Step-by-Step Guide to Building a Strong Brand | Kristy Campbell

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welcome to another episode of the agency podcast and today joining me is Christy Campbell she's an international speaker a graphic designer and runs an agency called pink pony creative she spends her days creating visual identity systems for Brands all over the world today we dive into what is the psychology behind a visual identity why you need to stand out and why you need to take graphic design seriously if you're looking to take your brand to the next level Christy Campbell welcome to the agency

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podcast thank you I'm excited to be here feels a bit surreal because I see everything through socials so I'm excited it's always weird when you meet people in person like they're taller or shorter or like different than you thought I always get the comment you're so much taller in person and I'm like I don't know if that's a compliment yeah it's like I look shter on camera I guess I got small man energy or whatever yeah so for you when it comes to branding you've talked about you know wanting to

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be a designer since you were 13 yeah yeah definitely at what moment did you realize like design is my thing oh I've always been a creative person and I feel like there's a lot of Truth in what you did when you were a child like I've just started to really uncover that and discover that because I think when you're a child you are so authentically you like you couldn't be more you than when you are a child you've got no shame you kind of do whatever you just feel and say it'll just all come out and so

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when I was a kid I loved like scrapbook looking and tracing Pokémon and making little home movies with my family and my friends like it was just like what I love to do so I knew from basically day dot that being some kind of creative was what I wanted to get into like there was a few things that went through my mind like maybe yeah design like being in the film industry but when I took my very first graphic design class at school it just straight away I was like this is what I want to do like I remember

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straight that very first class I took I was like this is it and ever since then that's all I've ever wanted to do so I feel so blessed that I've had that like trajectory of just knowing because I know how hard it can be for other people It's Tricky right and we had Britney Saunders on the podcast recently and she was sharing with us that she was making YouTube episodes just kind of goofing off when she was like 13 14 15 and and for her it wasn't about business or becoming an influencer it was just

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purely giving her joy and she just wanted to jump in and do that so I think when it comes to you know trying to figure out what you might want to be doing yeah going Inward and ask asking our childlike self like what do we really want to do it's there's something something about that that I think pulls out the part of you that wants to do something joyous and if you can match Joy with with something that can produce money like that's that's a sweet spot definitely and that's a concept that I

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actually learned again recently from Steven baret when I went to a show he talked about skill stacking and I'd never actually heard of that term before but I realized now like all my life I've done skill stacking to then work me up to where I am today which you probably have as well like when I was a like for 15 years of my life I was a dancer and I did hip hop and I would I ended up like started creating these videos posting them on YouTube and social media and like that essentially built me up to

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have an understanding of how to edit and like post things on social media and perform and like be on stage and that has slowly taken me into like speaking and this social media content creation so over time I've just like skill stacked my life and you kind of at the like in those moments don't realize all these little things will lead you to a bigger purpose in your life but you just have to find it and it can be so challenging and tough to find it but Britney would have done the same thing

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like she skill stacked all through her life yeah no I agree and I've got a weird one on that like when I was 13 14 I used to play World of Warcraft and I had my own raid Guild and the amount of scheduling prepping planning and you know research and strategy that went into planning the perfect game night was intense and we had like a a chat Channel where I had a headset and I'm guiding 40 people through this dungeon and I was like oh I'm learning leadership skills I'm learning delegation skills

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recruitment skills I'm recruiting the right people and firing the wrong people so weirdly enough I reflect back and I'm like man I've got so many skills running an agency from like gaming when I was 13 exactly yeah skill stacking all the way I love it I like I like that concept of skill stacking I think yeah often times weird things you know that you don't expect oh definitely it's wild so when it comes to branding cuz you're absolutely crushing it when it comes to social media content you're building an

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agency you're doing things in a very vibrant fun charismatic way for yourself how do you define the difference between branding and marketing oh that's a good question I'm not going to lie like I'm a designer through and through and I do not claim to be a marketing specialist at all like and that is not what I do you know like I remember starting my business and people would ask me like hey you know can you do social media management can you do copyrighting and in those moments I was like I'll just

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give it a go do it but just because I felt like I had to do it and I had to live up to these people's standard to then do a good job and then get more work but then what it made me realize is I was like I'm stretching myself so thin into things that I am not an expert in why am I claiming to be these people when I'm actually not and so that's a really interesting term for me and I know you've got a lot of experience in that and I'd love to hear your point of view on it but you know like branding

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versus marketing I think there's such an overlap and I think that as a designer now who's built her own personal brand through social media I do have marketing experience and I know how to Market myself but I think I would in a funny way find it challenging to Market another brand it would be an interesting experiment to see if I actually could rock it and do it really well like if I started a company that was completely faceless but I think yeah there's a big crossover I'm also a big believer in

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personal branding for businesses which essentially I guess is marketing I would I would say so yeah yeah yeah so like I'm a huge believer in that I don't know like what do you how do you separate the it's a tricky one right because I think when it comes to branding and marketing often times people misidentify what branding is or misidentify what marketing is and to be fair there's a lot of agencies out there that claim they do branding or claim they marketing and it's like actually not quite that

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Vivid or clear on what they do yeah and for me I think the way I kind of split the difference it's like if you look at let's let's add something to the equation advertising right so advertising branding and marketing they all need each other yeah for me branding is like the heart it's like the soul the spirit the the the reason why it exists the experience that it provides you know and it's it's trying to connect with the audience in a way that makes them care and then there's a connection there for

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me advertising is the voice it's actually going out and projecting hey I'm over here I have these products or Services come get them for me marketing is like the systems right so what's the ROI the goal the target the cash flow the scripts the procedures the software the methods the ad spend the analytics the research the preparation these all need each other you need to have heart you need to have systems and you need a voice and I think when you're building a business it's about how do I get all of

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these things to work together as an engine or as one body yes and often times people go well I've got a sales process and I'm making money but they don't have the experience that they want to provide or promise that they provide or they don't speak enough to the market to generate new leads and then they end up referring themselves to a business that is referral oriented and I think if you nail The Branding nail the marketing and create the systems and then figure out a way for yourself to advertise and

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put that all together you can have an extremely fruitful business I describe it as like basically just your four wheels on a car like I try to explain to someone if they are like look I just because so many people come to us as the first point of them starting a business they're like I just know I need a brand which is amazing to be honest because it's so cool that people like can see the massive value in branding but you have to explain to them like look although we can create this incredible brand we could do the best

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branding you've ever seen if you don't have the other four wheel turning at the same time like sales marketing advertising communication whatever it might be you're not going to go anywhere you're going to be very tilted yeah you can have the best logo the best color palette the best strategy no advertising no systems no money totally yeah yeah on the other side you can have all the advertising budget and all the marketing no branding and you're wasting money exactly exactly and like you do see

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which is like I guess something that maybe I don't know if I should say but you see businesses do so well with the most basic logo but because they've had like such extreme like success in every other aspect like they'll do so so well with their CA logo or the logo that you know their Uncle designed um and then they'll eventually get to a point where they like we really need a like up our game in The Branding space and that level that up and that's when they can just like absolutely Thrive yeah and

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when branding like Industries change culture changes perception changes your target market and product offering changes and then the brand all a sudden doesn't work anymore cuz it Doesn't align yeah so for you what are some common misconceptions that you think most business owners have around what branding is O great question again so the big one is exactly what branding is I which I think is can be confusing we do claim to say that we do brand Identity Design which I know also is strategy and I've come to realize that

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we don't do strategy like we do a strategy for sure with our design work but there's like a whole another market and a whole another level of like Knowledge and Skills for like fullon brand strategy those brand strategists wouldn't be able to do the brand the visual Identity Design so I think there's so much confusion in exactly what's what but the reason why we do put ourselves as brand identity designers online is because when you think about it I don't think many people business

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owners will be going out and Googling I need a visual identity designer they don't that doing that they're just like I need a brand yeah or I need a logo yeah get me a color palette yeah yeah exactly so that's kind of why we use the word brand identity like the term brand identity versus visual identity but then when it comes to like all of our packages we really do talk through the fact that like the strategy we do provide some strategy like the tone of voice Etc but it's not like as deep as

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what someone would be doing you know who is solely a brand strategist so I think that's like a really big misconception in branding that's a good one and I think you know where because I definitely do design and I've kind of put the tools down and given the Reign Over to my team but most of my time is spent in the strategy sphere and then trying to like in the strategy component figure out okay what's the actual predicament that this business owner is really in and often times it's a cash crunch or

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they're getting smashed by competitors or they're trying to figure out their price point their offering and their positioning all this kind of like it's kind of more marketing and advertisement Centric than it is branding per se it's kind of like the brainhub of of the company and I think for us you're right in saying that like the visual identity it's its own it's its own like sphere of like tools and skills and resources and like creativity in and of itself and I think that

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strategy yeah you're right it's like phase one is typically you know to go straight to the visual identity for people but then they can often times struggle with some of the pieces when it comes to advertisement and marketing but when you can get the whole whole system to work together which is what you do with the visual identity so well is you add the tone of voice you add the you know the trajectory that the brand wants to go on it can create this impactful experience for the business owner when

