How true!  Unless you knew the David and Goliath story in the early years, the symbolism wouldn’t have made sense (Apple being David and Microsoft being the monolithic Goliath).  Further, what we now take as a hallmark of simplistic design is really more than that:  the logo reinforces the approach Apple has taken with all its usability, design, and marketing efforts.  We wouldn’t need to see a logo to know something is Apple’s – that’s how well all of its parts are integrated.  Beyond this, in my view, because of its consistency and discipline in what it produces (products, ads, stores, service), Apple is the rare brand which is much more than the “sum of its parts.”

This conversation with Adam comes right on the heels of watching TED Talk’s “Julian Baggini: Is there a real you?”  where Julian put forward a rather “gestalt” notion of “self.”   He asked:

• Are “You” a thing which has all the experiences (beliefs, desires, sensations, etc.) of life OR
• Are “You” a collection of those experiences?

He gave two examples to support the latter point:

• Water cannot be water without its parts (hydrogen and oxygen).
• A wristwatch is created by its parts, but there is no thing which exists on its own called a watch.

Taking his philosophy to the extreme, there may be nothing but the unknown – parts to the N^th degree.   (What are the parts of hydrogen?  And the parts of hydrogen’s parts?  At some point, we simply don’t have all the answers.)

Nevertheless, this idea really is at the core of how brands are built.  A brand clearly isn’t a person with desires and sensations.  Yet, everything a brand does, says and shows helps to create the brand and its corporate culture – whether they transcend beyond mere branding as Apple has done.

In the interest of “self-awareness,” when was the last time your company did a image/concept board audit showcasing all your “parts”?  Are they working together?  Anything need to be refined?  Anything which can be leveraged to new marketing practices or products that reinforce consumers’ view of your?  My take:  this audit is just as important as a financial audit; however, they often get overlooked.

Back to Julian:  I do think the human “You” is more than a collection of our experience – which was his argument.  Until there are brain transplants, my brain is unique to me and can’t be used to reassemble another homo sapien.  So on that, I disagree with him.  But my brand?  Time for my own self-audit!

There are two aspects to this:

• The use of superlatives is becoming (more of) a turn-off in concept statements and advertising.  I am seeing this more with younger participants, but I hear it from time-to-time from the “older” folks as well.   “Best” or “better than” is not the tone they want to hear; using or including the “best of something” (e.g., best quality ingredients) – if the key benefits support the claim – is more acceptable.
• Greater value is being placed on the parts (individual) vs. the whole.  I haven’t heard in quite some time someone say “that’s a great CD.”  They like a particular song.  They download it, put it on their iPod or other device, and customize their listening experience.  That focus on being able to customize experiences is helping to drive how they react to new products and ideas.

For example, I can’t image Pepsi coming out with an ad campaign today saying “The Choice of a New Generation.”  This new generation would blog about the ridiculousness of that claim – “you’re telling us what’s our choice?!”

If this is all sounding very left-brained and logical, that’s not my intent.  I’ve often said that unless there’s a connection between a consumer and a brand, a sale will never take place.  That connection can be emotional and/or rational, but it needs to happen.

And yet, my sense is that there this is an evolution to individuality that’s becoming more pronounced.  Companies need to become increasingly more sensitive when choosing how to position themselves and their products.  Until this morning, the best case example I could give was the “I’m a Mac” campaign from Apple.  As you know, they put it out there – I’m a PC vs. I’m a Mac.  In effect, they’re asking, “which one are you like?”

But just today, I saw a headline of “Design-your-own skincare, including ingredients and concentrations” (via Springwise).  Of course, I had to go visit this site.  Turns out that you can custom blend your own cosmetics from natural ingredients. From the www.mycodage.com/an website:

Convinced that every skin is unique and deserves special treatment, in 2006 Amandine and Julien, with the help of many experts, developed a technology that allows you to customize your product to suit the specific needs of each skin.  Codage was born.  100% made in France, CODAGE today delivers worldwide – from its French laboratories directly to you.

