The Brand Crash - Essay Example

The Brand Crash In choosing to market a brand in today’s highly competitive market, every aspect of a company must communicate the messages they are trying to incorporate within their brand. This message is included in all advertising, in styling trends, in activities promotions and even in the buildings in which business is conducted. In speaking of the big brand companies that survived the brand crash of the 1980s, Naomi Klein says, “They integrated the idea of branding into the very fabric of their companies. … Everything was an ad for the brand: bizarre lexicons for describing employees (partners, baristas, team players, crew members), company chants, superstar CEOs, fanatical attention to design consistency, a propensity for monument-building, and New Age mission statements” (2000, p. 16). As part of this swing toward making everything an aspect of the brand, companies were beginning to recognize the power of the building to promote the brand itself. One of the companies to key into this idea early was The Body Shop, which expanded by as many as 50 stores per year beginning in 1988, even during the years of the recession. “Most baffling of all to Wall Street, it pulled off the expansion without spending a dime on advertising. Who needed billboards and magazine ads when retail outlets were three-dimensional advertisements for an ethical and ecological approach to cosmetics? The Body Shop was all brand” (Klein, 2000, p. 20). However, there has often been difficulty in getting business executives typically focused on the ‘bottom line’ to understand the significant assets architecture and design can be in developing the corporate brand, which, in turn, works to establish the company’s ultimate success. “While statistical analysis and econometric techniques have been used to evaluate the trade-offs between alternatives, features and prices for products, there has not been a tool to inform the design process of architecture, environmental graphic design and the built environment. However, the ‘fixed assets’ of built environments, especially those of retail and consumer service sectors, are integrally linked to brand identity and equity” (Taylor, 2004). Investigating the roles of the architect and designer in relation to architecture and design to both promote the brand and foster cultural interaction with the public reveals various ways in which postmodernism reflects a cultural response to social and technological change. To be of greatest effect within the culture, the architecture and design of a building must necessarily reflect some aspect of the culture from which it emerges. Architecture usually refers to the actual building shape and form itself, the way in which the structure is built, its angles and curves, materials and dimensions while design usually refers to the allocation of space inside, the way in which it is decorated to reflect a certain idea or philosophy and the materials used to cover walls, floors, windows and other interior surfaces. The words of Frank Lloyd Wright are equally applicable to the designer when he said, “Every great architect is – necessarily – a great poet. … He must be a great original interpreter of his time, his day, his age.” To Wright, the architect was responsible for a reciprocal social relationship that would inevitably develop between a building and the public. “It was to be a relationship that preserved the dignity and the integrity of all interactants in the relationship, and it was the job of any ‘true’ architect to envision and to make this human relationship” (Satler, 1999, p. 31). This interaction between the building, the interior spaces and the public merged with capitalistic ideals of the corporate world as savvy brand-builders worked to foster a corporate identity that meshed with their key demographics from the very first impression. The best way to understand the various ways in which cultural interaction affects architecture/design and what the results reflect regarding the culture itself is to examine a few examples of companies that have capitalized on the branding concept, such as Prada, Nike and Starbucks. By introducing settings that surprise and anticipate future developments, companies such as the clothing store Prada introduce a concept to their brand within the very bricks of their stores. Because the store strives to maintain a brand perception that equates their products with the most up-to-date materials and styles for the high-class woman, it is important for the store to maintain both an inward and outward appearance that continually sets the standard. “Tourists travel to Prada stores throughout the world to see striking design push the envelope and create a relationship with the fashion it represents” (Taylor, 2004). The architectural and design concept is “to reshape both the concept and function of shopping, pleasure and communication, to encourage the meshing of consumption and culture” (Arroyo Alba, 2003). From the beginning, Prada has worked to associate its clothing lines with the inventive use of out-of-context materials and technologically innovative fabrics and is striving to communicate these ideas not only in their clothing, but also in their architecture and design. “Prada represents for us a new type of client who is interested in a new type of architecture, one that involves