clarity, and in “what it means” we need to create superlative magic. The skill of successful branding lies in the art of a focused balancing of all go-to-market components. Most products in tech are complicated and the market is saturated. Many times I’ve witnessed the temptation of product marketers and sales teams to explain complexities through more complexities. This is where design and language can easily become the enemy of communication. When things become convoluted and abstract, they get noisy and no one will listen.

Truth is where vision and reality meet

Strategically, tech leaders, founders, CEO’s, CMO’s, etc. need to be able to separate subject from object when it comes their brand. At one point, your baby enterprise has grown up past adolescence and needs to take its independent place in the world. It needs to be a fully dimensional entity and be perceived as having its own personality. That means, that the idea that your founder is your brand easily becomes an excuse for not looking at your brand brutally objective and shaping it to be able to communicate on its own. The vision, the history, the legacy, etc. are huge ingredients to successful branding, but the product will always be the main star and that star begs for a super sharp definition to stand on its own. Here as well, the proof of a vision becoming reality comes from communicating business outcomes through messaging tied to stories, and not from any founders’ dreams. I’d say Tesla is a fantastic example of both. If we can combine vision, outcomes, and a society’s need, we have a winning brand. If the brand is too much centered around a personal dream and not enough around people’s needs in the real world, we are only left with empty ambition.

Tech companies need teams that are built for brand success

Finally, in countless cases I’ve noticed that the internal marketing teams of organizations are not built to create great brands. Most of them are set up to separate teams by skill sets and tasks, instead of following a holistic organizing principle based on establishing clarity of message. Situations where product marketers have no clue about hierarchical messaging strategies; web analysts that cannot co-inform writers on what words connect with customers, or identity designers that keep churning out endless symbols to give a sense of formality to features - all that adds to a lack of focus that will end with the confusion of the customer. Product, product marketing, digital design and production, long and short form writers, campaigns, identity, events - all teams need to be aligned on story and purpose, and they need to be in lock step in scaling and translating the same brand story to different audiences, personas, and industries. Consequently, this means new thinking on how to build teams internally and to redefine the responsibilities of the team members. For example, product marketers need to understand the big takeaway of a brand and how to connect that quickly to specific features; events and campaign managers need to understand how the story is told differently depending on the audience yet with the same fundamental take-away; writers and campaign designers need to think as one and need to connect freely with other teams such as web designers, etc. I’ve noticed that most internal marketing resourcing in tech is sadly about solving for isolated roles. In order to build a winning tech brand, we need to reduce internal domains but increase internal networks.

Call me

In summary, tech companies need networks of connected marketing teams that are complete co-conspirators with product teams. BOTH need to be fully aligned on telling the same brand story with the goal to create one brand halo. Only when a business connects the dots and thinks about the larger customer take-away outside of product, web-graphics, events, and campaigns, then it starts thinking of brand. If you ask 50 employees or customers in any organization: “Why us?” and if you get 50 different answers, that operation will never become the brand it wants to be. What I see is an urgent need for tech to think about how clearly their story is communicated and how well it is generally understood by customers. Only if you connect your product and your experiences through your brand, customer love will grow. Do it or hire a brilliant brand director. (Hourly rates apply.)

FORD VS FERRARI

Racing marketing against design

When image overtook product

No other film in recent memory nails the problematic of today’s paradoxical design condition more than 2019’s brilliant Ford vs Ferrari by James Mangold. And I’m talking “design” with a capital D here: product, branding, advertising, architecture, copy writing, etc. are all relevant design disciplines whose paths to crisis have been brought on through convoluted ideas, confused goals, and stiff hierarchies by a marketing monster that in the 60’s was still in its baby steps. In that respect F v F can be viewed as an anti-Mad Men trip, showing us at what point the domain of marketing extinguished the modernist idea of product-led design purpose. We witness how design moved from being a form of “construction” with recursive building blocks of substance and craft towards a reflective construct of image and pretension. There was a time when brand, product, and experience were thought of as one necessary equilibrium and as the image of a brand started to outweigh the disposition of the product, things went off track big time. After spending years in the design, marketing, brand, and technology fields, I can tell you the film’s story arc, characters, and takeaway are engaged in a maelstrom of empirical and artistic forces that are still 100% relevant today. The core premise is a marketing campaign by Ford that pits the brand against Ferrari in the 1966 Le Mans race to construct an image of automotive and industrial superiority.

Proof through courage

The premise above is actually rooted in a courageous idea where a trifecta of Ford (the brand), the car’s design (the product), and a risky real life competition (the experience), ladder up to a clever brand statement that surely would make any customer respect the brand more. There is a moment early in the film when Ford’s Marketing VP Lee Iacocca pushes for delivering a proof of product power through the act of a true performance, and not through verbal marketing fluff: what could be more convincing than Ford being synonymous with speed and dominance by REALLY winning races at Le Mans? Unfortunately, instead of summoning the confidence to design a perfect race car, the Ford CEO immediately opts for making an offer on buying Ferrari only to be turned down. Only Ferrari’s rejection is leading him back to building a Ford race car in hopes to win at Le Mans AND to beat (and shame) Ferrari. This personal vendetta is kicking off a battle in a totally unprecedented marketing arena for two brands of completely different constitutions where the ultimate prize is a definition of a winning product.

The industrial complex vs the family business

A great scene in the early quarter of the film is an announcement by Henry Ford II inside the main production hall. He’s screaming at the workers that Ford is not up to par and is losing market share. This was at a time when a billionaire CEO could actually be huddling with his $80 a month conveyor belt operator and be available to personally coach his workforce. The scene is then brilliantly juxtaposed against what immediately follows - from the reality of the shop Ford II walks into a huge isolated, air conditioned conference room, and his marketing team starts to present ideas that take him from the garage to the world of glitz and glamour. On one side a world of grease and oil, on the other a comfy suite with fantastical ambitions. When we shortly thereafter see Enzo Ferrari’s “office” near Modena, we can’t tell where his home, the garage, and the factory start and end. It’s all the same. Ferrari is delivering a product of elegance without needing a marketing team to construct an image that supersedes the oil and grease. Right off the bat, for Ferrari, there is only one reality: the product. For Ford, there is also a brand position that is less about what the product is but what it could be.

