The art of branding
Helping you to create a
powerful cultural brand
Note: this version of the
presentation is a reduced one with
some of the larger image files
removed for ease of posting.
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Welcome!
• Agenda
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Introductions
What we want to get from today
What makes a good brand?
The importance of cultural brands
The components of the brand process
How to run your own brand workshop
Positioning and mission statements
Creating a powerful visual identity
Case studies
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Introductions
• Think about yourself as a brand and try to
encapsulate you and your personality in a
personal positioning statement
• Brand Chris Denton –
An enthusiastic, if slightly chubby, person with a
fun take on life which is balanced by a desire
to do everything to the best of his abilities,
motivating those around him along the way.
Your organisation?
Your brand challenges?
Write down 2 or 3 challenges or opportunities
you think your organisation faces in relation to
its current brand position.
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A brand is…
• Not just a logo, visual identity, colour etc
• It is how people feel about out us – the
emotions they have when they hear our name
or see a poster or read a brochure
• Not tangible or fixed
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What makes a good brand?
On your own, think about a brand that you think
is particularly strong and list the reasons why.
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10 golden traits
1. Commitment – how much an
organisation invests in its brand
2. Protection – how secure a
brand is, from legal to design
3. Clarity – how clear the
proposition and values of a brand
are
4. Responsiveness – ability to
adapt to changes in the market
5. Authenticity – trust in the
heritage and longevity of a brand
6. Relevance – how well a brand
fits with customers wants, needs
and desires
7. Understanding – recognition of
the brand as well understanding
of its distinctiveness and unique
qualities
8. Consistency – across all touchpoints
9. Presence – the extent to which
the brand permeates public
consciousness
10. Differentiation – the public
understanding that a brand offers
something others do not
World’s top ten brands (by worth)?
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Apple
Google
IBM
McDonalds
Microsoft
Coca Cola
AT&T
Marlboro
China Mobile
General Electric
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So what is a brand?
• A promise to your customer.
• It tells them what they can expect from your
products and services.
• It differentiates your offering from your
competitors'.
• Your brand is derived from who you are, who
you want to be and who people perceive you
to be.
Why developing a strong cultural
brand is more important than
ever!
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“We are living in the unstable space between
the way things have worked for a long time, and
the way they might work in the future”
Diane Ragsdale, cultural commentator
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Time for new thinking
Adaptive resilience:
the capacity to remain productive and
true to core purpose and identity
whilst absorbing disturbance and
adapting with integrity in response to
changing circumstances
Changing circumstances
Economic and
financial pressures
Digital,
technology,
communication
Changing
demographic,
need to engage
new audiences
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Changing circumstances
What constitutes a cultural experience, how will
it be delivered and how will it be consumed?
How and where will our brands need to feature
in the future in order to reach out to audiences?
Adaptive resilience in practice
• A desire to clearly set long term goals and vision and to
remain ambitious
• A willingness to question everything that is currently
done and to consider how it could be done differently
• An understanding of the importance of defining the ‘nonnegotiable’ values of the organisation – whether these
be artistic, commercial or operational
• An acceptance that working with others may now be
highly desirable (or unavoidable). But, that
• Retaining a clear and easily understood position in
the marketplace is vital.
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Finding solutions
Economic and
financial pressures
BRAND
Digital,
technology,
communication
Changing
demographic,
need to engage
new audiences
The customer perspective
AFFORDABILITY
•Wherever possible we need to encourage
people to make value judgments about us
based on ‘hearts’ and not ‘heads’.
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The customer perspective
TRUST
• We need to build trust with audiences and
funders and not sabotage it.
• Deliver on our promises
The customer perspective
PASSION
•‘loyalty elasticity’
•Unwavering belief in the importance of what
we do
•Champion us to others
•Prioritise us over other things
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The customer perspective
PROMISE
EXPERIENCE
MEMORY
If YOU don’t know what you stand for,
how can you expect your customers to?
By working to achieve a common
understanding of our brand, we have a
greater chance of influencing other
people’s opinions of it
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Can you think of any examples of
brands where the promise and
experience have been closely
aligned?
Any that haven’t?!
characteristics of great
cultural brands?
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The strategic importance of brand
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Brand Values
Implications
Communications
Online
Offline
Experience
Programme
Facilities
Implications
Processes
Resources
Ownership
The brand journey…
Helping to create a powerful brand
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The brand framework checklist
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2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Who are we and what do we do
What are our values
What is our mission statement
Where do we sit in the marketplace
What makes us unique
What do people think of us now and what do we want
them to think of us in the future
What is our positioning statement
How are we going to represent our brand visually
How are we going to live and breathe the brand
How are we going to communicate who we are – brand
strategy
Running a brand workshop
What barriers do you think you might
encounter in trying to get people to
think about brand?
