Don’t be a Blockbuster

The symptoms

• Your business has outgrown your original branding.
• You sense your customers’ preferences are changing.
• You notice new competitors are disrupting your current business model.
• Bigger companies with more resources are moving into your space.
• You feel that you are slow to react.
• Your competitors used to copy you, now you’re following them.
• But you’re still profitable and a leader. And change is hard.
• You are becoming a less attractive employer.
• You’re concerned about, or struggling with, digitalisation.
• You wonder how long you can keep going in this way.

The problem

Over the last decade, we’ve seen an explosion of new touch points. Today, brand experiences play out through sound, motion and voice as well as the established formats. Add to that a plethora of social channels and it’s clear why you can’t control your brand experiences like you did before.

Customers have changed. They demand real time delivery, contact on their terms (and channels) and they want to know that brands match their values. The same is true of the people you employ. Without them on board, you’ll struggle to lift your brand out of your current state.

To stay relevant, brands and organisations need to articulate their purpose clearly, but also act accordingly. A face lift isn’t enough, in the digital age brands need new governance. It starts with your own people. When they become part of your story and have the tools that really help them in their daily life, they – and your brand – will thrive.

How it worked for Yale

Yale is an iconic brand of lock makers with a 180 year history in innovation. But the emergence of the smart home is significantly transforming its industry. So we helped them transform Yale into a unified, future-focused global consumer brand for the digital age while leveraging its heritage.

Collaboration and co-creation underpinned every aspect of the project. We worked both inside-out and outside-in, defining the brand purpose with the core team, and testing the value propositions with real customers in different regions. A simple and flexible system based on a universally understood idea drives every aspect of the design language, including sonic identity, UX, motion and interaction principles, product design, packaging and TV advertising.

Read more about our work with Yale