“The red envelope”. Decisions by committee

Too big to scale

Another significant moment is following “the red envelope” that the project manager Carroll Shelby sees being passed inside of Ford’s headquarters. As he witnesses through how many hands it travels through and how many people are involved in decision making, in sharp contrast to Ferrari’s small unit, our perception of scale is put into question: is small actually faster than big? Is a team more efficient than a single leader? Are many ideas more powerful than just one?, etc. For the first time, we feel pity for the scale of Ford as more scale means more voices, approvals and variables. In other words, your scale becomes your own worst enemy. Interestingly, it is the project manager Shelby who remains caught in the middle of both worlds for most of the film as he keeps being stretched between the garage and the conference room. He is handling design, management, and marketing “negotiations”. This role still exists in any innovative design project today and unfortunately, it remains doomed.

Engineering cars vs engineering the winning image.

The true winner

As Enzo Ferrari asks the question about who will have final sign-off on decisions if Ford were to own Ferrari - and as he shuts the door on Ford after hearing the obvious - we already know who will win no matter how the outcome of the race. It will be the brand that fights for freedom of self-governance and not the brand that will use any money or any means to design a perfect car. It is precisely that which puts the halo over brands like Ferrari, and not a photograph of a logo crossing the finishing line. After the final race when Ford wins, the photo opportunities helped the giant to tell a momentary story of success. When we see Enzo Ferrari lose and walk away from the race track, it seems no more profound than him having a bad day at the office. Nothing more. A few months later while Ferrari is back doing exactly what they have always done, we see Carroll Shelby spending his time at a Ford dealership selling cars to ignorant middle aged men who want to buy the image of speed without understanding the passion of design. The effects of a successful ad campaign that he helped to create leave him frustrated and depressed. The image won, the product lost, and so did the sincerity of the Ford brand. One brand going from campaign to campaign, in search for an image that continuously says something new; the other brand letting the product, the design, and the passion BE the marketing.

“Jeep is America's only real sports car.” Enzo Ferrari

Where reality and possibility meet

Paradoxically, a huge enterprise making cars for the masses, and a bespoke high-end atelier do have one thing in common: the need for being clearly understood and a single place in our mind that we can believe in. After the dust settles, what does the Ford brand stand for? Then and today? Accessibility, comfort, affordability, heritage, power...those five things are four things too many. We know what Ferrari stands for - we believed it then and we still love it today. Ford is an iconic American brand like no other. Do young people love the Ford brand of now, and do middle aged Americans like the cars just about enough to stay loyal? At one point even the powerful image of nostalgia will pale next being able to connect in the now. The recipe for brand success remains the same: Embrace the product, find your one true story and you will win.

All photographs © 20th Century Fox

THE TIME TO INVENT IS NOW

Rethinking four marketing factors in a changed world

A live event group exhibition inside Animal Crossing organized by Nichole Shinn that featured new and original works by over 20 contributing artists. Animal Crossing has sold 11.77 million units since March 20th and is one new medium that connects u… — A live event group exhibition inside Animal Crossing organized by Nichole Shinn that featured new and original works by over 20 contributing artists. Animal Crossing has sold 11.77 million units since March 20th and is one new medium that connects us in many unexplored ways.

Vision to action

The way most “leading” brands are marketing themselves inside the current crisis is disappointing and adds to the overarching feeling of being lost at sea. Every next ad I see is a repetition of a flat “A new normal”, “Stay at home”, “Thank you” or “We’re in this together” message that offers no perspective and lacks much needed leadership or courage under pressure. Most messages take a weak route that is drawing on emotional soap-opera like triggers of family, community and sacrifice without using some guts and creativity that would promote INVENTION to project a confident way forward. From brands that have been proclaiming to be ‘on the edge’ of reflecting our daily needs this lack of confidence is a further testament to the monolithic weight of business entities that can only pretend to be agile. They talk fast but do not act fast. And a repackaging of the same old service or product into a pretending to be more relevant one is by far not enough. Overall, most brands have now wasted precious time by failing to go deeper by demonstrating vision. The result will be a lack of preference by the customer as in the customer’s mind, they will be labeled as superfluous.

There are fundamental areas ripe for immediate rethinking. Any brand that is not reporting status on these pressing issues will sink soon or be stranded for good. We need to RETHINK (and consequently INVENT) in the following four areas.

It’s a game of distance. What can we learn?

1) The definition of success in this new world

We need a new manifest on what constitutes value and it may be a simple yet deeply philosophical answer. Obliviously numbers start to take on a different meaning when it is less about stuffing terminals and planes or shops and malls with people, rather than showing them proof of safety based on data. Safety has become an expanded universe. In case of retail, exclusivity needs to be redefined to be more democratic yet with a virtual allure that can generate desire on par with a physical one. (This, for example, could mean that the era of a personal shopper/stylist or advisor for all has begun.) In terms of social success, what makes a virtual clubbing event so exciting that I want to plan my outfit in advance? Without any stake in the game, an Instagram DJ event will not scale to be a success based on likes alone. Finally and most importantly, the fixation of our transactional initiatives needs divergence to include other pay-offs than just a $ bottom line. That may be the ultimate goal but we need to consider many new detours before we can get there.

2) Our established social and business designations and hierarchies

Can we connect people and businesses in a new way? The Covid-19 pandemic forces us to seek a new socioeconomic logic. We need to connect businesses (particularly smaller ones with larger entities) in a way that is not based on business category and obvious commonalities alone. Unrelated businesses could collaborate with a suffering or closed shop or restaurant by using the latter’s now unused spaces and connect them. Linking numerous unused spaces can build a distanced network to create a socially distanced experience. For example, a gallery could build a system of totally unrelated shop’s storefronts and use the city itself as its exhibition “space”. That way, all parties would highlight their function and feed on each other’s success.

