MDM530 Week 2
The Art of Connection:
Insights into Meaningful
Brand Relationships
Determining Audience Needs
Determining audience needs involves understanding the audience, their preferences, and how to communicate with them. This idea is vital for creating targeted and impactful brand strategies. In the case study, Brad Nix stresses the significance of comprehending consumers' behaviors and emotional connections to develop a successful brand. The story of Pepperidge Farm illustrates this, where understanding consumer behavior revitalizes the brand's market standing.
Comparatively, D'Angelo (2022) stresses the importance of determining core brand values, which guide a company's efforts and decisions. Both approaches highlight the importance of understanding and connecting with the audience deeply. However, Nix's methodology relies more on behavioral insights; on the other hand, D'Angelo concentrates on defining and expressing core values.
Gibson (2024) explores defining target audiences via demographic data, customer behavior, and motivations, corresponding with Nix's emphasis on understanding consumer behavior. This idea has benefits, including building personalized and effective marketing strategies, fostering brand loyalty, and creating stronger relationships with the audience. However, challenges include compiling high-quality data and consistently expressing brand values (Gibson, 2024; D'Angelo, 2022).
Defining a Brand's Core
Defining a brand's core involves pinpointing the essential beliefs and values that direct a company's actions, behaviors, and decisions. In the case study, Brad Nix stresses the importance of grasping consumer behavior to develop a successful brand. This strategy resembles Neumeier's (2005) notion of bridging business strategy and design to produce a charismatic brand. Both stress the need for emotional connection and genuineness in branding. However, while Neumeier emphasizes strategic alignment between business and design, Nix focuses on behavioral patterns and emotional appeal to consumers.
Paul (2022) addresses the importance of brand values in building more profound customer connections. Aligning with Nix's focus on comprehending consumer behavior, Paul delivers more pedestrian advice on characterizing and implementing brand values. The advantages of defining a brand's core include fostering consumer loyalty and faith, improving brand identity, and forming lasting bonds. Nevertheless, challenges include ensuring consistency in expressing brand values and effectively communicating them to the marketplace (Paul, 2022; Neumeier, 2005).
Connecting to
Audiences Meaningfully
Meaningfully connecting with audiences involves recognizing their expectations, tastes, activities, and behaviors to form genuine and impactful interactions. This direction is essential for fostering confidence and loyalty. In the case study, Brad Nix highlights the importance of researching consumer behavior to develop a successful brand. This strategy aligns with Clark-Keane's (2022) five-step process for identifying a target audience, stressing specificity, and comprehending the audience's demands to devise influential marketing campaigns. Both sources emphasize the necessity for an in-depth understanding of the audience.
On the other hand, Zambito (2018) emphasizes interacting with genuineness, developing relatable content, and fostering a sense of community to connect with the audience sincerely. While Nix focuses on behavioral insights, Zambito spotlights the emotional and relational aspects of brand-audience connections.
The upside of this concept includes generating personalized marketing techniques, improving brand devotion, and making tangible relationships with the audience. Conversely, potential issues involve guaranteeing authenticity, collecting high-quality data, and consistently communicating brand values (Clark-Keane, 2022; Zambito, 2018). Businesses can develop lasting and profound relationships through understanding and engaging with their audience authentically.
Citations:
Clark-Keane, C. (2022). 5 Steps to Find Your Target Audience. [Blog]. WordStream. Retrieved from https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2022/05/11/target-audience/
D'Angelo, C. (2022, July 7). How to Define Your Core Brand Values. [Article]. Brandfolder. Retrieved from https://brandfolder.com/resources/core-brand-values/
Full Sail Online (2024). 2.3 Research: Brand Action & Behaviors. Brad Nix Interview: What is a Brand?. [Video]. Full Sail University. Retrieved November 10, 2024, from https://online.fullsail.edu/class_sections/194534/modules/791296/activities/4549835
Gibson, K. (2024, January 23). Why Identifying Your Target Audience Is Important to Your Marketing Strategy. [Blog]. Harvard Business School Online. Retrieved from https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/target-audience-in-marketing/
Neumeier, M. (2005). The Brand Gap: How to Bridge the Distance Between Business Strategy and Design. [Book]. New Riders. https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/the-brand-gap/0321348109/
Paul, M. (2022). Why Are Brand Values So Important (And How to Define Them)?. [Article]. The Branding Journal. Retrieved from https://www.thebrandingjournal.com/2022/06/brand-values/
Zambito, V. (2018, July 5). Top Four Tips To Genuinely Connect With Your Audience. [Article]. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhall/2023/09/05/top-four-tips-to-genuinely-connect-with-your-audience/
2.6 Design Challenge:
Brand Vision Books
Challenge Description
This week's Design Challenge was to create a 10-page Brand vision book using Adobe InDesign and a web-based digital book generator called Yumpu. The marching orders are usually like, "Copy what you see." However, during our LIVE discussion on Wednesday, Professor Kratz clarified that any sloppiness or mistakes in the project files are to be identified and corrected. I feel a little dumb because I just duplicated the errors in last week's assignment because they said "Copy," so I did. Sadly, I know better than that, and most of the time, I would have corrected everything and kept doing it until they asked me to stop.
