Most of us have been to a bakery and ‘eaten with our eyes’ a cake or a treat displayed in the window. Often, the taste might have been disappointing, but the appearance won over even the most demanding customers. The same premise applies to marketing.
Struggling with global competition, where products can be bought from anywhere in the world, product design has gained an importance it didn’t have before. For KAKOI Comunicação designer Rômulo Garcia, unlike before when ‘you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover,’ now it’s the cover itself that sells the book:
We are going through a unique moment in brand consumption. Major players in the market are revisiting their branding to reach this new segment of consumption. Take the case of Jaguar, which sparked both passion and hatred with its decision to abandon the traditional feline. It’s a one-way street.
Rômulo refers to the English brand’s decision to completely change its branding . The idea is to win over a new audience that doesn’t yet know or desire it. The decision left traditional customers furious, promising to sell their cars, but it captured the world’s spotlight.
Despite the controversy, Rômulo points out that brand updates and branding are entirely different things:
The logo can be updated fairly frequently, without forgetting the brand’s purpose and its target audience. When we talk about a branding rebranding, we’re talking about everything new: brand voice, archetypes, and positioning. It’s practically a new company being born,” concludes the designer.
Among the most cited reasons by brands to make the change are new consumption habits of the target audience and online exposure, where people pay more attention to certain colors over others.