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it when it comes to when you're working with identity do you find that there's certain pieces that people prioritize over others and what are some of the things that they might Overlook oo I think starting out as a visual identity designer like I'll be completely open and honest when when I started the business I'd only like designed a few handful of logos my business started four years ago and I only started doing it because people were asking like hey look can I have a logo can I have like a

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color palette can I have everything else that goes around that for my business and that's how I started learning about it four years ago and i' because of that I've just learned so much and taken online courses and things but essentially I think a lot of people don't realize wait what was the question so so what yeah that's okay great uh I think yeah when you're looking at branding identity what are some of the things that clients misunderstand about what a visual identity can really do for

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them yes okay I do think that people have a like misconception about potentially it needs to be like the the best design possible and what I mean by that is like as a designer you so often feel like when you're creating work you are looking at these like big agencies who do beautiful stunning work which is like the peak of what you should do for visual Identity Design but then if you like roll around a supermarket most of the design in there is very commercialized and it's actually not that like high-end beautiful like

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stripped back modern looking design that wins Awards and stuff like most design is like very commercialized I think it's important that people remember that and actually then can allow themselves to create something that's so perfect for the brand that they creating for and again doesn't necessarily need to be like the best design in the world but it needs to cater the right audience and the right people and the right market and you've just got to do that research before you move into creating everything

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I think I somewhat answered that question but I'm unsure totally and do you think there's some things that are underlooked like assets or elements or things that you include in the visual identity that clients might look at and go I don't need that right now but they really do oh yes okay yeah so for me like I'm a big believer in your visual identity portrays a person right like it's portraying a whole personality whatever that might be and I think people often miss the fact that

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personality can be poured into every single aspect of the visuals not just the logo and not just what people sometimes call like a brand pattern or supporting assets like we even look at the way images are framed like you know are the corners of images curved or are they Square which sounds really basic but all of that pulls out more of that personality so if you can think of everything you do as being a visual personality you'll roll out a brand that then continuously ooes that whole looking feel and I think people often

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think that it just needs to be the personality within the logo but actually the logo sometimes doesn't often hold the most personality at all you know I would agree with that like typically in the fashion space or in the product space it's the photography yes it's the stylization it's textures shapes elements things that can kind of Dr you know a piece of content and make it look a bit more interesting um but yeah photography is one of the things that I think is often overlooked it's like

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let's just download some stock slap that on the website but if you take the effort and time to do a photo shoot even with an iPhone and you're you know in your garage or against like a like a green screen or whatever I think like you can really elevate a Brand's feeling just by adding some photography things like that oh totally photography is a massive one that often get gets Mast and we have to really push the fact like what the reasoning why they should go and get a professional shoot done like

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even pull together like a bit of a creative mood of what that would look like because people often think oh I can just do that myself like which they can it's usually not great exactly it's not the best yeah you can do it but you're just not going to get the same results totally yeah if you can do a studio and get a professional photographer and they can post edit it and you can give them some art Direction around the mood that you want and I think the other mistake is often made when people hire

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photographer but they don't give Art Direction they're just like do whatever you think is best which is not a great idea cuz I think if you're trying to build a brand you should know what it is and I was saying this to a client yesterday when you go to an ad agency or a web developer or a photographer videographer content creator it's your responsibility to then educate them on how to deploy the brands it's not their job to identify the creative deployment you should instruct them and it's like

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when Nike goes and hires anyone or Coca-Cola or apple hires anyone they don't say do what you think is best they're like here's the guy line please stick to it definitely yeah like we always put in like a photography mood board right at the end not we do photography within our agency but we have that mood board style Direction yeah because we're like this is what we're pitching and proposing even same with the like a website homepage design we don't do websites and we're pretty

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strict on that like I'm just a clean and cut no we don't do it kind of reason no no but we do actually give like a just a general kind of wireframe of what the homepage would look like because we want to then be able to say to them like look send this to your web developer or your web designer and that's kind of what they base the design off yeah yeah so I think it's so important to be able to Showcase all of that within your brand guid CU within a visual identity I kind of joke it's like ingredients to a cake

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yeah you know you do eggs and flour and and then you add in like the sprinkles and these are the ingredients and how you mix them together cuz the guidelines like here's the logo here's the color palette here's the font and you're like great but then we have to Showcase well what should the cake look like at the end if we did a website if we did content video we printed collateral wrapped a vehicle did a billboard what what would be our deployment of that and then you get to Showcase this is what

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the assets would look like in the real world yeah yeah this is such a like cool topic because I think although we are visual identity designers I'm such a big believer and then bringing that to life not just on your screen or on paper like there's I don't just wear pink just cuz I like pink you know I wear it because I making that strategic decision so then I can imprint this pattern into your brain you know that's Chris that's Christy the pink pony like you have to bring your

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brand to life and so many people miss out on this opportunity of like really carving their brand further into people's minds you've done a like this is a perfect example of how you've done it because you've brought your brand to life through your office like you've painted the walls orange black like everything is so on brand here and I think that just cements everything more into someone's mind like people we have this giant life-size pink plastic horse now off I love it he's great pendro I

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wish I could B him his name is Pedro his name's Pedro yeah but he people now send me like just photos if they're out and about and they see like a giant plastic cow they will send it to me and I'm like I love that my Brand's done this yeah or even just anything I get so much pink stuff I get so much Cowboy aesthetic stuff like people would be like oh my God I saw these earrings and I thought of you like people from the other side of the world and I have a Graphic Design brand like an agency I'm not a western

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clothing brand but like I've just implemented this Vision into people's minds so much well I mean I like to think so but who knows that they then can see me stuff because they know oh my God that's so chrisy and pink pony I'm just gonna send it away you just get pink stuff in the mail all the time well yeah just a lot of like messages of pink like yeah which I love I'm so here for it's awesome I love that no I think it's interesting because I think you know I have this concept with branding

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that it's all about patent Interruption right cuz what happens is if you see the same thing again and again it becomes kind of invisible like Coca-Cola right now have the issue where people have seen their brand so much that it's just become like a tree in the background like we grew up watching it in movies we've seen it on billboards our whole life and then it just becomes invisible to us so then how do you go against that patent recognition and then do patent Interruption which is when you get like

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a liquid death or you get something that is so odd that it stands out and often times people are afraid to actually do this because they're like well that's not trustworthy everyone expects this they don't want the unexpected there's so much money in the unexpected and if you can interrupt someone's patn and do something that's very different then people are like what's this like imagine if you're scrolling through different tax accountants and you're like who do I

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want to get to do my tax accounting and everyone's blue green and corporate blue green corporate blue green corporate and then you see bright yellow and pink and it says Naked accounting you're like what's this click this is funny it's got some humor to it so if you humanize the brand and interrupts what people expect I think it always gets a click or Intrigue yeah I think like another brand that's done a really good job at this which is kind of somewh on the same wavelength as Jingo with their social

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media strategy you know like they as like they're an educational brand and I'm sure they many years ago before they bought out this like cute mascot and start doing videos with him if like like that would be an idea that oh my God we should never do that because people won't trust us it's not trustworthy it's too playful it's too weird yeah too like young and like odd but they like are smashing it and they're the perfect example of bringing a brand to life through literally something so physical

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and just what's that pattern Interruption pattern Interruption yeah and I think like you know an example that Seth gon talked about which was there was a like a a soy milk brand and classically soy milk would be not in the refrigeration aisle it would be in the what do you call it like the dry aisle where you could pick your almond or soy milk but he's like this one soy brand decided to Brand itself in a bottle just like normal milk and put themselves in the fridge oh wow not that it needs to

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be but the positioning was so different that people started buying that one cuz it felt fresher and more organic than something that's longlasting on a shelf it's just playing with perception and changing how people feel about things and I think you bring up an interesting point there when it comes to like building a brand it's it's really trying to understand of like you know how do we become memorable how do we stand out like the pink pony and the pink and I think people people love character they

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love they love something new definitely there there's a brand that also comes to mind and I'm going to get the name wrong they're an Australian company and they do like boxes that you'll get seen to it be like either candy or like donuts and like you know just like big kind of gift boxes and I think when they came out and I don't know the name of it but when they came out they would send these crazy messages like swearing on on the like donuts and stuff like full-blown in candy like swearing like quite vulgar

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stuff and they shared it on social media and everyone was like how can you be sharing this this feels like illegal to be like showcasing such daring vulgar stuff but like they just went crazy and everyone loved it because they did something so different to everybody else and like completely punched through the market yeah but just changing the experience people people feel differently like I've been trying to learn Spanish and I downloaded like I translate and all these different other translation apps and they're all like

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blue corporate trustworthy and then duo lingo is out there with this mascot and doing these Wild videos and it's just funny and they're playing into meme culture and even when you're in the app you can kind of you know play the different games that you go through but every character that like speaks to you in Spanish and translates for you has like different personalities yes one of them is really dry it's like repeat after me you know and I think that that adds charm to it so when it comes to you

