Brand Identity Roundtable ft. Innis Maggiore's Creative Team

Interested in learning more about brand identity? This week on the Brand Shorthand podcast, Mark is joined by the Innis Maggiore creative department to discuss the brand identity process. Tune in to learn how the creative team works together to bring brand identities to life and to hear real-life examples of the work they have done. 

Join Mark and Lorraine for 30-ish as they discuss all things marketing, advertising, and of course … positioning!

Transcript

Mark Vandegrift 
Welcome to another episode of the Brand Shorthand Podcast. I'm your host, Mark Vandegrift, and with me today are several of our team members from the Innis Maggiore's Creative Department. Today, we're going to have a discussion to learn more about the brand identity development process. So before we dive in, let's start with some introductions so we know who all is with us today. I think what we'll do is we'll go from left to right on my screen and maybe share your name and specialty and a little bit about yourself and what you do at Innis Maggiore. So Emily, I'll let you kick it off.

Emily Mays
I'm Emily Mays. I'm an Associate Creative Director. I've been with Innis Maggiore for 13 years. I would like to say that my specialty is typography. I love typography. I loved it in school. I've loved it ever since. I'm not sure if the team would agree, but I think that's what my specialty would be for me.

Mark Vandegrift 
Very good. Awesome. Alicia.

Alicia Jordan 
My name is Alicia Jordan. I have been at the agency for seven years now going on eight and I am the art and video director. I do specialize in video, but I get my hands in most things that come through the agency as we all do. So I can say that I've done a lot of different things over those, you know, seven going on eight years.

Mark Vandegrift 
Very good, Cheryl.

Cheryl Henderson 
I'm Cheryl Henderson and I am executive director of Creative Services and I am here for almost 22 years, just shy of that right now. So I've done a lot in those 22 years. I love doing video and I also do a lot of social media writing and creative writing, but a lot of a little bit of everything.

Mark Vandegrift 
Very good. And last and definitely very least, Scott Edwards.

Scott Edwards 
I'm the youngest member of the creative department. And this summer, I'm working as an intern, hoping to turn it into a full-time job. I'm particularly interested in learning about copywriting and how that works and how this word goes in front of this one. it's a challenge, but I'm getting there. think I am

Mark Vandegrift 
Well, if y'all want Scott's real bio, feel free to email us and we'll get that to you. Let's start off our discussion. Again, this is our topic today is about brand identity development. So Scott, since you're the intern, why don't you tell us a little bit about what you think brand identity is? This should be good.

Scott Edwards 
We're condition to say that branding is more than a logo. But in real life, it's probably the first thing people think about. There are other components though that are very important in creating a brand identity and they include things like color palette, maybe the name of the brand, tagline, typography, the messaging, even the tone. All these things go together. There's even something called sonic branding that's becoming more and more in vogue. You might recognize say on end of the McDonald's commercial. I also understand that people still use windows. There's such a thing called windows and when they start using this antiquated thing there's a noise that happens and that's considered sonic branding. 

Mark Vandegrift 
Very good.

Scott Edwards 
We do this to distinguish particular brand from other competitors who do the same thing and it's also a good way to connect to the target audience whether it's selling a product or a service.

Mark Vandegrift 
Excellent. When you think back on all of your brand identity experience, what's the first thing that pops into your mind is, what do I have to think to bring an identity to life? Do you think logo first? Do you think name? What do you think first?

Scott Edwards 
I don't know that there's a formula to it. It's... instinct plays a big part in this. Probably shouldn't be saying that, but that's the case. So we think about the position of the brand. That's the starting point because then we're identifying what that brand is supposed to convey to its target audience. And it usually flows pretty naturally from there, but where you start, I think really depends on the situation.

Mark Vandegrift
Well, Scott, we know you're noodling on ideas when we see you walking around the agency. And I think that's the most critical time because you use the word instinct and there's an art and a science to brand identity development. But that art is what really separates us as human beings in terms of connecting with both sides of the brain. So it's good to hear you use the word instinct because I think there's a lot of that building to something that a lot of people think can just be a process or a formula. So Alicia, I'll jump over to you. What are some of the things that you consider when you develop a brand identity?

