As 2025 draws to a close, several brands are focusing on revitalization. Why? Poor strategies, sour executions, ignoring basic, evergreen, brand principles, and other given reasons like the weather, tariffs, and, sigh, still COVID. Kohl’s, Cracker Barrel, Macy’s, and Bath & Body Works are redesigning themselves for enduring profitable growth.
At the center of these brand rejuvenations are desires to improve brand experiences. As the CEO of Bath & Body Works told The Wall Street Journal, it is time for “…reinvigorating its brand, reclaiming cultural relevance….”
A brand is a promise of a relevant, differentiated experience. A brand experience is how the customer perceives the brand, both physically and emotionally. Brands define their brand experiences in terms of functional benefits, emotional and social rewards, customer values, brand personality, and the features that bring these elements to life.
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There is also the brand’s visual identity, which is the non-verbal design expression of the brand character that can be seen, sensed, understood, heard, or felt. Non-verbal design is the unified expression of aesthetic cues that, when combined, deliver the brand without words.
For all of the brands now in need of revitalization, here is a tip: to make the brand experience come alive, brand management and brand design need to work in tandem. Brand management and design management need to be fused into one inseparable concept.
Many marketers still use “design” to describe only the brand’s visual design elements, such as the logo, and other most salient graphic facets of a brand, such as packaging. But Brand Design is not the same as styling. Styling means “to give a particular style to;” “to give a particular tone and manner to.” However, “kosher-style” does not make it kosher.
Brand styling resulted in the unfortunate development of undifferentiated automotive brands such as the Ford Taurus vs. the (now defunct brand) Mercury Sable. In this respect, brand styling is an “style-attachment disorder” — the same basic vehicle design with a few minor styling cues attached. This is not brand differentiation. Style-attachment disorder is product decoration leading to brand homogenization. Ford used “grille management” to differentiate.
Brand Design means more than just deciding how to give a product a particular style. Brand Design means designing the brand experience into the product or service, not attaching a style to it.
Designers talk about the power of design in making connections with customers. But the management of the brand and its intent must be integrated with the design process.
Brand Design is about creatively developing innovative approaches to differentiate the brand experience.
What is Brand Design? Brand Design is the creative fusion of insight and imagination, creating innovative, intelligent, relevant, and differentiated brand experiences.
How does a brand team bring Brand Design into brand management? There is a Brand Design process, and it has four steps: Imagination, Innovation, Operationalization, and Renovation. Through these steps, marketing can interpret the brand’s soul, bringing it to life for customers to experience.
1. Imagination: generating insightful, creative brand ideas.
Have the creative idea before developing an innovative way to realize that idea. Although many companies strive to build a creative process, creative people, not processes, are the real source of creative success.
Walt Disney was a legendary Brand Designer. He first imagined a magical place that was high-quality, safe, and appropriate for the whole family. That creative idea led to the innovation that reinvented the amusement park experience.
Howard Schultz changed the definition of the coffee experience. He had a creative idea. He imagined the development of an experience he called the “third place.” He defines this as a place other than home or work where a person can go to relax and feel part of the community.
2. Innovation: dimensionalize the creative idea. This is the inventive phase. Innovation requires a top-down commitment.
Steve Jobs was a passionate Brand Designer. He developed products that were brand-designed, user-friendly, and cool experiences.
TravelPro re-designed the travel experience. The innovative concept of turning the product sideways, putting wheels on the bottom, and adding an extendable handle re-invented the luggage category. The wheels of the great Brand Design innovation. Why carry when you can roll?
3: Operationalization: the practical implementation of the innovative concepts.
An idea must be actualized to have power. As Harvard Professor Ted Levitt said, “Ideas are useless unless used.”
Thomas Edison, one of the world’s greatest inventors, focused on inventions that were practical to produce and practical to use. The idea of electric lighting was not new. But nothing had been developed that was remotely practical for home use. Edison’s achievement was developing not just an incandescent electric light that was practical, safe, and economical. Edison spent the next several years creating the electric industry. In September 1882, the first commercial power station, located on Pearl Street in lower Manhattan, went into operation. Thomas Edison operationalized the availability of electricity. Edison Electric later became known as General Electric.
Howard Schultz operationalized the premium coffee brand experience through his creative idea of the “third place” so that it could be consistently reproduced in thousands of locations.
4. Renovation: Products have lifecycles, but brands can live forever, of properly managed. Renovation is about continuously improving the innovation. This is how to defeat the brand lifecycle.
Toyota is a great example of a company dedicated to continuous innovation and renovation. Toyota never stops making products better and more efficient.
Sometimes a renovation can lead to brand revitalization, as with McDonald’s chicken Caesar salads. This was not a product innovation, but it certainly helped to renovate McDonald’s brand.
Beware of those who think that first-to-market guarantees enduring success. Whatever happened to Visicalc? Thermofax? Diners Club? Woolworth’s?
You will lose the pioneering advantage if you fail to innovate and renovate.
But there is more!