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building visual identity and you're trying to put voice into it what are some things that you like to collect from a client to inform you of how do we then translate that voice into visual design oo definitely like we have a strategy call like a dis discussion with our clients and often it's funny like I already can feel a Vibe so quickly from like a bunch of words they've said I'm sure you're the same you're like I feel like I already know the direction of this brand but you've try you've got to

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try and dig a little bit deeper into like yeah exactly who they are um their story which I again that's their personal brand coming through into their business like what is their backstory who they are is there anything in there you can pull out through the branding a little bit like like what kind of character they are and you know are they a bit of a Maverick and a rebel or they like really clean cut totally like a good example of this is we worked with a eim company in Australia and it was

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these two guys who founded it quite young Australian guys like early 30s and we sort of pulled out this idea that we were like why don't you guys kind of become these two little mascots in the brand and they just were like this is a great idea and we Illustrated them made look awesome but they probably wouldn't have thought of that obviously on their own and also like maybe someone else if they're looking for a brand visual ating to that's a little bit more like blending in with everybody else like

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they they want to do something quite different in Edy so we bought their their story out and actually injected them into the visual identity of the brand by creating these unique illustrations and they just like were so obsessed with it so I think if you can find those sweet points of like these little characteristics and the personality traits and pull them out like that is like your ultimate sweet spot but on top of that you have to obviously consider target market but then I do think you know people are like

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only do what the target market wants but if we did that everything would be the same and it would just be quite boring and just ah so I think it's a mix of yeah the target market and then like who you actually want the brand to be liquid death is a good example because they wanted to be this Dearing brand who yes they do like Target A specific group of people but they to do that they had to make the cam black and use like very like Gothic kind of star lettering and things like that so I think it's a mix

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of these two elements of target market versus who we actually want the brand to be yeah because otherwise we all look the same and that's that's a weird thing to figure out right because a lot of business owners are like this is my target market this has to sell if this doesn't work you know cash doesn't come in and it all goes bust right so then there's this nervous you know trepidation when it comes into okay let's we want to be disrupted but we don't want to be too crazy about it and

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I find that you got to try and find that sweet spot right so for example we worked with a like an app development company that do rewards for safe driving so you open the app when you drive and you don't touch your phone and you can like play music or whatever but like you don't interact with it and it's called my drive hero and you set it up and then as you're driving it tracks like your speed and like how hard you hit corners and all that kind of stuff and then it gives you points and if you drive safe

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and you take the safe routes because there like more dangerous routes you can take with dangerous roads and stuff you earn points then you can redeem them but like the whole branding concept is about you know we want to save lives on Australian roads but if you think about every other brand that tries to save lives it's Doom and Gloom it's the horrific nightmare scenario they're talking about death like prevent death what we did in our strategy was like What if we go completely the opposite

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way so rather than talking about the Doom and Gloom what about if we just purely and selfishly talk about the rewards and the upside and the fun that you can have driving safe and then it's like no negativity allowed in this brand and you would think but the whole point is to save lives but it's like let's do it on the other end of the spectrum everyone's talking Doom and Gloom let's be like bright bubbly and optimistic and we did this wild like mascot with a bubble head and then you can get a

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superhero yeah it was a superhero and you can like stick it on the front of your car and the bubble head is technology and that also gives you extra points and tests how you drive so like there's always a way do you do you have some things some key things you look for in that preparation stage like key words or key phrases what are some things that you really try to pick up on when you're trying to read the client listen to them you're like oh I can use this what what kind of stuff I mean it sounds like so

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in a way basic but I I really focus on the brand Persona and who they want to be to the world and because because then that pulls out into the visual identity and I think when you're thinking about that it's good to ask I I like to play this little game and sometimes most of the time the clients love it it seems really simple but I just give them two traits e or classic and they let me know where they feel like they sit between those but it's crazy the discussion that comes from something so basic like you'd

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think that someone would be like yeah just edgy but you dive in so deep especially if they've got like more than one founder or thinker behind the business because they both have different ideas about who they should be and that's a whole another topic but those questions can really help find that visual personality and then again even question question like if you if the brand was a drink what would you be which sounds a little bit fluffy and like why would you ask that but it tells us so much about who the brand should be

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I listened to an episode of when you guys were at the tiger table and you talked about branding about how far branding goes and you were talking about like7 and like that's a brand that's essentially what we're trying to do and all those little questions so tell a big story like if this if your brand was a celebrity who would they be if some said7 most people could immediately tell me sve cool sexy Sleek you know kind of carismatic or otherworldly or a little Mystique exactly yeah so those so build

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us this awesome Foundation of who the brand should be even like you know if the brand was an animal what would it be another one is music which I haven't actually touched on with clients songs songs are really great you should test it in the workshop because you sit in front of a client and you say to them you've got 10 minutes go through your playlist pick a song that resonates with the brand message yeah can't be your favorite song has to capture the mood of the company and just watching the waves

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of emotion that people go through trying to find a song is hilarious and then they play it and then they're like no it's not that they get embarrassed they're like maybe it's this and they go back and forth and then they're like oh it's actually kind of like this cuz you can translate music into a visual identity pretty quickly right you're like does this sound old school or natural or Suburban like you can pick up so many notes or sense in in in a in a song yeah definitely oh it's it's wild

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what you can pick up and pull through into a visual personality yes I get so many people now sending me the Pink Pony Club song by Chapel Ron I think and I'm like guys this was out like four years ago yeah this is old do you not know this song so this is something I find interesting cuz if you sit in front of a client and then you ask them tell me about your Brands I have a joke that they'll tell you about what they call or what I like to call your vanilla values vanilla values are our product is the

00:31:03 - 00:32:03

best our competitors suck we make the best quality product or service and we do it with Integrity authenticity and honesty so we can be trusted because we care about Innovation we want to disrupt the market and we want to inspire and Empower people everyone wants everyone says the same thing but here's the thing is if you look at a harleydavidson they don't say any of that yet if you get a harleydavidson fanboy or fan girl ask them do they trust the brand yes is it a quality product yes does it Inspire and

00:31:33 - 00:32:31

Empower yes yes but what does Harley-Davidson sell yeah Freedom right that you know no one's going to go to Harley-Davidson and go yo I'm here to buy some Freedom right but that's the reason they walked in was because the commercial of the highway and the jacket and the cowboy boots is like dude I want that in my life that's what I'm buying cuz you're buying into the tribalism and the feeling oh so much so like lul lemon is another one lulon is so often the brand when I ask people what brands do

00:32:02 - 00:33:02

you admire like Nike Lululemon Tesla apple and I'm like tell like in a way like tell me why yeah and a lot of the time they can't even really answer and even for Lululemon great logo we all know the logo but like when you look at their visual identity it's not something that's like completely clear which is really interesting so yeah that it's crazy how many people say the same Brands but don't quite know why but it's because yeah trust them and they rely on them for these whatever reason it might

00:32:32 - 00:33:26

be yeah it's it's crazy apple is just another classic it's another classic and I think Apple have nailed it right do you know Marty new no so he wrote the book zag yeah great book and it was Steve Jobs favorite book and Steve Jobs actually carried the book zag with him everywhere and it's the reason he came up with the iPhone yeah and yeah cuz he was looking at the market and this is what Steve learned from Marty cuz Marty and Steve and apple worked together in like I think like late ' 80s early 90s

00:32:59 - 00:33:50

and they walk into a software shop and they realized that all the software in you know think about the old like software shop everything came on a flppy disc in a big box like people might not know what that looks like these days but that's how you used to buy software you couldn't download it you have to go buy it and get the licensing and they walked into software shops and realized that all the packaging was maximalist technological futuristic and it's like gradients and lines and crazy stuff and

00:33:25 - 00:34:13

then Marty and Steve and and their inhouse team were like dude what we just did a white box with a rainbow logo on it and it's like that's how you stand out that's a patent interrupt so when I walk into the software shop I'm like that one looks simple everything else looks nuts and it's it's that patent interrupt that I think you got to figure out where's that sweet spot for people so you you do a lot of creative questions because if you ask them directly tell me about your brand they

00:33:48 - 00:34:43

can't but if you ask them hey what song would it be they're kind of forced to go through the creative process yeah and that's where you get the weird answers oh definitely and it's fun a lot lot of the time people struggle of course it is so hard to think about your brand in that way but if you can really try and build that yeah clear those points about exactly who you are like I think I I don't know if I put the question out to my audience once but they were like you were so Legally Blonde like that's just

00:34:16 - 00:35:11

it and I was like I'll take that but you know like the fact yeah is is awesome like it and you're sort of yeah solidifying that whole feeling and experience with your brand with people people yeah so at my company rival here we often talk about branding is like therapy right cuz often times people come in and they're like here's my drama in my business you're you're like tell me more and you're writing notes you know what I mean and they're just unpacking all their baggage

