… for better communication and stronger branding!

Learning to write, forming the various letters like the teacher writing on the blackboard, is also learning to read. The same, unique movement of his hand, is equally the main tool for the graphic designer.

A strong brand identity is always built through proper use of the brand logotype and graphics, the colour or colour scheme and/or the brand spokesman, icon or symbol.

There is a saying within the Nestlé world that goes something like this: “Nescafé is always Nescafé because Nescafé is not Nescafé any more…!”

Some brands are for ever linked to one and the same product and it is unthinkable to use it for another product, even in the same category. Other brands have the capacity to be stretched. One can also speak of brand extension, but I prefer the term “leverage”.

I have lately been involved in some ‘special edition’ package designs which, unfortunately, did not become the masterpieces I had hoped. The reason is very simple. Very few brand managers dare to ‘do it fully’ and therefore end up with half-way solutions which will never have an impact upon the buyer.

Guinness just redesigned their 50cl draught can. Did you notice it? Maybe, maybe not. Doesn’t matter. What matters is that they did it right. This is unusual as today we mostly see up-datings or modernisations without real logic or common sense thinking – just playing around with different elements. Here are seven learnings:

I am often asked the question: “from where do you get your creativity?” The answer is: “mostly in keeping my eyes open, from storechecking, and being curious. That is what I would call the visual input to my brain. However, these images need stimuli to be of value and this stimulation comes from my verbal memory, from books I have read.

Packaging – Unravelling the Value of
the Silent Salesman
Simplify your message in order to amplify what you have to sell, advises Lars Wallentin, a Packaging Communication Specialist. Part of what the product does and stands for is getting lost through unclear and complicated communication, when in fact simplicity is the key. As a speaker at the [...]

Brands are in a sense virtual, helping to make products real. Products will always be more important than brands as they fill the latter with real substance. However, what we buy is more often a brand than a product as the brand has a superior emotional content. We buy Nescafé rather than freezedried soluble coffee and Red Bull rather than an energy drink.