bauhaus brand blueprint
The Bauhaus movement was about radical modernism. Stripping back to the core to celebrate pragmatic beauty of raw structural truth. Uncovering & amplifying intersections where form meets function, creating design with unmatched efficacy & efficiency.
We believe a good brand should be all about doing the same. Yet it seems somebody’s gone & made branding complicated.
Metaphor at play in this Deep Cut:
Energy & Ecosystem
If you really open up the hood on a brand, what will you find?
Ultimately, if you’re sticking to Bauhaus logic, you’ll quickly get down to a jumble of consumer tactics (visible Branding & Advertising), strategies, products, role in a portfolio, & financials determining its “value” to whoever is invested in growing the brand.
Getting down to the functional core, you’ll also find webs of stakeholders for the brand who fundamentally make it into a real thing in the world - going far beyond just marketers and consumers: there’s executives, any production people & machines, sales & distribution teams, retailers of the brand, communities in which the brand plays a role & cultural commentators who might mention the brand on occasion in any media.
This is all an ecosystem pulsing with energy that moves the whole thing into complex and intertwining activity.
But what is that energy pulsing through the whole thing? What is actually being transmitted between all the elements of the ecosystem that makes the thing spin?
Ideas. Ideas are what makes any brand spin. Marketers & managers have ideas that spark ideas with advertising agencies which spark with ideas with consumers which spark ideas with retailers which spark ideas with industry analysts which spark ideas with investors.
A brand is an elaborate ecosystem pulsing with the energy of ideas.
Metaphor Application:
Structure of Brands Ideas
Now if a brand is just ideas flowing through an ecosystem, wouldn’t you want your ideas to be big & powerful enough to really motivate action by all the players in your brand’s complicated economy of ideas? We certainly think so. Maybe it’s not necessary, but all the evidence pretty clearly indicates it would (and does) make a brand more effective.
To get to Bauhaus style ideas, you’ve got to expose the functional pieces of a brand idea.
Tactics & Specifics:
Bauhaus Brand Blueprint
A brand idea needs a compelling narrative if it’s got any hope of success. The good news is, most brands and ideas already have one. Generally, they just need to be stripped back to their core so people understand what they’re actually about.
Here’s how we recommend going about this:
DEFINE YOUR OPENER - Your opener is what will make people pay attention. What you should be yelling into the crowd. This should guide your above-the-line, broad reach recruitment platform.
Opener Example: As humans, our physical potential is inspiring.
Opener Function:
Above the Line Advertising
Recruitment campaign
Headline of website
The first line of any sales interaction
DEFINE YOUR PROBLEM: Your problem is the tension you should be playing up to build attraction. The thing that amplifies desirability with every ongoing interaction. This should fuel your below-the-line, engagement platform.
Problem Example: We all need confidence & encouragement to chase our fitness goals
Problem Function:
Your website body copy
Your merchandising message
The topic central to your content strategy
DEFINE YOUR RELATIONSHIP: Your relationship is the crux of what you are asking people to buy into. This is the context of your call to action, the meaningful value you’re promising with every potential brand interaction… your conversion platform.
Relationship Example: X empowers people to reach their physical potential every step of the way.
Relationship Function:
The premise of any sales message
The promise attached to “click here’
The consumer context you should be showing up in
Your brand purpose (Not as central as you thought? Good!)
DEFINE THE THING ITSELF: The thing itself is the functional core of the business. That which should be ruthlessly defended, invested in and evolved to meet the changing context of the marketplace. This should define your product or service strategy. This is your real IP.
Thing Example: We sell workout shoes that are pretty damn cool.
Thing Function:
Engineering and R&D focus
The experience worth investing in to improve and defend
The business strategy in a nutshell
When you get to good articulations of these four points for your brand idea, the rest is scalable execution.
As humans, our physical potential is inspiring. We all need confidence & encouragement to chase our fitness goals. X empowers people to reach their physical potential every step of the way. We sell workout shoes that are pretty damn cool.
Does your brand idea have that kind of clarity & impact? If not, the path to get their is clear.
Opener. Problem. Relationship. The Thing itself. (Wait? Aren’t those metaphors?)