00:34:43 - 00:35:42

and all their problems how do you help bridge a gap between a client being stuck in that problem and then starting to think about okay let's go for it and do something new I think the biggest question is if you can try and understand their why and the reasoning behind that problem that will be the key ingredient to potentially solving that problem but I mean it's like asking a bunch of questions that try and solidify the solution for the problem like it I mean it sounds simple but essentially

00:35:13 - 00:36:12

that's you just need to take these small steps and ask these simple questions and that'll lead you down a rabbit hole of basically getting this true answer but I think when it comes to I think there's a lot of obviously huge amounts of strategy in that again and this is an interesting topic that I've seen come up online can you build a visual identity without strategy and I some do believe that you actually can and I don't know what it is maybe it's like the creative person inside me just knows what

00:35:42 - 00:36:35

something should look like without a strategy but you know when I say strategy too it's like the real deep deep deep questions that I'm talking about um but yeah I think I don't actually know where I was going with that story that's okay so like when it comes to like branding being like therapy yes clients unloading their problems like these are all the challenges that I have what are some things you try to do to draw a link between their problem and like okay if that's the problem this is how we're

00:36:09 - 00:37:06

going to solve it with design do you have a bit of like a mud map on how to kind of extrapolate the design decisions from the problem yeah well I mean I learned the strategy from someone or James Barn actually spoke about this I think if when you're trying to solve a problem it really depends on on the customer I think so the you know who we're trying to sell to so many designers will Design something and I see this often with my team when they come in as Juniors or they're you know

00:36:37 - 00:37:35

not as experienced they'll design something for the look of it and they don't actually look of it look at it from the what is this the problem we're trying to solve for the consumer you have to look at it from a consumer's point of view as simple as being like we're working on this project right now I won't go into it too much but it's a really new product in a drink space and it's really different and if we don't clearly State on the packaging the problem that we're solving for the

00:37:06 - 00:37:56

customer the the whole thing will fall flat because people will look at it and not know what they'll be like what the hell is this you're trying to sell if it's not clearly you have to be so clear about what you're trying to deliver to your customer so I mean essentially depending on what the problem is you have to just make sure you're clear with your messaging clear with the design look at the design in a way like if I was looking at this with completely fresh eyes would I understand the

00:37:31 - 00:38:29

solution or the problem that this is going to solve for me and it could be as simple as like having those correct key words or messages on a box or maybe it's like is your design too cluttered and are you looking at it with a perspective of is there things that I can remove from this to make it even more clear and solve that issue like yeah it can be difficult because depending on the problem like no I would agree with you there and you know I think like I had quote and I'm changing it my quote was

00:38:00 - 00:38:58

you know to to build a brand effectively first you must be clear before you get clever but I'm changing it and and this one's now offending people and it's like to build a brand and to be effective you know first you must make your brand clear because clever creates a puzzle for a client and that gets in the way of the buying decision and I think often times people might see copywriting or design and they're like it's not powerful enough and it's like what do you mean it's very clear who this is for

00:38:29 - 00:39:27

why the product exists and what the benefit is if we tick those three boxes what else do we need right and most brands actually aren't doing that they're kind of fuzzy it's kind of unclear who it's for because they're trying to marck it to everyone it's unclear what the product is and what the benefits of it are because in a packaging situation in retail in particular you got like 4 seconds if that totally to communicate yeah exactly and even as simple as with this new drink product that they're bringing out

00:38:58 - 00:39:50

you know it's such an unknown new product that people often think I need to make the logo the biggest thing on this packaging so that I can get my brand out there my visual identity out there but essentially no one's going to know your brand especially if it's a new company but it's like what needs to really be bigger and clear is like exactly what it is like as simple as the wording or maybe like a visual photograph of what that product is over a big logo any day it's the whole thing

00:39:24 - 00:40:22

of like made my logo bigger I'm like but make it pop yeah yeah up my favorite color is red yeah so when it comes to like I guess you know the design identity let's say in packaging in that situation how often do you look around at the competitors around that particular brand because often times we hear things from clients where they might say well we have no competition oh classic and my my comeback is always like well if they didn't know you existed where else would they go and they're like oh they go here here here

00:39:53 - 00:40:53

and here and it's like well that's the competition cuz maybe they're outs spending you out branding you creating more content than you that's who we're competing with so how much do you take into consideration what's around the brand that you're trying to build oh so much so so much like we did a tan brand like we repackaged and redesigned The Branding for oh like like skin like like and the client actually came to us with the idea initially anyway themselves they had this idea and we thought it was

00:40:23 - 00:41:20

a great idea to honest so we went with it but it was like most 10an businesses at the the time were like all brown Golds blacks with Bond Sands and so they were like we should do white because essentially they would stand out on the shelf and so they did which has been great and so like that's the simple like procedure of literally going into a store finding exactly where your product would be positioned and literally looking at exactly what's around what's the surrounding space like we do like a

00:40:51 - 00:41:48

bit of market research and showcase the brands the the top competitors and we will literally say like we're going to do everything but that like that is why we're showing you these visuals obviously things like we can you know inject a little bit here and there but you want to be so completely opposite and Pink Pony as a design agency we do that for Brands like we push the boundaries so to do that you want to be able to be so visually different and unique so Leah look into those competitor Brands even if they come back

00:41:20 - 00:42:11

and say we don't have any competitors they will be out there you just have to search them I found them quick Google search here you go I'm surprised that people don't do that like just Google it yeah or they'll say oh yeah we're so new yeah there's no competitors like no it's interesting how often times little research is done from a quick Google's perspective before people build a company I remember I had a call and this guy got on the call and he says I got this great idea for a business and I'm

00:41:45 - 00:42:31

like what is it he goes it's okay you ready and he's like trying to get me to sign an NDA and everything I'm like I'm ready he's like eco-friendly Environmental longlasting water bottle thermos brand and I'm like great have you looked on Google he's like it doesn't exist and I'm like let's have a look together right now and he was in shock and AA because he was like oh my gosh there's so many I'm like one after another after another after another and

00:42:08 - 00:43:00

these Trends start and I think if people are trying to get into business just a little bit of research and just like some brutal honesty with yourself does this exist in the way that I'm thinking about doing it and the second question to that is what alternatives are there cuz then we went down a different route and then we made it all about hiking and niched into that market for him and he's doing really well because of it so it's like you can still have your brand and your business but just like Niche it a

00:42:34 - 00:43:30

bit differently and you're selling the experience of the whole bottle like you know what this bottle will do for you who it's for you can do stuff that's interesting with photography you can run specific ads you can do collaborations with like Nat Geo or you know Patagonia things like that yeah yeah and again you have to think about putting out to the world what problem are you solving by having this product or doing this business one whatever it might be like we sort of in the past while did this

00:43:02 - 00:43:50

presentation deck for a company and it was four clients that they were going out to the sort of like co- calling in a way and they had all the content and we were like yep we'll do the design for them we did the design and then I thought about it and I was like the whole presentation they are just talking about themselves they're talking about who they are as a business this is our this is our you know organizational chat and everyone in our company this is our timeline of our business and I was like

00:43:26 - 00:44:21

we are looking at this all wrong we are not like if imagine if you received that it'd be like talking to someone who only talked about themselves you have to go out there and say this is the problem I'm Sol solving for you to be honest I was like no one's going to give a what your organizational chart will look like really you know who actually cares in a funny way sure you could put your Founders face on there I think that could be important maybe the key members but like if you can really solidify this

00:43:54 - 00:44:40

problem that I'm solving for you as a customer that'll get you so much further like the hiking you're you're you're solving the hydration issue hikers exactly and it's interesting right cuz we as business owners and business Builders figure out our stuff pretty quickly it's kind of tricky to figure out who's the client what's the client and I often say like if you're trying to Target everyone you end up targeting no one yeah and it can be kind of scary it's like well we don't want to Niche

00:44:17 - 00:45:13

down and like reduce our income but like if you can become hyper attractive toward hype it's like dating everyone has a type so then it's like make sure your brand has a type client that you're trying to appeal to first and foremost other people are welcome to date you but it's like what's your type you know that's your match made in heaven and what are some things that you do to help under help a client understand the the whole perception around targeting and being very articulate around how helpful

00:44:45 - 00:45:39

that can be for their business again I think you have to remember I guess it's like a a mixture people don't do their research so you've kind of got to go out and do it for them in a way and really understanding what these people people like and I think when you're thinking about a brand I watched this video and I can't remember the girl's name but she was talking about how essentially with brand it's all about making strong associations so if you got to build this strong Association kind of so what do

00:45:12 - 00:46:07

you mean by strong Association so I mean like what's an example so I guess 007 coming back to yes his strong associations would be the fact that he's very highend you know he's going to have this like Porsche this really beautiful car he's going to be wearing a black suit like all day long and like these are the strong associations and this tool box that you have for the brand if you can figure out that and understand it you'll be edicated to specific audiences and relate to these people more yeah so I

