“BRAND” is the major service target and dominant half of the time in the personal career journey. Nevertheless, knowledge about brand management is so lacking. As a project management role with design study based, some questions always pop out in mind, what is the relationship between design & brand? What is the role of Store Design project management in the brand? What kind of knowledge can enhance the persona skill and influence the brand design? The theories and concept which learnt from the class provide the answers to these questions.
Relationship between Design and Brand management
There are many ways to define “Design”. Design is a human orientated instrument to deliver a new culture, changing people’s perceptions and problem-solving without compromise aesthetic and human needs. Unlike Art, Design conveys the message to others while Art focuses on expressing personal messages and emotion.
The design ladder introduced in the first lesson answers the question, “What is the relationship between design and Brand management? According to the development of the Danish Design Center, Design is creating brand value by integrating design into the cultural practice, raising the investment return, exploring new markets, and increasing brand loyalty and customer satisfaction (O’Grady, Jennifer Visocky; O’Grady, Kenneth Visocky, 2017). The core study frame of this module base on stage four of the design ladder.” DESIGN AS STRATEGY,” in corporate level to elaborate the brand management concept.
Design, Research study, Brand & Branding strategy
Through the in-class discussion, case studies journal, & co-creation project, various methodologies, tools, and theories with practical experience about brand management were introduced to students. In general, it can divide into a couple of sections: Design and Research; Brand and Branding strategy; Market/customer segmentation, targeting and position; Analysis customer’s attitude & behaviour. All theories and tasks are interdependent and vital to brand management.
Brand is semiotic, like name, sign, symbol, term or combination of all, to identify the products or service’s uniqueness in the market as well as the function and emotional associations (Association, 2021).
Brand management is a term to describe the design strategy and marketing program/activities for delivering the brand essence to the target audience and sustain the brand lifecycle by building, measuring, and reinforce the brand equity.
To create a sustainable brand lifecycle in a competitive market, the brand can review its performance by auditing the brand knowledge (brand awareness and image). Brand’s performance can measure by Brand equity and reflect from the Customer-Based Brand Equity Pyramid. Brand equity will increase by the positive customer reaction of favorability, strength & uniqueness of brand association. Design strategy is the tool to build/improve brand awareness and brand association through product/service innovation or implement marketing program, consistent brand elements, high-quality products, and service deliverability. A good design strategy can strengthen the desire of the brand/product from the target customer while expanding the market sharing without changing the brand essence. The crucial step to tailor-made an appropriate strategy is comprehending the brand personality comprehensively and analysing the research data/information to satisfy the need of the target customer segment by creating a customer persona. Investigate the target audience behaviour and attitude to drive their motivation included physical & psychological needs. To maintain customer satisfaction and enhance their loyalty by evaluating their opinions on the customer experience. Brand reinforcement/revitalisation strategies to be implemented when the brand awareness fading out or is lost when they review its performance over time.
The major task of the brand management — COMMUNICATION
From researcher analysis the collected data to generate insights; from the designer study the insight to develop the design strategy; as well as brand delivery the brand message to the target customer thru the design strategy. The whole process is related to conveying the message articulately between people (or groups) by decoding from sender & encoding to the receiver.
Communication is the process of conveying meaning from one or group to another. This is the process for creation, interpretation & negotiation verbally, nonverbally, or textually (Pierce & Corey, 2019). Due to certain factors, like Physical conditions (environment, culture, political), personal-psychological (prejudgment, mindset) and Semantic (language, knowledge, gesture), the noise will interfere with the sender & receiver. Encoding & encoding is the constant procedure during the transactional model of Communication which Dean Barnlund proposed in 1970 (Barnlund, 1970). This transaction model also applies to the personal working process, which elaborates in the first learning journal of this study module.
Role of Store Design project management
Design and store construction are related to the brand identity and customer experience, which is under the umbrella of Brand management.
All ingredients for the boutique design and construction work, like corporate design manual, nominated furniture and material supplier list, visual merchandising guideline, are prepared for the designer/project manager to maintain the boutique image to align with the global brand image. Consistent brand image enhances the brand identity of customers and strengthening brand awareness. Thus, to manage the execution work of the store design by these ingredients contribute to the resource of brand association.
