Where the Wild Things are

Well, maybe not exactly the wild, but certainly the unexpected, the affecting, the interesting. We know brands thrive on creative work like this – particularly those household names that are no longer new – but where does interesting come from? Where do we find it?

In our experience, it turns up in the space between three powers.

The first is the power of the things that brands have become famous for – icons, images, objects. The stone-walled dales of Yorkshire Tea. The all-seeing eye of Vocation Brewery. The slow, red drip of Maker’s Mark. Unmistakable things, with the power to turn heads, make memories, and bring the brand to mind. These are like artists’ materials. Things that are good to make with.

The second is the power of brand narrative. The mouth-watering mischief that arises from Burger King’s cooking by fire. The strength-giving wonders of Icelandic Provisions’ Viking hinterland. The sun-dappled warmth of Jim Beam’s porch. It’s brand narrative, more often than not, that inspires creative people to make those unexpected, affecting, interesting things.

It’s narrative, too, that helps get interesting work out there. There is a famous line in a famous marketing book about branding being “meaningless distinction”. And there is some truth in it. But it’s not really how things work in practice.

And that meaning comes from narrative. Jim Beam’s typography “calls and answers” across the page because it’s a brand that likes to talk. Its world feels homespun because it was first bottled at home. The bottle sits on a golden ground because the sun is still out on the porch.

These things are not discrete powers. They work together.

And the magic happens when they come together. When the axioms of brand narrative rule out a well-trodden creative pathway and force the work off somewhere less obvious. When something exciting starts to happen in the creative work that leads to a fresh reading of the story. When one word in the story starts to “glow” more than the rest because of what’s happening in design. When a historic mark finds itself with a new meaning – and a new lease of life with it. The magic is not in distinction alone, or narrative alone, but in what happens when the two start to wind each other up. Story shaping materiality shaping story shaping materiality.

And what typically emerges from all this interplay is a third power. The power of an off-stage world, a world to plug the brand into. As Blue Diamond’s superhero world emerges from the interplay between the fact of almonds as a superfood and the iconic blue diamond. Off-stage worlds bring a sense of coherence and clarity to narrative – underlining the important words and redacting others. And they supercharge creativity by bringing something new into play.

And it’s the interplay between these three powers – the unmistakable, the story, and the off-stage world – where we find the interesting, the affecting, the unexpected; maybe even the wild.