Brands should be delivering progress, not purpose.
A closer look at how Manifest approaches brand strategy, visual identity & design projects and how we build brands that change the world.
As a unified agency, we take on various projects, working with brands at different stages of their marketing lifecycle. In this article, we’re focusing on our branding & design team’s offering and how we use our propriety processes to build ‘progressive’ brands.
We are the home of progressive brands
We define & elevate brands that deliver progress on an individual, category and cultural level. We uncover the Big Brand Idea that helps us connect the dots between Insight, Strategy, Design and motion. This results in progressive brands that stand out through memorable, narrative storytelling.
Our holistic approach allows us to deliver through-the-line thinking when it comes to brands, where every touchpoint amplifies the next. We believe that our job shouldn’t end with a set of style guides, campaign guidelines or logo file handoffs and look to grow relationships with our clients through every level of the agency.
We believe in progress
Baked into every proposition, messaging and design idea we deliver is the ‘Progress’ delivered by the brand on an individual, category and cultural level. It’s this measurable progress that makes a brand significant and provides a bridge into our creative and campaign services.
There’s always been something about a ‘Purposeful’ brand that has never quite sat right. It feels too high and mighty. Too pretentious. I think it’s because Purpose (yeah, I’m cap ‘P’ing it) can often get confusing and overplayed with altruism for brands and consumers and is easily picked apart in brands that aren’t as ‘Purposeful’ as others. It can also oftentimes feel like a giant leap for brands when all that is needed is a small step.
For us, that’s why the ‘Progress’ a brand can deliver is a much more appealing metric. It’s tangible, measurable, less ambiguous and more unifying internally and on a consumer-facing level.
We believe in process
Our 3D process — Discover, Define + Deliver — provides a framework for our brand strategy projects. It’s here where our capabilities combine to create progressive brands.
Our process is one that’s been shaped over several years. It’s flexible enough to change with trends and markets in the future and adaptable enough to suit any brand at any stage of its life without it falling into a ‘cookie-cutter’ approach. One size does not fit all.
How we apply our process
We’re inspired by others in our industry such as Smith & Diction, An Open Understanding, Dixon Baxi, Basic & Mouthwash Studio and their openness and transparency when it comes to doing what they do, so here’s an under-the-hood look at our process.
Discover
Our fact-finding and immersion process see us delve into your brand, the category you’re in, the people that consume or interact with your brand and the cultural impacts and macro trends affecting them. This is all done through a mixture of desk research, site visits, immersion sessions, stakeholder interviews & surveys and various workshops.
Define
The accumulation and application of asking the right questions and looking in the right places, leaving us with results that are void of distraction and offer a profound experience.
Our strategists and designers work in tandem to build out strategic propositions and the visual direction of a project or brand.
At the end of this stage, we should have a definitive answer to the brief. If it’s a new brand, it will be a showcase of the new strategy and visual identity. If it’s an ATL campaign, it will be the presentation of the idea.
For a website, we’ll work through sitemaps, experience architecture and high res prototypes, ending in a presentation covering all the major pages & features.
Deliver
Where it all comes together. The process is non-linear so it might be that there are a few backward loops into the define stage but usually, there’ll be an agreed upon or preferred solution that we can then build on and get out there.
For websites, we use this stage to refine the design system, readying the prototype to the selected development partner.
What makes our delivery stage different is that we always see it as an opportunity to build a strong, ongoing relationship with our clients and to build through-the-line ideas rather than handing off files. Using our proprietary ABC Framework, we create a Marketing Comms Ecosystem that shows how the brand or campaign idea can work across PESO.
The ABC approach connects three key spheres of intelligence to build a unique market proposition for brands.
By first understanding the audience, then the brand capabilities and context before interrogating the significance of this on culture at large, we weave a narrative that finds the action in every transaction. A brand significance that bridges the gap between individual experience and cultural impact.
By revolving our work around a positive impact on the audience, we refrain from becoming insular or performative, and we provide our creative or brand brief with a direct mandate to drive significant change or ‘Progress’ in society.
Why do we do it?
We’d be remiss (and not very Simon Sinek-y of us) to not include ‘Why’ we do all of these things too. So, in the interests of transparency, here’s a few snippets from our brand team’s culture manual…
Making stuff should be fun. Because being able to buy a bag of coffee or a beer with your logo on it or see a billboard that has words you have written on it rules. Because making stuff that other people can use or feel a benefit from and that delivers real progress for the world is awesome.
What do we believe?
These are the core principles we refer to when undertaking every brand & design project at every stage.
Make it fun.
“I think it would be fun to run a newspaper”
Every project has the opportunity to be fun because every project is an opportunity to try something new.
Make it a collaboration.
“Innovation is the product of collaboration”
Ask for input. Know your limits — if someone can make it better, bring them in. From a client relationship perspective, share their vision — if you want to go farther, go together.
Keep it honest.
“Led Zepplin didn’t write tunes everybody liked, they left that to the Bee Gees.”
Believe in the work but don’t ‘be the work’. Learn to detach yourself from it and be able to see it objectively. Learn how to take and give constructive criticism.
Keep it simple.
“Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off.”
Simplicity is king. Don’t overcomplicate the process or your work. Express in 10 words what others say in 100. Design less, design better.
Be curious.
“Be curious, not judgmental”
Always ask why but never with an agenda.
Look further afield rather than what’s happening around you.
Seek first to understand, then be understood.
Be optimistic.
“Design is… an optimistic act, because everything we create is going to live in the future”
Think broader. Think through-the-line. Think about how we can grow a relationship, not just build a brand or launch a product.
If you want to know even more about our branding & design offering, our details are below or you can check out our dedicated Behance profile.
Want to become the next progressive brand? Drop us an email and we’ll chat all things brand & beyond.
