Friday night was awards night at Tayburn. We took home four awards for Corporate Literature/Annual Report, Self Promotion, Poster and Stationery. Plus two commendations for Corporate Identity and Craft. And to top it all we also picked up the Grand Prix Award.
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Archive for May, 2010
The much talked about launch of the iPad comes to a climax tomorrow when it makes its debut in the UK. Just another gadget you may think, but this piece of kit has the potential to seriously shake up the future of corporate reporting.
The key advantage the iPad has is a large screen and it’s this crucial element that could well accelerate further the migration of reporting from print to web. Mobile phones have never really lent themselves to viewing information on the move, particularly that of the financial variety, and while Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s eReader does allow some usability, they’re limited. Things may change with the imminent arrival of the second generation Kindle and Google’s version, but it’s the iPad that’s captured the imagination of industry.
With pretty much everything looking like it will eventually end up online, users need something that is portable and simple to navigate. The iPad promises both. Combine this with a browsing application that enables viewers to access the growing number of annual reports that are being produced in HTML format, and you can’t help but wonder if the iPad will be the catalyst for all companies to seriously address their online investor relations and stakeholder communications.
It’s fair to say that app development will drive the market for iPads, but it’s not unreasonable to envisage paid for applications that use programmes like XBRL to generate content and provide real time comparative corporate and annual reports. This evolving information could remove the traditional ‘annual snapshot’ from the equation, replacing it with more and more frequent updates.
Clearly, the prospect of having such current information is enough to whet the appetite of any analyst. Certainly, when the iPad was launched in the States the value of its potential was recognised immediately, sending Apple’s share price soaring. For analysts, having an iPad as standard issue could revolutionise commerce and for the companies producing annual reports, print costs – which can be substantial – could be negated.
Of course, it’s not a done deal yet, Apple has to get grips with the problems it has with the iPad’s battery life or run the risk of playing directly into the hands of the advocators of print and competitors. That said, battery technology is a problem facing the digital hardware sector as a whole and I’m sure, given a little more time, this glitch will be resolved.
But before we condemn print to the archives, it’s likely that it will always have a place with some stakeholders, albeit a slightly different role in the future. Personally, I believe report design will be led by the online requirement and print will support overall communications in the form of summary reports that supplement the full online version. I also think digital reports will become more sophisticated, focusing separately on the needs of different audiences – shareholders, investors, employees, customers, suppliers etc.
Whatever happens, those companies that are interested in real engagement with their stakeholders will seek out whatever means there are to get their message across and influence. My money’s on the iPad being the next new way of doing it.
As part of our ongoing relationship with ECA we hosted our first student exhibition here at Tayburn entitled Knack. Students from Stage 3 of the Graphics course were each tasked to produce a piece of work in which they explored personal ideas. They also had the opportunity to curate the exhibition space.
Ever heard the phrase ‘can’t see for looking’? My granny used it often, usually when fumbling around the kitchen cupboard looking for box of tea bags that were parked firmly on the shelf front of her.
It’s a turn of phrase that holds real resonance in packaging design. How many times have we wandered up and down a supermarket aisle picking up brands without giving others a second glance, let alone a second thought?
This lapse in attention to our surroundings has been well documented, the most famous of which was demonstrated by Simon and Chabris who ran a study some years ago into what is termed inattentional blindness. The experiment involved asking viewers to watch a video of a basketball game and count the number of times one particular team passed the ball. Mid way through someone dressed in a gorilla suit strolled onto the centre of the court, turned and faced the audience before performing a slightly bizarre jig then slowly walked off. Viewers of the game were none the wiser because their attention was focused on the passing of the ball and not what was going on elsewhere.
In a retail environment this proves two things. Firstly, that recognition is critical and, therefore, brand equity must be very carefully developed and managed and secondly, that stand out is key.
When shopping, our attention focuses on certain features and distinguishes them from the background. Where we look for products and how we look depends on how we take in a scene and how we understand that scene. Bearing this psychology in mind, when we validate the effectiveness of packaging design in research scenarios, are we sure that we are giving the sample the most realistic experience of how they would normally interact with a brand?
There is evidence to suggest that traditional focus group have given way to more direct observational research – or ethnography to give it its official moniker. Focus groups rely heavily on the proactive attitude of sample target audiences to provide killer insights into a brand. But, packaging design has to work on shelf and not in the middle of a coffee table so observational studies, such as accompanied shops, provide more relevant evidence of top of mind behaviour and the subtle changes of body language in situ.
That said, behaviour varies from category to category. For example, so-called commodity goods such as milk are mostly a low engagement purchase which the consumer navigates on auto-pilot. Premium bottled ale on the other hand is a high-engagement process making the shopper more receptive to key elements like an on-pack brand story, which is more likely to result in a considered selection of goods. And this is where focus groups do provide value.
In many ways our response to design is governed by our subconscious which is, in turn, shaped by our values, needs and attitudes. Using focus groups and related qualitative research tools provides a way of identifying what these underlying consumer motivations are so that brand owners can better understand the needs of their audiences. By building the values and aspirations of strategic research into packaging design before testing that design in a realistic purchasing environment, brand owners can ensure that a product’s design will hold enough stand out to capture purchaser attention and avoid falling foul of buyers not being able to see it for looking.
Now that the election frenzy is over, sort of, the outcome should be of no surprise to anyone.
Was it just me or did all the parties, with the exception of single issue parties like the SNP, BNP, Socialists and Greens, sound exactly the same? Despite tuning into the televised debates, following it online and watching a succession of candidates kissing babies, to me, there wasn’t any originality or substance that inspired me to pledge allegiance one way or the other.
Heated debates and political rallying aside, I didn’t see anyone laying their cards on the table with meaningful detail on their policies. I appreciate parties have to satisfy myriad stakeholder audiences, so they can’t have pin-point precision when it comes to their ‘propositions’, but surely they should have had something that distinguished them from their competitors?
Was it not obvious for someone, somewhere amidst the pre-election melee to suggest developing a series of targeted propositions that could be underpinned with real commitment to effect the change the party promised and build a solid political reputation? A by-product of building that reputation is trust and in light of all the spin, political enquiries, expenses and the financial crisis, if a party can counteract all its failings by implementing, and standing by solid values, then it will regain the public trust it desperately needs to restore.
What was made clear to me in this election was not how branding could have helped any of the main political parties succeed, but how the lack of it failed to help any of them win.
If politics is to pick itself up off the canvas it needs to take a leaf out of the book of business and differentiate better. It needs to target key audiences with key messages that are not littered with ambiguity. Just as with all good brands, political parties need to focus more on substance and communicate exactly what that substance is with flair. They need to deliver the values their brand promises and not rely on talking a good game and hoping the public are too stupid or ignorant to notice the difference.