00:45:40 - 00:46:33

think if you can understand that you'll just go so much further with the whole experience and then you'll be able to mark it to these people specifically you just have to figure out yeah what do they like what do they dislike what are they going to relate to is such a big thing and I think as content creators we do this ourselves quite naturally now but it's just understanding like you know even for example the way that they share my content I'm not just talking about graphic design although that's

00:46:05 - 00:47:03

what I do and I do visual identity branding you know I also talk about building a business and and start going from freelancer to agency life and and being like quite a self-doubt but a do it anyway kind of girl and like I'm pulling in all these associations to people and then that draws in those like-minded people so you yeah really got to try and understand and figure out who exactly you want to be and who you want to Target if you can make those strong associations yeah that's a really

00:46:35 - 00:47:20

good point that you make around the associations and it's almost like there's there's different ways of positioning yourself in particular as a personal brand you can come across as authorative and I've got all the answers like Tony Robbins like come to me and I'll solve your problem in your case you're you know self-doubting and self-deprecating and it's it makes you more human and approachable so then people might see your content and go oh I have the same problems in my business

00:46:57 - 00:47:51

if I could talk to her we can Peter perer Converse about this and then maybe she might want to work with me it creates a different connection oh hugely and Britney Saunders would be another one who does that you know she's got built this personal brand although she's have got this amazing fashion label like her entertaining humorous like just fun nature draws in all those kinds of people they just love her so whatever she brings out they're like oh I want to buy that like I've you know been a

00:47:24 - 00:48:13

culprate of that for so many other like podcasts that I listen to brands that I love you build this association with this person and you love them for like who they are that you then just buy whatever they bring out which is such a powerful thing but that's personal branding I just went on a 10 personal no it's it's a good point that you make and and I think you know personal branding is becoming something that's incredibly on the rise in particular because of social media and content when it comes

00:47:49 - 00:48:48

to branding let's look at it holistically whether it's a company personal branding or or what have you if you're looking at how the world's kind of going with social media and the speed and the sheer reach that everyone has these days like if we go back 10 years ago it' be kind of tricky to build a glob Brands to the Cadence that you could do it now why do companies need branding right now in today's day and age oo I mean like as simple as standing out like it's like going somewhere and

00:48:18 - 00:49:17

just wearing a white T-shirt and white pants I mean or like the most basic looking outfit and fitting in with everybody else like you want to stand out you want to be different you want to build this character and this visual personality or just entire personality so that you can Target these specific people and and build your brand and build like a cult following because of all these strong associations you make people are just going to continue to want to buy from you um but it is so important I think there's a real

00:48:48 - 00:49:47

beautiful tie now with social media and building a brand and I think anyone can build such an incredible successful business through social media so I think if you can have a brand that stands out on social media like for example I think his handle is homeboy coffee he just has a little coffee poor boy coffee maybe he's old kid or something SE yeah I think it's poor boy coffee yes and he's like documenting like everything about his business how much money he's lost his debt his how much beans cost and

00:49:17 - 00:50:08

he's just documenting his whole journey it's amazing yeah and like him you know like 10 years ago he wouldn't have met a he his coffee shop might have been like sort of lowkey like just locals who went and visited he was going to line out the door because people were like I want to support this dude's Journey yeah yeah and it was because he did things really differently he literally was so open honest and like transparent about his whole journey and everything he does in his business people like wow this guy is

00:49:42 - 00:50:34

cool like let's follow I want to see his journey I want to follow him along he he decided to make this whole his whole brand about being open and honest and transparent and he was able to cater to these this audience that just wanted to like feed into this whole thing we love people that are flawed you know it's like Eminem and Eight Mile where he's like he's dissing himself in front of the guy he's rapping against and then the guy's got nothing left but even if you look at like an archetype like

00:50:08 - 00:51:00

Spider-Man we love him so much cuz Peter Parker is such a dork and he can't get the girl and his boss hates him and he's a loser in high school and then he has this Spurt of confidence when he puts on the outfit it's like oh that's just like me I don't always feel confident I don't always feel amazing and people really connect to these kind of you know realistic characters on I think the polished perfect like absolute Professional Profile just doesn't work anymore people it's been done people

00:50:34 - 00:51:30

want to see the real stuff oh hugely big time so when it comes back to branding do you see it as something that is set and forget or do you think it's more of a continuous tinkering on an engine like always playing and and adjusting things oh so much continuous it's that repetitive pattern that you're trying to put in someone's mind whether you're trying to be a pattern that's going to interrupt or a head and that just wants to continue building your audience it is literally all about consistency for sure

00:51:02 - 00:52:00

and obviously a whole lot of like line of things within there but there's lots of Brands out there that I would say like Gary ve probably would be one if you look at his Instagram feed visually it's all over the show yeah but like he's so consistent he's consistent as like a character and it's like almost like the scrappiness of the brand is like Ah that's just Gary exactly yeah and so like he's built this business on like who he is and this personality so I think like yeah can go in so many ways

00:51:32 - 00:52:24

what was the question again God I'm good at for no that's you're doing so well I think dude you've had you know some jet lag and all the rest of it I'm with you yeah I think you know why why is why is it that Brands need to constantly be tinkered on right cuz sometimes people think branding is set and forget I got my logo got my colors got my fonts done you know now on to you know getting the money and I'm like no like branding is like a it's a feedback loop right you

00:51:57 - 00:52:57

produce content you run ads you produce a website then you pay close attention to the reaction like it's kind of going in the direction I want but I just need it to be a little bit more spicy so let me try that with another ad campaign or another email sequence oh we got way more traction with that that's the voice let's lean into that that kind of thing yes yeah like so many things come to mind it is consistency but also people have to understand that brands are a living and breathing thing and like you

00:52:27 - 00:53:16

said it's everyone's reaction to that brand the feedback you get it's like a person as you follow them through their life they're going to change and evolve and we have to understand that brands do the same thing like sure yeah you can stick to the same logo of course like the color palette and really cement that in people's minds but you have to trial and error things like otherwise you'll just become stagnant and just you'll get left behind like as simple as maybe I

00:52:51 - 00:53:45

don't know utilizing AI within some part of your business or whatever it might be if you're going to not go like go against the grain and just not do that and not follow where technology is going or the world is going you probably would get left behind but yeah well even even like you know even if you nail The Branding and you've crushed it this is why big brands do campaigns yes and launches and seasonal things like if you look at arets they do shapes but then every two or 3 months there's a new

00:53:19 - 00:54:08

flavor and it's at the end of the aisle and they're reactivating Their audience to say hey buy shapes we got a new flavor limited edition then you buy into it again you get hooked to the shapes again then you forget then two months later they bring out another flavor and this is what I what I consider like brand activation and a lot of people you know that run smaller businesses could be doing activational campaigns like du lingo they're always trying to do new stuff or jump on a trend and I think

00:53:43 - 00:54:39

that's where you want to have the core of your brand figured out and squared away so you're not constantly changing your personality but you want to be doing new things that that capture interest so much so I'm trying to think of some examples that do this really well but yeah I think even little down to the little things like thinking outside the box like activations or even collaborations like I love seeing when you have maybe two Brands Collide you wouldn't expect even as simple as like

00:54:11 - 00:55:01

content creators you know when you see someone connects with another content creator that you love and they're in the same room together they like this is so exciting this is so cool and it's like like why why why what is the excitement about that but it's like if two Brands came together it could be Tiffany's and Nike did like a shoe collab like a jewelry brand and a sport brand like what but people were buying it exactly it was like this weird turquoise cool Nik that they dropped

00:54:36 - 00:55:33

definitely and they're kind of interrupting a bit of a it's a pat interrupt it gets a headline and then people talk about it definitely yeah so I think that's a really valuable thing to remember yeah like keep your you can keep your core brand consistent but you have to keep trialing and error things to continue to evolve or also to evolve with your target audience because people like we recently went to and this is a really great example of this we did like a bit of a got invited to do a tour of

00:55:04 - 00:56:04

like a big Media company in New Zealand and we're went around all the radio stations and a lot of the radio teams or radio personalities evolve from like the next radio station to the next because they get older and then they evolve a come with them yeah a brand would do the same thing yeah unless you pivot and like completely change your you know your product line or whatever it might be but what happened with gap remember so the Gap was like the young cool disruptive rebellious Brands back in the

00:55:33 - 00:56:24

day and then as that generation you know I think it was like mainly like kind of the boomer generation right like they were really pioneering things with jeans and stuff like that but they were the youth brand and then they became the young parents' brand and then the middle-age brand and then Their audience stopped buying clothes and the brand kind of stagnated then they had to split into two so they created Old Navy for the older generation and and they tried to bring more youth back into the Gap

00:55:59 - 00:56:55

Brands and they had a lot of issues with that but like that's an example of that brand almost fell off a cliff because their audience out aged them yes another example is the Stanley Cup oh yeah you know like perfect example like weren't they targeting literally like campers hikers like real masculine like this is a man's cup and then all they did was changed the colors like into pesel I don't know the entire story of the brand but like and then now it's just like selling out