3) Human behavior

The most fundamental gauge of predictability has changed. To operate under the assumption that we will not factor in the Covid-19 experience as a new, if not major, driver of our decisions will lead to an immediate disconnect. Yes, instinctively we will try to go back ‘to the way it was’ a few times, but then we will look for new ways because it just won’t feel right. In addition, we will be prioritizing conventional decisions in a very different way. This also means developing a new perception of time and a buffering of our desire for instant gratification. We will be in a learning phase for a while and will be spending time differently or will be using more of it and that is a new factor in all activities. This natural rewiring of human behavior happens after traumatic events such as wars and large scale evolutionary shifts and is at its core a learning principle. This time will make chefs out of folks who never entered a kitchen and suburban gardeners out of hard-core city slickers. We need to recognize this and connect to the need-states of these new behaviors. What is the best kitchen tools app? Maybe it is the one from the renowned NYC restaurant that is now working at half capacity?

4) Health of employees and customers

New mental and physical health strategies and tactics are about to rewrite HR manifestos, curricula, schedules and all things operational. It has never been more relevant to think of internal health structures equal to external customer safety objectives. As a matter of fact, in all things production, it is TRUST that is the ultimate link between the two. Customers need proof of trust and only employees can deliver that. Again, this is not a question of verbalization but of bringing innovation and fact to the fore.

Universal logic. Liam Gillick, A Depicted Horse is not a Critique of a Horse, 2019 — Universal logic. Liam Gillick, *A Depicted Horse is not a Critique of a Horse*, 2019

Invent (the new) now!

Marketing teams and consultancies need to immediately reshape themselves to be able to facilitate the discussions above. The right mix of resources needs to be assembled and we need to expand opportunities for input from new contributors. This is no longer about being in the patina business of dressing up challenges and handing out departmental responsibilities or worse, about the self-pitying tone we see in the aforementioned ads. It is about solving new, holistic business strategies that involve product, brand and experience as one decisive act. It’s about displaying a pioneering spirit. An action that actually provides a solution and not just hands out a sentiment. We got the stay-at-home messages from everyone, but let’s get to invent on solving a new today.

BRANDS ON THE EDGE OF THE CLIFF

Covid-19 requires your brand to recalibrate and take immediate action

Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Boy Building a House of Cards, 1735, The Rothschild Collection

Recognize the new era

Brands regardless of size, will need to recognize that from this time forward, their relationship to their customers is forever changed. The connection between audience, user, viewer, etc. is being fundamentally altered by recent events. The objective to become extremely adaptive, self-critical and socially aware - qualities that even pre-virus era were already a stumbling block for most companies - have become the only option to stay relevant from these days on. No brand is exempt from this challenge and the mobilization of resources towards rethinking your brand from the ground up needs to start right this second. What will connect you during and post a Covid-19 world? Will customers believe in you? More importantly can they lean on you and what value do you bring to a world with amplified self-awareness?

Answer the challenge

To think that once #stayathome has become #backtonormal, commuting restarts, shops and cubicles reopen, things will be back as we have known it, is an illusion. We cannot ignore the psychological component of this time that will be the impeding fallout of this period. Mistrust, anxiety, suspicion, and a re-calibrating of what constitutes value, impulse and aspirations are just few of the new inputs that need focusing when re-considering your brand and its actions. This doesn’t even include the redefinition of what ‘social’ and ‘responsible’ means (a philosophical recalibration of that is literally happing while you read this). This time is your brand’s come-to-Jesus moment and there is no end to it. And in truth, there never really was: The need to be constantly critical about a brand’s role, purpose and responsibility in society has been the answer to brand vitality for a long time. However, it comes with a courage that most companies have always shied away from. It means asking tough questions, disrupting that what has always worked so well and to be ok with opening conversations that are generally ‘making things difficult’.

Don’t delay

Things are difficult enough now that it will either force a rethinking of who you are, or it will lead to a swift falling out of consumer favor. Don’t wait for the government to tell you that you are back in business to get started or spend this purgatory stasis trying to think up ways to bring things back to ‘normal’ when the time comes. Use this time to reposition yourself. To re-define your brand’s value, be it metaphysical or practical. Outline new management objectives to quickly explore and implement new ways to play a role in your customers lives that ring true to who you are and what your product is. This is a chance to part ways with the empty promises we have seen plastered on billboards for too long. The opportunity to play a meaningful role opposed to running a successful marketing campaign. This is not about creating impactful experiences, but about asking what impact actually means. And what people need. Mentally and physically. The answer is certainly not in your logo and your brand’s looks but in your brand’s actions. And it will be for some time.

YOUR BRAND WANTS MORE COURAGEOUS THINKING.

Mr. Bowie: The courage of self and relevance . Photo: Jimmy King

Brand as subject

To really have a brand connect more, we have to understand it much more as a subject, an organic entity rather than an object to force and steer. Understand that it has its own needs, will and path. This means bringing a certain sincerity or respect to a branding process that is not easy to promote and is often taken for granted. The business players around it have their own agenda(s) which are mostly (and rightfully) all outcome driven. We also have time in the mix: Past, present and future that aim to hold their own promise of brand success. Historically, consultancies have principles, methods and tactics to connect brands to people and promise brand elevation, more recognition, awareness, etc. Obviously, all these pieces make for a very complex blend of intention, ‘truth’ and will. The short answer to how to make a brand more loved is there is no method, no blueprint and no single path just to establish a sincere story or ‘core’ at its center. Sounds easy but it is the most difficult thing there is. Brand can drive the bottom line but only if there is love for it. Without a story that connects there is no love. Without confidence there is no attraction.

Rhizomatic input. Tomás saraceno at Venice Art Biennale

The old ways are failing

In 2020 brand love is built very differently than 10 years ago and next year it will be different from today. There are few constants left, two of them are the STORY of a brand and the SINCERITY that we need to inject into the branding process at all times. The old ways of branding through graphic consistency and the abstract array of vague and non-committing positioning statements are failing as we speak. In a world where we can prototype in real time, test all our responses and measure nanosecond results who wants to spend 250K on a visual system that promotes beautiful wallpaper as the “answer”? Or on an non-actionable “position” that puts another layer of complexity in front of an already complicated product? And how can we prove what connects our products to customers other than testing messaging while building our system? With all of this change the meaning of strategy and the value of design has shifted fundamentally. That well executed logo becomes a narcissistic self-serving exercise if it is not solving the issue of a stagnating brand. And it very rarely does. Do I find more comfort in the beautifully rendered design of a tail section than in the way I’m receiving a message that my flight is delayed? Are we hunting for rock solid strategies or organic mutable scenarios that bring people to the brand?

