Talk to me.

Colourful Pop art illustration of a woman

Their data will show them that I shop with them 3 or 4 times a week, mainly between 12 noon and 2pm, and usually buy sandwiches or salads. I don’t think it takes a lot of processing power to work out I’m buying lunch – so why do they keep sending me offers for nightwear?

The offers I get seem intent on making me buy things I have no interest in, rather than buying more of the things I am interested in. Are they just pushing their agenda, rather than understanding mine?

Why aren’t they – and many other retailers – using the data they are collecting in a way that’s relevant to me? Are they still trying to catch up?

Personalisation should be creating a stronger bond with customers. From knowing where I am using wifi, to what I ordered and when, they certainly have the means to communicate with me in a meaningful way. Instead, sending me copious emails asking me to review my purchases isn’t showing an interest in me – sending me a follow up email with an offer on a linked product could be.

I’m assured that brands are using algorithms and neuroscience to create a more intuitive and mindful retail and e-commerce experience. That could easily mean that the home page of the sites I buy from could be personalised to me, from the content and images that are served, to the soundtrack playing.

Am I expecting too much? Am I alone in thinking data about me is valuable and I should be rewarded in a meaningful way for sharing it?

Branding culture at the point of delivery.

coloured pencils arranged to form a light bulb from the negative space

Firstly, I went into a chain-restaurant at lunchtime to book a table for Tuesday night. I asked, “There will only be 3 of us but would it be possible to have a larger table, as we might have laptops out?

The reception I had was frosty to say the least. I understand I was asking to take a table that could make more money, but I’m a regular customer and didn’t expect the abrupt response.

All this was after waiting 5 minutes to be dealt with – although plenty of staff had seen, and ignored me – and no apology for the delay.

Was I wrong to be asking for a little more? Was I wrong to expect a little better customer experience?

Today, I went into an independent sandwich shop where I was acknowledged immediately with a smile and a bright hello, even though both staff were serving others. When it was my turn it was a friendly yet prompt exchange – I was in and out quickly with exactly what I wanted.

I have no doubt that the big retail chains invest heavily in staff training, and they certainly spend big on design to draw customers in. But, in contrast, the sandwich shop has invested in – you’ve guessed it – a simple sandwich board. Is this design thinking that reflects their brand?

Or is the difference training, or even the wider question of culture and employee engagement?

I’ve looked at the numbers on investment in training and subsequent returns. HR Magazine in the US has research that shows investment above $1,500 per employee can increase profits by 24%. Staggering!

You might argue the restaurant was simply following training that focuses them on the value of each cover. I would then argue the case for customer loyalty and life-time value, but that’s not my point today.

I personally think it’s the latter – culture and employee engagement – and it’s not a project or programme that will ever stop.

Of course it’s much harder to control a national workforce and you can’t account for someone simply having a bad day. But as more and more businesses invest in technology to speed up the customer transaction time, it should free up time for better employee engagement, brand culture development and even simply, the person serving.

The Wild West…what does that mean for design?

Cactus on a hill in Tucson

I’m looking at market scoping, understanding how things are changing and how the UK differs to other geographic markets.

It has also got me thinking about the role geography plays in marketing.

We all know about geographic segmentation and the ongoing revolution that is location-based marketing, but how does ‘geography’ impact design?

This week I can see that simple business communications are vastly different for every team we meet. I can tell you that everything from business cards, to point-of-sale, to retail packaging easily identifies their cultural background before any words are even exchanged. It also makes you feel more comfortable as a buyer, when you identify with the graphic design of those you’re dealing with, regardless of which geographic location you find yourself in.

So with gem dealers from all over the world and every culture you can think of, not just the USA, you soon see that how you present yourself can make a big difference in attracting the audience you want.

Graphic design IS culturally sensitive and can be even more powerful in the right location. It sets us apart, and not just from our competitors.

I also now know why the design team at Dunk work so hard to keep every design-brief different and sensitive to the location and cultural representations, whether it’s an Italian restaurant brand at the O2, or a Danish bakery in Victoria Station.