Personal skill enhancement
As the project management role of store design work, the core mission is to connect the headquarter architects and stakeholders (local management & operation team) to ensure the boutique design delivery in global standard. Acquisition of the knowledge for both design and brand management by this course benefited on personal practical working process.
Reduce noise by using common language
At the beginning stage of the project, meeting with the committee is imperative for understanding the project’s objective and primary requirements. The targeting, positioning & customer segment of the boutique is the major agenda. Concepts learnt from this module enhance the knowledge of these topics and are more accessible to encoding the information received. This also helps build up a common language with the committee and make the discussion process more efficient. On the other hand, headquarters architects usually lack of time and patience to study various information from the local team. Take advantage of comprehension of both design and brand management concepts. The project manager can generate insights and present to the architects. In this two-way transition, visual communication (like diagram, drawing and mood board) is the most often way to decoding messages. By using this method, the coordination process keeps rolling until the project completion. The process may commence again when the store requires to optimise based on stakeholders feedback. This is also the miniature of the strategic brand management process.
The impact of research & visual presentation
No matter in the academic and pragmatic studies, research is the inspiration for the design strategy development. Driven by the research, a designer can define the problem by understanding the influence factor, like environmental or personal sense & feeling (physical & psychological). From experience by case study learning journal, in-class exercise and co-creation project, the vision and knowledge of author more comprehensive by different research subject. Specific insights generate by analysing the research data. In addition, visual communication is an efficient way to deliver a clear message within a short time, especially in the in-class presentation. The reader can receive the message in a simple way instead of the long reading process. These learnings reflect on the use of more and more visuals/diagrams as well as references cited in the learning journal.
Drive of decision making and manage conflict
Before learning the brand management concept, decision-making was driven by time, budget, and quality. Managing the conflict between architects and the local team focuses on the balance of aesthetics and functionality only. Nevertheless, the relationship between design and Branding introduced by this module leads the author to consider another point: Customer needs.
Providing a unique customer experience is one of the decisive elements in standing out from the competitor and determining the market proposition. The store is the primary communication channel between brand and customer. Apart from the service from staff, store design facilities the satisfaction of customer experience during the buying journey. From overall boutique layout arrangement (product zoning, entrance, seating area, and POS location); boutique ambience (lighting design, colour scheme, building material selection); to design detail (the relationship of human proportion and furniture dimension), even some intangible elements (air quality and room temperature) will influence the customer experience.
Given the concept described above, fulfilling customer needs and maintaining brand identity becomes the priority when making any decision. Moreover, stakeholders discord with each other because of different standpoints and posts. Hence, these two factors are convincing reasons to settle the conflict because contributing to the sustainable brand life cycle should be the common goal of all parties.
Prospect
Echo to the previous section about “Personal skill enhancement during the study journey”, familiarity with design and brand management knowledge absolutely strengthens personal career value. The goal of nearly future would be to influence the brand’s store design trend by utilising tools and experience learnt from the class (like communication skills, research method & design thinking process).
The study of design, innovation, and brand management provide a chance to learn related skill and methodology comprehensively. The author is aware that design not only refers to tangible items (product, interior, graphic, brand design) but also intangible elements, like business and marketing strategy, customer journey, and business model. This triggered the author to consider extending the design and management skills to another category for sustainable career lifespan. Particularly when many brands relocated the resource from physical store design to online stores after the COVID-19 pandemic. Exploring the practical opportunities on branding design or strategy planning will be a long-term prospect.
Bibliography
Association, A. M., 2021. Definitions of Marketing. [Online]
Available at: https://www.ama.org/the-definition-of-marketing-what-is-marketing/
[Accessed 22 Sept 2021].
Barnlund, D. C., 1970. A transactional model of communication. In: Foundations of communication theory. New York: Harper, pp. 83–102.
O’Grady, Jennifer Visocky; O’Grady, Kenneth Visocky, 2017. A designer’s research manual: Succeed in design by knowing your clients + understanding what they really need. 2nd Edition ed. Beverly: Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc.
Pierce, T. & Corey, A. M., 2019. The Evolution of Human Communication: From Theory to Practice, Ontario: Tess Pierce.