Outdated linear ways of branding based on graphic consistency.

The story at the core is created by an ever changing context at the same time it is holding it together.

A new design palette

Design today has rightfully become the means to an end and not the answer. Sadly graphic and brand designers have missed the chance to expand their toolkit. Naive and blue-eyed graphic designers leave school with an outdated understanding of craft. Or they are staying put in agencies for far too long to develop an interdisciplinary range. Designers need to be honest to themselves and accept that we have now too much ‘good design’ but not enough thinking. Graphic design has been reduced to a remote overnight service, expendable and endlessly churning. The new (brand) designer needs to reclaim their role as the driver of a holistic solution. She is as much a disciplined thinker, researcher, strategist and writer as typographer. In extension teams in studios need a totally new make up of engineers, writers, behavioral thinkers, producers, etc. Hands and brains need to be in one body. Everyone understands the objectives, everyone solves. The long outdated production-centric role of the project manger as the only holistic connect to the client needs to be rendered obsolete. To truly build an agency that is built for this world requires much courage.

It’s not about the logo. It’s about you.

What it takes

Without sincerity and confidence at the start of any creative action, the action itself is already doomed. Without finding the core meaning of a brand there is no true idea for design. Here I am not talking about the solid, heavy floor of the traditional, strategic brand pyramid with its position, attributes, mission, values (are any of those ever truly useful to make decisions? Anyone?). I’m talking about having no floor to walk on but to still be confident to move. The only thing we need to do, is to get to the nucleus of a brand knowing itself and then to have courage and confidence to believe in it. To agree on a single, clear and actionable thought. Only if other people share that thought we can make them believe in us. We can keep changing and evolving the way we tell our story and change its emphasis without ever losing the core. For that, we need the courage to rethink our principles, reposition the value of design and reconsider the resources that build brands. To recognize the underlying causes that actually lead a brand to be needing any sort of marketing action.

….and the skill of always telling it anew.

Are we asking the difficult questions? Are we taking risks in thinking courageous to be rewarded later? Are we just asked to do things as we’re told or are we solving problems through critical thought?

ON LIGHTNESS

"I would sum up my fear about the future in one word: boring. Everything has happened; nothing exciting or new or interesting is ever going to happen again... The future is just going to be a vast, conforming suburb of the soul." – J.G. Ballard

It's a striking quote by the prophetic British writer. The technological quest to make things easier and more convenient may be endless, but at what point do we become apathetic, numbed out, uninspired; in a word, bored? As the world gets smaller, so do our dreams—they're becoming easier to reach everyday. Two decades ago, we would have been happy to have a stereo that could access every song recorded in the last 100 years. Are we happier? What kind of inventions are we dreaming of now? What still excites us?

Supposedly, the algorithm personalizes my experience. This means that airlines know what kind of movies I like when I book a flight. I should be excited about it.. but I'm not. I feel that research has gone from a treasure hunt to a commodity. As a result, any form of personal preference has lost its intimate exclusivity. Statistics also show that our level of happiness has not changed at all in the last 100 years—it's stagnant, even as we busy ourselves with ever-evolving hype. We're bored without knowing it. It seems that we're in the suburbs of the soul already.

Now I dream of a future where there's privacy, discretion and contemplation, and where we have accomplished ultra high efficiency and productivity in order to enable ourselves to work at a personal, healthy pace. A natural state of being, that aims for timelessness and long-term perspectives. In a word, I dream of quality.

To me, the essential goal in designing quality for tomorrow's world is lightness, rather than its prevalent antithesis, which is not only heavy, dramatic, loud, insensitive; the un- or over-refined. A light solution always aims to leave room for interpretation. It should be graceful and natural and should solve a fundamental need, without imposing weight or an aggressive point of view. Even aggressive lightness still has an aura of positivity. Lightness cannot become boring because it remains an ongoing challenge: elusive, agile and unpredictable. Most importantly it stands for freedom of the soul, contra the complacent definition of disposable happiness (as in Ballard's suburbia).

Jasper Morrison, The Crate Series. Photo: Gavin Proud

Our current most-treasured values of self-expression and easy accessibility are secondary to desire. If we're numb, those are empty words that have no audience. How can we create this desire? Not by piling on more weight of content but by shifting our perceptions and attention. Sure technology moves ahead and will continue to do so. Glorifying it and putting it on a pedestal is not making it more organic—it will wear us out and we'll remain unconsciously uninspired.

Basic does not mean light, but lightness needs to be basic. When my team and I recently took on the task of redesigning the new brand identity for Black + Decker, the driving positioning objectives were "powering people" and simplicity. I had to consider how a brand traditionally associated with strength and brawn could become a more inclusive brand that, at the same time, really stands out against the noise of the shelf. Not by becoming bigger and heavier. Not by screaming louder.

Black+Decker Logo, Creative Direction by Marc Hohmann for Lippincott

It can only differentiate itself by becoming lighter. We are numbed by the oversaturated world of empirical master brands, each trying to outdo each other in a race for understanding technological and social relevance. What if a logo came across as natural instead of calculated? Does a brand not need to reflect its essence to be true?

In a 2014 interview with Interior Magazine, the Japanese architect Chiaki Arai said, "The era of the architect as great master is ending; instead design needs to grow out of public collaboration." In some ways this calls for the death of our heroes. In other words, the ego-driven, heavy-handed style of the Koolhaases and Gehrys should be replaced by public workshops and community proposals. According to Arai, "The conclusion does not matter as long as you end up with something that stays in the peoples' hearts." So the final product, the objective 'weight' of the project, has dissolved into nothing. The conclusion becomes unimportant and constitutes the lightest element in the design equation.

