Marketing blogs with substance

When we think about visual creativity, art and design are two of the most common disciplines that come to mind. Both use colour, line, shape, spacing, composition and many other elements to create a visual outcome. But despite their similarities, both art and design have a set of very distinct qualities that set them apart. 

Okay, but why does it even matter?

As creatives, we often see people confuse design outcomes they like with effective design. They evaluate design in the same way that they would art. Yet the purpose, process and data source behind them is completely different – meaning the way we evaluate them should be different, too.

To help you better judge the value of art vs design, we’ve unpacked the three key features that distinguish them.

Purpose: Expression vs function

Perhaps the most fundamental difference between art and design is purpose.

Art is about creative self-expression. It uses the infinite imagination of the artist to provoke thought and evoke emotion. It might tell a story or provide commentary on societal issues. It takes the opinions, feelings and observations of the artist and turns them into something others can experience. 

Design, on the other hand, is the process of systematically planning and developing something for a specific purpose. It’s a means to an end. It provides a solution or serves a goal, like triggering a psychological response, informing a judgement or perception, helping the audience to complete an action or providing them with relevant information. Design simplifies the thought process and allows the audience to complete a task with less effort. It provides value for this audience in a way that art does not, and this lies within its purpose.

Art is expressive, imaginative, thought-provoking and emotive. 

Design is functional, purposeful, influential and outcome-oriented.

Process: Intuitive vs systematic 

While artists often have their own creative process, much of their work comes from intuition and instinct. Their output comes from personal style and preference and doesn’t need to follow a specific structure or process – unless the artist chooses to.

When we think about the design process, it is largely methodical and structured. Designers work backwards in their approach, focusing on the objective or goal of their design before using a creative process to get there. 

In the context of brand, marketing or product development, design also needs to be consistent; it should be driven by the parameters of the brand and informed by the wants or needs of the audience, not the creative preference of the designer. 

Art is instinctive, spontaneous, creative and internally driven. 

Design is systematic, structured, consistent and informed.

Source of truth: Subjective vs objective 

Art is subjective. It is a reflection of the way the artist sees and experiences the world, and can be interpreted many different ways by many different people. It’s founded in or influenced by personal feelings, preferences and opinions. For this reason, one person may completely resonate with a piece, yet another might truly dislike it. 

While design may still be subjective in terms of whether a person likes it or not, it is still objective by nature. That is to say, it is not influenced by the personal feelings of the designer, but rather is created based on data about the communicator (e.g the brand) and the audience (e.g their consumer). With this in mind, design should be interpreted the same way by many different people within the audience group. 

Art is subjective, intrinsic and based on the artist.

Design is objective, extrinsic and based on the audience.

Crossing the barriers between art and design 

Of course, there are instances where art and design collide. Consider an artist that is commissioned by a brand to do a piece as part of an advertising campaign, or a design that serves a purpose while also making people feel something. An artist could apply design principles to their work, and a designer could let their personal style inspire their creative direction. 

But in essence, art is driven by expression, intuition and subjectivity, while design is led by function, structure and objectivity.

They’re similar, but not the same – so the way we judge their value needs to be different, too.

Back when there were far fewer brands in the market, branding was a pretty straightforward practice. Find an opportunity in the market, stick a few key USP’s on your packaging and gain exposure through mass media. 

However, things weren’t always going to remain this simple…

With the introduction of the World Wide Web, social media, and an influx of competitors seeking out a slice of the market pie, maintaining your brand’s status in the mind of consumers became a little more challenging. So, how did some brands go from strength to strength throughout the years? 

To put it simply, they made a promise and stuck to it. Even before Marc Gobé released his breakthrough emotional branding concept 20 years ago, these brands were well ahead of the game, tugging on the heartstrings of their customers. 

Let us elaborate.

C.C Filson (or just Filson these days)

Since 1897, Filson has remained competitive in the men’s apparel space. So, how did they gain their status, and how do they continue to compete after such a long time?