00:56:27 - 00:57:35

and girls carry these like recycling bin bloody sized cups everywhere really yeah it's wild yeah so there's a quote that you shared and that's I believe that in today's fiercely competitive market cultivating a powerful cohesive and uniquely recognizable visual identity is imperative in every industry yes yes what if my industry is quote unquote boring I still think you can be impactful by doing something really different it's difficult because like I have a good friend who her audience is

00:57:01 - 00:57:59

literally older people like literally people in retirement homes she does like sort of physical exercise to help people get better because of whatever illness they have and she's had quite a tough time marketing this because and I totally understand that because that audience is not on social media they're not scrolling Instagram they're not even looking at like newspaper anymore really you're like so that is a really CH challenging thing but I think it's so yeah I mean it depends but for me as a

00:57:30 - 00:58:25

business I say that because I want those Brands those are the people that I want like I am talking to my customers my target audience to be honest I don't really want to work with the brands who really do want to just be streamlined and just you know fit in with everybody else so I'm talk this is me talking to my audience telling them yes I believe that every brand should be completely unique and if you consider yourself as that I will do the best job I can to allow you to be that person I love that

00:57:58 - 00:58:57

yeah and I think yeah it's just trying to have that honor and integrity to try to almost like serve the client that's with us and make sure they they get what they need so how do you navigate removing your personal biased and the client's personal bias to make the best identity for marketability I mean as simple as like why like if they're like like I really really want this to be blue it's my favorite color but I really think this is going to be the best color for the brand it's as simple as asking

00:58:27 - 00:59:26

why and looking deeper into what is this going to do if we make it blue and like again is this going to Target the Right audience if we make it blue is it going to portray that personality that we started out trying to achieve I do this thing with our clients which is really simple when we start working with them after the strategy call part of like our sort of mini mini strategy package that we provide them we have a brief just like a brand story about who they are and then we also have a goal and a

00:58:56 - 00:59:51

challenge and it'll be like 60 words for each just outlining exactly what we're trying to achieve and then outlining exactly what the challenge is and if they say no no I want it blue I'll go back if I truly don't think it should be blue for whatever reason I think it shouldn't be blue I'll go back look this was the goal these are what we're trying to achieve this is why I don't think it should be blue because it's not achieving that goal yeah so just really tying into those like initial ideas and

00:59:24 - 01:00:16

goals and challenges that we're trying to achieve there's a there's a really cool technique that a friend of mine Fabian G halter shared with me and he's a fantastic brand strategist and he his whole career is strategy and he was showing me if you get like if you get like an A4 sheet of paper like in in landscape for those that are listening to this and you go online and you just type in like rainbow bar or the color spectrum you know what I'm talking about how it goes from like red all the way

00:59:50 - 01:00:50

through to like ultraviolet or whatever he said put that in the middle of the page go on to Google and then go and find all of your competitors logos and click and drag them onto this canva or whatever platform you're using and pay close attention to what colors they're using so we did this with a skydiving brand called manufactury and he was like it has to be red and black and I was like cool man but like are you okay if I go do some research I go online I research every skydiving brand in his area and guess

01:00:19 - 01:01:18

what black and red and I click and drag them all onto this sheet like 50 of them and like two of them were like blue and like one was yellow and I put them on this spectrum and everything around the red zone is just like chocas with all these different logos and then the rest of the rainbow is kind of empty and I was like dude this whole rainbow is contested over here in the red do you have any inclination to be somewhere else when he could physically see it he's like oh we are fitting in we do

01:00:49 - 01:01:39

have to be different and then we decided to not add a different color but we went in a different direction it was just black and white but used geometry and shapes and patterns to make it really interesting so that then when we put it on the Spectrum he was like the one brand that stood out it's just a quick exercise you can do I love that yeah that's great the other thing that you can do as well is go to all their websites and look at their keywords that they commonly use like we're trustworthy

01:01:14 - 01:02:00

we have the best quality like try to find their phrasing and then put the phrasings under their logo and then you start to realize other pattern like they're all saying that they're the best they're all saying that they're about Freedom or whatever the thing is if if you can have your message and even color palette just different that's enough to kind of start with yeah no I love that that's such a great way when he shared that with me I was like I'm stealing that is so great and it works yeah again

01:01:36 - 01:02:37

like that could be this is me my reason why brand should be standing out is because so many typically go clusters in the one spot like Financial brands are like blue and green totally because of this like idea of what your trustworthy should look like in a funny way like I've thought about it so often and you know like even as simple as like like a black letter font Gothic you know very kind of Iggy historical feeling like you know a Timeless font yeah you Google it yeah it's a beautiful font in a funny

01:02:08 - 01:03:07

way I don't know else is getting too deep who decided that that should be that feeling true like I've thought about this so much like who decided that red feels like anger and love like it's such a weird concept and contextual right so like if you go to someone was telling me in Cambodia men wear bright pink cuz they don't associate bright pink to a gender right so you know how in Western culture it's like blue is for boys pink is for girls typically in Cambodia dudes are flying around on bright pink motorcycles

01:02:37 - 01:03:32

bright pink helmets and sounds like my kind of people they don't care right but here's the thing is in their culture pink doesn't mean what it means to us yes and if you go to Japan you know it's it's different with you know black cats being lucky there versus black cats being a sign of bad luck here so cult like I think culture can play into color in a weird way and history and just like everything about that yeah I've thought about it often like why why do we say that this font provides that feeling but

01:03:05 - 01:04:04

in a way like now at this point in life and time it does like it just does and I think it's about trying to like lick with death flip it on its head and trying to like be that different brand and Persona in the industry cuz if you went back to ancient Rome people might see that font and go that's ghastly you know yeah exactly different culture right yeah yeah so you say that you need to inject all of you into what you do when you're building Brands some people say that you have to separate yourself

01:03:34 - 01:04:40

from your brand to do the work how do you reconcile that difference in of opinion o is this when I'm branding identities yeah like in terms of my personal Pion and then also theirs yes ah again you could talk touch on both yeah yeah yeah it's challenging I have a bit of a system you know I do think at the end of the day they're a paying client like if they are so set on something I I have like a three rule system like if you tell them three times they still want to go for it like although we can say like these are the

01:04:07 - 01:05:00

reasons why we think it shouldn't be blue yeah you know and this is the research we've done of why it shouldn't be blue if they still go back say no you visually showcase to them a blue version and also the version you think it should be and then hopefully you're like trying to push them to the version you think it should be but yeah give them around three three kind of responses if they still like dead set No it should be blue like three warning shots and then you're like at the end of the day they're

01:04:34 - 01:05:24

paying clients you have to just let them have it and and kind of just take your hands off and be like okay and I mean like you know you never know they could be they could be right as well they could be that it could be go so well for them because they have all the other Wheels on the on the car turning so well that it actually really works for them so yeah it depends on so many factors but it's just about asking why you want to do these things A visual representation really does help you know

01:04:58 - 01:05:52

they'll say like can we make it blue you make it blue but you also show them what you think it should be because of the market your research and most of the time they go they go oh yeah okay yeah it shouldn't be blue that looks terrible like no let's do pink one thing I learned from Chris do that that really helped is he calls it mob medium spicy yes I love have you tried doing that I've heard about this yeah yeah this went really bad for me one day did it yeah really bad I've had some bad goes

01:05:25 - 01:06:20

at it takes a you got to get your reps in and then you start to figure it out but what we find is when we do mild medium spicy we show them what exactly they ask for first so when you're doing your mood board you're like hey this is exactly what you ask for you ask for blue you asked for Frills and embellishments and gold flakes or whatever it is this is what that looks like yeah I just want to show you what would happen if we kind of brought in some of the other things that you mentioned around this kind of energy

01:05:53 - 01:06:45

then you go into that and you show them what that looks like then you go into spicy and it and it's like the way we do spicy is hey look I just wanted to tell you that if if I was like to come and work for you full-time and and be really invested in this brand this is kind of how I would take the brands and some of the reasons why again it can backfire cuz if they're like I just wanted this why are you doing all this other stuff it can get a little tricky but often times people are pretty open-minded

01:06:19 - 01:07:18

potentially to see a range and then you can give the client like a I guess like an option to tell you that goldilock Zone yes I I do love that concept like I think it's so powerful we tried it one time this is kind of a whole another story but like we told the client we were going to provide three concepts mild medium and spicy for this packaging design and so we provided them three concepts M medium and spicy yeah and they came back and they were like this isn't three concepts this is just three

01:06:49 - 01:07:43

different ways of doing the same design and I was like oo and I it really got to me they completely just shut the project down didn't even give us another chance I I even said look I'll literally do it for free like I want to get this right for you I genely care about it um and they just was straight up no they were like we don't trust you at this point and it was a real big burn but it really taught me I was like it taught me what is a concept you have to make it so clear to a client before they sign on

01:07:16 - 01:08:15

and continue with you like exactly what this concept is because you could claim most concept like a lot of Concepts if you showcase three designs yes it could be three concepts but also could be three variations of the same design in a funny way like what is a concept so like that taught me a lot and I was like that that actually is the reason why we don't do the mild medium anym we we had that happen once or twice and I think you have to our lesson there was like it has to be so vividly different in its