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Aims of a brand workshop
• to create a consensus amongst all parties responsible
for delivering the brand message
• to define core values and strengths
• provide an opportunity for the key decision makers
to help define the brand
• use the groups combined knowledge, experience and
creativity to generate new
marketing/communication ideas
• to finalise a set of core brand values that can be
carried forward into all marketing and
communication material
Running a brand workshop
• Before the day, invite colleagues, peers, board
members etc to email you with their
understanding of what it is your organisation
does and what it stands for
• You will probably find you have a variety of
different responses…
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Running a brand workshop
• Think carefully about who to invite.
• Think about how you will convince brand
sceptics to attend
Running a brand workshop
• Issue a survey to staff and/or customers to
gauge current perceptions about the
organisation and brand
• ALWAYS include a question asking
respondents to score potential words/values
so that you can create a long-list from the
responses to be used in the workshop
Show and discuss survey sheets
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Running a brand workshop
• Consider capturing some ‘vox-pops’ material
from your audiences
• This can be particularly useful to help deal
with ‘navel gazing’ – not everyone thinks we
are as great as we think we are!
Running a brand workshop
• Prepare well
• Introduce the session:
– Why you are there
– What you want to achieve
– Stress that it is essential to achieve consensus
• The importance of brand
• The need to agree the values
• The importance of values…
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Running a brand workshop
• Try to encapsulate what it is your organisation
does!
Have a go: Our organisation exists to….?
Running a brand workshop
• Who are your audiences?
• Objective:
To agree your various audiences and to try to
categorise them into primary and secondary
audiences
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Running a brand workshop
• Test and agree potential brand values
• Create positioning maps
(From the list of words/values you used in the survey, choose the
top 10. For each word, think of the opposite of it – ie:
contemporary/traditional. Map these opposite each other on
axis)
• For the Barbican…
Short-listed 12 possible brand values
International
Contemporary
Remote
Community
Exciting
Leading
Enlightening
Excellent
Diverse
Experimental
Elitist
Challenging
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The list of opposites...
British
Traditional
Personal
Individual
Dull
Following
Entertaining
Poor
Homogenous
Safe
Populist
Easy
International
Contemporary
Remote
Community
Exciting
Leading
Enlightening
Excellent
Diverse
Experimental
Elitist
Challenging
Positioning charts
International
Contemporary
Traditional
British
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Values mapping
• Place a dot on each set of axis to indicate
where you think we sit in relation to the
following areas:
– Current programme (or profile)
– Future programme (or profile)
– Current marketing
– Future marketing
– Customer experience
Use a different colour dot for
each question!
International
Contemporary
Traditional
British
Current programme
Current marketing
Future programme
Future marketing
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Entertainment
Excellent
Poor
Enlightenment
Current programme
Current marketing
Future programme
Future marketing
International
Customer experience
Contemporary
Traditional
British
Current programme
Current marketing
Future programme
Future marketing
For venues – try
adding in the
customer experience
angle to check how
this measures against
the possible values
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Running a brand workshop
• Capture responses onto a master sheet which
show just one final dot placement for each
question asked.
• The position of the ‘summary’ dot should
reflect the majority of responses
• You should have a clear idea of which values
are stronger than others
A strong unity
around one of the
words means this
is a possible brand
value to adopt
International
Contemporary
Traditional
British
Current programme
Current marketing
Future programme
Future marketing
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More spread out
mapping would
mean that these
values are less
likely to be as
relevant
International
Contemporary
Traditional
British
Current programme
Current marketing
Future programme
Future marketing
Running a brand workshop
• You can add other exercises to help people
articulate what they think and feel about the
organisation:
– If we were a car, what kind of car would we be
– If we were an animal…
– If we were a person…
– Choose an advert or brand which you think somehow
reflects our approach
– Which brands do you admire/least admire?
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Where are you in the
marketplace?
Mapping against the competition
Entertainment
West End
Theatre
Royal Albert Hall
Southbank Centre
Excellent
Poor
Sadler’s
Wells
Barbican
National
Theatre
Enlightenment
Mapping your brand against your competitors helps you to find
a point of differentiation
Use the top values you agreed as part of the first exercise
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Running a brand workshop
• Get agreement from the group that the values
that have emerged via this process are ACCEPTED
BY ALL to be the core values of the organisation
• Stress that this has been a democratic process!
• Follow up quickly with a written summary of the
outcomes including visual illustrations of the
charts.
• Re-confirm the selected values
Brand workshop summary
1.