So looking at the cactus here in Arizona, I have realised our proposed communication plan for this client is very British. This could mean they’re like prickly-pear to some cultures here in Tucson, while to others it could be like a cool Pimms and lemonade on a warm desert evening.

Digital, as a traditional product.

compact Dyson vacuum cleaner

Why?

For us, we always start and end with the following question: What do you want and need your digital presence to do?

We like to help people to make the digital space more useful. It needs to work for them and their objectives. Those objectives might be linked to revenue growth, retention and loyalty, awareness or simply qualification to support a business development process.

Unlike Berners-Lee, who is quoted as saying: “Web users ultimately want to get at data quickly and easily. They don’t care as much about attractive sites and pretty design”, we believe design thinking is crucial to making functionality come alive. Only then do we achieve a truly great user-experience and a great product.

In the world of traditional product design, take Dyson. The assembly and the daily use of all those little coloured connections are pleasing moments for customers. They’re the intuitive little ‘Ah yes’ moments. The physical clicks mirror the mental clicks, as everything slots into place nicely. These are the moments which always accompany the use of pleasurable things, even though the task it is designed to do may not be that pleasurable. Dyson has created a best-in-class user experience through their product design, aesthetics, functionality and ultimately desirability. The holy grail.

We believe digital is no different, whether that’s an app, a website, or whatever the UI; so we try to ask ourselves ‘how are we able to build our clients the perfect digital product?’.

There is an abundance of digital themes with often excellent pre-defined user journeys, iconography and design styles. Tempting, but will they deliver the product our client requires? Yes and no.

Customisation of existing themes and modules – or designing and coding new ones to deliver specific client functionality – allows us to take the best-in-class and make them better whilst not having to compromise the end product. Ultimately, we are able to save our clients time, and get them the product they need.

And if we get it right we hope to have a few users saying to themselves ‘…ah yes’.

Brand tie-ups … to make cents, they should never make sense.

iPhone home icons

It didn’t make sense until I saw the #BFF reference (for those over 40, that’s Best Friends Forever). The brand values work together – meeting with friends, relaxing with friends and rewarding friends – so a weak link perhaps?

Or is this campaign about something else, in marketing terms?

Too often we hear about the challenges of media fragmentation, when in fact it’s starting to give us new media heroes?

Our friends at Benefit Cosmetics have driven all the PR activity surrounding the campaign, which of course Starbucks has supported with quotes and their obvious involvement. As a result I am now wondering if we’re looking at a brand tie-up, or actually a media planning phenomena for our age of social commerce?

Back in 2012, a study by JWT Intelligence found that over 40% of men and over a third of women are more likely to purchase something if a friend has recommended it on a social network. Could we argue Starbucks is now a social channel?

With close to 850 outlets Starbucks is arguably more effective in connecting with UK consumers through daily footfall than most mainstream news outlets.

So even if you agree with my observation, and we could be looking at a brave new approach to media planning, I have to say the best brand tie-ups have never made sense…to make cents.

Here’s my favourite from the early 90’s (for those under 40, that was the Fosters Lager & Haagen Daz campaign).

Provocative or Thought Provoking?

the era of broadcast media is DEAD

A recent blog by Lucy Mann, a DBA Expert Advisor, got me thinking. It talks about making friends with your inner sales person, which as she rightly explains, fills most people with dread. http://bit.ly/1SQj8N3

What she ultimately talks about is staying in contact with people, considering everyone as interesting and how even small businesses can be thought leaders with authentic content. In the office, we’ve used the term “thought provoking”.

All this is good advice but the thing that struck me most is the term “thought provoking”.

We’re about to launch a new website, showing some of what we think is our best work. You may find this interesting, you may not, but what we’re really trying to do is stay in contact with our network by sharing what we like to call Dunk’s Brain. This is all the thought provoking content we generate, curate or simply see.

Sure, there’s LinkedIn, email and the good old telephone. But you don’t want to pester people with waffle or even what they might consider “crap”.

