JKR

We talk a lot of ‘brand stories’ these days, but what do we mean by that? Is a brand story just a USP? A glorified product advantage? A romanced reassurance of quality? A way of offering us a deeper way of connecting with brands? A jumping off point for design and communication, a reason for being? The substance behind the style, just in case anyone asks? Probably all these things and more, but that’s a bigger question for another day.

In the meantime a more flippant thought. There’s a brilliant book by Christopher Booker called The 7 Basic Plots that offers great material for sounding smug at dinner parties. Its basic premise is that every narrative ever written boils down to 1 of 7 basic plots. A few examples are: ‘Overcoming the Monster’ (Dr No, Beowulf, Frankenstein, Jaws, Jack and the Beanstalk); Rags to Riches (Aladdin, Cinderella), The Quest (everything from Lord of the Rings to Indiana Jones), Voyage & Return (The Odyssey, Alice in Wonderland, Goldilocks). You get the picture.

So I wondered if we could identify the typical themes for the equivalent in ‘brand story’ terms? Here’s my five basic brand stories, can you think what the other two might be?

1. Product Superiority
Crafted by artisans, hand stitched, hand blown, hand picked, quadruple distilled, made with only the freshest, made with 8 different herbs and botanicals… A unique and sustainable angle or claim makes a product story resonate.

2. Provenance
Provenance can be about reassurance (by confirming the product is from a place you’d expect it to be) or about uniqueness – this brand is from X, which makes it more interesting and unique than brand Y. I’d expect Prada to be from a capital of Italian fashion, so its sign off provides reassurance (as well as attractive visual detail), but I might be attracted to the romance of the French Countryside promised by L’Occitane, or intrigued by the exotic source (and questionable carbon footprint) of Fiji Water.

3. Heritage
The heritage brand story is about providing a brand or manufacturers reassurance about product or service quality by virtue of sheer length of existence. ‘I’ve been here since the year dot, so clearly I must be good at this’ kind of thing. It’s part of the visual furniture of luxury fashion brands.

4. Principles or Cause
To give your brand wider or deeper meaning, a story of principles, or alignment with a cause can help forge saliency (as well as just being a good thing to do). Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty, The Body Shop and Aveda are all examples.

5. The Pioneer
Brands that were founded by a visionary or charismatic entrepreneur are able to capitalise on the spirit of innovation that such pioneers represent. Coco Chanel is an obvious innovator in her field, and her personality is inextricably linked with the Chanel brand, whilst Johnnie Walker’s striding man has increasingly become a real human being and not just a symbol of progress – John Walker, son of a farmer, and canny Scottish entrepreneur.

Unlike real stories though, brands don’t adhere to just a single basic framework. Many brands (particularly those in the luxury sector) skillfully weave together multiple stories, creating depth and nuance for their brand personality and therefore a variety of sources of creative inspiration for design and communication. And of course story isn’t everything – it’s just one element of a brand’s genetic make up. Bombay Sapphire’s iconic blue bottle redefined the gin category when it first launched and its unique product story just gave it added depth (and provided gin snobs with some bar bragging rights).

Lastly, just because a ‘type’ of brand story has been done before, doesn’t make it any less valid. The real opportunity for brands is to identify the narratives that they can authentically lay claim to and make them engaging and ownable to themselves. Brand stories are I suppose, the equivalent of category conventions in design – they can help by communicating something about your product, but if you own them, you can say something unique about your brand.

By Katie Ewer, strategic planner, jkr Singapore

Here’s a good new book if you like receiving creative wisdom via readable anecdotes and thought provoking analogies (as opposed to one of those rather more American ‘the six rules of’ style tick lists). If only I could retain all the wisdom in books like this. I would be a much better practitioner.

I have to admit I typically read them with a magpie eye, pinching the nice shiny turns of phrase and examples that I can add to my own quiver of ammunition. This book has a great deal of shiny stuff to offer. Dave Trott is obviously something of an advertising legend, but it’s quite reassuring to see that he faces all the same communication challenges as we mere mortals.

The book covers a range of topics (one might describe it as pointed wool gathering) but I loved his general observations on the fact consumers, by and by, just don’t care. They are oblivious to advertising much of the time and even if aware, not really that interested.

He talks about how while we scrutinise creative ‘under the jeweller’s eyeglass’…‘We treat consumers (as if they were) trained to notice every detail of an ad. The brand personality, the subtle messaging, the ironic subtext, the typeface, the style of animation, the nuances of the humour, the relevance of the music, the casting, the lighting, the editing. When in fact they aren’t even looking. They don’t care and they don’t want to care…The question we should be asking isn’t is it right? The question is, will anyone even notice it?’

In our design work we couple two words – noticed and chosen. If you can’t see it you can’t select it. But once noticed, packaging has to work in the blink of an eye to tell you who and what it is and why today you want it, in a sea of choice, with your toddler having a meltdown. Beyond getting noticed, chosen happens in nano seconds and yet packaging is also researched under the jeweller’s eyeglass, though most agree it can be a bit of nonsense.

