In a world of multiple channels, brands need to be consistent

In these uncertain times of worldwide recession, with company after company going out of business, being noticed by consumers is more important than ever.

In this exclusive interview Charles Wrench, Global Chief Executive Officer of Landor Associates, tells Emirates Business how the face of branding has changed over the years, reveals the secret of the company's success and shares his views about internet branding.

Landor is one of the world's oldest and biggest branding companies with offices in 24 countries. One of its major clients in the Middle East is property developer Emaar.

How has branding evolved over the past few decades?

The fundamental principles of branding are the same. A brand is still a promise. And for a promise to have commercial value, it must be relevant to customers, differentiated from competitors, and sustainable over time. What has changed, and changed a lot, is the context in which, and the channels through which, brands operate. The volume of commercial noise and the level of customer choice grow exponentially every year, so brands need to be ever more relevant and ever more differentiated to stand out.

Customers are increasingly brand savvy, so brands need to be more credible in their claims, and more consistent in their delivery. And the explosion of digital channels now means that the payback on brand strength or the price of brand weakness is now infinitely greater. Once, when a new brand or product was launched, word on the street moved slowly. Marketing departments had the time and tools to manage customer perceptions. But today consumers have been massively empowered by the speed and reach of the internet. Today, when a new product comes out, millions of people hear about it and can circulate their opinions to millions more within seconds. If the blog chat is positive you have an overnight winner. If it is negative you're dead in the water. And all this before your first ad spot runs. I think that the management of a brand promise has effectively become at once harder and more critical than ever before.

Landor pioneered many of the methodologies that are now standard in the branding industry. Have any new standards been set in recent years?

Our methodologies and reach are continuously being refined and extended. In recent years we have become progressively more focused on helping clients internalise their brands, by which I mean helping them align all their employees with the challenge of delivering an on-brand experience to their customers in everything they do. This is critical: After all, if a brand is a promise, and a strong brand is one that delivers that promise in everything it does, and brand delivery generates profit and sustainable advantage, then getting everyone in a company to be part of that brand delivery is a major step to driving profits and value.

Any comments on web portals as the new way of doing business?

The web burst so quickly onto the world stage that creative companies are still jostling to establish what best practice looks like when it comes to how brands should be managed in the web space. Thus far, I would say it has been the companies with the greatest technical capability that have led the charge. But I think this is changing. For in far too many cases brands have lost their sense of self on the web, being defined not by the need to be true to their unique promise, as they should, but by their desire to make best use of all the latest gizmos.

So many of today's brands offer what I would call a 'technology-led' brand experience on their portals. But the more astute brand managers are returning to first principles and looking to create a more brand-led digital experience – an experience that harnesses technology to affirm and celebrate what is special and different about their promise, rather than subsume their promise to the power of technology. We see this more and more as clients who used to work directly with the big enterprise site builders coming to us and saying, 'Help us make our site a true extension of our brand experience'.

Do you think that internet branding has arrived?

In the sense that brand promises can be communicated further faster than ever before, yes I suppose so. But one can't talk of on-line and off-line brands as if they were separate. Consumers don't make this discrimination and it would be a mistake for brand managers to do so. Of course brands can be multi-faceted. They can clearly behave and touch us in many different ways and places – and brand managers need to know how to use different channels to the best effect. But at the end of the day, brands need to deliver a consistent and not a bipolar experience.

What has been the secret of the success of Landor?

Our strengths are probably three-fold: creativity, experience and global cohesion. Landor's DNA has always been about creativity and the capacity to use creativity, be it in terms of inspired strategic thinking or great design delivery, to change the hearts and minds of customers across the world. We have also been doing this for longer, and for more clients than anyone else in the world. It was Landor that turned Pepsi blue so it could escape the shadow of Coke, we turned BP green to help position it for today's more climate-centric world, we created the famous FedEx identity and we've partnered 70 airlines across the world.

Finally, as companies have sought to compete on an ever more global front, another great strength of ours has come to the fore. Today we are approaching 900 people across 24 offices, but we progressively think and act as one. This means we can offer our clients a more cohesive partnership around the world, moving ideas, resources, skills and learning quickly and efficiently to ensure that whichever of Landor's employees a client is connected with, they are able to draw on the full strength of our network. And our clients clearly appreciate this. Today we are working with Procter & Gamble in 14 offices, PepsiCo in eight, Kraft in eight, Citi in six, etc.

What kind of a strategy did you plan for Emaar in making it a global brand, especially with respect to Burj Dubai?

The Burj was just a fabulous programme – a real page-turner. The development itself was stunning, of course, really audacious and beautiful in its design. It was also the kind of brand challenge that could so easily have been a trap. The temptation to build the brand around the concept of being the highest building in the world was immediate. I think most clients would have insisted on that and most branding consultancies would have supported the brief. But while this promise might have been relevant and differentiating at launch, we knew it would never be sustainable – there would soon be a taller tower.

We urged Emaar to think instead of the Burj as a 21st Century icon. Ultimately it's not the height that matters, we said, it's the legend – look at the Empire State Building, the Pyramid of Giza and Eiffel Tower. They supported this perspective and thus a new and more sustainable promise was evolved. And it was thrilling. Our work covered everything from the core identity through defining the nomenclature for the whole site – the tower, the six zones (the Burj tower, the Old Town, The Dubai Mall etc) the buildings and streets. We designed the showrooms, the collateral, the packaging lines. We developed helicopter fly-through tours of the site before they even broke ground. And we built the promise in the mind so richly that the first apartments on offer sold within an hour of going on sale, before the first stone was laid. Since then we have helped Emaar launch new developments in Morocco, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Do you have any expansion plans?

There is no doubt that we see the Middle East as a fabulous opportunity. Only recently we announced that the region would, henceforth, operate as a separate entity within Landor. Earlier it used to be part of our European network.

What challenges do you face in the Middle East?

There is a real supply and demand issue in the region when it comes to talent. The talent that is here tends to be quite peripatetic so there is a higher level of turnover. This places a higher onus on training to ensure we can deliver Landor standards in everything we do. We are a talent-based business, so this is the biggest challenge. Another challenge is the fact that this is quite a hierarchical environment. Our clients only want to see our most senior people. But those clients are spread far and wide, so our senior people are always on the road, making it more of a challenge in this arena to build and maintain continuity across the team than it is in most markets.


PROFILE: Charles Wrench Global CEO, Landor Associates

Charles Wrench has been Global CEO of Landor Associates since 2006. Before joining the San Francisco office he was president of Landor worldwide.

Wrench began his career with the company at the London office in 2000 as general manager. In 2003 he was appointed chief strategy officer worldwide and in 2004 he became Landor's president for Europe and the Middle East. Prior to joining Landor, Wrench worked for Lowe Howard-Spink and Young & Rubicam.

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