So with our own marketing plans including email, events, networking etc – timed to perfection we hope – we’ve decided the website platform is as good as any for all our clients, friends, partners and prospects to decide exactly what is “thought provoking” for them, at their pace.

And it’s not all about us. We’re just looking to share what we think is “thought provoking”, whether that’s an opinion, good work, or our own experiences.

So yes, we’re looking to grow our business with “thought provoking” work. And we’d love to talk to you about what we think is provocative, but we’re also interested in what you find authentic content.

Maybe even asking yourself what’s “thought provoking” for your brand is food for thought in itself?

Watch out for our new site launch later this month. We hope you’ll find it…..?

Colour, Branding & Emotion … Let’s Ride the Tube!

London Underground Logo drawing

I arrived in London for the first time back in 1992. I was overwhelmed; the opportunity, the people and the colour (which is hard to imagine from a city that seems so grey on a day like today).

This city, that has a style that is so eclectic yet so uniform, has a colour that can be blinding. The irony is that you can’t survive in London without a lot of black in your wardrobe, yet I remember that first day in London as being one of the most colourful of my life.

London taught me the power of colour in communication and connecting with different people from all over the world. It was the flash of a red bus, the glimpse of the London Transport roundel and the rainbow of colours that make up our tube map that mesmerized me.

I had studied marketing at University in Australia but I’d never been exposed to the power of design like I was seeing on that cold day back in February 1992.

I’d studied the famous branding identity case studies but I hadn’t seen a brand identity like London Transport – living breathing and splashing colour across a city like it was it’s own personal canvas. It was then I knew I had to learn more about how design, art and marketing can come together to connect people.

So now I’m surrounded by great designers at Dunk Design and I see the power of colour at work almost every day. I like to think the Tube inspired me back then, and I feel just as inspired today.

In the words of Saul Bass, which Duncan lives his life by, “Interesting things happen when the creative impulse is cultivated with curiosity, freedom and intensity”.

Sounds like TfL and London to me.

Touch me, feel me…

Merlin Entertainment discount tickets

I was on holiday on the other side of the world and having a drink in a local bar. The waiter asked where we came from and it’s always easier to say ‘Windsor’ – we’re close to it and most people know who the Queen is and where she lives. I was surprised to hear our young Sri Lankan waiter say that he had visited Windsor the year before when staying in a tiny Berkshire village.

But then something really amazing happened. He opened his wallet and showed me the tickets he kept to remind him of his trip.

I was overwhelmed, as one of the tickets was one that we had designed for Merlin Entertainments – a minimum charge job, designed in our office in Windsor, sent to the US for a huge print run and presented back to me in a bar in Sri Lanka. It was a ticket that was for whether you wanted to see a fish, a waxwork or some famous building blocks; kept as a souvenir of a fabulous day at Madame Tussuads.

He was keeping one of the smallest design jobs we did as something to show people what he did on his holiday. An e-ticket wouldn’t have evoked the same emotional attachment.

Digital marketing has revolutionised how frequently, accurately and cost-effectively marketers are able to communicate with prospects, customers, stakeholders and suppliers. No one can argue with the range of options it has opened up – how easy it is to test creative, how quickly you can turn on or off any offer. Our clients love it and we really love the dynamism of creating digital campaigns.

But does it provide the longevity in emotional connection your print can?

So in a week when we’re printing over 1 million vouchers for a client, and recent reports indicate that the popularity of ebooks is stagnant as people want to hold real books http://nyti.ms/1KuGItp, let’s hear it for the print!

Calling all marketers: CSR needs you!

Corporate Social Responsibility - we can do it

The reason it was heated was because of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and the role marketing talent has to play.

I was arguing CSR was an excellent way to align and engage employees, with many subsequent benefits. Benefits like productivity, lower staff turnover and even talent acquisition.

This wasn’t what got so heated. What got heated was the reference to using internal marketing to support CSR – to use tried and tested skills in marketing to help align internal stakeholders to the desire for truly effective CSR.

