As soon as the name was revealed, bloggers, press and the general public went into overdrive making jokes about the name Apple had chosen for the device. It was generally percieved that 'iPad' conjoured up images of - amongst other things - sanitary towels and was a bad choice of name.
Four months down the line, everyone's perception has changed, and people such as Blackberry are releasing products such as the BlackPad.
What changed?
I often get asked about brands and what makes a good visual brand identity, and I think what happened with the iPad launch illustrates an important point, if not the most important point when talking about brands.
That is to say that no matter how good .... or how bad your brand's visual identity is, if your product is good, you'll imbue your brand with value DESPITE your brands visual identity.
Before we go any further, here's a little branding 101:
Brand: The personality that identifies a product or company.
Brand image: The values and qualities a customer perceives a brand to have.
Visual brand identity: The logo, the images associated with a brand, the fonts and colours used, etc.
Brand experience: The sum of all the experiential contacts a customer has with a bran. If the brand was a shampoo, this would be what the advertising looks like, how the bottle is manufactured and how it feels in the hands, what the product feels like in the hair, what it smells like, and how good it is.
To elaborate on the iPad scenario, because Apple have such a strong brand, brand image and brand experience, they changed our perception of the qualities we associate with the name 'iPad' from 'sounds like a sanitary towel' to 'I really really REALLY want one of those'.
The proof of the value Apple have imbued 'Pad' with is that Blackberry appear to be choosing to name their product a BlackPad.
There are other examples of companies changing our perceptions of the values associated with brand names and visual brand identities - Smeg is a brand associated with expensive and high quality kitchen appliances and that's what I think of when I hear the word 'Smeg', but when I first heard of this brand I laughed, because until then, 'smeg' meant something entirely different to me.
Volkswagen bought Skoda and changed the brand image from that of cheap, unreliable car to be joked about to that of good quality, reliable, value for money car... and they did this with very little changes to the visual brand identity. You might ask why Volkswagen didn't change the visual brand identity of Skoda in order to help change the brand image. The idea of Skodas being awful cars was pretty engrained, so much so that it could be argued that VW should have dropped the name Skoda altogether.
What VW did was clever though. They kept the name Skoda to allow them to manufacture cheaper, mass market cars without negatively affecting the brand image of Volkswagen. In other words, by selling their cheapest cars under the name 'Skoda' they allow the brand image of VW to be one that remains associated with premium cars.
My advise then is that your visual brand identity needs to follow a range of objective and technical requirements, such as being easy to see and identify, working well on screen and in print, but beyond that your visual brand identity is what you make it by doing what you do as best as you can, a point demonstrated by amongst others, NO-AD and Muji who go out of their way to avoid having a visual brand identity altogether.
What changed?
I often get asked about brands and what makes a good visual brand identity, and I think what happened with the iPad launch illustrates an important point, if not the most important point when talking about brands.
That is to say that no matter how good .... or how bad your brand's visual identity is, if your product is good, you'll imbue your brand with value DESPITE your brands visual identity.
Before we go any further, here's a little branding 101:
Brand: The personality that identifies a product or company.
Brand image: The values and qualities a customer perceives a brand to have.
Visual brand identity: The logo, the images associated with a brand, the fonts and colours used, etc.
Brand experience: The sum of all the experiential contacts a customer has with a bran. If the brand was a shampoo, this would be what the advertising looks like, how the bottle is manufactured and how it feels in the hands, what the product feels like in the hair, what it smells like, and how good it is.
To elaborate on the iPad scenario, because Apple have such a strong brand, brand image and brand experience, they changed our perception of the qualities we associate with the name 'iPad' from 'sounds like a sanitary towel' to 'I really really REALLY want one of those'.
The proof of the value Apple have imbued 'Pad' with is that Blackberry appear to be choosing to name their product a BlackPad.
There are other examples of companies changing our perceptions of the values associated with brand names and visual brand identities - Smeg is a brand associated with expensive and high quality kitchen appliances and that's what I think of when I hear the word 'Smeg', but when I first heard of this brand I laughed, because until then, 'smeg' meant something entirely different to me.
Volkswagen bought Skoda and changed the brand image from that of cheap, unreliable car to be joked about to that of good quality, reliable, value for money car... and they did this with very little changes to the visual brand identity. You might ask why Volkswagen didn't change the visual brand identity of Skoda in order to help change the brand image. The idea of Skodas being awful cars was pretty engrained, so much so that it could be argued that VW should have dropped the name Skoda altogether.
What VW did was clever though. They kept the name Skoda to allow them to manufacture cheaper, mass market cars without negatively affecting the brand image of Volkswagen. In other words, by selling their cheapest cars under the name 'Skoda' they allow the brand image of VW to be one that remains associated with premium cars.
My advise then is that your visual brand identity needs to follow a range of objective and technical requirements, such as being easy to see and identify, working well on screen and in print, but beyond that your visual brand identity is what you make it by doing what you do as best as you can, a point demonstrated by amongst others, NO-AD and Muji who go out of their way to avoid having a visual brand identity altogether.