I have a personal problem ... When I find mistakes in assignment posts or links or something like that, my normal M.O. is to let the school or instructor know. I would want to know, but through past experiences, that has yet to be received well. I was informed by people more socially in tune than I am that most people would not take it positively, which is how I would have intended for it to be received.
For instance, in this week's assignments, the link for "UP NEXT" goes from 2.8 Mastery Journal to this:
The link goes to Week 4 and skips right over Week 3; I am sure this is not intentional ...
… I digress …
This week's challenge seemed pretty straightforward on the surface, but there were issues with the "sketch image" and some of the “Adobe Illustrator images” throughout the project.
Here are a "few" examples of what I encountered.
There are lots of little places where the white rule is not exact, so you have to keep an eye out and make sure you are using your better judgment when setting up your white rule lines.
The next issue is multi-faceted and was a pain to root out and resolve. The leafy pattern has multiple issues. The first is that if you line up the pattern with the one in the “sketch,” you don’t have enough to fill some of the full-frame areas, so you have to put a copy of the pattern in place and make sure it is cropped properly and that it is lined up with the first version so it repeats correctly. My first solution to this problem was to do just that: make copies and piece them together because I was missing a little strip on the side.
I realized that the leafy background had several other issues, and the only way to resolve them was to fix the Adobe Illustrator file (LeafPattern.ai). If I was going to fix that file, then I might as well make a bigger pattern so I can remove the patched-together versions that I put together in Adobe InDesign.
There were two complete vertical rows of files with messed-up leaves that crossed over in the middle, where two mirrored halves of the leaf weren’t lined up and merged together properly. I could fix all of the messed-up leaves one by one or just delete the whole row and copy and paste a row that was done correctly. Copy and paste was obviously the better choice.
Here’s a close up of that “incorrect version”.
Additionally, there were two complete horizontal rows with similarly messed-up leaves, but these were split horizontally and mismatched. For this example, I colored them differently so that the mistake was more obvious.
Like its vertical counterparts, the solution here was to delete the offending rows and copy and paste good rows in their place.
Not ALL EXPORTS are EQUAL
The next tidbit of working wisdom I would like to share is related to the previous concept. We were asked to PACKAGE the InDesign Project, and when that was done, we opened the PDF that InDesign generated during the packaging process and saved all 10 pages as separate PNG images. Yes, saving the images to PNG files is a great practice to get in the habit of (especially when the other option is a JPEG).
It goes back to the photocopy of a photocopy concept. Look at the export setting for a PDF. Even the high-end print version uses JPEG compression.
A PDF is a good format if you export from your project and need an acceptable, easy-to-access multi-page format. However, for our purposes, let's compare the difference between the following two methods:
1. Export from the PDF file to PNG, just like it is in the tutorial (left)
VS.
2. Export straight to PNG from the project file before you package the project (right). The color and compression are noticeably worse with method 1. With method 2. you need to specify your resolution in PPI. (instructions are at the bottom of the page)
The Final Result
Here are the finished pages in a gallery setting so you can click on them without having to scroll forever. After the gallery of pages and the booklet, there’s a “Tips and Tricks” section that might be useful if you are interested.
Here’s the digital book through YUMPU.
Tips & Tricks:
SHARED EXPERIENCE
One thing that I do when appropriate is share shortcuts or improved ways to do something. My hope is that others will do the same for me, and that way, we will all continue to improve and grow. The first little gem that will come as no big surprise to experienced designers is that JPEG images are garbage and should be avoided whenever possible. If you are stuck with them, then it is equally as important that you be sure not to resave them as JPEG images if you need to modify the images. Stop the bleeding. Making changes to a JPEG image and then resaving it as a JPEG is akin to making a photocopy of a photocopy ... not good! If I have to edit a JPEG that I am working with, I always save a working PSD file and then save the edited image as a PNG file. PNG files are compressed, but they don't have the horrible image artifacting that JPEG tends to have.
INSTRUCTIONS
To export straight to PNG from the project file (method 2), go to:
File> Export.
When the save window pops up, select PNG instead of PDF and click SAVE
Another window will pop up, and you will specify the resolution that you want. Then hit OK.
Note: It will save all of the pages at once, each page separately.