Landor Associates: Bringing a Brand to Life
Fifty years ago Walter Landor was a major player in making branding a key element in the positioning and marketing of virtually everything. Since then, Landor Associates has found that the most important representation of a brand is its presence on the store shelf. Above all other exposure, packaging is really consumers first interaction with the products they purchase. This initial 'moment of truth' is critical to encouraging consumers to purchase one brand over competing choices and is the first step to believing in the brand promise, including that brand in their life, and becoming loyal to the product. Yet this brand image does not come fully formed to most designers, and the original idea has numerous challenges along the way from inspired vision to finished product on the shelf to maintaining that original spirit.
Research Analysis
At least for Landor designers, it is safe to assume that the company’s brand strategists have performed the exhaustive research involved in understanding the product, its place in the market, and the differentiated niche it will inhabit. A competitive audit has been performed, Landor’s internal research model was used, and an ideal brand architecture is established along with determining the best ways of bringing the product to market. Now comes the daunting task of successfully navigating a diverse packaging supply chain in order to send a cohesive brand strategy out into the marketplace.
Discovery
It seems glaringly obvious, but it’s important that the feasibility of a particular branding strategy is evaluated prior to design lock—the point at which a design is finalized and approved by the brand owner. The product packaging and display of successful global brands includes every type of printing, decoration, and converting available. A single launch of a Febreze initiative, for example, includes flexography, gravure, and offset printing spanning folding cartons, heat transfer labels, direct-printed aerosol canisters, and blister cards. Identifying the strengths and weaknesses of each of these methods is critical to maintaining a consistent image across the various product forms. This due-diligence avoids awkward situations down the road—rather than trying to solve a problem after the client has fallen in love with the idea. These potential challenges don’t necessarily need to be resolved early on, but they should at least be identified and quantified ahead of time. Print providers can help here by asking “what if” questions to help brand owners understand the nuances of using different packaging choices.
For example, Landor often includes a “supply chain profile” when launching new initiatives. This may include print examples from potential partners along with cautions presented by each category to help designers make informed aesthetic choices and avoid high-risk obstacles. Print vendors often support this initiative by providing the ‘latest-and-greatest’ examples of their work to designers and brand managers. This is a great opportunity for printers to talk about new and innovative substrates or solutions that may be in the development pipeline, or suggest ways of differentiating a product without breaking the bank. When working with advertising, marketing and branding agencies, providing periodic reviews of your capability helps build an informed design team that is better equipped to bring their ideas to life.
Early Exposure
Designers are often skeptical about sharing concepts early in the process because they are sensitive to wasting time on designs that will never see the light of day, know the artwork is not ready for critique, or that the client has not yet blessed the direction. The most valued print vendors are willing to risk extra work to see an advanced glimpse of a design concept and can be trusted with confidential information. Similarly, production houses, color separators and packaging engineers are invariably grateful for this luxury. It lets them develop their own plan of action, gauge resource allocation, ask important questions, and provide valuable feedback and advise on some of the “gotchas” that can often arise during the package printing and production process. For example, simply knowing whether a design includes photography or illustration and may have foil stamping is helpful for planning even if the photo shoot has yet to take place or the foil has not yet been specified, because it helps the printer plan production and suggest ways to prepare files or even fine-tune a design for optimal results.
Including a cross section of a client’s departments, such as regulatory and legal, in this advanced review is equally important and can be crucial to speed to market. For instance, knowing whether whole fruit or sliced fruit will be used on the sensorial imagery of a product with antibacterial benefits is important to know before design is locked and the photo shoot and food stylist are scheduled. Such seemingly minor details are often critical and no one can be expected to know them all. But worrying about the details is preferable to handling unplanned fire drills that could delay or derail a breakthrough design idea.
Partnering on Packaging Strategy
Branding firms also need package printers to give them options for bringing a strategy to life. Landor has found that it isn’t always necessary to bring fully formed ideas to our print partners. We communicate the “hero” design, then appeal to the experts on how to achieve this ideal. We try to avoid spending a lot of time solving imaginary problems that the experts in our network have already solved, or have innovative ideas on how to bring our vision to life.
For example, on a recent project we were unable to safely blister seal on a foil-stamped back card using a particular converting pipeline. But that did not mean we would discard foil accents on a folding carton for a sibling product in the same campaign. In this example, we were able to use approved faux metallic ink on the blister card that matched the foil stamping on the carton, which in turn matched the effect of transparent ink over a metallic substrate.
Each brand requires thoughtful decisions about maintaining brand equity across diverse forms of packaging that provide an overall consistent visual solution on a store shelf. This requires developing different solutions to achieve a cohesive aesthetic result without short changing a successful design idea because of a weak link.
Even though Landor may be capable of a ‘cradle to grave’ approach to design deployment, we do not necessarily perform all of the functions involved in bringing our creative ideas to the store shelf. Instead, we develop a brand strategy and create representative examples of our designs in the context of a limited number of product forms. These representative SKUs are then used by our partner production houses as a guide to extend the brand idea across the full line of products. Once approved, these production art files are handed off to a color separator to convert the artwork into print tools for the packaging converter.
The challenge of course, is maintaining a consistent brand message or image throughout this process while minimizing costly and time-consuming up-stream and down-stream communications. At Landor we leverage the momentum of our early exposure by re-introducing the refined design to the supply chain prior to our release to the production house. Vital details are relayed to partners and revisions resulting from this pre-production critique are incorporated into the design for client approval. This process can uncover potential snags in the process, such as finding that a flexo printer is not comfortable printing copy built from two colors. In this case, we can collaborate on a one-color solution that is consistent with the design intent but gives the printer the best chance for success.
Follow the Plan
It’s very important to anticipate exceptions and solve for them in advance. By selecting the appropriate representative SKUs in advance, we ensure that a reasonable range of packaging is included in the original design creation. Both large and small versions are created, as well as any unique forms which may pose a challenge.
Brand guidelines are established which include all pertinent details surrounding the design initiative. Fonts and colors are meticulously specified. Purposeful, targeted instructions provide boundaries within which design and production partners can create packaging and collateral materials. Can the logo be white on a black background? Can marketing copy be adjacent to the product icon? These important questions are answered and most anticipated scenarios are solved and clearly communicated.
Have Fun!
The success of a design depends on the loyalty and participation of its stakeholders. There is a tendency for brand guidelines to be cold and clinical—cue the Brand Police!—but that is not always necessary. Every product comprising a brand is trying to engage print vendors (and ultimately consumers) as partners in a brand vision. A cold encyclopedia of do’s and don’ts does not encourage the jealous equity protection that a brand deserves. At Landor we often emulate the brand theme into a playful version of brand guidelines. We’ve found that partners are better motivated to live the principles of a brand if they are simple, true, and engaging. And successful brands are backed by those proud people who have brought those ideas to life. pP
About the author
J. Scott Hosa is associate director of graphic technology in the Cincinnati office of Landor Associates. He is responsible for packaging feasibility, color development, innovation, and education. Scott has held positions in every aspect of printing and packaging, from prepress technician and printing press operator to graphic designer and design director.
He has worked with many successful global brands, including Alcoa, Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, Hershey Company, Eastman Kodak, Kraft Foods Inc., Pfizer Inc., Procter & Gamble, and Unilever. Most notably, he led the digital workflow at MeadWestvaco Healthcare as creative services director with responsibilities that included graphic and structural design, color development, proofing, plate making, and quality control.