Alicia Jordan 
Well, a lot of times we are starting with something that previously exists or a company is coming out with a new brand. And so part of it is definitely considering, you know, do they already have customer perception or what do we want that customer perception to look like? We have to keep in mind, you know, both the existing kind of mindset of their current audience and then where we want to take them. A lot of that goal ends up being sculpted by like both the personality of the brand and the position. And we really need to look at, who else is in the competition? Like in this brand's industry, what is everyone else doing? Kind of consider those things as we move forward in building something that feels unique compared to, you know, what they might be up against.

Mark Vandegrift 
Yeah, that's great. And you mentioned the term personality. I want to get inside your head here. You see little characters are running around in your head. Like when you're developing that brand identity, does a story start coming alive in your mind?

Alicia Jordan 
Definitely. I think sometimes a lot comes from talking to the clients themselves, like the people that are behind the brand in the business. A lot of personality can come from that, whether they're, you know, kind of academic, they're, you know, they're mentors, or maybe they're very playful and fun, or maybe they're very serious in trying to develop cutting edge tech. Those all can influence the personality and that definitely something starts kind of percolating amidst all those things that again, like Scott mentioned, I think that all kind of culminates based on instinct.

Mark Vandegrift 
Yeah, that's great. In fact, one word that I love that Cheryl, I'm going to jump over to you because you use this all the time. You always say, it's my baby. And, you know, when we think about birthing a baby, we can talk about birthing a brand. What do you like? What are the things that go through your mind, Cheryl? And how do you determine what is right for a brand?

Cheryl Henderson 
Yes, that is very true. I have not personally birthed a baby, but I imagine that this is what it is like because there is a lot of pain, there is a lot of trauma, but then there's a lot of joy when it is finally born. As Alicia just said, it does come down to that initial input session with the client. As designers, We feel things very deeply. A lot of us would consider ourselves to be empaths. And you know, me personally, I can physically feel feelings sometimes. And a lot of it is instinct. is personality. It's a vibe. As corny as that sounds, you definitely get a vibe off of that initial client input session. And that's going to tell you what are these people like? What do they what do they want to portray with their brand. What colors do they like? What colors do they not like? Do they have a visceral reaction to colors? Because we do see that a lot. Like, do not use this color. I hate that color. If I were a client, I would say, I hate pink. Do not ever use pink in a logo for me. But that's where a lot of that comes from, because a brand should be a representative of the people that are behind it and it does need to reflect what they love because they the representative, they are the ambassador for that brand. They're not going to want to wear merch with their logo on it if it's something that they hate. They don't want to look in their closet and say, ugh I have to wear this today. We want it to be something that they love and enjoy. So it comes from that personality of the people. Like Alicia said, are they techie? Are they fun? Are they community focused? Are they money driven? None of those things is better or worse than the other. It's just what they are and the DNA of their brand. So then it's our job to take all of those things into consideration and make that tangible. That's kind of a big deal for designers is to translate thoughts and emotions and feelings into something that's tangible and can be created into an icon or into a font treatment or design system. So that's kind of a lot of what goes into the initial thing is based on our feelings and like Alicia said, once we meet with those people, sometimes, most of the times, there will be a spark of an idea that will immediately hit us. It's a gut instinct and we take that from there and run with it. We can give a few options as we develop the brand identity system and as is the case with me, usually the first instinct, the first logo that I do is the right one. And then I'm just trying to create extras to give them something to compare to. But it's been my experience that my gut tells me this one is the right one and this is the one they're gonna go with, because it's the one I feel the strongest about. And that usually translates into that connection that I've had with that client and what they're looking for for their brand.

