Busy brand designers, read this summary.
- Get clients to write brand testimonials how they want their brand to be experienced.
- 44% of AI citations come from the first 30% of a pages content.
- More inclusive marketing is doing things well.
- Be commercially confident. It helps elevate our work.
I’ll keep it brief today as when you take a day out of your small business there’s a heap to catch up on. But I wanted to get this down while it’s fresh in the mind.
Disclaimer: there will be typos.
How to combat brand lag.
Owen Jones from Upshot delivered a great talk about the drag brand can cause on a business when it doesn’t match reality.
We’re not just talking about visual identity but how a brand’s principles, and core values are reflected day to day. Over time there is a disconnect as markets change, consumers evolve, and a brand develops.
His solution was that the brand should lead the business and guide the way. How? By uncovering, or rediscovering it’s core values and putting them at the for front of it’s decision making process rather than an afterthought.
A great tangible takeaway was something that can work for brand designers’ own businesses or their clients: testimonials.
It sounds simple but getting people to write their own testimonials buts them in the customers shoes and gives a real insight into what they want people to like about them, and what they think is important.
Owen’s got a great book by the way – this isn’t an ad. I’ve read it and it’s full of useful case studies and tips for brand designers.
What’s really happening in AI search?
As a small business owner I am totally obsessed with how people find what I do. A big part of that is web search, and an increasing part of that is via AI agents and AI overviews.
Lee Macklin of Organic packed so much into a short workshop session but it was so necessary. The room was packed with marketeers and brand designers alike looking to get a handle on this more opaque area of how AI is changing the landscape.
First takeaway was that rankings aren’t really rankings anymore more. Being in the top 5 organic search results often means you are in the bottom half of a page, and people do not scroll.
Also AI overviews and searches show different results to the same queries around 70% of the time. And these different results often don’t reflect how well as page ranks for SEO. Feels a little hopeless right?
But fear not fellow brand designers – around half of all earth results still don’t feature AI overview and “traditional” SEO factors are still essential. Being away of AI search is like another layer to your SEO, not a replacement.
Backlinks are still important, good accessible structure is still key, and being to the point is essential as around 44% of AI citations are based on the first 30% of page content.
How This Feeds Into Neuroinclusive Marketing
I think an inclusive approach is essential to brand designers and marketeers looking to engage with the widest possible audience. And what was great to learn is that some of the elements that make for good AI friendly websites are great of inclusivity too.
Lerryn Clare from The Academe showed us a framework that championed directness and clarity when it came to copy and process: clear product recommendations, simple payment and delivery options, definite time frames, visible values.
These all sound simple, but they are often not easy to achieve. It takes time, but it’s worth it as these types of changes should improve the experience of all your customers, as well as neurodivergent customers.
A few tangible takeaways were:
- Don’t use words like “soon”, use definitive timings.
- Remove cognitive load by simplifying presentation.
- Use TL;DR (Too long; didn’t read) summaries at the start of articles.
- Be direct in your communications.
- There is no one size fits all approach to visual design, but it should be considered from the start.
If you want to learn more about inclusive design I’ve written a guide for brand designers and anyone else interested.
Simple isn’t easy.
My last insight came from Daryl Fielding‘s talk on brand, AI, and influencers.
It was a great talk that echoed many ideas of the day around simplicity being hard, and the value of brand as a guiding force, there was a key point that came up around being commercially confident.
Frequently people who work in creative fields such as marketing, or graphic design, or advertising aren’t given the same professional weight as finance officers, or operations managers. But everyone knows their work is important.
So as marketeers, or brand designers, or whatever title we (or others use) we need to ensure a deeper understanding of commercial aspects to business.
It helps us understand a brand’s challenges and their context, but importantly allows us to evaluate our work in the eyes of peers and clients in different professions. It shows we are creative people whose work is considered and should be taken seriously.
Being commercially confident and literate also allows us to push back on criticism and justify our decisions when necessary.
But wait there’s more…
There were so many other great talks during the day – I haven’t even covered all the keynotes or sessions so please feel free to suggest yours… or correct me if I got a speakers point wrong.
For me, what was interesting is that while the points I picked out feel different in intent, or where they come from, they actually are all underpinned by the same idea: working hard to do simple things well.
If we focus on that we make our brands stronger, more visible, inclusive and respected. If you want to discuss doing this for your business with an experienced brand designer, contact DC Design Works today.