an exchange of experience, that participates in a cultural debate. This is not the typical client-architect relationship, in the sense that it goes beyond the traditional boundaries of architecture and fashion” (“Projects for Prada”, 2003). A great deal of the redesign work completed in New York relies heavily upon the use of digital equipment, such as changing room walls that change from transparent to opaque when one steps on a trigger button within the stall or ‘floating’ monitors that encourage shoppers to browse the digital collection of products offered. However, reflecting the less digitally impressed crowds of Tokyo, the store has had to focus more on the actual presence of these materials within the store rather than simply shown on a screen. The “project for Tokyo presents a highly tactile, more than visual, one-to-one phenomenological catalogue, faithful to the ‘analogue’ definition of ‘architecture for the senses’ that has guided their practice” (Arroyo Alba, 2003). Like the clothing itself that utilizes a wide expanse of textures, materials and surfaces, everything associated with the store, including shelves, furniture and lighting fixtures, have been integrated into the overall message of sensual innovation. “Lacquer, fur, moulded fibreglass, leather, resin encrusted with fibre-optics, porous oak, perforated sheets of stainless steel, cotton, conglomerated rigid foam, nylon, ...It is not only the mix of the hyper-natural and the hyper-artificial, as it is described by the architects, but the almost perverse coexistence of tight and loose, warm and cold, smooth and rough, hairy and bold, hard and soft, applied indistinguishably to a dissolution of fashion and architectural features” (Arroyo Alba, 2003). In this way, everything about the store itself, from its building to its interior spaces to its product line sends a message to the consumer that here is a place to go for a completely new experience in the tactile world, this is the place to be if you wish to see the newest, more up-to-date use of an old material or explore the interaction of the old with the new. “Prada has connected the dots that most people didn’t know existed, and in the process, the fashion house has arguably become one of the world’s greatest patrons of architecture” (Iovine, 2003). Nike is another company that caught on to the branding/architecture/design connection early in working to build their brand. “Nothing embodies the era of the brand like Nike Town, the company’s chain of flagship retail outlets. Each one is a shrine, a place set apart for the faithful, a mausoleum” (Klein, 2000, p. 56). Stores are designed to reflect the active nature of the brand itself, complete with blond wood floors reminiscent of a basketball court, but of course with much greater quality and style, colours that inspire action and feelings of health and the outdoors and sports heroes and concepts are deified because of their association with the brand itself. “The Manhattan Nike Town on East Fifty-Seventh Street is more than a fancy store fitted with the requisite brushed chrome and blond wood, it is a temple, where the swoosh is worshiped as both art and heroic symbol. The swoosh is equated with Sports at every turn: in reverent glass display cases depicting ‘the definition of an athlete’; in the inspirational quotes about ‘Courage’, ‘Honour’, ‘Victory’ and ‘Teamwork’ inlaid in the floorboards; and in the building’s dedication ‘to all athletes and their dreams.’” (Klein, 2000, p. 56). According to architect Steven Izenour, the attraction of the Nike Town stores is found in its Disney-like appeal. “The new Nike Town stores combine elements from the art-museum display, the veneration of Charles Barkley’s sneakers, video as theatre, Nike ads and retail in a tight, sophisticated package. You can buy what you see. It’s retail as entertainment and popular culture – hybrid entertainment. These stores have the attraction of the old Las Vegas strip. Through lighting, colour, decoration, and symbolism, a trip to buy sneaks has become both educational and highly involved entertainment” (Slonim, 1995). When Nike recently redesigned their offices in London, they were unable to touch the outside of the building because of its historical significance and the fact that they are not the only tenants in the building, however, they did tremendous things in redesigning the interior spaces. Like their stores, they worked to foster the idea of health, sports and family within the confines of their single floor location. Hardwood floors and pictures of sports heroes abound, but so do pictures of the employees themselves as they are involved in their own sport of choice. This means of recognizing the employee works to place them upon the same type of deified pedestal upon which Nike holds its superstar spokespersons, serving to both make their employees feel important and more knowledgeable and reinforcing the idea to visitors to the offices that they are speaking with experts in their field. In addition, the interior has been designed to reflect the feeling of open space even within the crowded interior of an antique building. The blue walls give a feeling of comfort and open sky while the glass walls and open niches provide a sense of more space than is actually present. Rather than using right angles and completely vertical lines, the