Mark Vandegrift 
that's awesome. Emily, let's work you into the conversation here. When you've been in client sessions so many times, you've developed so many strong brand identities, et cetera. Talk a little bit more on the aspect of challenges that you run into, whether it's during the, I guess, concepting phase and or after you present some of the elements to a client, what are some of the challenges in terms of getting adoption?

Emily Mays
Getting adoption, I love it, to jump on that baby train. I would say the biggest challenge is in any art, as they say, everything has already been done. So we're really trying to, from the names that we come up with, from having the client's position, we're really trying to differentiate them from competitors and just from the world around. So we are...I know myself, I'm not really looking for inspiration. I don't have any sort of websites that I go to to specifically look for inspiration. I'm just inspired by life around me, the websites I visit, things like that. So we are taking in that information. And while that's important, we want to make sure that we're not competing with that information. We're not like recreating that information in our own way. So we really want to make sure that the things we're coming up with, a logo. We may in our brain have something, there's just a little seed of something in there that reminds us of something. We don't wanna copy that something. We wanna take that information that we have and build off of it and really differentiate what we're working on from the competitor. So I would say just making sure that what we're doing looks completely different from someone else. Also, just getting married to an idea, that's hard for me. As Cheryl said, sometimes you come up with many different concepts. And for me, like she was saying, she lands on the first one. Sometimes for me, I need to flesh out a couple things. I have a million pasteboards open. So for me, getting married to an idea, once you have that seed and you're saying, this is what I want to run with, you're getting married to something and that's a commitment. You need to make sure that you stick with it and you flesh it out from there. And with that, you need to maintain consistency. So I recently worked on a logo. You know, you have the logo mark and then the typography beside it. Once you have that logo mark, you want to take those elements, some elements from that logo mark and make sure that, you know, your work has sorts of designs and patterns and colors in it. So it's really that marriage to that logo, that mark, that typography, and just making sure that you maintain consistency. And then you want to keep the brand relevant. So going back to me saying you, you know, want to differentiate it. You also want to make sure that even though it is different, it's going to be relevant today and continue to be relevant.

Mark Vandegrift 
Yeah, that's a good point. Relevancy can be a short-term part in the world of advertising with color changes and font changes, and it seems like it's just accelerated. So that's really good point. How do you make something evergreen, if you will, which can be tough. So, okay. What's that? Yeah, timeless. Yep, that's very hard to do, isn't it?

Emily Mays
Absolutely. Yes, timeless. I said timeless. It needs to be timeless. All of our work needs to be timeless. Yes.

Mark Vandegrift 
Well, Scott, let's jump back to you. kind of initiate a lot of the creative strategy after our positioning strategy has landed, been adopted by the client. What are some examples of effective strategies that you've seen brought to life in agency brand identity work that we've done? Maybe give an example or two.

Scott Edwards 
I think I'm on the wrong podcast because we're talking about getting married and having babies and stuff. This makes... I mean, I'm, I'm...

Mark Vandegrift 
You never know what will come out of our mouths, Scott.

Scott Edwards 
Yeah, I thought we were talking about brand identity, you know, with all this stuff me. But, you know, there's a recent example that comes to mind. There's an organization in Cleveland called that was called Center for Health Affairs. And it's around many years. It's an advocacy organization for hospitals. And a few years ago, they decided to really broaden what their reach was going to be and get beyond healthcare for one thing, but also make a more meaningful connection to communities. So they're going to be a group that gets other organizations, companies, and communities together for the common good. That's probably the simplest way to put it. we renamed the organization WellLink Health Alliance. And Lee-Ann, who's not on this call, created an unbelievable logo designed for this color scheme, amazingly alive and not what you would think of based on what I just described. You would think that it would be something that would be lowkey and very classy. And she's created this really wonderful thing. It's like, it's like consumer branding quality. And I see this all the time with our organization here. Lee-ann's not joining us today and Justin, but this group, you know, it's the secret weapon. could say this and another agency could be watching this and it won't help them because the part of branding that's most important is talent. And you know, I've been doing this nonsense for 40 years and the group that we have aggregated to do this as the most talent of any that I've ever worked with over that amount of time. So that's the secret weapon because you know, when you talk about instinct, that sounds like something that's random that it just happens. But instinct is really applied experience. If I have enough experience and I'm good enough at what I do, instinct is always going to be right. And I believe in the Buddhist notion of first thought, best thought, which a couple people have described here in their own words. And when you have that kind of talent, that's what happens.

