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Excerpt from Chapter 5
Use the Principles of Visual Identity
To Create a Powerful Self Brand Package
It may seem superficial. It may be unfair. We may not like it. After all, why should you by judged by how you look?
Self presentation – your visual identity -- is important because of the link people make between what something looks like on the outside and what is on the inside. This attitude has a long history. The ancient Greeks and Romans felt that beauty of the body was synonymous with beauty of the spirit.
But we even do this today despite all the admonitions we’re familiar with like, “Beauty is only skin deep” or “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” The fact is looks have a profound influence on how we judge a brand or a person.
Good looks also have what social scientists call the halo effect. Because something is attractive, we assign many other positive attributes to it that have nothing to do with looks.
“Package” Yourself
That’s why brand managers are masters of visual identity. The way something looks – visual identity – is often the point of first impact (and lasting impact) for a brand.
Product design and packaging are quick ways to communicate the brand message. They make something more interesting and memorable. They can even clinch the sale.
Though no words transpire, a brand’s packaging and design “speak” to us through its color, shape, design, and material. Brands speak through imagery and symbols in logos, packaging and advertising.
The visual elements of branding can cross language barriers and create a global brand.
It’s the same with people. Everything communicates visually. Your shoes to the watch you wear. Your hair style to your smile (or frown). Your home address to the car your drive. All these things say something about you, and contribute to the perceptions people form about you.
So, take a page from the master brander’s playbook and learn the secrets of visual identity, so you can impact how your self brand is perceived by others.
Speak Visually
Visual identity tells us whether a brand is expensive or cheap, fun or serious, unusual or commonplace. The way a brand is presented visually sells to us as adeptly as any salesperson (and maybe even better in many cases).
Packaging and design helps differentiate a brand among all the other brands vying for attention in the marketplace. And, like art, great design slows us down to admire and savor it, and want it for our very own.
Visual identity is such a powerful competitive tool today that even manufacturers and retailers of low priced brands are turning to well known artists, architects, designers or even celebrities to spiff up the design of their products. Target has Isaac Mizrahi and Michael Graves on its roster. K-Mart has Martha Stewart leading the pack. Wal-Mart has Mary Kate and Ashley. H&M has used Karl Lagerfeld and now the Beatle daughter, Stella McCartney has signed on to design clothes for the retail chain. Now, it’s chic for well-known designers and celebrities to have a low-priced line.
Impact the First Two Seconds
We are pegged in a matter of seconds. Good -- Bad. Hire- - Not hire. Hip – Stodgy. Successful – Loser. Like – Dislike.
It all happens in the first few seconds. We’ve all been there. The job candidate barely is in the door, and already we have sized him up. Maybe we’ve even eliminated the person as a contender for the job. Or we’re introduced to someone new at a party and we can’t get the person’s image out of our mind.
It’s all based on our snap visual impression: how someone enters the room, how they look, their clothes, how they carry themselves, their facial expressions and body language. We’ve made up our mind about who they are, what they are like (even what they are worth) and they haven’t said a word.
In Blink, Malcolm Gladwell talks about these snap judgments that social scientists call “thin slicing.” The interesting thing is that our instantaneous “thin slice” impression is usually the same as the impression we have of someone or something after longer exposure.
Gladwell cites the research of the Tufts professor, Nalini Ambady to prove it. Ambady has focused her research on the measuring the snap judgments people make from non-verbal clues such as sex, appearance, personality and relationships. And two seconds was all it took for people to develop a strong first impression. And in research, a person’s two-second blink-of-an-eye impression was pretty much the same as their long-term impression.
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