As pointed out in a deep dive on Bath & Body Works in The Wall Street Journal, focusing on our five senses is increasingly critical to bringing brand experiences to life for the customer. By appealing to more than one sense and getting the five senses into Brand Design, brands establish a stronger, longer-lasting emotional connection.
Brands: A Promise Of Multi-Dimensional Experiences
Brands can define their differentiation through the unique interconnectedness of the six senses.
Six? Yes.
The five physical senses are how we design the physical brand experience. The sixth sense, the mind, is where the brand resides. The sixth sense interprets and selectively perceives the information received through the other five senses. The “sixth” mind sense is the integrating sense. The sixth mind sense is where memories are stored. Brand Design is about designing the physical five-sense customer experience with the sixth-sense brand promise as the integrating core.
In the 1990s, Electrolux AB defined the Electrolux global brand. Within the Electrolux Master Brand Framework, we included a section titled the Electrolux Brand Attitude. The understanding was that a brand experience is made up of the consumers’ thoughts, feelings and sensations when they recognize the identity of the brand. Electrolux defined brand identity as anything that interacts with the five senses and that identifies and distinguishes a particular brand. Identity can be a name, logo, design, shape, texture, sound, color, etc. Electrolux defined Brand Attitude as the creative expression of the brand’s promise into a compelling, non-verbal perceptual impression.
For Electrolux, Brand Attitude was the manner in which the brand presented itself relative to competition. Brand Attitude was the specific set of non-verbal elements guiding how Electrolux would be identified in the marketplace. Brand Attitude answered the question, “how do people recognize, sense, know, or feel that this particular offer is from Electrolux? Brand Attitude ensured that Electrolux would have a common, non-verbal, expressive identification in addition to the verbal expression of the brand promise.
Decades ago, M&M Mars conducted research on food design. This was an extraordinary project. The goal was to improve product development by understanding the mind-body connections to how people actually eat. Mars evaluated the influence of the five senses and their impact on the mind as people consume foods and beverages.
For example, we eat with our eyes. Our first perception of food is not how the food tastes. Our first perception is how the food looks. If a fill-bar, such as Snickers, increases its bite height just minimally, we need to open our mouths wider. When we open our mouths wider, our eyes tell our mind, “Big food coming.” Fine dining steak restaurants have this sensory principle down pat. Fancy tapas bars sometimes serve small plates that are more about height than about more food. Food piled high, “tall” food, also signals big food.
Texture or mouth feel is critical. If a food requires a lot of chewing, our mouth sends a signal that it is filling. The longer it takes to eat, even with a small portion, the more substantial the eating experience. Our time and effort in eating a food with nougat, caramel, and peanuts, such as a Snickers bar, convey that it is more filling than a Hershey bar.
Feel, our sense of touch? Partitioned foods such as M&M’s, Maltesers, Skittles, or Kit Kat are partitioned. The eating time is longer for partitioned foods than for a single item. Just the action of splitting the Kit Kat bar tells our mind that this food is perceived as “more.” When we hold the M&Ms in our hand, the feel tells our minds that there is a lot to eat. In our minds, Partitioning lets us believe we are in control of the eating experience without feeling gluttonous. Partitioning keeps us distant from the final bite.
Partitioning is discrete and discreet eating. The food is separate (discrete), but it is also considerate and circumspect (discreet): you can eat carefully without stuffing your mouth.
There is another element of mouth feel. How long the taste remains in the mouth is also a significant element: think mouth clearance. A fruit chew rapidly dissolves in saliva and releases its flavor on impact. Chewing gum flavor lasts more than 20 minutes.
Sense of smell? The aroma of a bakery or a Starbucks is an enticing brand component. It is the same for Bath & Body Works. Bath & Body Works’ signature scents are key elements of the brand experience. Bath & Body Works’ fragrances deliver the brand promise. And, as we learn, Bath & Body Works fragrances are extremely profitable. Westin Hotels has had a signature fragrance for some time.
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Brand Design, including integration of “senses” design, must be integrated into marketing education. MBA programs need to include education on Brand Design. Design schools need to include education on brand management and Brand Design.
Experiential brand delivery demands broader and deeper collaboration between marketing, design, and product development. Business needs to abandon the out-of-date traditional role of brand management, where developing brand strategy and then handing the strategy over the wall to design management and product development is the established process. Brand Design requires the creative input of designers and product developers at the beginning of the strategic process.
Brand Design means management functions must be fused into a single integrated process to achieve the goal of creatively designing innovative approaches to differentiated brand experiences.
Brands are promises of multi-dimensional experiences. Brand Design is a great differentiator. The Brand Design process ensures that with each brand experience, the brand promise is reinforced, brand loyalty is strengthened, and brand value is enhanced.
Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Joan Kiddon, Partner, The Blake Project, Author of The Paradox Planet: Creating Brand Experiences For The Age Of I
At The Blake Project, we help clients worldwide, in all stages of development, define and articulate what makes them competitive and valuable at pivotal moments of change. Please email us to learn how we can help you compete differently.
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