In Search of Inspiration
In the article Strategy by Design, Tim Brown outlines the merits of “design thinking” in the context of business strategy. This way of thinking, he writes, is the key to sustainable innovation. And he should know: Tim Brown is the CEO and President of IDEO, a design firm widely considered to be one of the world’s most innovative companies.
Brown’s approach should find immediate appeal among branding practitioners. After all, branding, like innovation, is a social process primarily concerned with intangibles. As such, it presents practitioners with similar challenges: how to identify hidden opportunities, how to build upon ambiguous data, and how to visualize and communicate abstract ideas.
Strategy by Design (SbyD) addresses these idiosyncrasies by using the design process to develop strategy. The benefit being that the design process, unlike the more traditional and scientific approach to strategy development, capitalizes on creativity and empathy—“soft skills” that are essential when developing brands.
In this first part in a series on Brand Strategy by Design, we’ll look squarely at the inspiration phase of the design process to see what learning SbyD can offer to branding practitioners.
Beyond Validation
The first phase of the design process—Inspiration—is what business strategists typically refer to as the market-research phase. This is where they attempt to validate alternate strategies based on the current state of their business. The SbyD approach is different in that it uses the customer, not the business, as a jumping-off point. Rather than asking “This is were we are today, were can we go next?” the question becomes, “What are the needs of our customers and how can we satisfy those needs?
The idea of being customer centric is, of course, nothing new—it’s a virtue preached in business schools around the globe. What is new, however, is the idea that research should inspire rather than validate strategy. It suggests that research is more exploration than investigation and that we should rethink how we approach branding research.
Add to this the fact that many practitioners today talk about brands within the context of culture (a topic we’ll return to in part two of this series). If you buy into this idea, as I do, it follows that a more holistic approach is needed. Traditionally, we’ve used focus groups and in-depth interviews to explore representative samples of audiences. We’ve employed projective techniques, we’ve talked about preferences, and we’ve explored attitudes—all in an attempt to understand the enigma that is the consumer.
But “representative sample” means average, average means run-of-the-mill, and run-of-the-mill means “lacking any unusual or special aspects.” Clearly, this is not the foundation on which to create something as complex as a brand! SbyD tackles this issue by shifting its focus to empirical research and “extreme users”.
Empirical Research
The benefit of empiricism, or observation, lies in the intangible nature of the subject in question: attitudes and preferences can be hard to articulate—especially so in an artificial setting such as a focus group facility. Good moderators can counteract this issue, but they will always be limited to respondents’ aptitude for self-expression (not to mention the fact that good moderators are hard to come by).
It’s what the Anthropologist has known all along: culture cannot be understood without context. That’s why, in SbyD, we look for inspiration “in the wild”, either by observing the customer experience or by recreating it for ourselves. It’s essentially learning-by-doing and the result is better insights.
Extreme-User Workshops
In the case of extreme users, we’re essentially relying on those most passionate to provide insights into the audience at-large. Their passion defines these individuals. It’s something real and pronounced, and they are, consequently, more capable of articulating their thoughts and ideas. They are also more likely to be “Mavens”, the term Malcolm Gladwell uses to denote influencers that share their thoughts and ideas with people around them.
Tim Brown’s IDEO calls this technique “unfocus groups” to signify that its more show-and-tell than idle chatter. It’s about brainstorming and even prototyping—a topic we’ll return to in part two of this series. Like traditional focus group, unfocus groups are dependent on the moderator to provide direction, but they have more animated respondents to work with. The result is, once again, better insights.
So, there you have it: two ways in which SbyD can inform brand development. In the second part of the series—entitled Prototyping Culture—we’ll turn our attention to the Ideation phase of the design process. Amongst other things, we’ll discuss how prototyping can help us visualize brands as “clusters of cultural ideas”.