Ellsworth Kelly, 'Green Relief with Blue,' 2011. Courtesy of Matthew Marks Galleries

Lightness doesn't always mean featherweight—it can be made from concrete and stone. It's easy in perception and natural in acceptance. I see working with invisible means where heaviness turns to light as the true essence of minimalism. No other contemporary painter has accomplished this as much Ellsworth Kelly. The American abstract painter is enjoying a renaissance at the moment and is being rediscovered for that very reason. In his paintings, we see enormous weight—concrete, hard-edged, heavy contrast—in a light, non-imposing almost zen-like presence. Kelly achieved this effect through through immaculate use of color, proportion and architecture. Graphically his work is the most compelling reflection of our time that I can think of.

In the fashion world, when Raf Simons took the helm at Dior in 2012, he started a new era for the prestigious house, and it was modesty and lightness that made the difference. His presentation and designs were not forceful, overly dramatic or too cool. They seemed to naturally animate from the sketchpad into a moment that is always now. The collection seemed firmly rooted in the present and its elegance surpassed fashion innovation, sex and intellectual intent. Simons understood the necessary shift from strict, composed minimalism (he was exploring the many plateaus of minimalism with his work at Jil Sander) to a state of lightness and grace where composition equals flow. It was a rare moment in an increasingly hype driven space.

Flow cannot be forced—it has to grow, and as designers we can only help it along. In the end we need to ask, "How much push do we really need in order to move the cultural needle forward, to keep us interested?" Here, I believe a light touch is enough. Jasper Morrison's Crate furniture series and Sasha Lobe's typographic work both achieve this 'light touch,' the former by dimensionally re-purposing space and the latter through format and contrast. While we live under the expectation that wearables will bring us the convenient bliss that we once hoped the iPhone could, we would be better off identifying the underlying boredom beneath our desires. We have the urge to wrap our arms around larger and larger dreams, but once we finally have what we wanted, will it be enough?

I see the fever of anticipating earth-shattering technological releases as a wild goose chase for unfulfilled desires. However, these desires can become satisfied through appreciating the subtleties of reduction. Deeply rewarding things are happening, we just have to find them after eliminating the mountains of hype. They can be found in the subtleties of life. In the lightness of things.

Originally published in Core77, 2015. © Marc Hohmann

FROM LIKE TO LOVE

Creating depth in ‘The Flat Now’

Marina Abramović, The Artist Is Present, Museum of Modern Art, New York

1x1x1x1x1x1...=1

In a world that increasingly seems to be based on Boolean algebra (1= something; 0 = nothing) it seems the “like” is now the only action that manifests opinion, reaction, and connection. (*1) On Instagram we don’t have neither the time nor the opportunity to consider, debate or challenge. We can only like (“1”) or don’t like (“0”) and move on to the next. However, truly meaningful and rewarding things reveal their qualities only upon repeated consideration. Trust needs conflict to become sincere. Transformation is conflict. Time needs to be spent on discourse or debate before we even can come to any conclusion that something is truly agreeable. Same goes for cultivating passion. There is no passion without depth which means to be passionate, a fleeting emotional fix needs to go past the “like”. Way past the “1” because if we just keep liking, all we do is simply multiplying our enthusiasm by 1 and we will always stay where we are. We end up only liking, liking and liking for the sake of it. (1x1x1x1x1x1.....=1). Unsatisfied and depressed, we keep coming back for more. The magic of passion and excitement is that it breaks through the border of measure. It is self-cascading and leads to a sort of maximal potency of effect (1x2x3x4...etc.). That means passion is infectious and leads to more passion.

**I like you. You like me. Screen grab from Isaac Hindin-Miller @isaaclikes_**

The flat now

We are at the point where we are unsure if we should love or loathe the fact that the horizontal expansion of meaning demolished our fundamental desire to go deep. Quality and quantity have become the same. Commercial hype and exclusive limitation are one. The truth has become a truth of many. Thinking and doing are indistinguishable. I’ve sat in “workshops” with 30+ people that pretended to be brainstorming sessions, masquerading as mission critical deadline meetings. The takeaway: The illusion of a conclusion without a de facto solution. A feeling of work accomplished as work accomplished. Democracy of all is the democracy of (n)one when an opinion is an end in itself. Glorifying this flat world can only resonate aesthetically as “wallpaper” as it deletes the concept of depth. What can give us hold or any sense of belief in the flat world? If the subject stops believing then the object will have no value. Like a domino effect, in return, other subjects that then engage with either subject or object will lose belief, etc. Doing something without thinking is aimless doing. The more shallow we think the less meaning our doing has. We are forced to guess, change direction and be vague. Finally, our belief in ourselves and that of others in us dies.

Ryoji Ikeda, Data.tron, Yamaguchi Centre for Art and Media

The omission of words

Data driven design is defeating language. We accept data without the weight of words. Information has evolved to immediate publication without anything in between. Like children, we think that more numbers mean more value. Is it really so hard to understand that more can be less because of describing what more actually means? In validating action or decisions, we remain at the same point as we are quickly liking, approving, doing, and so things keep moving in circles. We see data as language when it is only a number. The need for language as a primary, constructive design tool is more apparent than ever. Only words can create belief as they can evoke far more than what they say. No one believes in you because your data proves that you are trustworthy or successful. Data needs DESCRIPTION. As programmers or analysts inject themselves into the world of communication, describing and inscribing become one and become code. Data and information then are merged and leave no space for consideration. In between those poles, tension, debate, poetry, etc. get further and further reduced to nothing and the now becomes even flatter. The result is meaning without any dimension. Reckless data science marks the end of the knowing science and its digitalization makes everything the same.

The space between

In one of most profound art pieces of the last 20 years Maria Abrahmovics “The Artist is Present” the artist explored the concept of intimacy through repositioning the role of the artist from being the object of an elevated myth. By leveling herself on equal par with the viewer, intimacy and depth can be found in a most direct construction of “a space between” we can think of: by literally having the viewer sit 5 feet away from the artist and looking into her eyes. Any connection between object and subject needs to originate in the space between. If an intimate intensity can happen there, then belief, depth and passion are born. I would argue the connection between artist and viewer in “The Artist is Present” is deeper than in almost all works produced through an objective medium (i.e. painting, sculpture, etc.) as it may be the most pure and focused form of artist engaging the viewer. When the artist Mike Kelley was asked in the early 90’s about the apparent “freedom” in his work, accusing him “to do whatever you want and declare it art” he responded: “There needs to be a pact with the artist. You are only free in a range of freedoms that I allow. You are responsible for your interpretation. That is our pact.” (*2) This invisible “pact” between artist and viewer is interesting because it is based on the premise that a core belief connects us in the space between and prevents a flat world from emerging. The pact fills the void with meaning and makes expectation possible. “I base my actions on a core principle and you decode the principle”. Together, we create depth and vitality.