A bit stilted in the French to English translation, but how much more personal can you get than that??

As always, I’m interested in your thoughts!

Client interest in this subject got me thinking:  Has innovation become a component in the consumer value equation?  Is this why brands are so interested in owning this association?

The value equation has evolved over the years.  At its core remains three components:  quality, time and price.  But if innovation is an element which is becoming more central to consumer-perceived value, what is it exactly?

Here are my thoughts.  Innovation requires three things:

1. Initially, its “newness” must be tangible or something understood.  (If something’s too esoteric, consumers may have trouble connecting with the product or service.)
2. It needs to be something used (frequently) or easily integrated into a consumer’s life/lifestyle.  (Interaction is key to believing there’s added value; a consumer needs to notice their life is better/different day-to-day.)
3. It needs to be available or accessible to the market it’s targeting.  However, for a brand to get high marks for innovation, it needs to get there first.

Does a brand need to “invent” in order to “innovate”?  No.  Apple is the classic case history for this.  It didn’t invent the MP3 player or the cell phone or the tablet computer.  But clearly, Apple innovated technologies based on a belief that it could create a better user experience coupled with its “rebel with a cause,” anti-establishment attitude.

Google has been an innovator (and some might say inventor) from the start.  But lately I’m hearing the most about Google Apps and the new Google Droid cell phones – innovation not invention.  Along the way, it has become a more mainstream consumer brand (vs. a mere verb for finding things on the Web).

Nike has a history of “inventing” new technologies, borrowed heavily from other industry applications, and building them into its shoes and other gear.  Between its sports endorsements (don’t celebrities always want to wear the latest and greatest?) and selling at somewhat of a higher price for the newer models, it is most often viewed as the most innovative in its category.

Dell had an innovative selling model at the beginning:  they built each computer to order using high-quality components.  At one time, that innovation had value; a computer was a significant purchase.  As computer costs came down, and more known/mainstream/trusted players entered the market, the uniqueness of its selling model became something of an impediment.  So Dell took its products to retail.  An established name, but a brand I no longer consider an innovator in its field.  (They are doing a good job leveraging social media as a selling tool, however.)

While innovation may be playing a larger role in the consumer value equation, my caution is this:  innovation without brand loyalty is meaningless.  What a brand doesn’t want is to  have the cool, hot, innovative product or service of the moment, only to have early adopters flock to another brand who offers the next level in innovation.  How far a brand pushes with innovation should be consistent with its branding, its place in the competitive marketplace, and the short- and long-term dividends that innovations will pay – both to the bottom line and with consumers.

The last paragraph really caught my attention as I had just participated in a creativity session last week.

“Science historian George Dyson believes the Internet’s flood of information has altered the process of creativity: what once required ‘collecting all available fragments of information to assemble a framework of knowledge’ now requires ‘removing or ignoring unnecessary information to reveal the shape of knowledge hidden within.’ Creativity by destruction rather than assembly.”

The image I got from this was of “sculpting knowledge.” As a qualitative researcher, identifying consumer insights has always been about sculpting knowledge.

What does this have to do with my brain online? Well, my brain has been overwhelmed lately. I had some downtime over the holidays and I signed up for even more newsletters and feeds. I now need to cut back. I need time to think. The Internet is causing, as Evgeny Morozov said in the same article, “the disappearance of retrospection and reminiscence.”

It’s like a swimmer’s lung capacity: a swimmer might be able to hold their breath for a long time, but they still have to come up for air. I need a breath – to sculpt, process, digest – whatever your metaphor.

So is the Web changing how I think? No, at best it’s impacting how I problem solve (as I’m able to seek out so much more information in this new way). It provides me with more to think about.

Creativity is an iterative, infinite process: from inspiration to output and back again. It’s likely we’ve always been “assembling” and “destroying.” Said another way, when we seek the “knowledge hidden within,” it’s always through the prism of our “framework of knowledge.”

What are your thoughts?