interior is designed with slightly inwardly slanting doorways, creating more of a trapezoidal opening that puts people in mind of their favourite Star Trek episode and automatically equates the company with having superior design and technological skills. Shelves lining the walls display various types of sporting equipment, highlighting those balls and bats and sticks that have scored winning points for the famous and the infamous alike as a means of both highlighting the use of their products by the people who get paid top-dollar for their sports skills as well as the use of their average everyday customers like the salesman’s son Billy, who had his picture taken just as he was kicking the last goal. This blending of family and business serves to soften the high-tech image down into a more comfortable setting without detracting from the image of innovation and professionalism the company is trying to portray and refocuses attention on the individual. Finally, the corporate partnership between Barnes and Noble and Starbucks has been a successful one in terms of establishing both brands as places intended for the studious and intellectual, reinforcing ideas of the coffee house as the home of the beatnik and the literati. The architecture, while remaining simple and boxy, nevertheless reflects a sharp, clean edge that leaves nothing hidden and no puzzles to solve. It presents itself as an alternative to the flashy, hyper-needy designs of earlier decades. “There is a distinctive quality to many of the chains that have proliferated during the eighties and nineties which sets them apart from the fast-food restaurants, strip malls and muffler joints responsible for the sixties and seventies franchise sprawl. They don’t flash with the garish, cartoonlike plastic yellow shells and golden arches; they are more apt to glow with a healthy New Age sheen. These crisp royal blue and Kelly green boxes snap together like pieces of Lego” (Klein, 2000, p. 131). In addition to creating a design that is both easy to build quickly and that is distinctive in its use of materials, colours and shape, these buildings are able to communicate a certain stability and calming atmosphere that encourages the customer to come in and stay awhile. The easy build makes it that much simpler for these chains to spread their wisdom quickly across the continent while ensuring that each one demonstrates that same easy familiarity with its customers while the interiors provide cushy chairs and cozy sitting areas in which customers feel comfortable curling up with one of the books from the shelves and a cup of coffee from the highly intelligent and extremely tasteful Starbucks outlet to wait out a rainy afternoon. This mutual association has served both companies well, providing Barnes and Noble with a reason for customers to stay longer if they can gain refreshments and snacks while they browse and encouraging Starbucks customers to view their coffee shop as the perfect place to stop and work on the next Tale of Two Cities as they sip on their java. Although the trend in the postmodern era reflects the fascination with new technologies, materials, angles and shapes, the reaction remains one of refocusing on the value of the individual. In each of the highlighted companies above, this trend is reflected as society reacts against the dehumanizing social and cultural change of modernism in which everything and everyone was equated to a machine. Prada, while experimenting with new designs and fabrics, has had to adapt its store designs to more accurately meet with the needs of their consumers as they change from one location to another, still not able to treat two culturally active cities such as New York and Tokyo identically despite the influences of globalisation. Nike has discovered the magical effect of bringing in family photos to display next to photos of their superstar spokespeople as a means of including the everyday individual consumer into their marketing and design. Barnes and Noble and Starbucks have teamed up to offer the individual comforts of home within the warm and stable confines of their stores, perfectly blending their products with the idea of home, comfort and intellectual leisure time. Thus, although architecture and design reflect the current postmodern trend of exploring new materials and uses, the successful brands of today have learned to manipulate this in such a way as to also meet the growing demand for attention on the individual, creating comforting, safe places for them to meet and shop and blending the idea of their products with these concepts in such a way that they cannot be easily removed, thereby making them as close to the consumer as their next door neighbour, and sometimes, even closer. References Arroyo Alba, Pedro Pablo. (23 October, 2003). “Prada Tokyo: Architecture is Architecture.” Architectura. Iovine, Julie. (22 June, 2003). “Forget the Clothes: Prada’s Latest Design Isn’t for Sale.” The New York Times. Klein, Naomi. (January 2000). No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies. New York: Picador USA. “Nike HQs.” (2006). DesignBoom. Retrieved April 19, 2006 from Slonim, Jeffrey. (Summer, 1995). “Take Me to Nike Town – Artists’ Favourite Buildings.” ArtForum. Taylor, Ellen M. (15 June, 2004). “High Profile Architecture Considering the Bottom Line.” Design Intelligence. Read More