01:07:46 - 01:08:42

execution yeah if they see the same assets repeated in any way like the same color palette or the same font selection or the same assets they get upset so we try to go okay different shapes different textures different lighting different colors and create a range but I you know that's the thing with some clients is is sometimes just just doesn't work yeah yes yeah and it hurts cuz we love what we do like as designers you don't fall into design because you have to do it you do it because you love

01:08:14 - 01:09:06

it so when people come back with that feedback man it hurts like not going to lie to next hour's like we're okay we've got this yeah there's moments where you're like I gave that everything I had how do you troubleshoot difficult clients what are what is some of your go-to tactics one of them as simple as like take the emotion out of it that's something that my dad taught me and I've I'm I would say I'm a reasonably emotional person so I've leared that to

01:08:40 - 01:09:41

just try and remove emotion and look at things from a very like like easy way fresh way like black and white look at things black and white and just try and make it really clear to the clients what the next steps should be and how to resolve that problem in the case of that client like there was just the trust was gone straight away and I knew I was like if I do this now I'm going to get this right for them but they just straight away was like n this is it for you sorry about that and yeah man it hurts but again God I lost you've

01:09:11 - 01:10:06

done it you've done a great job here it's like the troubleshooting tactics right and you touch on something which is acknowledgement have you heard of the ace method no I haven't so so we use what's called Ace which is acknowledge clarify educate so what I find always you know rubs a client the wrong way is if they say I'm disgruntled and then you say I don't agree with you and they're like but I'm disr like they just El they it escalates and I learned this when I

01:09:38 - 01:10:30

was selling Insurance cuz like insurance is quite intense you have to if a client has a comp a complaint call around their policy you just acknowledge the fact that they're upset you're like okay cool I'm with you I'm here to listen tell me more tell me more tell me more and usually you see their temperature come down when you just acknowledge them then you go cool you mind if we clarify or get distinct on a few things sure look I think we may have gone Wayward when I picked up these key phrases and kind of

01:10:04 - 01:11:01

ran with it maybe ran too far with it but just to clarify I was trying to stick to the brief I just maybe grabbed the wrong ingredients and was trying to make the wrong cake batter you want a chocolate I made vanilla with sprinkles yes cuz I just didn't see the fine print so let's go back and let's revisit that and get clear on the parts of the strategy that you really want to focus on so clarify where you've where in the process you went Wayward and then you educate them on the next steps and this is where it

01:10:32 - 01:11:16

can get a little spicy so in the event let's just say the client's gone out of three rounds of revision you've presented three logos they've rejected them three more rejected them three more rejected them then they're out of their rounds of revision I'm sure you have something like that so then you're like okay what do we do now cuz they're not selecting something they're out of rounds of revision so you need to educ educate the client on the next step look you're out of rounds of revision and

01:10:55 - 01:11:47

this is where you can have some negotiation power right look you don't have a fourth round and clearly you know if you want to go back and rework the strategy we're going to have to go back to that part of the process and you're going to have to pay for that again alternatively I could do this yes that's usually where you you put a bit of pressure on the client and they're like this sucks you take the foot off the gas and you're like I'll do one more round but I need to be very very vividly clear

01:11:21 - 01:12:16

on what we're doing here do you mind if I just ask you some really tough questions and we re Workshop a bit of this then they say yes then you can jump back in i' I've found out you've been able to we've been able to reel back clients with that kind of conversation yes and it's that like clarifying exactly what's next and just being so open and honest again you being understanding is a big one you're not going to go like oh what the like why you're out arounds deal with it you

01:11:48 - 01:12:41

know you signed a contract you know doesn't work that's not a way to go so yeah it's being so like really understanding to them and to be honest and I don't know if it was in one of your podcasts you said at the end of the day in business if something goes wrong it's your mistake and I actually so beli that like I'm a big learner for my mistake so like the the guy you know the guys with the three concept that eror was on me that wasn't their fault like I learned a lot from that so if you can

01:12:14 - 01:13:10

understand what you did wrong understand them and acknowledge both right I acknowledge you're frustrated I acknowledge I went wrong somewhere let's clarify it and let's let's educate ourselves The Next Step definitely and there's a term called gracious intent which I learned from someone and it's all about approaching someone's feedback or even like negative review negative anything with gracious intent they're not coming at this with like I'm trying to absolutely tear you down here they're

01:12:43 - 01:13:32

trying to give you the best feedback possible so if you can to approach something with gracious intent intent you're going to understand them more so if you can he them provide that understanding then provide the clear communication about the next steps we had an interesting experience of the client recently where she went past the three rounds of revisions in the contract they sign on the fact that there is only well there's only two with us and then from there it's an hourly rate and although they sign on it

01:13:08 - 01:13:56

although it's on their invoice like their deposit invoice it's everywhere they don't want to do it they get offended well we just we just went for it and I didn't tell her she'd gone over the two revisions and I should have for sure like now I know that I should be her and you're like yo pretty much I said hey look near the end of the project I said oh we've actually gone over like 30 hours of extra visions and she was like oh what like what and she couldn't believe it and I was I was told

01:13:31 - 01:14:24

her you know that's the new contract Etc but she came back you know obviously quite upset about it um but then I learned like you know you have to be so clear if you want a really good customer experience although it's in the contract although it's there be like double clear on everything like I know now if they're going to go over make sure you tell them even though they sign on it like technically they signed on it so you sort of you're like hey you probably should pay this but it's like better for

01:13:58 - 01:14:49

the doubt so maybe they didn't read it they're busy whatever yeah yeah so you just have to be so clear about the next steps and I always look at things in terms of bad like or negative client experiences I would rather leave someone with a good taste in their mouth about my business so I'll do whatever I can to make it right even that client where we got the they just straight up said no I don't want to go forward anymore I was like what can we do to make this right like just in the end I think we gave

01:14:23 - 01:15:14

them like 50% of the deposit back and although some people might put their hands up and be like why aren't give giving yourself away for free like for me I literally care more about the person's experience and what they're then going to go say to their peers or like you know people in their industry you know we had we didn't get the you know solution we wanted with pink pony creative but she did deal with the situation really well and we you know we're it's great so I'd rather that than

01:14:49 - 01:15:42

money I'm with you I think you know we're in an industry where we're kind of providing art in many ways for people and it's like our our craft our you know injection of creativity into the world and we you know typically in The Branding space I I I know seldom people who run branding agencies that are all about the money yes usually they get a kick out of the creative and they want to see things do well and when you put something out there in the world like you want to cheerlead and be like come

01:15:15 - 01:16:10

on let's go like I hope this works for you and when it comes to troubleshooting issues you know sometimes internally the team can get Negative right they can start like bickering and about the CL and we have a rule here at rival where it's like you know the client has given us in some cases like their life savings or a sold a car or whatever to come on board and work with us they're in a painful predicament they might be irrational we've shaken hands with them we've promise to deliver like it's our

01:15:43 - 01:16:50

duty and obligation to give them an amazing experience even if we lose money and I I learned from my mentor one of one of two my mentors Mike Jer he said the way he ran his agency CU he had 8 86 employees he worked with Disney he did Brat's he did shreking like amazing guy he worked ATX Studios he he was saying to me look the way I run my agency Daye is I want to make sure everyone has a phenomenal experience if I lose 10 15 grand on a project that's on me yeah I misquoted misjudged the client and Mis

01:16:16 - 01:17:01

articulated what we needed to do I'll wear it and I'll give them an amazing experience so long that at the end of every quarter we're in the green yeah so he's like you got to take L's but he's like over the career of 15 years of running an agency he's like my L's decreased and my W's increased because I just got better at calculating oh this type of client's probably going to go over scope this type of client's probably going to be quick and easy you

01:16:39 - 01:17:35

just get better at judging it yeah oh definitely yeah it's a really challenging thing to navigate and like I I do I'm a big believer and it was my husband who told me this which we I'm lucky to be in this position where he was able when I started the business to he look if you don't make any money I've got you so we're so I'm so lucky for that because without that foundation and support I could imagine how hard it would be you know if you didn't if you went over and you didn't get paid for

01:17:07 - 01:18:09

that extra work that would be so stressful maybe you can't pay rent that week but that like the understanding of not being like so dependent on the the money and the cost like has changed the game for me which I again feel so blessed that we are in that position for but it's just allowed me to really understand the whole customer experience and like try and build the best relationships possible no matter what's happened that we've only had a very small handful that have like not gone as

01:17:37 - 01:18:27

planned so yeah I mean every agency does have those small little like few groups of people but if you can you leave those interactions with that good taste in your mouth or they can do the same no matter the outcome I think that's like the key thing really and also protecting yourself from the crazy clients you know so like Grant card own has this really funny quote where he's like in business you want to get to the place where you're making you money so the client comes to you and you're like this

