Prototyping Culture

In the first part of this series—In Search of Inspiration—we looked at ways in which the Strategy-by-Design approach could inform brand development. In this second part, we’ll turn our attention to the Ideation phase of the design process to see how it can help us build stronger brands.

The Ideation phase is where the practitioner begins to develop and describe the brand. This is usually done in the form of a brand platform—a document that conveys all tangible and intangible aspects of the brand. It’s essentially an internal communication tool, written to ensure that everyone involved perceive the nascent brand in the same way.

The problem with this approach is that the brand platform usually remains in written format—a less than efficient vehicle in which to assertively convey a brand’s essence or personality. The platform may for example attribute to the brand characteristics such as “pragmatic”, “trustworthy”, or “visionary”, but such words mean different things to different people, and no practitioner can afford such ambiguity.

Brands are Culture

The reason why brands are so hard to pin down is that they, ultimately, are rooted in culture. And culture—being the intangible, shared, and ever-changing thing that it is—is nearly impossible to characterize in words alone. It’s “messy” for lack of a better word—made up by a composition of ideas that attach and detach themselves as the culture evolves. And the same thing is true for brands ranging from Levis to Apple to Innocent Juice.

This is why Extreme-User Workshops, the research method advocated by the likes of IDEO and introduced in part one of this series, can be so successful. Such workshops target the bleeding edge—the nucleus of a given culture from which mainstream members take their cue. Whether they be fashionistas, Apple fan-boys, or champions of the organic-produce movement, they are the people that create and define the ideas of which culture (and brands) are made.

Brand Prototypes

If brands are made of culture, it’s only natural that we use tools that cater to culture’s many idiosyncrasies. Prototyping fits the bill in that prototypes, like culture, are evolutionary—they evolve over time and in response to outside influence. They are also superb at uncovering hidden complexities—capable of visualizing the many interconnected ideas that exist within culture.

A brand prototype is essentially an early representation of the brand in whatever format deemed most appropriate. It can be as simple as an image, or as elaborate as a mood board, a video, or even a creative space. The only real requirement is that it conveys whatever meaning we’re trying to put forth. The prototype serves as a conversation starter—a visual representation of an otherwise invisible brand.

Brand Molecules

Perhaps the most promising prototyping tool I’ve come across is that of Brand Molecules introduced in John Grant’s The Brand Innovation Manifesto. Here, John suggests that we visualize brands as “clusters of strategic cultural ideas”. Like atoms, these ideas combine to form molecular structures to which new ideas can be added and old ideas can be removed—all in order to keep pace with cultural change. And because they are modular these “Brand Molecules” lend themselves well to prototyping. Not only do they provide a form of visualization, but they also help identify complimentary add-ons. Consider this example molecule for the renowned TED Conference:

What’s next for TED? How about a TED X-Prize? A TED Tour? Or maybe a user-generated idea-database to harness the power of TED’s global following? Either of these ideas would connect neatly with the TED molecule as depicted above. But just as these ideas would build on and complement the whole, there are also ideas that would best be left at the wayside. TED’s recent expansions, for example, may well come to undermine the exclusivity on which it’s so dependent. And what does the decision to move the conference from Monterey—a quaint township without an international airport—to a megalopolis such as Los Angeles mean for its image?

Perhaps the most interesting feature of the Brand Molecule is that it includes both positive and negative associations. It aims to be an honest depiction of what the brand is today rather than an aspirational image of what it should be tomorrow. And this, again, brings us back to the topics of culture and visualization: how can we produce an accurate depiction of culture—as it is today—when each and every component is intangible and transient?

Part one of the answer lies in the drawn-out process of creating the molecule itself. Constant iteration deepens ones appreciation of the subject matter—whatever it is. Part two is all about information architecture. Grant doesn’t go quite this far, but it’s certainly possible to use shapes, sizes, colors, and momentum to strengthen a molecule’s informational value. The addition of images and video represents another possibility—effectively turning the molecule into a brand mood board that could, through digital representation, be kept up to date and accessible for all stakeholders.

The approach is one that proponents of mind mapping and other visual-thinking methods will appreciate. And while such methods certainly aren’t “better” than the alternatives (the right-brain/left-brain dichotomy is a myth), I speak from experience when I say that it’s easier to get people to study a visualization of something than to get them to read just about anything.

So, there you have it: brands are rooted in culture and prototyping represents the best method available to us for mapping their nucleuses. In the third and final part of the series—entitled Becoming a Storyteller—we’ll turn our attention to the Execution phase of the design process to see how we can use narratives to endow our creations with agency.