And together
with 45 people in 5 cities...
BaseBC
NBaseNY
CBaseSC
L
BaseGVA
U
we are Base
Branding
X
Technology
The Story of
Cliff &
Chase Bank
Cliff Kuang, Editor-in-Chief
Fast Co.Design
☺
EVERYONE
STAND UP!
Hello!
Privet!
Brands are like people!
For people, we ask things like:
How do you dress?
Where are you from?
What are you like?
How do you behave?
What do you enjoy?
...and for brands we
can ask the same things.
Identity Personality
Experience
Identity
#1
Brands are like people!
Identity is unique.
It’s who you are, after all.
No matter how young.
Personality
#2
How would you describe
a person?
How would you describe
this man?
or this man?
Brands are like people!
What is Google’s
personality?
What is Google’s personality?
Intuitive?
What is Google’s personality?
Intuitive
Generous?
Google cemetery
What is Google’s personality?
Intuitive
Generous
Functional and Clear?
What is Google’s personality?
Intuitive
Generous
Functional and Clear
Innovative?
Google’s personality:
Intuitive
Generous
Functional and Clear
Innovative
Experience
#3
Question!
What was your best
vacation?
at the beach
Brands are like people!
You generally can’t afford something like this.
when traveling...
something like this.
so you end up getting...
NOT exciting.
alternative:
Rent somebody else’s spare
rooms.
Cheap but also NOT exciting.
“Airbnb connects people to
unique travel experiences.”
www.airbnb.com
Now THAT is EXCITING!
They take care of all the lousy parts...
Search, booking, cancellations, cleaning fees,
communication, payment, scheduling, security
deposits, fraud, etc.
...so your experience can focus
on the exciting.
What happens when we put it altogether?
Identity Personality
Experience
Case Studies
Case study 1:
Strong brand
vs
Challenged brand
VS
www.gilt.com
www.fab.com
What’s the difference?
Fully developed &
consistent since
day one
Revised
several times
#1. IDENTITY
- Optimistic
- Colorful
- Design-y
- Friendly
- Fun
- Inspiring
- Commercial
- Transactional
- Uninspiring
#2. PERSONALITY
•- Fun to browse
- About recognizing
great design
- Displaying your
good taste
- About sharing
- Transactional
- About how much
money you spend
- Displaying your
wealth
- About buying
#3. EXPERIENCE
RESULTS
- Identity strong!- Identity: change
RESULTS
- Identity strong!- Sales
growing
- Identity: change
- Sales have peaked
RESULTS
- Identity strong!- Sales
growing - Personality:
Optimism! “Become
next IKEA!”
- Identity: change
- Sales have peaked
- Personality:
“bitchy supermodel
vs girl next door”
- Identity strong!
- Sales growing
- Personality:
Optimism!
“Become next IKEA!”
- No real competition
- Identity: change
- Sales have peaked
- Personality:
“bitchy supermodel
vs girl next door” -
Increased competition
RESULTS
RESULTS
FAB moving into... fashion!
and creating their OWN product lines.
Engagement
Case study 2:
Think of the moments you
have spent with your best
friend.
photo of 2 friends?
Brands are like people!
Warby Parker
www.warbyparker.com
Engaging both
online and offline.
#1 Home try-on gallery
#2 Holiday market
#3 Tour bus
Results :
- Total disruption of the
eyewear market
Trust
Case study 3:
Brands are like people!
From 2009 to early 2012,
J&J recalled:
It’s as personal to put
something into one’s body as it
is to share one’s intimate life
Brand extension
Case study 4:
dad’s
favorite
crazy
unclesexy
cousin
funny
dad
strict
mum
messy
baby
smart
brothe
r
Brands are like people!
So what does it all mean?
Identity Personality
Experience
Successful companies of the
future
brand product+ distribu-
tion
+
lucktiming team ...+ + +
Successful companies of the
future
Brands are
like people!
@geoffreycook
@brvmrtn
@base_design basedesign.com

Brand are like people !

