I have been looking for new ways of visualizing brand and consumer; this is the best I have seen. It is a real trick to create something with enough meaning to bring clarity, but enough flexibility to apply to specific situations. A real test is if it helps clients/agency or not.

At the root of my thought is whether or not the in-out relationship between a brand and consumer is through the brand action. The brand action being the expression of the brand in symbols (identity, buildings, etc.) instead of relationships as the outer ring. Then, the brand experiences as you have it. Finally, the product/service as the center of brand action. I fully believe in the power of a brand, organization and reflection components, as shaping brand action.

If you buy the action as the primary way a brand interacts with a consumer, then I would place it to the left, across from the consumer. This would result in the organization moving to the top position.

Placing the organization at the top works for me. It implies the dynamic between the organization and how it shapes and drives motivation and action.

Having a brand equity2.0 perception, I try to place the relationship central and more I look at the visual, more I find it could reflect the same thing – that the brand is not really at the center.

I think that rather than the organization, it is the brand action and brand reflection which should be at the center.

We talk here about positioning, but with the rise of social media, it’s just a matter of time before traditional branding models evolve (and my big project will hopefully support this idea).

Today with social media, prosumers have more and more opportunities to share their thought and some famous bloggers get to become more than just influencers. We tend to see more and more people become brand advocates (or detractors). The term “personal brand” is nowadays commonly used and the relationship “company brand” vs “personal brand” will gain in importance.

Today’s trend is that if I use a cool mp3 player I like, I most probably will share this information somewhere on the net. There is an immediate relationship between the company’s brand and my personal brand (doesn’t matter the size of my network). This means that my behaviour can have much more influence than the one I had before the coming of “social media” such as blogs, microblogs and social networks.

Therefore I would suggest that the two quadrants related to the brand should also be related to the people and that the “behaviour “should be replaced by something such as “personal brand promise”.
At least that’s if you would like to have a model ready for the coming 5 years (or something like that)

@Peter, to replace norms and values with concerns (that is, major goals, motives, well-being, or other sensitivities) works from a theoretical point of view (concerns as explained by Pieter Desmet cover the exact meaning I wish to convey) but I am also looking for those words an entrepreneur of an SME might relate to. More tips are welcome! @Gunay, Needs and wishes fit in the middle ring I think. I’m sticking to values and norms for now. Call me stubborn.

I love this from a brilliant post by Adrian by the way: ‘Human relationships aren’t build on similarity or identity of attributes. They’re a result of interaction, of understanding, of the things we do that move us and by which we move one another.’ That is spot on!

And Peter is also hitting the nail on the head when he says in his comment on Adrian’s post ”Because what we value gives meaning to life, these shared values result in meaningful relationships. When brand owners provide the opportunity to people to use the brand in this way, I (peter) speak of Experience Branding”

As to the nature of the relationship Gunay is asking about and Peter is commenting on: I can’t tell you. That’s the whole point of the model. I often open branding discussions with my clients with exactly that question: ‘what kind of relationship do you have with your client/customer/user? Is it open, hierarchical, experimental, indifferent, adventurous, respectful, buddy-like or does it depend on context? And how does he/she see that relatonship?’. The discussion this question opens tells me a lot about the brand.

And Peter: as to the extent to which norms and values are implicit: from a branding point of view, they are, since in my experience they are often excluded from branding discussions. But to use an abstract – concrete scale is a good idea, especially since that works for both scales, thanks for the tip.

@adrian: you are right that the model is brand centric, but I like to see it as leaving both the organisation and the user open to see the world (and each other) as they see it. In other worlds, it is not trying to see the user from a brand point of view, rather, it is trying to build a brand based on the user’s and the organization’s shared point of view. But Peter and you are both right, I make part of my living by building brands for clients, not for end-users.

Adrian also makes a lot of sense when he says that it’s valuable to look at the organisation’s side of the brand form the user’s point of view and to look at the user’s side of the brand form an organizational point of view. It is exactly this subjective approach that I miss in a lot of user centred design discussions. It is not about what the user does/feels/thinks, but it’s about what you (as an organization) are going to with those insights.

And, Adrian, the construction of meaningful interactions happens in the artefacts quadrant, which I will change to interactions, since that is what I mean (I suffer slightly from product designer myopia).

To Adrian, Peter and Gunay: I am excited about what social media could (and will) do to branding, precisely because the ownership of the brand is no longer contained within the organization. If the brand represents a relationship rather than the projection of an identity on to an ‘outside world’ some exciting stuff is bound to happen! And I completely agree with Gunay that this kind of thinking is inspiring for us product people because it invites us to adopt the same kind of social thinking in the context of product design and product branding. A meaningful product experience takes place when a user has something of value to add to the equation. I hate flagship store experiences that give me the feeling that they don’t need me to function.

To conclude, I like to see the brand as a city square: the building blocks surrounding it and its pavement may define its identity (the constructed part of the brand), but it’s the use of the square –and the interactions that take place on it- that shape its meaning. The identity may trigger the interaction. It may even guide it in a certain direction. But it doesn’t in itself create meaning. Needless to say, the users of this brand as city square in my mind are the organisation and the end-user.

—sorry rik, again a little more text than intended—

Then we could keep it the same as the company culture in magenta, replacing the norms & values of the user by culture (either sub culture or culture as in country…)?

Peter suggest to replace norms and values by concerns…however that sounds really negative to me (the word concern itself), altough I understand his point. norms and values are cultural dependant, and very “general”, however sometimes brands focus or aim at sub-groups (e.g. female, teenagers, musical preference, etc). Those su-groups off cousre have their own values and norms perhaps, but that is just a matter of wording whether it is a certain life style, or vision of that end-user…

Peter also asks if I refer to the bonding to a brand by relationship, indeed1 This could be linked to loyalty, brand heritage (e.g. my dad always drove an Opel, so do I), but also the reflective-characteristic of a brand, reflecting the lifestyle of the user, the affinity level to that certain brand. The busg of brands are a “bush” because the user simply doesn’t care whether it is a Dreft, Dash, or Fleuril, but for cars this might be “slightly” different (e.g. or different in the eyes of the type of user: one that only cares about the price, only interested in design of car interiors)…

indeed I agree that brands and users go hand in hand. Depending on what you want to show with your model it can be either brand focussed, or user focussed. But in the end the user makes (or kills) the brand, and sometimes even the brand makes the user (e.g. Mr.Bean and his Mini car).

Interesting to read is that User experience is almost always mentioned in one sentence with online/smart products; I believe that user experience is also a differentiator in tangible products, where the challenge is even bigger. Brands are becomming more sensoric (e.g. Virgin airlines has a specific odeur), and exploiting that to enhance the experience in their products.