To create and serve
On the subject of the brand police, brutality, conformity and service in the creative industries.
I’m a brand consultant and a sole trader. As [a] design agency I lead a company of one.
Marketing people say theat they protect and build brands. Brand guardians can often find themselves reffered to as the ‘brand police’. Ideally this term is flattering, perhaps with tongue in cheek.
But this language isn’t helpful when it’s used to describe the death of creativity or brutal constraints in the name of brand consistency. On the one hand, brand guides can be seen as immutable laws. On the flip side, creative people often need to champion their delicate new ideas.
New ideas, like brand guides, should be nurtured and grown.
It’s important to me that the term ‘brand police’ most often referrs, enderingly, to a protector of a brand. An idea I keep hearing is that creative industries aren’t service industries. Putting that aside, I’d like to think about service from the brand police.
When should the ‘brand police’ protect or create?
When should we simply serve?
Or, when should an individual designer, consultant or manager convince and when should you comply?
Something I tell clients a lot is,
“I can disagree and comply simultaneously”
For me, that’s because the people I work with are paying me for my oppionions before all else.
I’d like to think that they believe in me because of something I’ve said or done in the past, but that begins to sound like I deseve their blind faith. Which, for the record, none of us ever do.
*Note; That applies to all of you award-winning career designers and it applies to so-called ‘brand influencers’ and ‘marketing gurus’ too.
Unhelpful thoughts:
I will be judged by my most recent work!
Perhaps you will. But by whom?
Let’s start with a theoretical. It’s about the impact of a porfolio of work, the level of finish and the impact it has on your marketing efforts and brand.
We all have ideas about the value our portfolio has as a tool to attract attention. As visual communicators, most designers attach a huge value to the polished impact of their case studies and award wins.
A less tangible but equally imprtant output of each any every project is the reputation you gain through good old fashioned word of mouth. And your biggest prosepect to amplify and endorse that reputation is your current client.
This project launch represents my value as a creative!
Does it though?
Do you value refferal over cold leads as a business? Does your most recent project determine the value of your entire output?
Then, which works best for you? And, do you have the time to change things right now?
To simplify, rate one comment as your preference.
I find new work through—
A. Endorsement, recommendations, social proof and reviews of projects from previous clients.
B. The award, case-study or press write-up, about one project.
Depending on your response, you could expand on this.
How often do complete strangers commission my creative work?
How many comission based one single expression of my creative genious?
A simplfied version of this question is—
Having gotten this far, why not tell me how it is for you?
Do you think it’s more likly your next prospect will find you becuase of the work itself, or the way your client speaks about the experience of working together?
Do you work in a service industry?
Do terms like ‘creativity’, ‘ROI’ and ‘brand guide’ trump service?