The frozen moment: Olafur Eliasson, Big Bang Fountain, Fondation Louis Vuitton

Freeze frame

Going back to where we started this thought piece, I believe that one way to insert depth and passion into the current overdrive of acceptance which I described in the first few paragraphs, we need to disrupt the agile flow of one “Like” to the immediate next “Like” and so on. To turn the “x” to a “+”; or push from 1 to 2; transforming the 1x1x1x1 = 1 to 1+1x2x3..., etc. We need to sever the merger of information and publication and drill into the flat world right where action equals decision. This means a sort of momentary “freezing” of the space between to make it more intimate and expand more room into the agility that we are so accustomed to. This would be an exercise in stopping and considering the subject from all angles and then to tweak its direction. The goal is to accommodate an awkward space of intimacy in which discourse will lead to transformation. In this frozen space we have the opportunity of aligning micro elements (i.e.. our role, change agents, chance elements, etc.) based on an agreed core principle towards a then redirected action. It has to be accepted that this alignment is a form of conflict as it challenges purpose and reason but doesn’t fundamentally change the need for action and dynamism as an economic catalyst. In the end, this “freezing” and real time adjusting lead to the birth of a pact of a fundamental agreement on purpose and goal. (Even if that purpose is no purpose - at least then it will be a conscious act.)

Curious conflict and space #1: Willem de Rooij, Entitled, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany

Curious conflict and space #2: Pamela Rosenkranz, Look Deeper, Gallery M Woods, Beijing

Deconstructing the comfort zone

Could we invent an app or introduce a social feature that probes into purpose or asks if a post leads back to a fundamental core belief of the poster? Something in between liking and the blank not linking that is examining and challenging what we are doing. To make a stand, we need to first open a void by stopping the “let’s move on” impulse from kicking in. Next would be to raise a question instead of showing an answer. How else could any post be really considered confident or courageous? Could Instagram encourage dialogue beyond mute desire? Or on the flip side, can we openly ask if our liking will lead to a larger or more responsible (social) prize? In the end, to BELIEVE in something we will need to rely on a pact of trust between people, data, words, images, etc. Without depth there is no passion, and without passion there is only lackluster satisfaction. Living in ‘The Flat Now’ with less and less clarity on what the object is doesn’t mean we can’t be objective or everything should only be subjective. (*3) Can we please move to not liking something and then work together to make it liked? Find the space to wrestle with it and feverishly hope to convince each other? Split hairs over a word. Bring up the courage to do something without hoping to measure vague smiles?

Rather: Can we turn the “like” to love?

Still from Andrei Tarkovsky’s “Stalker”, 1979

*1. Based on Martin Burckhardt and Dirk Hoefer’s ‘Alles und Nichts’, Martin & Seitz Berlin, 2015

*2. Mike Kelley interviewed by John Miller, A.R.T. Press, 1992

*3. From Armen Avanessian’s book “Metaphysik zur Zeit”, Merve Verlag Leibzig, 2018

SINCERELY, LULU

Metamodernism and Lululemon

‘Lisa Simpson Hypebae’ © 20th Century Fox

I want more

I’m on a field trip to Lululemon. We are flipping through a seemingly endless plethora of gray and black synthetic shorts, shirts and leggings. A swim in a dense ocean of understated product with very little product distinction to cling on to other than the beloved circular mark... and yet, we are at Lululemon and our experience here begs to decode more meaning. Make me curious, give me answers and I’m ready to be hooked. However, my curiosity quickly turns into a question: Next to a brilliant name, a large stock of arguably non-intrusive sportswear and predictable upbeat imagery embodied by ever smiling sales assistants – does this brand really have enough of a story and a vision for me to fall in love? Or as important, in the case of my daughter - who is infatuated with the brand right now - stay in love?

Soft girls are ready to shop

I am here because my middle school aged daughter can’t live without Lululemon this week. It’s not that she desperately wants $95 gray leggings or that she’s dragging me here because it’s “so instagrammable” (see Glossier for that). No, she wants to buy just ANYTHING no matter how small. And of course, there is the ever ongoing fad of the infamous shopping bag. The small synthetic shopping bag heavy on type with slogans that’s a perfect replacement for any other lunch bags. Its creds as a status symbol have been well chatted on and after 5 years going, they are still pretty much the only engaging and fun application in the store. That statement was just confirmed by three teen “soft girls” (!) who, after briefly contemplating on buying a scrunchy, asked the young woman at the cashier if they can get a bag or a give away wallet without buying anything.

Nuances. Inside a Lululemon concept store

Too cool for high school and beyond

What is painfully wrong with this picture? Just lusting after a 10 cent shopping bag or the potential of grooming armies of teen brand ambassadors for future deployment should be the ultimate opportunity for any brand. It suggests a dynamic vitality that many would die for. However, standing here in the store, things are so serious and contrived, I start feeling slightly depressed. Featuring bland stock images of people working out printed on foam core, way too much merchandise that is tightly crammed on racks and a small “social” lounge with two phone charging plugs that rather looks like an Ikea display or a waiting area in a doctor’s office. Do I have to ask for permission to sit down here? All this is way too reserved and introvert. A brand trying hard to be distant in a world where sportswear is on a second by second, evolution to new heights of genre bending, and where brand confidence is no longer built through discretion.

Engineering yoga?