Firstly, the founder, C.C. Filson truly believed that his products were the most durable and reliable apparel for outdoorsmen.

He believed in them so much that he backed up his claim with a lifetime guarantee on all Filson products. Even to this day, the brand reassures its customers that if they purchase from Filson, they’ll always be clothed appropriately for the great outdoors.

Rather than pushing product benefits, Filson sells a ticket to the outdoors that lasts a lifetime.

At the time, Filson knew their customers’ needs better than the customers themselves. The company famously placed an ad in the local newspaper with an illustration of skeletons and frozen bobsleds at the bottom of a mountain pass. By them marched a group of men wearing parkas, with the simple slogan, ‘Victims of cheap outfitters’.

Back then, Filson’s customer base was largely gold miners heading north to try their luck at Klondike River; however, the same promise is still relevant to the outdoorsmen of today.

Filson has capitalised on its rich history and unwavering craftsmanship to continue selling a ticket to the outdoors for men all over the world.

Patagonia

Another brand that has stood the test of time is Patagonia. 

Throughout its 48 years, Patagonia has stuck to its guns and never once swayed from its mission, ‘to be in business to save our home planet’.

One of the most powerful quotes we really admire was by founder Yvon Chouinard:

“You can’t reverse into a mission and values through marketing. The organisations that are struggling with this are probably the ones that are thinking about marketing first. The role of marketing is to authentically elevate that mission and purpose and engage people in it, but the purpose needs to be the business.”

Focusing on remaining brand-led and forging its own path based on the brand’s purpose rather than responding to the demands of its consumers has granted Patagonia’s long-standing success. 

The brand never wanted to be in business to mass-produce clothing that would impact the environment and has demonstrated that promise in some pretty expressive ways.

Patagonia turned Black Friday on its head with its ‘Don’t Buy This Jacket’ campaign. 

If you managed to miss the ad featured in The New York Times, Patagonia straight up called out consumerism. 

The company got major attention for trying to achieve the complete opposite of every other Black Friday campaign that year. Patagonia restated its purpose and in doing so, solidified itself as a brand doing good for the rest of the world. 

Patagonia has never faulted in its mission to work for environmental change. Though there have been calls for the company to become publicly listed, Patagonia has responded with a hard ‘No’ in a bid to avoid ‘selling out’ to people who don’t share their values.

Patagonia’s authentic purpose has been the powerhouse behind its success, never failing to impress its passionate followers.

We love your work, Patagonia!

Vegemite

If you grew up without Vegemite in your cupboard, we’re sorry to say, but you’re well and truly in the minority. Since its inception in 1923, Vegemite has secured itself as the spread for Australians and has dominated the condiment market ever since.

So, how did Vegemite, a rather simple product made from leftover brewers’ yeast extract, and founded by an American, make it as one of the most well-known brands in Australia to this day?

Well, they positioned themselves that way.

However, it wasn’t all smooth sailing for Vegemite. The brand had to overcome numerous setbacks before finding its feet. 

In the lead up to the brand’s success, Vegemite faced some harsh backlash for failing to take down the market leader at the time, Marmite. However, Vegemite stayed true to itself and believed in its superior product to remain undiscouraged by its numerous failed branding attempts. 

Vegemite took a step back to reevaluate its purpose. 

Rather than selling a relatively healthy product packed with vitamins or putting up a petty fight with the current market leader, Vegemite was now in the business of fuelling the Australian spirit.

Eventually, after increasing the brand’s exposure through various competitions, and official endorsement by the British Medical Association, Vegemite became a staple in the ration packs for Australian soldiers during World War 2, reinventing itself as a patriotic symbol of Australia.

“Vegemite: Keeping fighting men fighting fit”

Since then, they’ve cast their entire focus on serving Australian soldiers, fathers, wives and children. 

Cue the famous jingle, ‘happy little vegemite’.

The jingle won our hearts, and even today remains the secondary anthem of our nation, simplifying the choice of spreads for generations of Aussie families.

