We help emerging brands create customer experiences that turn shoppers into true believers. Our work harnesses consumer trends, solid industry research, gut instincts and powerful storytelling to create category defining in-store customer experiences. Where does your brand need some voodoo?
David Lemley’s Reflections from DMI’s 19th Annual Brand conference.
Branding and design have become key business objectives for those companies that intend to be market leaders in the next few years. Designers and brand consultancies can facilitate this therapeutic rebirth of corporate senior management by relating profitability to brand experience, and sustainability to meaningful design within a cultural context. But it requires integrity, vision and collaboration. Too many people still evangelize the “Old Testament” (The Four P’s of Marketing). It’s time to step forward and be saved from mediocrity. Here is the New Covenant:The Experience Economy.
This manifesto, originally published as part of Lemley Design, has a timeless ring of truth and casts a potent light on the spirit of what we are doing today. Enjoy -DL
It was Abraham Lincoln who asked, How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg?
Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.
Authentic Brand revitalization requires getting realigned with core of who we are and what we do. Everything else is wishful thinking or deception.
Seattle Branding expert and visionary design creative director, David Lemley, loves referencing Joe Pine’s Experience Economy in plain English. During his work on over 300 branding assignments, including brand development for emerging brands and brand revitalization for ailing brands, Mr. Lemley has garnered key insights into corporate behaviors that can plague an organization during the marketing process and keep them from experiencing alignment, the first key to radical success.
Stellenbosch University (one of the four top research universities in S. Africa) is using David Lemley’s article, Identity Crisis: The Seven Deadly Sins of Branding in their course pack for Masters in Branding.
Identity Crisis: The Divine Comedy of Brand Management
Economic limbo cannot erase the fact that we live in a world where cars start the first time, phones are addictive and the gourmet coffee, is well, gourmet. Only the Unaware offer products or services they deem good enough to a world where everyone can get anything they want almost anywhere.
Today’s consumer is looking for you, the brand steward, to provide them with a self-actualizing experience. And while this needs to be orchestrated carefully, take heart, ending up in branding purgatory doesn’t happen overnight. It comes after a lifetime of refusing to be saved. Sadly, for every good thing we can do, there are many more actions we take either purposefully or by happenstance, that simply don’t contribute anything worthwhile to the brand’s presence, personality and strength.
So what can the faithful do to avoid such a fate? Keep a watchful eye over the Seven Deadly Sins of Brand.
The Sin of Ennui (more…)
Christopher Butler of New Fangled Web Factory asked branding expert, David Lemley, thought provoking questions about technology, pioneering UX/UI design, branding strategies and more in this online interview.
David describes himself as a “Change Agent, Brand Catalyst + Hipster Dufus Wannabe” on his LinkedIn profile, but he is known by his colleagues and clients for directing brand strategy and creative development programs with an unwavering passion for design. He has written numerous articles for industry publications including Design2Branding Magazine, Design and Display Ideas, and Package Design Magazine, and has spoken at many events including the 19th International Brand Design Conference.
The Emperor’s New Brand: How to Fail at Brand Revitalization
The first symptom: Relief that the Brand revitalization process is finally over, followed by a vague sense that “something is missing.” Continued loss of market share, failure to make customer connections and a continuum of caustic corporate culture are telltale signs that your effort has missed the mark. When profits and sales continue to drop, you find, if you still have your job, there is no choice but to go back to the drawing board. Many retailers go through an exhaustive Brand revitalization process only to find that they have failed to make a difference.
Your customer’s perception is reality. If they see you as irrelevant, I have some bad news: you are. Thriving in tomorrow’s competitive marketplace will become increasingly difficult for your Brand.
In the three latest retail Brand revitalization projects my firm has spearheaded, members of the client’s internal cross-discipline team have pulled me aside to express their concerns around a common theme: “Did you know 80% of all Brand revitalization efforts fail?”
I calmly tell them, “Yep, and I know how we can avoid being part of that statistic.”
10 Reasons Brand revitalization fails (more…)
Originally posted in Lemley Design Company newsletter and reposted by permission at Brandchannel.com
Many retailers go through an exhaustive brand revitalization process only to find that they must do it again within two to five years. Even immediately after revitalization, they often have a vague sense of “something” not being quite right. They’re still losing market share and not making customer connections. When they find that profits and sales start dropping, they have no choice but to go back to the drawing board. Why? The revitalization was probably superficial—design changes, marketing changes, but no real fundamental change. In reality, their retail brand has lost its relevance. There is no reason to believe. The customer doesn’t believe, the employees don’t believe and management doesn’t know what to believe. Identifying the problem is one thing, but, how to fix it? (more…)
Seattle Package Design
Featured work highlights REI Elements brand extension project that spun out of the brand revitalization project spearheaded by David Lemley while President of Lemley Design Company in Seattle. Shown here, identity design, woven labels, hangtags for packaging.
“David Lemley and team were brought in to develop a brand-appropriate approach to our graphic design.
They delivered a holistic system that was comprehensive in scope and able to apply across the broad complement of our graphic design needs. They demonstrated great creativity and the ability to work within challenging parameters.”
–K. Auletta, Manager Business Process Improvement, REI
1965 Parents won me in a poker game in Vegas.
1972 Declare to the world that I want to be Picasso.
1978 Lose 8th grade talent show lip syncing in full Kiss Regalia.
1979 High School art teacher tells me I will never amount to anything.
1981 Attend first rock concert with my older brother (Rush Moving Pictures Tour).
1982 Attend Cornish College of The Arts as high school student and discover design.
1983 Publish several really moody poems in Washington State Anthology.
1985 Graduate from Art Institute of Seattle with a mullet and a David-Byrne-sized sportcoat.
1986 Work as Anton Kimball’s Sandwich boy and learn to draw logos.
1987 Spend Halloween on Calpe’s Penon De Ifach while backpacking through Spain.
1989 Paint 18’ tall murals of Dr. Seuss’s Hunches in Bunches in first Studio.
1991 Enjoy flannel shirts, long hair and Seattle’s grunge music scene.
1993 Trade in the Miata for an SUV.
1996 Start a coffee revolution with my friends at Starbucks.
1997 The incomparable Sheri Hauser finds a yoga studio for rent. I become the Mr. Rogers of Queen Anne Hill.
1998 Do the Bumbershoot thing.
1999 Featured in HOW Magazine Business Annual with really big hair.
2000 Judge Communication Arts Design Annual the week of the dot-bomb.
2002 Study Design Firm Leadership and Management at UW while running Lemley Design.
2003 Snowboard and hike the Cascade Mountains while Reinventing REI brand.
2004 Hire first Cultural Anthropologist to work in a brand design firm.
2005 Write “If You Believe” manifesto from the cottage on the dock, somewhere in Seattle.
2006 Become addicted to The Food Network while repositioning Sur la Table.
2007 Speak at DMI Brand Business Integration Imperative at The Drake Hotel in Chicago.
2008 Address The National Retail Federation with friend & client Robert Raible.
2010 Leave the ocean for the midwest to become Creative Director at LPK.
2011 Spearhead global brand reinventions for Pepsico while at Hornall Anderson.
Now Launch Retail Voodoo
