I recently had the distinct pleasure of being asked to speak to a group of industrial design students at the Art Institute in Fort Lauderdale. The class they were taking was an elective class and the topic was product branding. Anyway, the topic of branding is wide open and I guess I could have talked about anything, but I decided to talk about the origin of modern branding as a discipline.
My argument is that modern branding as a discipline is only 50+ years old, and that almost all the theories and methodologies regarding branding are derived from that period. This means that nothing is set in stone, and in fact it’s quite likely that branding as a discipline is still in the “flat earth” stage.
So what was my purpose? Well, I guess i just wanted these students to have enough context and ammunition to at least have the option to think critically about brands and branding.
BTW if you think I’m just being snarky to the old school branding folks, you should bare in mind that Wally Olins, who is somewhat a godfather of modern branding was my biggest influence here, and it’s his model of brand experience that I continue to use when thinking about customer experience.
Thanks for sharing that presentation it’s nice and simple, with some provocative models. I hadn’t heard the Brand Experience (environment, communication product etc.) before but it definitely makes me think, even if it’s only about what I”ll teach my industrial design students next semester
Karl,
As I mentioned in the e-mail—very nice deck. I especially love the timeline which you featured here.
Ad we move forward with the next generation of customer-brand relationships, it’s essential to think about how we got here in the first place.
Nicely done.
The more experience these kids can get from people that are out in the ‘real world’ practicing the ideas that they are studying, the better. You did them a huge service with your presentation.
Thanks guys, I have to tell you I really enjoyed giving the class. Plenty of discussion and engagement which was great.
Very insightful, thanks for sharing! As someone else mentioned, one of the things that’s missing from contemporary design education is the “real world.” Students need to understand that their ideas don’t live in a vacuum, and that their work will be judged be criteria that are very different than what they’re used to in school- an industrial design student could easily go through four or five years of school without ever hearing the words “off brand.”
Thanks again!
That’s very true, in fact that is the reason that the Design Management Institute in Boston was originally formed. Basically the foudner of the DMI found himself in charge of a studio after a few years of working as a designer and realized he had no training at all in running a business. I personally wish the DMI were more involved in these conversations around innovation, creativity and design thinking.
I believe that you might find some of the popular culture text by Daniel Pink, former speech writer for Al Gore interesting for ID students. His second book is “A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers will Rule the Future”. Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point also has some interesting insights into the decision making process of human beings regarding broadcast productions as products. (Rumor has it that his first book is also worthwhile.) Your brief history is quite informative. Thank you.