Made complete sense to me. Not so much to my long time friend. So in marketing’s defence, I went digging.

A HA! A paper from 2010 on the use of “internal marketing” to engage employees in CSR, from the Doughty Centre at Cranfield University, supports my argument.

“Training managers in internal marketing tools is a good investment”.

It goes on to say that involving all stakeholders in CSR policy development, or the creation of external value, can only be good.

Then it hit me. My peer and friend was still operating in the old paradigm of marketing, and how external value is created (something the Doughty Centre paper went on to warn me about).

The confusion: Internal marketing isn’t stepping on the toes of good HR practices, or org design, or even good internal comms. Internal marketing makes use of research, design, analysis, feedback and insight. Marketing is no longer about directing the flow of goods, it’s about connecting stakeholders, supporting relationships and developing value, both internally and externally. And I’m pleased to say CSR can only be the winner in this new paradigm.

So I want to say, that although marketing is now integral to most organisations, I think we still have a branding job to do for marketing (and I’m not talking about a logo). It’s not just about mutual respect, it’s about truly understanding how we’ve all changed. We’ve all evolved professionally in our different disciplines, and now we have to continue that journey for the likes of CSR, new markets and most of all, our colleagues.

Designing the most effective solution cannot be done in isolation.

* Thanks to David Grayson of Cranfield University and M. Isabel Sanchez-Hernandez of the University of Etremadura in Spain, for your paper in 2010, for the Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility.

Why B2B is good design.

Grapes exhibition stand design 2015

Hats off to our friends at Grapes Design, along with Studio William and Rough Stuff, for the design innovation they showed this year.

I found it interesting that most of the exhibitors approached their stand design as though they were targeting consumers. Sure the attendees of the show have consumers as their customers and, yes, it is important to see how a product or service will improve the customer experience. But, as a business buyer, there is much more to the decision making process.

So often a supplier will take a space at a show, organise a stand, leaflets and some giveaways and think success will come. And, if you’re at the Ideal Home Show, that might just be enough – a sample in a consumer’s hand and a voucher might just tip them over to buy your product.

But B2B shows need a different approach. Your stand needs to be designed to convey business benefits quickly and clearly. Your staff need to qualify prospects, their influence in the decision to purchase, what drives them and what alternatives they are looking at.

But what I mainly experienced was people thrusting freebies in my hand and telling me I should try their products without any of that vital qualification. As soon as I explained I too was a supplier to the sector, they all walked away, without exploring what I know and just who I might be connected to.

For me, B2B is about networking, collaborating, sharing ideas and innovating. Regardless of whether I’m a budget holding decision maker, or simply a marketer with years of experience, everyone has a role to play. A well thought through stand design, and tools to help your staff have a meaningful conversation with a prospect (from a simple form to slick electronic data capture), will go a long way to helping you leave a show with valuable leads, rather than just with empty giveaway boxes.

2D & 3D – Retail landlords want to see it at the pitch! But why?

3D restaurant interior render by Grapes Design

Darren Grapes of Grapes Design has worked with Dunk Design on a number of projects. Together their teams have worked with graphic design and interior design, to deliver the optimal brand solution for longevity.

Is it ironic that both their names begin with D?

Anyway, the normal creative process was taking place in front of me, but so much more was really happening. A conversation around access, capacity and even licensing restrictions was taking place, all while the brand remained the focus. I was impressed. Everything from how the service patterns were developed alongside the menu design and POS; to how that worked graphically and with texture, materials and even noise levels.

Apparently it all needs to come together at the outset – definitely as part of the landlord pitch – to ensure the long-term success landlords are seeking for their sites. This is why the graphic design team works across all elements of the 3D design, to ensure the brand concept has every chance of establishing itself with minimal difficulties.

Darren and his team at Grapes Design have developed some amazing sites, including the likes of Dirty Martinis, The Golden Bee in Shoreditch and Pandora’s flagship UK store on Oxford Street! Truly cool!