Nowadays, Vegemite is not only our nation’s spread of choice but a mark of pride and ownership as an Australian.

So, what do these brands have in common?

They each have a concrete purpose that drives every business and brand decision.

To create a strong brand that stands the test of time, you need to first determine why you’re in business. Establishing your ‘why’ helps you to define a clear and compelling promise. This is the most fundamental step in establishing a strong brand.

From here is where the magic happens.

Every day, new businesses start up in the hopes of stealing a piece of that proverbial pie. This increasing saturation means we need to work harder than ever to build and maintain a strong position in the market.

The problem is, many businesses rely purely on their marketing activities to achieve this. But to build those really powerful connections that allow us to withstand time, competition and other obstacles to success, we need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

This is where your brand comes in. And more specifically, your brand equity.

So, what is brand equity?

In simple terms, brand equity is the significance a brand holds in the eyes of a consumer. It’s the value they place on your brand based on things like experiences, perceptions and associations. It’s the reason you’re more likely to pick up a can of Coke in the supermarket than a can of home brand cola.

As a business, building and maintaining your brand equity represents a massive opportunity for long-term growth. By building and leveraging the equity of your brand, you’ll achieve a stronger competitive advantage, greater customer lifetime value, higher revenues and substantial negotiating power. It also means that your existing customers will be really receptive to new products, services or markets should you decide to expand your offering.

How is brand equity measured?

David Aaker’s brand equity model

According to renowned marketing specialist and theorist, David Aaker, there are five key elements that make up your brand equity. Together, these elements allow you to gauge the value of your brand and provide clarity on where more work might be needed.

• Brand loyalty
• Brand awareness
• Perceived quality
• Brand association
• Other proprietary assets

 

Brand Loyalty

When your customers align with your values and what you do, and repeatedly seek out your products or services rather than trying out one of your competitors, you’ve got yourself a loyal customer. Loyalty is incredibly powerful to your brand for a number of reasons, but primarily the fact that they’re much easier to sell to and they actively advocate for your brand within their social groups.

Why focus on brand loyalty?

• Greater lifetime customer value 
• Reduced marketing costs
• Leads to brand advocacy 
• Social proof attracts new customers

Brand Awareness

Brand awareness (AKA brand salience) is all about how well known your brand is. When your brand has high awareness, it’s likely you’ll be the first option that springs to mind when a customer has the want or need for your products or services. 

Why focus on brand awareness?

• Brand recall increases opportunity for consideration 

• Familiarity leads to reputable & trustworthy perceptions
• Reputability and trustworthiness impacts conversion

Perceived Quality

Quality, or perceived quality, is essentially the perception that your products or services rate highly in terms of things like durability and functionality. If your brand has high perceived quality and a great customer experience, customers are far more likely to favour your products or services.

Why focus on quality?

• Quality is favoured above price or features

• Encourages perception of greater value
• Aligns with sustainability movement (where products don’t need replacing regularly)

Brand Association

Brand association is all about your brand image and the types of thoughts or ideas that people connect to your brand. It’s the attributes that people associate with your brand, generally formed from deep seated beliefs about what you do and how you do it. If your customers align with your brand image, they’re likely to use your products and borrow from your brand to identify themselves in the same way. 

Brand association can be positive or negative and can be hard to change once a customer has formed these associations in their mind. 

Why focus on associations?

• Form/maintain positive sentiment
• Improve negative associations
• Own your market position

Proprietary Assets

Proprietary assets are the safeguards put in place by your brand to ensure no other business can replicate what you do in a way that may confuse consumers into thinking they’re doing business with you.

Examples of proprietary assets include copyrights, trademarks, patents, domains, software and other related assets.

Why focus on proprietary assets?

• Protect your intellectual property 
• Safeguard the integrity of your brand

What can you do to improve brand equity?

It’s all well and good to know that building strong brand equity is important, but now what?

Unfortunately, there’s no quick fix or guaranteed method to make it happen. But what you can do is dedicate more of your energy, resources and budget towards developing a really strong brand strategy.

