Our beautiful and shiny new book – The Branding in Motion Book – hit our desks this week.

It’s lovely.

It demonstrates primarily through images how we execute business strategies for various clients. We weave every aspect of a brand into a united strategy covering all media and platforms, with the client’s unique business context at the centre of everything we do. Every time.

Just as exciting is our ‘The Irresistible at First Glance Book’ (which covers our product design), which we haven’t even got yet! We’ve only seen the PDF, and think it’s safe to say that the printed version is going to be just as smooth and tactile as the branding book.

Feel free to tweet me (@SocialDesignit) or comment here if you’d like a copy. We’ll have them to dish out on Tuesday (22/02). Check out some lush pictures below….

I’m currently reading a book by Rolf Jensen, called “Dream Society”. In this book Rolf Jensen tries to define the future society of the western world. In the past we’ve been hunters and collectors, we’ve been through the agriculture and industrial societies. Many would agree that we at the moment are living in the information society. Rolf Jensen though, is stating that we are entering the “Dream Society” or the experience economy as it is also called.

Rolf is definitely into something here – and why shouldn’t he be – he’s one of the leading futurologists. In my opinion the dream society is not only in the beginning state. We are living it.

You can define the dream society as a society, where we’re not only buying products, we are buying stories and dreams. We want a good story to accomplish the product we’re buying. That can either be the wine where you “know” who the farmer is, a product styled by yourself or any other story attached to a product. For the same reason individualism is becoming more and more relevant in product design. Many of the “old” brands is learning this the hard way. People are no longer satisfied with a pair of jeans or shoes that everybody else is wearing. They want a story attached to it. Nike, Burton and other companies has taken this into consideration and made it possible for their consumers to style their own products and thereby attaching a story to the shoes they are wearing or the snowboard they are riding.

So why am I writing this. I’m doing it to open your eyes for the new possibilities and to get on the train before it’s left the station. I would also like to recommend this book to everybody who’s interested in design and branding.

On my recent vacation in Egypt I saw this ATM. I needed money, but I still walked around for almost an hour to find a bank that I felt looked reasonably safe and trustworthy.

A bank with an armed guard outside gave me more confidence that I wouldn’t get cheated than with the ATM shown in the picture.

How does this translate into design? First of all, the company producing the ATM has absolutely no understanding of the problems and challenges their client, the bank, has. And the bank has no understanding of their client, the person walking up to an ATM.

Just few days of channel service analysis might have saved all 3 parties (manufacturer, bank and client) from embarrasment, distrust and annoyance.

If a designer had been involved in the process, the manufacturer could have found a better solution for the banks challenges, the clients would still feel confident about the banks services and the bank would make more money.

Who should now feel cheated?

I know! We have all heard this before.

Nevertheless, I still think it is worth repeating over and over again, since it looks like many companies still don’t to get the message. Or at least are doing something whole-hearted about it!

So what is it I’m talking about. Well, it’s the experience you get when you buy a new Apple product. (And this has nothing to do with the never ending battle between Mac or PC.)

This is about something completely different. It’s about the feeling you get – as a consumer – from you open the designed package, read the designed manual, set up the designed product etc. Even when you connect the special designed plugs. The Apple feeling is there – all the way. And that’s unique.

It is the total user experience – and it is worth noticing – not only for the product design or features. Others may try to copy that – or make even smarter products. But if they don’t follow through – e.g. in packaging and communication – they will never succeed in getting that same feeling.

Nevermind that the white gets kind of dirty in the long run or that you can’t use all programs on you Mac. You will always remember that first feeling you got, when you unpacked your new Apple product. They made me feel that they did it all just for me!

Are you feeling it too?

How the Danish Tourist Board sees Denmark

Say you’re a guy (José) from Barcelona, 29 years old, who has decided to spoil your girl for a weekend. You take her to Copenhagen because you both like architecture and design. Nice sharp Scandinavian design. Simple and very industrial. Not really emotional (like Gaudi, which they also love) or anything.

You get out of the plane and walk into Copenhagen International Airport. You are greeted by the slogan: Welcome to the Land of Passion and Luxury.

Ok, recap. WHAT?! Danish people are nice, friendly and when you get to know them a little they’ll invite you to go for a beer some time. But passionate? About football, maybe, but even there I must say, mwah.

You and your girl (Naïda) walk through the Copenhagen streets and see a lot of people wearing black coats, looking kind of greyish (because of the weather). You start wondering about the slogan.

You go to a jazz bar where there’s a world-jazz fusion band. It’s early, just 10pm, so you get yourselves a nice bottle of red wine and sit down in one of the nice couches.

After the band has played for half an hour, Naïda wants to dance. As the music is turning somewhat ‘tango-ish’ and you both love the tango (the dance of passion), you start dancing. People look at you, but no one follows. Only after encouragement from the band (and after 10 minutes), two ‘wild’ girls join you.

My point is that branding yourself is a great thing. But seriously, be honest to yourself and others. You’ll look like a leaking bucket when you start stating things that don’t make ANY sense at all.

You cannot force yourself into a desired identity. Identity is a natural thing, like water is fluid and air is gas.

In the end, you’ll end up being unbelievable and laughed at. Nobody wins in that situation. Disappointment is very hard to recover as a company or marketed brand.

My advice to the Danish Tourist Board: take those signs down and burn them.

Replace them with: Welcome to the Land of Fantasy, Design and Luxury.

G’day.

P.S. The fantasy part is not ONLY because of the passion thing, also because Denmark has known great fairytale writers.