Lulu is not a tech brand. It’s a lifestyle brand. True, this is by their own definition (“yoga at the core of everything we do”) a yoga story, but to argue that because of that, it needs to be reserved would be missing the point in understanding the role yoga plays in a modern customer’s life. If anything, today, this should be much more about “integration and balance” than “performance”. I would also argue that the above story is too vague to be actionable as it means way too much to people, and probably makes internal decision making on direction of messaging and campaigns mediocre and unfocused. As a result of this lack in focus, Lululemon’s product aesthetic drives the tone and the only choice left is to engage customers through a played-out Silicon Valley style Apple/Tesla coolness. Principally, the language of tech is far removed from elegance as elegance is always connected to emotion, confidence, and longing. Discretion as a measure to replace courage can never be elegant no matter how slick the product is.

Insincerely theirs

As I am checking Lululemon’s Instagram, it is pretty much a mixed bag and there is much good. On one side, we have some fantastic straight talk and empowerment messages (a really great campaign about boobs and femininity), some interesting data that informs on product quality and research, and polished high fashion teasers about the upcoming Lululemon x Roksanda collaboration. Unfortunately on the other side, we find overtly transactional posts promoting features and releases that only aim to push product. Overall, the social persona of the brand, the site and the in-store experience all suffer from the same dilemma: A very serious framework that when attempted to break away from, ends up in a somewhat forced or stilted gesture. In my opinion, the efforts to expand and disrupt the yoga category mixed with the expectations of increasingly hype-lusting customers and the simultaneous push of larger social messages (on Instagram), are all kept SEPARATE by Lulu’s singular overly tech-cool execution. This disconnect is leading to an inability to be clear and consistent, and to effectively build deeper customer love. Promise, potential and perception do not match here and it’s a huge missed opportunity. Worse, it communicates insincerity.

Playing in-store and on social . @Glossier

The metamodern solution

Right now, Lululemon is not clearly defined for everyone in the same way. At the core, the brand needs a clear and actionable story that drives all experiential impressions and that can serve as a tool to make the right decisions. This story needs to be informed by considering all channels simultaneously, and through a much less siloed mindset. Paradoxically, to be an exciting brand today means to apply a controlled and honest collision of ALL knowledge (eclecticism) as ONE, single core idea to create sincerity. In simple terms, have the courage to be eclectic and take yourself less serious and by doing so you will be seen as more sincere. This thinking brings me to a fantastic observation by Jimenez Lai in Log 46 / Summer 2019*. There, he extends the ongoing evolutionary frictions of modernism and postmodernism to what cultural theorist Robin Van Acker coined ‘metamodernism’ and offers up a solution that is based on ‘ironic sensibilities with a sincere message’.

Playing it through

Applying his thinking to our dilemma, it would suggest a solution that aims for building brand belief and desire through means of informed naiveté and pragmatic idealism. In philosophical terms, this would be a metamodern solution where the grand narration of Lululemon can stay modern (here: serious performance as a PRAGMATIC IDEALISM) but at the same time it rejects it whenever we have the opportunity to do so (here: with a wink of an eye questioning “how serious can ‘performance’ be in reality?” as INFORMED NAIVITE). That would make Lululemon’s manifesto sound something like this: “Make products together that answer, and question Yoga today and let’s have fun doing it”. Translating Jimenez Lai’s thoughts to branding, the actionable strategic principles of this story would be: a) pragmatic idealism; b) informed naiveté; c) internalizing pluralistic ways of questioning the world; d) while embracing sincere excitement (aka FUN)

Too sheer for downward dog

In summary, if Lululemon can take itself less serious to become more sincere, it will be able to give answers to a self-evoked curiosity. And by doing so, it will produce excitement and anticipation that will produce a deeper emotional bond. All that without sacrificing anything that is already on the table. It would amplify, combine and balance the qualities that exist separately right now and have them orbiting around one core story. Create infatuation and satisfy, and expand their followers through what we love in brands as much as in people: A sense of humor and sincerity.

With that I’m leaving this (meta) mindful space and start thinking about the next essay.

*Jimenez Lai “Between Irony And Sincerity”

WHAT BRANDING NEEDS TO LEARN FROM GORDON RAMSEY

In the branding world, “Design Thinking” and “Brand Centricity” are on the forefront of everyone’s mind. Despite this focus on the design process and graphic consistency, there is a shift that brands both large and small are facing. Customers are abandoning established brand relationships in favor of new challengers and products. What are the well known category players getting wrong?

Sunday morning as I’m watching the Kitchen Nightmares marathon, it hits me. Chef Ramsey asks, “Why is this Lasagna not fresh but frozen???” The floundering restauranteur, who is half a million in debt and runs a predictably mediocre establishment, lamely responds, “We can’t make fresh lasagna everyday! It’s too expensive and takes too long. The guests would be waiting a long time for their food to arrive! We need lasagna. An Italian restaurant without lasagna — fuggedaboutit!!!”

A chasm has formed between brands and their customers. Companies obsess over their offerings and product lines, but often forget about the reason why consumers came to them in the first place. We are moving from a world of visual consistency to one based on word of mouth, from centralized control to all access, from bringing products to people to bringing people to the product. The only true connector consumers care about are simple brand stories, and these stories can be told in multiple ways through many different means.

Making the connection

Let’s back up a bit. Here I say branding of old has something in common with restaurants of bygone times. The magic happened in the mainly closed kitchen (in branding’s case, the agency/studio). The experience was centered around a linear timeline with starter, main, dessert (positioning, design, activation) and there were all the basic assumptions: What universally constitutes Italian food, Japanese food, American food etc. (business types like B2B, Digital, Heathcare, etc). Fine dining’s aura of order and structure trickled down to family restaurants and chains. Still today, in much the same way, our established branding agency models of design process dictate the project approaches that smaller shops use in their work.

Now in contrast, let’s look at a successful restaurant of today that would make a foodie ecstatic. I’m using the highly awarded Brooklyn Fare Restaurant as an example. It has an open kitchen where interactions with the chef during preparation are encouraged. The experience is nonlinear and always orchestrated depending on outside factors that the restaurant doesn’t control. Seasonal availability curates the ingredients, newly discovered spice combinations are explored, and all types of cuisine are fair game. The chef has tattooed sleeves that he feels no need to hide.

