Future:Media:Change

Last week, as part of its Symbols, Branding and Persuasion series, The Change You Want To See brought in Loid Der, former creative director of the world’s largest branding agency, to instruct nonprofit and advocacy organizations in the practice of branding.

Branding can be an elusive concept. For every person who understands it as a potent marketing tool, there is another who regards it as hokum, frivolity, or — from this audience’s perspective — an evil corporate practice. So let’s start with a definition.

What Branding Is

A brand is the personality of a company -- as successfully skewered by these Apple commercials.

A brand is the personality of a company. It is conveyed through everything the consumer comes into contact with from that company:

• the products it sells
• its logo
• its ads
• its website
• its annual reports
• its sales and customer service people
• the news about it
• the things people say about it
• everything

In effective branding, all that stuff is saying the same thing, making it easier for people to remember the company for that one thing. The early Church used symbols and design to convey power. The Bolsheviks used imagery and words to convey a workers utopia.

Ideally, that “one thing” is likable. As Der explained, “branding creates an association, like a friend. One we want to affiliate ourselves with, admire, and even emulate.”

Cingular rebranded AT&T when it took on that name, changing its logo in the process.

Case Study: AT&T

At Interbrand, Der led Cingular’s $1 billion rebranding of AT&T. The logos before and after the rebranding (left) show some of what came out of the effort. The new logo uses lighter-weight, lower-case letters to make the brand appear less authoritarian, more human and approachable. The globe was recreated with transparent ribbons to suggest, well, transparency and openness. Finally, it was tilted forward slightly so the viewer would feel above the globe, further lessening the imposing feel associated with the old company.

“Creating an identity that has all these virtues does have an impact on the culture,” said Der. Branding (or rebranding) involves every aspect of a company, creating “a bible for what the company is going to do and be,” he explained. It helps map the structure of the corporation, renames its parts, fixes its infrastructure, and defines who and what it is — not just the trappings. Everyone in management must sign off on it. It transforms a company. So, when a company makes “friendliness, transparency, and openness” a central part of its brand identity, it is making a decision to be those things — or become them.

America's Second Harvest: The Nation's Food Bank Network changed its name to Feeding America as part of its rebranding.

Case Study: Feeding America

America’s Second Harvest: The Nation’s Food Bank Network is the leading hunger-relief organization in America, with more than 200 food banks in its network, yet its name-recognition was abysmal when they came to Der. Here, too, a look at the before and after logos offers a glimpse into the thinking behind the rebranding.

Simplifying the name to Feeding America, made it easier to remember, especially since those two words precisely captured the organization’s purpose. The logo further simplified the name by using a bold, simple, sans serif font, and its harvest colors further associated the name with nutritious foodstuff. The transformation of two of the letters into a shaft of wheat not only solidified the name’s association with food but conveyed a hopeful, aspirational feeling by shooting up past the letters into the sky.

“Branding helps clarify an identity and what it’s trying to accomplish,” said Der, “allowing people to perceive and understand your vision.” In this case, it allowed Feeding America to make inroads they’d never accomplished before, forming new corporate partnerships totaling $1 billion.

That ain’t hokum, frivolity, or corporate evil.

Next week, Part 2: The branding process.