They have an indepth understanding of what’s required to make a brand concept work in 3D, even down to what landlord restrictions are likely to affect it – and he employs that to ensure success for brand and landlord alike.

For instance, all day trading can mean some practicalities must be in place to protect the brand. He explained why understanding things like access can be crucial to the design process.

“Believe me, if you have an all day menu, you don’t want your evening stock arriving at lunchtime with no rear access.”

“That beautiful front door – the eyes to the soul of your brand – all of a sudden starts seeing traffic that really should be out the back.”

“If you can show a landlord that you’ve considered all aspects of the brand in your concept application, you stand a much better chance of meeting what are increasingly high standards and ultimately LONG TERM success goals.”

Hearing more about the role “design” can play in securing sites for hospitality has been fascinating. It would seem that the old adage of “fail to prepare and you prepare to fail” is never more apt.

So as casual dining continues to grow rapidly, competition for the best retail sites is heating up. But for those brands looking to bring their concept to life, Duncan has some sage advice.

“Form and Function Pam! Form AND Function!”

**You can meet Darren and the Grapes Design team at The Restaurant Show, happening from the 5-7th October, Olympia, London. I’ll be there too! Lovin this brave new world I’m learning about.

Get the retail doors open – our top 3 tips for landlord packs.

Map of London and a pin

Research out this week from LDC (Local Data Company) is showing us that vacancy rates are falling by -2.3%.

There was also a surge of bad news stories, where the same numbers were showing long-term vacancies rising by 24% and the accompanying launch of KPMGs regeneration project creating headlines with pictures of un-loved retail space.

So it’s a complex issue and we’re finding it’s not ALL boarded up shop-fronts for some of the brands we work with. Our hospitality and casual dining clients are facing increasingly competitive pressures in finding the right locations.

Only the other day I heard of over 16 companies bidding for a relatively small space on a local High Street, where over half were national chains. This was a space of approximately 800 Sq Ft and not where I would immediately think the retail and leisure economy was booming.

Yet over 16 brands were bidding and 15 were going to fail!

So it got me thinking. How many brands undertake a pitch for space every week? Statistically speaking, if I simply look at my anecdotal evidence, the answer they will get is more often “no”. So how do brands make sure their efforts to secure the right location actually work? Many work with agents, however the work has to start with the brand itself.

Here at Dunk Design, we’ve done our fair share of Landlord Packs over the years and have recently been supporting both a skin care brand and a Scandinavian bakery looking to secure space in London. This work is where we present the brand concept, including appeal, target, interiors, visual merchandising and marketing.

It’s can be an intensive process. We have to present the brand concept in a way that allows the Landlord to see how it will work in the overall mix they want to achieve for their location.

The packs can be over 30 pages long, including technical drawings, or one-pagers telling the compelling brand story. These are all aimed at differentiating the brand in what is invariably a highly competitive market. Granted we do a lot of work in airport concessions and shopping centres, where the F&B sector is most competitive, however the process is one where a clear brand concept is a must to get the landlord’s attention, gain their approval and ultimately throw open the doors.

So Our Top 3 Tips for Landlord-Packs;

  1. Refine your brand concept – be able to clearly bring your concept to life and take them on the journey. Being able to visually demonstrate how it will look and feel is crucial. And work with your suppliers! You’ll need good design, visual merchandising and don’t forget your own people. Everything from rendered images for interiors, to menu development is a crucial investment for the brand concept story.
  2. Know your Landlord’s goals – ask for background on what the Landlord wants the space to be. Understand the current retail traffic, the strategic mix of retail the landlord may be pursuing and your competition – your agent can help with this. All this will give you an understanding of how you can best connect your brand to what the Landlord’s goals are.
  3. Have clear marketing to reach your new customer base – and don’t forget to clearly communicate how you’re going to increase the right kind of retail traffic. You want customers, as does your prospective Landlord of retail space. Don’t forget to tell the story of how you will play your part.

BONUS TIP – all this takes time! Don’t underestimate what’s required to get it right.

Dunk Design white crest

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