Mark Vandegrift 
Very good. Well, one of the things that often is missed from the notion of brand identity work is messaging. And I go back to a recent brand overhaul where it was interesting because the client said, we have a certain way that we write copy the way we convey ourselves through the messaging. And they never said anything about the look and the feel of the logo or the colors used or anything like that. And Scott, you remember that was kind of the message conveyed to us by JDM outdoors. And we redid the visual aspect of their logo, their colors, their photography that was used, et cetera. But the one thing they wanted us to keep was the messaging, the way that the copy was written. Can you talk a little bit about how messaging is developed in terms of style and tone and how that becomes part of the overall brand identity as well?

Scott Edwards 
That was an unusual situation for somebody to bring up that subject when getting into this process. And the way they put it was, we had a higher level of what our brand sounded like and it kind of got away from us. And that gave me the freedom, the liberty to try to think about the
product and what it does for people in their homes or near their homes in a way that I wanted to make an emotional connection. And that gave me the opening to write in this heightened style that's almost like poetry. But typically what we would do when thinking about messaging and the style we use for it is really two components is what you're saying and how you say it. Well, what you're saying comes directly out of the position, the brand position. So that's why Innis Maggiore has an edge on that because we start with it and then there's no debate about what you're saying because it all flows directly from that. And the how you say it, that's part of the instinct, which is you get a feel for what the audience is like. So I've got a target audience, whether it's financial services or whether it's a business to business or whether it's a consumer product. What, what are that audience looking for? What is the appropriate feel for it? And that's where the instinct kicks in and writing in that style. One of the hardest parts actually is a lot of companies don't want to they seem like they're being bragged bragging if they make statements about how good they are, so there's a The wall behind you says America's number one positioning ad agency, right now You might think gee, that's a big statement, but
as a company, you're in a competitive situation. You can't equivocate around that. You can't say, well, people seem to think we're pretty good at this and we might be the best on the block at this point. What are you going to get out of that? You know, if you're a leader in something, you need to say it. Humility for a person is maybe a nice thing, but for a company, it isn't. If you're a leader at something, you have to really be able to say it so that you can make a competitive difference. And I know what I'm talking about because I am the most humble person you're ever going to find. And you can ask anybody.

Mark Vandegrift 
Well, Scott, have to understand how you've been in the business for 40 years and you've only attained the position of intern this summer.

Scott Edwards 
It's, I'm under delivering.

Mark Vandegrift
That's good. Well, we're going to switch gears from copy over to something that is completely aesthetic and that's in colors. Okay. And I know my daughter just went through art school and she had color theory and a bunch of other things, type styles, fonts, shapes. You brought that up, Emily on typology or typography. Typology, whatever it's called, and other design elements. So, you know, each one of these things are part of shaping a brand. Alicia, don't you tell us a little bit, like, how you go and you choose certain things, a triangle over a circle or an ellipse versus a carrot. You know, give us some idea on that, on color and fonts, all that fun stuff.

