Having worked at BrandImage Desgrippes and Laga in Hong Kong over the summer, I have learned the importance of a central Product Design (PD) strategy. Some branding methodologies discuss PD as a form of advertising; others consider is as a touchpoint to be manipulated within an Integrated Marketing Communications mix. Though the prior two points are true, I believe PD has more potential than being considering an advertising tool or touchpoint. PD, if done correctly, has the potential to transform the brand identity into a tactile item that truly personifies the brand and allows better alignment of conceptual communications such as advertising and PR.
Case #1: A multi-national company had created an everyday drink in China a few years ago, but the bottle design erroneously implied sportiness and aggressiveness. The design agency at the time thus also tailored all external communications to revolve around sport, even signing a major martial arts star. Following this positioning, sales rose with every hyped flavor debut but inevitably fell as the novelty wore off. The client approached us to revisit the label and bottle design to align itself with a different persona.
I am convinced that if more thought went into strategically conceptualizing and creating a bottle that personified the brand, there would be no mistake in erroneously positioning the brand. Reading a creative brief is much different than personally holding a tactile object that clearly personifies the brand identity and allows for very little confusion. This client could have been market leader in its new-found category; instead, the brand is struggling against intense local sports drink competitors and has lost its first-mover advantage.
Case #2: An alcohol holding company is conceptualizing a drink to target young professionals in an up-and-coming Asian country. A central part of their campaign is to create an iconic bottle. Performing competitive research, I saw that many of the major bottlers use the same approach when designing their brand – Pink Vodka, Patron Tequila, Absolut Vodka, among many others. Knowing that their product must stand out in a multitude of diverse venues including modern trade liquour stores, supermarkets and dimly-lit special trade bars and clubs, these bottlers created distinctive designs that stand out from the very competitive alcohol market.
This approach is common in the alcohol industry, but it is an approach that must be embraced by other industries as well. As FMCGs become more competitive, PD must also become a point of differentiation and in of itself a personification of the brand identity in order to be successful. Consumers are constantly bombarded with options and a successful product needs to stand out distinctively. As a central PD strategy becomes more widely recognized, companies need to tailor their conceptual communications to reflect the PD identity; case in point – Absolut Vodka’s It’s An Absolut World campaign.