Invite colleagues to submit their statements about the brand in
advance (don’t tell them why)
2. Draw up an invite list including those directly and indirectly
responsible for influencing brand
3. Consider running a small survey to staff/customers
4. Consider capturing some vox-pops material
5. Prepare well, draw up blank positioning charts
6. Set the scene carefully at the start of the session – show them the
variety of responses from step 1
7. Agree what it is you ‘do’
8. Define audiences and categorise into primary and secondary
9. Invite people to indicate their views on the questions posed by
using the positioning charts
10. Summarise popular opinion on master sheets
11. Look at your place in the market and see whether your values are
differentiating enough for you
12. Follow up quickly with written summary
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Brand research & benchmarking
• ASK people what they think!
• What springs to mind when they see your
logo or hear your name?
• What words would they use to describe you?
• Do they feel positively about you?
• Would they recommend you to a friend?
• What do they think you stand for?
Publicly Perceived Values
3 x Plus
1. Esoteric
2. Diverse
3. Educational
4. Classical
5. Worthy
1.Pioneering
2 Quality
3.Diverse
4.Classical
5.Esoteric
1. Pioneering
2. Quality
3. Diverse
4. International
5.Exciting
Agree
1-2 Before
Niche
Contemporary
Quality
Relevant
Leading
Exclusive
Elitist
Traditional
Professional
Confident
Progressive
Pioneering
Ugly
Leading
Contemporary
Relevant
Educational
Exclusive
Fun
Exciting
Professional
Progressive
Worthy
Ugly
International
Leading
Contemporary
Relevant
Exclusive
Fun
Cool
Educational
Cutting edge
Professional
Classical
Confident
Progressive
Worthy
Ugly
Disagree
First Time
International
Lively
Cool
Exciting
Fun
Boring
Cutting edge
Ordinary
Bland
Cool
Traditional
Niche
Confident
Lively
Boring
Cutting edge
Ordinary
Elitist
Bland
Traditional
Niche
Lively
Boring
Esoteric
Ordinary
Elitist
Bland
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A case study on Opera
North was presented
here
Mission and positioning
statements
What are they?
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Mission, vision and positioning
statements
• A mission statement specifies the organization’s purpose or
reason for being. It is the target at which all plans and
programmes should be aimed.
• A vision sets the overall direction of the organization, and is
what the organization strives to be -an ambition to be
pursued.
• A positioning statement is something to cause a change of
perception in your customer’s mind. A positioning
statement describes how you wish to be perceived and
what you intend to do to create and maintain it.
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Mission statement quiz…
• We are Ladies and Gentlemen serving Ladies and Gentlemen
• We create happiness by providing the finest in entertainment to
people of all ages, everywhere
• Our mission is to be the consumer’s first choice for food, delivering
products of outstanding quality and great service at a competitive
cost through working ‘faster, simpler and together’.
• Everything we do is inspired by our enduring mission:
– To Refresh the World… in body, mind, and spirit.
– To Inspire Moments of Optimism… through our brands and our actions.
– To Create Value and Make a Difference… everywhere we engage
The world’s worst?
"The New Ventures Mission is to scout profitable
growth opportunities in relationships, both
internally and externally, in emerging, mission
inclusive markets, and explore new paradigms
and then filter and communicate and evangelize
the findings”
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• Our mission is to help you understand and enjoy the
art of our time
• The Museum of Modern Art is a place that fuels
creativity, ignites minds, and provides inspiration.
With extraordinary exhibitions and the world's finest
collection of modern and contemporary art, MoMA
is dedicated to the conversation between the past
and the present, the established and the
experimental.
• Tate is a public institution owned by, and existing for, the
public.
• Tate's mission is to increase public knowledge,
understanding and enjoyment of British, modern and
contemporary art through the Collection and an inspiring
programme in and well beyond our galleries.
• Everything we do – from the Collection we care for, to the
exhibitions, displays and programme we present, to how
we manage the organisation – is done to maximise value
for the public.
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• The mission of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is to
promote the understanding and appreciation of art,
architecture, and other manifestations of visual culture,
primarily of the modern and contemporary periods, and to
collect, conserve, and study the art of our time.
• The Foundation realizes this mission through exceptional
exhibitions, education programs, research initiatives, and
publications, and strives to engage and educate an
increasingly diverse international audience through its unique
network of museums and cultural partnerships.
BRAND VALUES: Leading, International, Diverse, Excellent
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What is your mission statement?
How well understood is this
within your organisation?