Editor's Notes

  • #3 Partner in BaseNY Marketing and strategy for our clients.
  • #4 Designer. Base Chile. ITP intersection art design tech. Digital aspect of projects.
  • #6 emphasize people, stories of how bases evolved ADD pictures of teams.
  • #8 Fashion : Puma, Chanel, Adidas, Loewe
  • #9 Pop culture Kanye
  • #10 Cultural institutions: MoMA, Guggenheim, Haus der Kunst, Grand Palais
  • #11 Civic projects: NYC ... & politics European Socialist Party,
  • #12 GC: Not from tech world. we ’ ll talk brand. Important: Brand not a magic bullet. Won ’ t solve everything. It is an asset that will make your company stronger. MB: Brand increasingly important to tech. Increased opportunities: Static (communicate) > Moving (tell story) > Interactive (behave) Tech interacts. Behaves. Therefore it ’ s emotional.
  • #15 Chase, as pretty much every bank in the world. Cliff ’ s reaction... indifference. “ I don ’ t care. ” How do you feel about your bank? We need them but we don ’ t care about them. We don ’ t relate to them.
  • #17 App... interaction with the brand. Solves a problem in a smart way. Makes his life better. Suddenly we love them. in his mind EXPERIENCIAL, in our mind MUCH MORE Complex. M : also the fact that it ’ s Smart.
  • #18 What ’ s your purpose? Your reason for being? Look at person behind you? How is he/she dressed? Hair? Makeup? What does this look represent? Where are they from? Their tastes? Now shake hands. Introduce yourselves. Ask What brought you here tonight.
  • #19 What is their personality? Were they Nice? Funny? How was this experience? You ’ re all different. M: I set this music to entertain the online crowd who like me didn ’ t get the chance to play this game!
  • #20 Now... wouldn ’ t it be weird if you all were EXACTLY THE SAME?! Even in this crowd, we see they are all different people even though dressed the same. You ’ re all grown up. You know who you are. You ’ re individuals.
  • #26 We have these brands. Excellent, young brands and products. All are successful for different reasons. ELABORATE ON EACH! But in a way they are like teenagers. These brands look very similar. Yet all are extremely different. Strange... Identity is not how you look but who you are. They fill a need. Our experience with them is positive. And yet...
  • #27 So then...It ’ s weird when they all look basically the same, right? Like teenagers, trying to belong.
  • #28 MARTIN bird. discover. connect. playful. for example the way they use the home button. **MARTIN : DISCOVER, CONNECT ref what Twitter is all about. ALSO: Quill could have been a pen. But it, like birdhouse references Tweet Tweet
  • #29 teenagers. grow up. own style.
  • #30 G: read the text. M: Perhaps going forward, it will be more interesting for tech companies not to look like ‘ THE WEB ’ But to look like themselves. To reflect who they are. To reflect their purpose. Why they exist. probably many of you have their own startups. ask yourselves. don ’ t you think your company is unique? Why then not communicate it like so?
  • #31 Let ’ s take artsy, for example. How many of you know artsy? funded by Dasha Zhukova, founder of Moscow ’ s Garage Center for Contemporary Culture. artsy, ny based. catalogue of the arts. marketplace. disrupt the arts world, the way the information is shared, the gallery model. M: grown up approach by a startup. all digital.
  • #32 visual language > unique, contemporary art lang. one of the largest catalogues of contemporary art. the genome. tool for discovery, study. buyers > galleries. open catalogue knowledge
  • #33 specially in this market. had very clear that presenting themselves properly was crucial to their success. since day one: clean, professional, sleek, consistent, unique to who they are. belonging to tech and also to the arts language.
  • #34 G: going back to our experience of getting to know each other. we talked about the look, the identity. now we ’ ll talk about personality.
  • #35 G
  • #39 Take Google for example...
  • #42 M: Describe. not as lucky as geoff. but still from brooklyn still can go and search stuff in Moscow with google maps, and it know what I want. I can put pretty much anything and it will respond to what I ’ m thinking about. Big apple fail > we ’ re spoiled by google.
  • #43 M: tverskaya. being chilean no idea how to spell russian. spelling correction.
  • #47 M: I must say that has been put in question lately. You might be familiar with the case of google reader, who had a small buy very loyal and intensive user base. That put in question google ’ s generosity, reminding us they ’ re a business.
  • #49 GC: Yes, last 10 years, core functionality hasn ’ t changed.
  • #50 MB And even more so now. notice the microphone. they reached the point where the complexity actually simplifies the experience. the more advanced they get, the simpler they make it to the user.
  • #52 GC: Google going into new areas.
  • #67 A local experience in Paris
  • #70 ML takes over. Really good website and iPhone apps to standardize the process w/efficient tools. You, the provider, can focus on inquiries and the renter and... as the renter...
  • #71 With trust, you can focus on having a very local experience. Even have the opportunity of making new friends.
  • #72 So Airbnb allows for an experience that ’ s even BETTER than a hotel experience.
  • #73 GEOFF HERE
  • #76 Describe both Gilt Founded Nov 2007. Doing between $600 million- $1 billion Fab Founded June 2011 $100 million
  • #87 Talking IDENTITY
  • #100 Before Warby: What you do when you need lenses
  • #108 ML: Many online brands have felt the need to bridge the gap between digital stores and physical environments. Each time fun & engaging. Escaping from setting up a physical store.
  • #110 GC
  • #111 GC
  • #112 GC
  • #113 GC
  • #114 M: Acquisition by Facebook made people specially sensitive.
  • #115 GC
  • #116 GC
  • #117 GC
  • #118 GC
  • #119 GC
  • #127 M: As the case studies of Warby Parker, Virgin and Fab show, the more a brand can satisfy each of these areas, the greater chance for success they will have. Especially tech brands, which have the ability to react/behave and respond to different user inputs, the way that the brand acts is as important as the way the brand communicates.
  • #128 GC