One thing Dave Trott talks to is that no matter what message we think we are putting out, we have no real idea what might resonate or why. I didn’t buy his book because he is a known authority. I bought it because I remember a photograph of him stood under a tree for Creative Review about 15 years ago. He looked like a nice bloke. Probably said something in the interview I liked but have long forgotten. And he has a name I think sounds trustworthy. So that’s why I bought a copy. Because people are random. It might not even have been him in that photo!

The trains might often get delayed but one thing you can rely on with the British transport system is a regular turnover of identity and graphic design, much of it wonderful. Creative Review featured a set of fabulous mini identities designed by Lloyd Northover for Railtrack’s major stations in the nineties. Above is one for Paddington featuring a witty nod to that station’s architecture. Below are Charing Cross and London Bridge (with its view across the Thames)…

With successive companies managing the rail system it seems that these designs (which have always been something of a grace note on a bigger identity project) are now falling into disuse. The Beauty of Transport blog suggests that when they turn up as ephemera in auctions years from now they will be collector’s classics. (Which makes me wonder, who are the bigger nerds – train spotters or design junkies?)

What I love about the designs (apart from their elegant wit) is their existence in the first place. There was no burning need for them, but people thought them sufficiently worthwhile to invest time and money nevertheless. I find this heartening as it suggests not everything has to be about the bottom line.

Visiting the London Transport Museum a while back I snapped this train livery, wondering why such attractive craftsmanship seems beyond our reach these days. Why do all the new rail companies have such cheap looking logos and application? Are we just lazy? The Lloyd Northover designs prove that the old spirit of making a bloody effort is still alive and kicking. One hopes that whoever follows next in the ownership and rebranding of our railways will open up yet more opportunities for design to follow in this grand tradition. You might call it ‘design for design’s sake’. But if it gladdens the heart and pleases the eye, why should this be a criticism?

The poet and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge suggested that if a writer could infuse a ‘human interest and a semblance of truth’ into a fictitious tale, the reader would suspend judgment of the story’s implausibility. He called it ‘a willing suspension of disbelief’ and Bonne Maman proves his theory beautifully. We happily embrace the conceit that this jam is lovingly prepared by a grandmother at home from fruit she’s picked freshly in her garden. And there’s no question it tastes sweeter for it.

In the case of Bonne Maman, the ‘semblance of truth’ comes from the adoption of two design ingredients that signify homemade: the handwritten label and gingham cloth. Before lids were commonplace, gingham was used to cover and protect the waxed paper that would seal homemade jams. Consequently, its distinctive pattern has etched a deep association with homemade into our minds.

Bonne Maman’s use of the conventional jam codes demonstrate that it is possible to take something generic and make it your own. The brand has simply borrowed the elements and their associations then put them in a different context – in this case taken them from the pantry to the supermarket shelf.

Bonne Maman also illustrates the importance of exercising restraint. There must have been a temptation to add to the label, but it’s the simplicity and the perfect rendering of the type that make the idea easy to swallow. It would be negligent not to mention the faceted jar which elevates the brand without breaking the spell.

The great irony is that there’s now a whole host of jam makers who will only use Bonne Maman’s jars for their homemade mixture. A design so compelling it’s turned a fantasy into a reality.

By James Joice, client director, jkr

Paul Morley was on the box last night discussing the once so shocking 1913 ballet, The Rite of Spring. Have we become so jaded that nothing shocks us now, he wondered? Have we actually become nostalgic for the power of culture to shock?

Also on TV last night was a documentary about the photographer Erwin Blumenfeld, The Man Who Shot Beautiful Women. It’s well worth a look on iPlayer. Blumenfeld’s creative imagination and ability to push things was staggering. These images (he was in his imperial period between the forties and late fifties) are unbelievably contemporary. Indeed, one can see so many later photographers, from Guy Bourdin to Nick Knight, tumbling out of what he started. Below is his classic Vogue cover and a more recent ‘interpretation’ by Chanel. They are avant-garde, but they are also timeless images.

Where does this ability to create freshly minted classics lie? Perhaps with having a point in the first place. Blumenfeld idolised women and much of his work reached out to try and capture a kind of idealised and enigmatic beauty. As one commentator noted, what makes these pictures so timeless is that the images are of beauty and so are as beautiful today as they were back then. The use of white space is stunning, though most magazines today would ruin the simplicity with cover blurb. More commerce, less art.

So, returning to the power to shock in culture and design. These images were once shocking and are still amazingly fresh. But they transcend style (he referred to art directors, who provided his bread and butter, as ‘arse directors’) because they reach for something higher. They defy time because they began with a vision and a point. Bracing criteria for our own creative endeavours as we face into Monday morning…