Birds of a Feather
It’s the time of year when, many days, you can look to the sky and see birds migrating South. It’s part of nature’s rhythm, signaling summer's passing and winter's nearing. Most hardly consider it. But if you watch, it’s a beautiful experience—their wings shimmering in the sunlight as they glide across the sky, arranged in formation. It’s pretty striking. And, to think, they make this several-thousand-mile trip without modern technology!
As an aside, check out the National Audubon Society's Bird Migration Explorer, a beautiful interactive data visualization charting the seasonal migration patterns of more than 450 species of birds in the Western Hemisphere.
This phenomenon provides a compelling analogy for the value of brand architecture. Just as birds significantly benefit from flying in formation, brands can proverbially “take flight” by aligning their various products and services and conveying a unified identity. Here are some parallels between birds in migration and effective brand architecture.
Clear communication
Flying in formation assists with communication and coordination within the flock. The birds respond in real-time to change—whether expected or unexpected—ensuring they remain in formation for the long haul. Brands are no different. Clear communication is critical as companies diversify their offerings, enter new markets, or expand product lines. It ensures customers can quickly and easily identify and connect with each offering while understanding how it relates to the whole.
Increased efficiency
Birds flying in formation reduce the energy they expend by reducing drag and allowing them to arrive at their destination faster. If there’s a tell-tale sign of a growing company that could benefit from embarking on a brand architecture effort, their branding is all over the place. Marketing teams are spending so much energy keeping up with the firehose of requests that they can’t take the time to stop and consider the bigger picture of how everything works together. But when you can begin to operate within a defined formation, you streamline efforts, opinions, and direction across the company, making the most of your brand.
Increased alignment
Flying in formation makes it easier to keep track of every bird in the group. A visually consistent brand architecture signals professionalism and reliability. Customers are more likely to trust a brand that presents a cohesive image, even when it expands its offerings. Alignment is essential for companies with rapidly evolving divisions, initiatives, events, and offerings—and it can help increase your revenue between 10% and 20%.
Better protection against threat
Birds in formation more easily defend against predators as they can spot threats from every direction. Predators refrain from attack as they see the group as a more significant threat. The same goes for brands. It’s much easier to miss what your competitors are doing at individual levels or for competitors to win over your prospects and customers if you have a disconnected set of offerings and initiatives.
Brand architecture for growth
Many organizations mistakenly assume brand architecture doesn’t matter if they're rapidly growing. While in some edge cases, this could be true. However, I’d wager that, in most cases, times of growth (product line expansion or diversification, expansion into new markets, mergers & acquisitions, etc.) are the most critical time to ensure you’re communicating and operating with clarity.
Recently, I partnered on a brand architecture project with a client who offers financial planning software to organizations. I was part of the team that rebranded their organization just as the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe. However, less than a year later, the company had grown significantly and was poised to scale even more rapidly through a mid-nine-figure private equity investment. While I was elated the brand identity we designed helped fuel their growth to this point, I was pleased they weren’t ones to rest on their laurels. Instead, through some collaborative workshops, their leadership recognized their brand was getting lost amidst the growth of new initiatives, teams, and offerings. They understood, very astutely, that the time to invest in clarifying the brand was now.
We began by auditing each of the touchpoints along the customer journey. We also examined how internal teams were organized and how they might better support one another by realigning—driving efficiency throughout the organization—and making the customer experience more streamlined.
By seeing things through internal and external lenses, we could better re-organize parts of the company for more evident understanding from prospects and customers and more efficient ways of working for employees and teams. Once we mapped the divisions, we designed sub-identities for each part of the company, ensuring each pointed back to its foundational brand gesture for consistency.
By re-aligning during rapid growth, they steered away from confusion and toward clarity. Away from silos toward collaboration. And away from growth for growth’s sake to an intentional plan to provide better experiences and continue dominating the market.
Is your brand getting lost in your organization’s growth? Are you or your team feeling the pressures of inefficiency? Are you confusing—or worse, losing—customers through disconnected offerings?
By investing in brand architecture, organizations can navigate the complexities of their evolving landscapes and establish a lasting impression in the minds of customers and employees. Drop me a note if you’d like to discuss how brand architecture might help solve your organization’s challenges.