Alicia Jordan 
Sure. So we all have, you know, primitive instincts back circling back to instincts already. But that influences how we all perceive color. So if you think about red, we can think about one of the biggest brands that uses red and yellow McDonald's. Red is typically associated with appetite or warmth and positivity. It's also a very like passionate or energetic color, it radiates those kind of emotions when we interact with it. And there's reason for that, I'm sure, that comes from our biology of like, you you think of a red apple or red berries or, you know, those things are feel good things that are kind of a primitive, instinctual response to that color. So we do have that at a baseline. So a lot of times when we're looking to create a brand for someone, it's we're looking to see, well, what makes sense emotionally for that? And I know that one of our clients, Smith's, uses the same kind of color theory as far as one of their prominent colors is red, that is their brand color, and they are a food brand. They're dairy and many products that come out of that, and they also use yellow, which, again, even though that they...they kind of own that color in a different way in the space because they have a yellow jug that protects the milk while it's on the shelf, it extends the shelf life. That combination of the red and yellow is, we think, appealing to that primitive mindset. So we're kind of looking for those color opportunities, you know like Cheryl said earlier, there's definitely a guttural response for some people to certain colors for whatever reason. But again, we need to honor those instincts too, because we do want it to feel authentic to the people that are gonna be representing this brand. As far as like shapes and things, it's again, it's similar as far as if we're looking to do something that's comforting round shapes feel more cozy, they feel more approachable and friendly. You know, those harsh lines or sharpness or those kinds of shapes really lend themselves then to tech or, you know, cutting edge, though hard lines are going to be really fitting for a brand that is, you know, trying to push the envelope from a technical standpoint. So those are kind of all things that we consider and then in the same sense, those can then be extended onto typography because if you look at something, again, to circle back to Smith's, they are a local brand. They want to have that home, you know, part of your family feeling. And so they use kind of a hand scripted font. And so that ends up being a lot of the brand and how it speaks. But again, you're looking at those curved lines, they kind of give it that feeling of comfort and familiarity and friendliness. So all those things really end up tied in a bow on that. But a lot of it does again come from like the internal, you know, reaction that we have naturally to these different things.

Mark Vandegrift 
Good. Well, let's jump off of the brand identity in terms of developing the logo and some of the initial, what we would call the clothes we put on the brand and talk about execution. Emily, earlier you mentioned this idea that even as you're developing logos or you're picking fonts, et cetera, you're thinking down the road a little bit toward how that might play out in developing. Let's say it's you know, short form advertising like billboard or something that's a little bit longer in social media or even to the extent of video. How give us a little bit of insight into your process of how you pull out the different elements that we just talked about to expand on that and create a piece of advertising communication.

Emily Mays
So everything for us goes back to positioning. That's how I think about things is, I mean, that's what we do as our agency. are America's number one. So for me, everything goes back to that. going back to Smith's with the tradition, you can taste that scripty tagline that they have. Everything we do for them goes along with that position. So everything needs to have that homespun feel, whether it's point of sale in the store for consumers to like actually find the product in the store and want to buy that thing or while they're you driving out on the street and they may see a truck graphic we need to make sure that that position is hitting in both those instances out in the world in the actual store space same with Bell stores keeping the family on full I mean it has family in the name so you've got to make sure it's friendly and fun
and talking about relevant, we change what we do for them. Not everything looks the same, right? So like you were saying about billboards, we need to make sure that every single time we make one, while it all goes back to the position, obviously every single time we make a billboard for them, every single time we have something come through, three of us could be working on the project. We're all gonna come up with so many different ideas tied back to that one position. So for me, that's what it all goes back to. I don't know what we would do if we didn't have the client's position if that wasn't, know, foremost in our mind. So for me, that's what it all ties back to.

Mark Vandegrift 
Very good point. Yes. Well, before we close up here, Cheryl, why don't you give us a little bit of perspective on when you inherit a brand where a client is coming in with a brand style guide and all these other things and kind of, do you see that as helpful or is it baggage versus we've talked mainly about creating brand identities from scratch, right during this podcast, give us give our listeners a sense for the difference in that and maybe even your preference on which way you like like it to go.

Cheryl Henderson 
So when we do get a brand style guide from a client, most of the times it's very much appreciated.  You know, if there's something that they're doing that's working, we're happy to work within those parameters. But sometimes I need a little, a little zhuzhing as it were. 

Mark Vandegrift 
Is that a real word? How do you spell it?

