role of consumer research in the brand design process, The

Design Management Journal, Summer 2001 by Recker, John, Kathman, Jerry

The graphic expression of brand can strengthen recognition and the value consumers place on products. John Recker and Jerry Kathman

explain how carefully structured qualitative research can be used to improve the impact of brand graphics. Their work with Hallmark, IBM, and Pampers provides a profile of their techniques, the designs they inspire, and the marketplace outcomes that follow their efforts.

The desire of businesses to quantify the creative process and to produce predictable outcomes has been an area of focus in recent years. Researching consumer response to a brand's identity franchise is, therefore, a critical dimension of brand building today.

The relationships among design, marketing, and consumer behavior have their roots firmly established in both psychology and physiology. The simple fact is that people are influenced by the stimuli around them. What is seen, heard, felt, and experienced encodes precepts that influence impressions, expectations, and ultimately, behavior. Key insights into the study of behavior, of course, go back more than a century. Ivan Pavlov and B.E Skinner, among others, provided theories on cause and effect, motivation, and embedded associations.

Pioneering principles in behavioral psychology continue to be leveraged in both the art and the science of commerce. Sensation transference, a term first coined by Louis Cheskin in the 1930s, was the logical extension of the study of behavior to commercial applications in brand marketing and design. The contemporary interpretation of this theory suggests that people assign expectations to products and services based on the visual expression set forth by the design franchise of the brand. Will this relieve my headache? Will this taste good? Is this a good bank? If not literally required to answer these questions, strategic brand design is expected, at a minimum, to provide an expression that supports the appropriate answer. For both branded products and services, the presentation of color, image, symbol, and typography sets the expectations through expression.

Design as competitive differentiator

Strategic design can be an effective competitive differentiator for brands. Companies increasingly see its value as a business strategy. The higher priority that companies now place on design is often a result of the empirical evidence they have gathered on how it affects brand performance.

Pragmatic marketers define great design by its effectiveness in the realm of commerce. It is ultimately judged on the degree to which it motivates consumers toward action-something that goes beyond theory and resonates in practice. The desired reflex in this consumer design model is the reflex of the consumer's hand toward his or her wallet.

Businesses expect a measure of predicted outcomes in their design expenditures. While the applications of design are endless, the overriding principle of effective design remains. Design must communicate on both a rational and an emotional level, delivering an image and a message that is relevant, as well as inspiring. Through its evolved role in today's marketplace, design provides a context for the relationship between the product or service and the end user. It can set forth expectations; it can also confirm experiences.

Expressing an impression

Design elements, in essence, are a collection of sensory input. The integration of these design assets can be managed to deliver desired impressions. These impressions, when successfully delivered, serve to engage and compel consumers in the marketplace.

The marketing community continues to investigate ways to ensure that design elements deliver the desired impression with the maximum amount of influence. Introducing the consumer's voice throughout the process helps to identify opportunities and mitigate risks. It is important to note, however, that mitigating risk is not the same as eliminating risk. Research is not a guarantee of success, but rather a tool in making informed decisions based on a variety of inputs.

Predicting the effectiveness of design is an imprecise science. Although research offers valuable insights into the likely market outcome of a design, it is unreasonable to see it as the answer to the ambiguities of the marketplace. If that were the case, there would be no failed products or less-than-effective designs. Between design preferences and purchase intent are many variables, including pricing, distribution, and advertising, that cannot effectively be measured in brand design research.

Converting input to insight

Research should never be used to abdicate one's personal and professional responsibility in the strategic design-making process. One of the major traps that marketers must avoid is blindly relying on research results to make their decisions for them. The added perspective offered by brand identity practitioners, who can evaluate research, plays a critical role in the conversion of input into actionable insight.

Consumers tend to react to what they know, so there is a "familiarity bias" in most consumer research. Sometimes, consumers don't welcome change. Change, however, is often required because of competitive pressures or other issues the consumer cannot be expected to understand. Design often pushes the envelope of the familiar in order to establish a fresh, differentiated proposition. The challenge lies in our ability to interpret aspects of research to benefit the outcome, without having an isolated aspect of the study smother the essence of a great design. Get it wrong and the results may be failure, or at least lost opportunity. Get it right, and the market rewards you. And those that win can win big.