Orchestrating the experience

In the old way there was a program, an order to the static, linear evening. The special is the most special part of the manifesto: the MENU. In the new way there is an orchestration, a co-informed experience where the chef texts you wine suggestions while he prepares the piece of beef. A cut of meat that, only on this day, balances against a fruit that is best this time of year. A performance. There is no menu manifesto, only a flyer that lists the evening’s course. What makes the restaurant successful is not the universal checklist of featuring parody foods at any cost (frozen lasagna) but the ethos created by a type of thinking that puts brand, product, and experience on the same level.

What drives a successful restaurant today? It isn’t an endless menu of traditional mainstays. It isn’t a tested and approved blueprint. Rather, it is the ability to produce a concise product that fits with a concise story. For example, let’s say Italian food stands for freshness. If that is true, then each and every day that brings about the confidence to build a custom menu. This offering will be based on season, ingredients, and customer need. If regional freshness is the driver of the story, then 3 items on the menu may be enough to get crowds lining up around the block.

Focus on one good thing. The famous milk and chocolate chip cookie at Untitled NYC

What this means for branding today

I believe that if brand builders would commit to delivering clear stories for each and every brand while keeping their menu flexible, then there would be lines around the block for their services as well. Successful brand building, like successful restaurant building, is about identifying the exact ingredients that are needed for each product and how they connect to the story of the brand. Only if management, the chef, the food and the restaurant tell the same story the result will be successful.

In return, the important part is to acknowledge that the story itself is also formed by the experience, the product, and the brand. This means that if you want to stay relevant as as a manager of a restaurant you have to acknowledge that the ingredients keep changing with the seasons, your location, audiences tastes, etc. and that your story reflects this while still standing for something constant. If you want your brand to stay relevant , you have to realize that the ingredients that make a successful brand keep changing around a story that can hold this constant change together.

Are you ready for your brand makeover yet?

Originally published for Panorama, March 2017

VISUALIZING NOISE

Marco Fusinato, ‘Mass Black Implosion, 2012. Courtesy Anna Schwartz Gallery

In a time where all white space is in danger of being occupied, and purity in life is scarce, noise is our only refuge.

I’m obsessed with noise. All kinds of noise—from meticulously created noise by sound artists to acoustic occurrences that happen by accident in everyday life. I’m constantly checking Ebay for obscure limited edition noise tapes from the Japanese underground to add to my immense collection. I keep my ears open and record grey sound on my iPhone on the way home. I tune in on a set of batteries’ dying breath as the jingle of my daughter’s toy distorts to a lingering scratch, or when the frizzy sound of a subway conductor’s PA system mixes with the metal on metal screeching of the rails.

For years now, noise has cast a seductive spell on me. I‘m hooked and, like any perfect addiction, this one offers no reward but the craving of more. Musically, I love quiet noise, the John Cage kind, electronically composed noise a la Xenakis, Parmegiani or Merzbow power chaos, improvised guitar freak-outs, noise the way Haino Keiji does it, looped low-fi tape noise from the great Maurizio Bianchi, and straight up industrial field recordings. My senses fall for elegant, polished noise that creates a solid monolithic form: heavy as steel, yet smooth and solid as an obsidian stone. Whimsical, graphite-thin and unstable; then pointy, accelerated and cutting; noise that’s round and light as a feather.

Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2013 © Sou Fujimoto. Photograph © 2013 Iwan Baan

When it comes to noise, it’s all about flatness and the removal of emotional perspective. Noise by definition means “unwanted sound”—a void in our realm of senses that, like a black hole, offers no form or scale. It could be eternally deep or minutely thin. It is in many ways the closest manifestation to physicality that sound can have. Context and content-free, it is pure. It exists by itself away from our harmonics and rationales. If white is nothingness, noise is everything. All spaces filled solid and occupied, blocking all communication in its way.

Albert Oehlen, ‘Untitled, 2009–2011’. Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery.

Noise is today’s refuge. In a time where all white space is in danger of being occupied, and purity in art and life is scarce, noise brings all communication to a halt. It’s the final word before absolute silence. It leaves no room to be protected, no freedom to be fought for. Like stepping into an explosion of senses, a blasting wave that carries you away, noise is today’s most contemporary soundtrack.

When I extend these ideas further into visual fields, I see Marco Fusinato’s piece “Mass Black Implosion” as a fantastic visualization of noise. In this work, the artist “liberates” traditional context and forms by showing us a classic notation that implodes into eternity, projecting hundreds of acoustic particles in all directions. It frees sound from structure and visually creates a ground zero where everything hits the viewer at once–a notation that stretches into eternity with endless power. Like the big bang, it becomes a life-giving force that hints at a future with infinite possibilities.

Rick Owens – Half Box (Ox Bone), 2011, Black Plywood — Rick Owens – **Half Box (Ox Bone),** 2011, Black Plywood

It’s easy to equalize noise with destruction. I find it way more interesting to highlight the quality of its absolute, singular thought which, incidentally, is the essential quality of simplicity: constructing the absolute, uncompromising one-ness that fulfills all experiences and perceptions. For example, to me, Rick Owens “Half Box” marble chair is a solid piece of noise. It’s a one-ton cloud as a chair—singular, unbending and absolute—a ruthless blast of non-functionality that can be neither moved nor comfortably sat on. A force that inspires our imagination whether we like it or not. Sou Fujimoto’s 2013 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion is noise we can walk into and explore endless levels and surfaces that appear without a purpose, undefined and ever changing in an array of light beams and structural discord. It’s a weightless beast whose seduction one cannot resist.

Sterling Ruby. Courtesy of Xavier Hufkens

In some of Albert Ohlen and Sterling Ruby’s work, sharp bursts of form and color invade concrete space, giving birth to the unknown. The absolute resolve of this impact immediately drives our emotions and turns the invasion into an active outreach instead of a doomed collision. Finally, there is Tomoo Gokita’s painting “Flower Arrangement;” a cool, figurative masterpiece, almost traditional in approach would it not be for the claustrophobic, dense “flowers” that seem to be sculpted from molten steel. Its heaviness awakens us and draws us in. Intimidating sculpted flowers of imposing strength. Are we to meditate or get aggravated looking at this black hole of petals? Timeless, formless, eternal—a manifestation of noise in acrylic.

Tomoo Gokita, “Flower Arrangement’, 2007