Cheryl Henderson
I think so. Yeah. I think it has a Z and an H in it somewhere.


Mark Vandegrift 
Perfect.

Cheryl Henderson 
maybe multiple times. So maybe they just need a little boost for that brand and maybe they've been using that logo for many years and the font is looking a little dated. Let's bring that font. Fonts are very cyclical. When I first started working in Innis Maggiore, we used Trade Gothic almost all the time on everything. We loved that bold condensed Trade Gothic and now here we are 20 years later, Gotham style. If there are any designers in the audience, they'll know these. Everyone is using Gotham. And so I'm sure in another 20 years, we'll be going back to a version of trade Gothic. But there are definitely fonts that feel like now and feel like they're dated. So a brand refresh might include, let's just bring the font into current times. Maybe one of the the logo elements and the icon is using a gradient or a shape or a swoosh. Remember swooshes in the mid 2000s? Every logo had a swoosh in it. So let's maybe turn that into something a little more modern as logo styles change throughout the decades and you can definitely tell there's a shift in something and when something looks outdated. So a logo or a brand refresh is just kind of pulling it along into current times, but still honoring what it is and what it has been. Maybe it's developing a new system of graphic elements that are used in brochures and sell sheets and trade show or interior design. We just are doing that for ourselves right now and just kind of refreshing things and maybe you just get tired of something and you need something new. So that's kind of what's involved in that, is keeping it within the same family. It all still feels like it's a cousin or an aunt or an uncle, but you're still at the same family reunion. versus building something from scratch, the world is your oyster. Like what do I want this to be? It's all coming out of my brain, which can either be super exciting or super scary, depending on what kind of parameters the client gives you, if they give you a certain set of things like do this or that or don't do this or that, you you have a little bit of a guideline. But when they say do whatever you want, it's both freeing and terrifying. But we do love it when people give us full creative freedom because when there are no limits, they might get something that they never expected and they end up loving and I never could have imagined that. How did you even think of this? You hit it on the head. So both ways, there's no right or wrong. We love doing them all. And it's just a matter of what it is at the time.

Mark Vandegrift 
Awesome, that's great. Well, let's see, birthing babies, adoption, family reunions now. Scott? Yes, Scott, I know this wasn't where you thought it was gonna go, but why don't you send us out with your parting thoughts.

Scott Edwards
you set me up here I know I don't think I, I don't know nothing about birthing and babies anyway. So I mean, I'm prohibited from reproducing by world health organization. So I'm not really an expert on this, but, um, every day Innis Maggiore gives birth to great advertising creative because we start from position you know, this isn't merely some kind of a slogan. It's something that we live every day. And you can see when you take a look at advertising and marketing, where it's not all that prevalent that everybody's doing this. And all they're doing is wasting their money because they're doing things that don't connect to one another. This campaign looks and feels like this. And the next one has a totally different thing. But when you see a really good brand do something, and it could be a sound, it could be a voice, like think about the Arby's, we've got the meats, right? Well, that's Ving Ray from Pulp Fiction. has this wave and toning that, that's Shakespearean in its style. And if somebody, if he didn't wanna do it anymore and they decided to continue it with somebody else, it would be terrible. But that continuity, whatever they're selling, even if it's not a meat product, they still use that tagline with that same style. And they decided, they kind of, Arby's had some problems before that campaign with their advertising. They just kept coming out with thing after thing that was not working. And they finally decided, yeah, I know there's this stuff called salad and there are people who eat it apparently, but that's not what we're all about. Our position is this kind of fake process meat and that's what we're all about. And then we're gonna push it.

Mark Vandegrift
Well, very good. Thank you all from our creative team. We missing a few here, but thank you Cheryl and Alicia and Emily and Scott for joining us today. And thank you for our listeners every week for joining us. And don't forget to like, subscribe, subscribe and subscribe and share with a friend. Tell your cousin, tell your babies, tell all the family members that have been referenced today about the Brand Shorthand Podcast and until next time, have an amazing day.