Bringing the brand to life
Cultural identities
Creating a clear design brief
Protecting your brand
Living and breathing the brand
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LOGO
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Creating a good design brief
• Focus on the outcomes of the project NOT the aesthetics of
the design
• Provide as much detail as possible to the designer
• Don’t be formulaic – treat each design job as a key part of
your brand story
• Have copy and images ready
• Don’t treat the first design proof as the first copy proof!
• Try to avoid design by committee – convince others that
you have a clear brand position to maintain
• Template design briefing form…
What does our organisation do?
Avoid jargon, don’t assume a designer will know, be concise
The goal of this design project is to…
What is the overall goal of the new design project?
What are you trying to communicate and why?
Are you trying to sell more products or get awareness of your product / service?
How do you differ from your competitors?
Do you want to completely reinvent yourself or are you simply updating your promotional material?
Our target market is…
What are your target market’s demographics & phychographics? ie. the age, gender, income, tastes, views, attitudes, employment,
geography, lifestyle of those you want to reach.
If there are multiple target groups, rank them in order of importance or relevance
Copy and images
The copy and pictures used in a design are as crucial as the design itself and you should clearly state who is going to be providing the
copy and pictures if needed. You may need to look into getting a professional copywriter / photographer – ask your designer for
some recommendations.
What copy needs to be included in the design? Who is providing the copy?
What pictures / photographs / diagrams etc need to be used? Who is providing these?
Design specifications
What size is the design going to be?
Where is it going to be printed / used? The web, business cards, stationery, on your car?
What other information should the designer know in regards to specifications?
Is there a benchmark?
You should provide the designer with some examples of what you consider to be effective or relevant design even if it is from your
main competitors. This will set a benchmark for your designer.
Provide the designer with things not to do, and styles that you do not like or wish to see in your design. This will give the designer an
idea of what to avoid and will avoid disappointment on your behalf.
Budget
Providing a budget prevents designers wasting valuable time and resources when trying to maximise your budget.
Providing the budget upfront also allows designers to know if the project is going to be worthwhile to complete. Make sure you are
worth their time.
Project timescale
Give the designer a detailed schedule of the project and set a realistic deadline for the completion of the work. You should take into
account the various stages of the design project such as consultation, concept development, production and delivery.
Rushing design jobs helps no one and mistakes can be made if a complex job is pushed through without time to review, however,
there are times when a rush job is needed, and in these cases you should be honest and upfront about it.
Hard copy in handout pack
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Design nightmares…?
Why and how to stop them
happening!
Create brand
guidelines for
your colleagues
and for
designers
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Be a brand
guardian!
Living the brand
Who does your brand
impact upon?
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Brand impact
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Audiences
Artists
Corporate Clients
Local Residents
Press
Local Workers
Visitors walking through or past the venue
Staff
Suppliers
Other cultural organisations (peers)
Sponsors/benefactors
Living the brand
What are the brand touch-points?
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Friends Posters Telesales
Booking a room
Attending events
Membership
Walking through
venue
Brochures
/ Leaflets
Corporate Sales
Social media
Website
Booking tickets
PR
Direct mail
Eating at restaurant
Press articles
Making enquires
Email
Campaign
Internal
service
Customer
Newsletters
Events
Some potential brand
touch-points
Living and breathing the brand
Can you think of any brands where
good customer service seems to be an
important part of differentiating them?
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John Lewis 5 Golden rules…
1. Make staff care about customer service
2. Empower staff to make decisions themselves
3. Make sure front-line staff feed back on what
customers want
4. Be exceptional
5. Maintain customer service levels online
Be honest; give respect; recognise others; show
enterprise; work together; achieve more
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Barbican Experience
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Personal Action Plan
Describe a specific current situation that you feel could be done
differently:
How will this change according to the Barbican Experience
project and our brand values?
How will you measure success?
CASE STUDIES SHOWN HERE
The Barbican
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
Arteria (Spain)
West Kowloon Cultural District
Note: these have been removed from the web version
for client confidentiality reasons
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Summary
• A brand is more than just a logo
• Branding is as important to cultural organisations
as it is commercially
• Vision and values must underpin everything
• The whole organisation must play a role, starting
with CEO
• A brand workshop can help engage and reach
consensus and deliver core values
• Think about your market position – what are your
unique strengths that you can exploit?
• Create a mission statement (an ‘elevator’
moment)
Summary
• Does the way you currently represent your brand
reflect the vision and values you want to portray?
• What do the public currently think about you?
• Create clear design briefs, protect the brand
always
• Think about the brand touch-points and your
broad audience base
• New logo? Strapline? Be clear about why you are
doing it
• Prioritise top down brand thinking in marketing
• Monitor how you are doing – brand
benchmarking
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Thank you!
Chris Denton
chris@chris-denton.com
0781 461 7208
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