01:18:03 - 01:18:49

kind of character is a little crazy you know what I don't want to work on this project if you can get your business to that place obviously it's not easy to get there but if you can get to that place it's really powerful to be like I'm not working on your project and I've had people throw you know 60 80 $90,000 quotes of me for jobs and I've just turned around and said no and they're like why not I'm like I just know where this is going to go this is going to be a nightmare project it's not worth the

01:18:26 - 01:19:21

pain no thank you and some people are like what you turn that down I'm like you don't understand like if a project goes in disarray in The Branding space it's really difficult because you're meddling with someone's business and it's very personal yes it is so personal yeah so so personal so regarding your personal brand and what you're doing you know I love the name I think it's incredible how did you come up with the name Pink Pony and and why pink people ask me this a lot I even for a long time

01:18:54 - 01:19:52

I still get asked can you name my business I was like I call my business pink pony do you really want me name your business it was coming back to the childhood thing like I just drew on things that I loved as a kid I was a horse rider for like many years of my life loved pink and when I started the business I actually started it as this 100 day design Challenge and to keep myself accountable I opened this Instagram page and I was like oh should put a cool name on it so I decided I had a list of names but I kept coming back

01:19:22 - 01:20:17

to Pink Pony I love alliteration just great anyway it has a good mouth feel it's fun to say pink pony yeah yeah so I just was like I'll stick with it and even when I started the business I didn't realize how much I would dive into the whole aesthetic of a pink pony like I was at first I was like I will never have any ponies literally anywhere because I thought that was going to be tacky and cheesy and too much for the brand I thought it was just going to be pink but then as I like evolved and grew

01:19:50 - 01:20:52

the ponies just came on in and I was like can't stop it it's very distinctive very memorable it's playful some character to it I like in a funny way say that that that's my kind of like sort of summary of how to create a brand name what was your favorite animal and what was your favorite color as a kid you've got your business name that's not actually my we could try that you know yeah so for you how how do you want to be remembered in this space oo well that's a good question I would love to

01:20:20 - 01:21:23

be remembered as someone who doesn't do whatever on our is doing both in my own business in my personal brand and for other brands because for so long in my design career when I was working for other people and establishing my own career trying to figure out who I was I thought I needed to be this like really modern clean looking aesthetic that most people had and even like 10 years ago if I was looking at the stuff I do now I'd be like what the that is so cool like I'd be like mindblowing that I have this

01:20:53 - 01:21:47

Pink brand with a giant plastic horse myou office work with these epic Brands all over the world like amusement park Brands and like all this crazy I'd be like I didn't even know that was like literally possible so I want to be I would love to be remembered as someone who like would be so authentically herself and that's what made it work for her own business and her brand yeah that that's that would be great but no well said well said what's a quote or Mantra that you've carried with you on your

01:21:20 - 01:22:18

journey that you wished everyone listening to this would immediately Implement oh there's two that I always say without a doubt one of them is you're far too smart to be the only thing standing in your own way which I love so good and the other one is opportunity dancers with those on the Dance Floor wow another one I love both little little very eloquent very beautiful yeah yeah the opportunity dances with those in the dance Flor one I've taken on a lot like you have to put yourself out there little confession so

01:21:48 - 01:22:36

when cam when I messaged cam saying I love that you've got all these like woman Cam's the media producer behind the and I said like awesome you've got these like I love seeing and hearing the stories from the female Founders and she was like Hey look would love to have be on the podcast like are you coming to Australia anytime soon I was like yeah yeah I'm coming in August I wasn't coming in August I was like I want to come do the podcast so I like I I have an employee here so it made it so

01:22:12 - 01:23:06

easy of course like I came over also to see her but I hadn't had this planned I was like no yeah yeah that's plann this is an opportunity I'm not going to miss so you have to like put yourself out there and do these things that like sometimes cost you money but also like it can get you some cool opportunities there yeah so I was like I think it's a really cool quote to Love by yeah beautiful I love that and yeah we we're putting a lot of energy into that as well because we we just see so much

01:22:39 - 01:23:34

talent in the in the female Market when it comes to entrepreneurs and we're like dude we want to put them up in front of Lights capture their story and and learn from them I think it's been awesome so far people have been blowing my mind yes I mean BR like Britney swanders is just like on another label I love hearing yeah she's crazy so funny and just absolutely making fun of me the whole pod I love it I was like where is this coming from this is awesome okay when you wake up in the morning what keeps

01:23:06 - 01:24:06

you going oh that's a deep question I would really consider myself like super deep so I'm like I don't know just good time overall I would say like I do I just want to be happy and like I genuinely am so content and happy with where I am in my life like I done things that I would never thought I would have got to do I thought the peak of my design career would be working for an agency for someone else designing like corporate stuff like earning reasonably good money but that's literally what I

01:23:37 - 01:24:37

thought my design career would have been and that's probably where it would have been if I didn't start my own business but like just general happiness like obviously we all have to make money um so that too but like that's just the bonus because I genuinely just love what I do I love creating a brand that is so authentically me and yeah I just yeah want to be happy as Chey as that sounds no I like it and I think you seem like someone who's just having a blast doing what they love you know connecting and

01:24:07 - 01:25:00

jelling with clients and their team and then doing creative cool stuff that makes you happy definitely and I actually think thinking about clients and like why we do what we do we have this little saying that we constructed with my team and it's we craft dreams into impact for realities F fueled by our passion for design that's what we do wow and that is why we do it because we like it's that it's that moment when you send off a brand proposal and the client is just like oh my God this is the best

01:24:33 - 01:25:36

thing ever it made me cry like that is so epic like yeah that's my favorite like seeing tears makes me so happy we we did a brand called let the dog eat and Taylor the guy who built the brand he does Combat Sports uh he's an ex marine and we made him tear up when we did the deliver and I was like we made a marine cry like how good is this and I think that's the moment where you know I get out of bed the next morning I'm like dude we crushed it yes we gave it everything and that person's life is

01:25:05 - 01:26:01

altered because of the creative injection that we gave them in their business yeah because a lot of the time their businesses again is like what they truly love and believe in so we visually get to bring that to life we bring that into a impactful dream that they've had so for them to see that and for them to react that way is like literally why we do what we do and in terms of business yeah it's it's amazing bringing tears of joy salty tears of joy damn it's good one last question for you what's a door

01:25:33 - 01:26:36

you're trying to kick in in the business realm right now I never thought I'd have a team for example so the thought of me being a boss like as I've I've had to overcome things that I never thought I would do I think the next level where I'd like to take the business I don't want to have a I can't I I to be honest I don't want to have an agency with 30 people that's not my goal what I would like to have and the door that I'm trying to kick down is to have a well oiled well well running

01:26:04 - 01:27:03

business that I can maybe step away from and it just runs smoothly that would be the ultimate goal so it's figuring out those ways to achieve that is is a challenge like it's a real challenge especially when I'm so part of the brand and so immersed of it immersed in it and I find it really hard to let go because I care about it so much that is like the big door that I'm trying to kick down I like we tried to hire a project manager and I found that really difficult because I think I was looking for me in

01:26:34 - 01:27:21

someone else in a funny way and that was challenging and we didn't really find the right person so I think like to have a key member that would which actually I've got my sister on the team she was already working for me so she's going to take more of that load and we'll just see how we go there and if we find that the load's getting really heavy for her we'll hire someone else we'll hopefully hire a project manager maner but yeah finding those key people that aren't

01:26:57 - 01:27:48

designers to be able to have that well oiled running machine is the big door I'm trying to knock down yeah well I ABS I absolutely hope that you knock that door down and one thing I heard recently which which someone sh shared with me for a similar thing right when you're having you know that moment in your business where you're like I want to be able to delegate more effectively win some time back and go away for a couple weeks and have a holiday and not have a panic attack right um they said to me

01:27:23 - 01:28:23

try to replace parts of yourself yes with a small group and I found that more effective cuz if you go okay this part of myself if I could just have someone be better at me at this part and delegate that hat and then the next part and he said usually people have to break themselves into three to five parts yeah I found that helps me and I've just tried to take pieces of myself and replace those pieces because it's going to be rare to have someone as entrepreneurial come in to that role unless unless they take Stakes totally

01:27:53 - 01:28:45

which I can so understand like of course yeah but it's such a challenging thing and I mean it's brutal I'm trying to do it too man the higher the whole higher like hiring people and interviewing people I find really difficult like trying to figure out a person what in a couple of hours or like you know do one interview and then another can be so challenging because people can be so different in those moments like when they're nervous or you know ET whatever it might be like it's a really

01:28:19 - 01:29:08

challenging thing and I'm I'm slowly overcoming that and and getting there figure out please tell me oh I don't think I will well thank you so much Christie I can't believe you flew all this way I'm honored that you're here for the PO and and you absolutely brought it today and uh we're excited to release this and and yeah just love your energy your passion and just how much you're contributing to our industry you have a ton of fans here like people were fan Girling all the way

01:28:44 - 01:29:02

through the office they couldn't believe you were here so yeah you're you're really inspiring a lot of people to go for it in their businesses and oh I really appreciate stoked with that