This blog hasn’t gotten much of my attention lately but that doesn’t mean I have been idle. To the contrary, I’ve been extremely productive this first half of 2009. I’ve just found other ways to express myself than through this blog. One of these is twitter, where you can follow me. I’ve met some great like-minded people to learn from and be inspired by on twitter, so give it a try!
I have also been doing a lot of presentations. In an educational context but also as consultant to new and existing clients. These presentations are always a moment for me to collect my thoughts into something that makes sense. The process of creating a good presentation helps me clean up my cluttered mind so I can move on form there.
Here’s a public adaptation of a presentation I did for Priva, a wonderful Dutch company where we at Zilver have been spending a lot of pleasant time lately, coaching them on branding and design management. The presentation is about what we’ve come to call Human Centred Branding: building brands that are fruitful platforms for innovation and design requires a human centred approach. Only human centred brands will be used by innovators and valued by users.
Here’s Zilver’s take on human Centred Branding, plus a quick overview on how we build human centred brands. I hope you enjoy it, and if you do, spread the word! and comments or improvements are always greatly valued!
this presentation is licenced under a creative commons attribution-non commercial-share alike licence.
Tags: brand driven innovation, branding, design, design management, design thinking, erik roscam abbing, human centred branding, innovation, management



Hi Erik, what a great presentation and a great idea to take human centered design and apply it to branding. It had far more meaning than the usual brand presentations given by ad agencies.
Well done
Damian
Great job Erik!
Really love it, as it ties much of what I’ve learned from great marketing folks into a bigger model that includes design (often only subjectively spoken about from marketing people), and culture.
Ralf forwarded me one of your earlier papers on design management, which I hope to devour soon in addition to Esslinger’s “A Fine Line”.
Erik…
Nice work. Thank you for sharing.
What’s taking place on slide #46? What is that wheel? Very curious.
Thank you!
Paul
Hi Erik,
I am Lipi, working as a design manager in Whirlpool, New delhi…. I must say ur presentation was impressive & BMW was certainly the rt case study to choose.
I am wondering after seeing ur presentation that if you could give example of another brand growing brand which is not as premier & established as BMW, and is not able to deliver perfectly on all paramteres of Human centric branding so as to satisfy the consumer completely.
Where shd a design consultant advice that brand to focus on- the logo or the core benifit of the product?? your presenation is indeed thought provoking….
It was gr8 to see your work…
Regards
Lipi
lipipatel2005@gmail.com
Hi Lipi,
always focus on the product. Better yet, focus on what that product does to the people who use it. Your brand is about establishing a relationship with your users so start with understanding them and what they value and dream about.
good luck!
e.