At its core, brand strategy will help you define what you really want your brand to be recognised for and how you can achieve it.

It will help you determine your distinctive market position, and how to leverage it to stand out from your competitors. And it will help you truly connect with the people you serve and understand how to deepen those connections in order to foster greater brand equity.

 

By Ben Whitmore, Lemon Tree Agency Manager

Are you in business for the now or for the future? 

With so many tactical trends focused on generating sales today, brands often neglect to plan for the future – namely an organic future that relies more heavily on affinity and connection than immediate sales and paying to play. 

Google ads, Facebook, Instagram, email marketing, retargeting – they’re all great tools for generating sales and understanding your ROI. But what they’re not so great at doing is building your brand equity for future sales.

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Emotional vs functional marketing

Who is your ideal customer and how does your product help them? How does it make them feel? Are your products disposable or long-lasting and sentimental?

Disposable products do well in a see-ad-buy-now landscape because they don’t generally evoke a lot of emotion upon purchase. A well-made jacket or pair of shoes, on the other hand, may instil the sort of sentimentality that keeps consumers coming back to you for decades to come (and bypassing the paid-for ads to do so).

Think about your childhood. Can you still remember the jingles that marked the ads between your favourite TV shows? As a kid, I would religiously watch the Sydney to Hobart yacht race with my family. All those sponsor brands taking pride placement upon the sails of the leading maxis meant nothing to me then. For all I knew, “Ella Bache” or “Tag Heuer” were likely just the names of the boats and held no significance to a 10-year-old. 

Yet 20-something years later, when I see these brands, I’m transported back to those times and naturally feel an affinity toward them. Sure, 20-years may be a long-reaching strategy, but it’s important to think, at least a little, about this when setting your budgets and planning out your marketing activities. After all, it’s so easy to simply put your money into the digital funnel where X money goes in and Y comes out. However, thinking into the future, will this strategy evoke any kind of affinity towards your brand or products? 

As the digital world becomes increasingly dominant, we find that many businesses are making these short-term investments without considering the future or how they’d be able to weather the storm if one of these channels were to fold. You may have other channels to invest in, but at the end of the day, it’s the longer-term investments that will build a timeless and enduring brand and loyal customer base.  

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The power of long-term thinking for building brand affinity

As consumers, we all love to signal. Signal our status, signal which tribe we belong to or signal our values, so we seek out and borrow from brands that can help us to do just that. This is another reason long-term brand building is so important. 

When you get to a point where several brands are offering the same potential for signalling, however, it’s only that affinity and brand equity that will set you apart. A childhood memory, a love for a particular sport or celebrity that your brand is associated with. Or perhaps it’s a particular campaign or design that speaks directly to the heart of your customer. One thing we do know is that it’s rarely (if ever) that keyword-optimised ad you ran on Google or the Instagram story you posted months ago that will build a deep loyalty to your brand. 

Don’t get me wrong, those activities are an important tap on the shoulder to remind customers that you’re there. But often it’s not just your products that they want to buy, it’s what they represent and how customers can use them to market themselves to the world in a similar way.

Here’s an example.

There are plenty of coats and at all kinds of price points that will do the job of keeping you warm. But when a customer pulls on a Patagonia jacket, they’re signalling to the world that they live for the outdoors and care about the environment. You could just as easily get yourself to work in a Toyota, but when someone steps into a BMW, they’re signalling success and status. 

Why? Because of good brand building. Over a long period of time, we’ve learnt or we’ve interpreted through their marketing and brand representation, that this is what these companies represent. So when we want to be represented the same way, we know exactly where to go and who to spend our money with to do so. It may be a 20 or 30-year journey to conversion, but this is the pay off for the long term investment that these brands’ make through collaborations, sponsorships, and countless campaigns where they’re not only speaking to today’s customer but also their customers of the future.

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So next time you’re planning out your calendar, ask yourself what’s really most important for you, your business and your brand, and have a think about how you can diversify your activities to include both short and long term strategies.