We, as consumers, are all trying to be more ‘good’ - choosing fair trade or organic products, recycling and composting our rubbish, looking at green energy solutions for the home…Brand owners too are very conscious of not only giving the consumer what they want but proving that they too are committed to being and doing good on a corporate level. Many brands and business are embracing the trend of goodness by adopting Carbon Neutral policies or by giving to charity either as a direct donation or through a donation scheme on the purchase of product. Having a corporate social conscience and being fiscally responsible now goes hand in hand. But, are our brand choices influenced by the charity or good initiative being supported? Or, has it already become meaningless as long as the brand is seen to be doing good and not just appearing good through PR or spin? And, this is the key, to being successful with today’s consumer, brands need to use honest communication to show real integrity and meaning. But does integrity and meaning also ‘say’ desirability? Moving forward, how can brands remain really good? – and desirable?

Worthy v. good
Perhaps one of the greatest brand success stories within the UK has been the growth of Green & Black’s which is now also doing very well Stateside. Green and Black’s has successfully repositioned itself from a purely worthy chocolate brand to a mainstream and luxury brand and is a good example of the challenge and paradox facing brand owners wanting to move into or increase their market presence within the ‘good’ arena. How to cement the positioning of a worthy product as a desirable brand? Whilst worthy may be today’s outward expression of goodness, we also want brands to have goodness at their very heart and to be ultimately good in everything they say, do and deliver. There may not be an ultimate way to be good but we maybe do need to question whether today’s brands are embracing goodness and looking at the bigger and more holistic picture?

Challenger brands such as Green & Black’s are managing to lead the way simply because goodness is fundamental to their brand truth. Which prompts the question how do already established brands stay focused on their brand truth and also look at answering this new moral need?’ Essentially, we do not believe that these brands need to totally reinvent themselves but it would appear that they are not fully embracing goodness and that this may be where the opportunities lie. Green & Black’s has always had a strategically-led visual identity and the focus on design to convey the key ‘good’ messages has led the advertising, marketing and PR campaigns and the resulting sales success speaks for itself. Moving forward, we believe that brands should not forget the power of design and that there is a very real opportunity for both new and existing brands to use design to build in goodness and desire.

Design and desire
Essentially, what brand owners must not forget is that brand success is firmly rooted in the power of consumer desire and that design and desire are remarkably similar words and very closely connected if the designer successfully understands and translates human behaviour. In the product and innovation cycle, design is the key interface between brand and consumer and packaging is the tangible medium the brand has with which to communicate its message and build in an elements of goodness. This may, of course, be easier with some of the start-ups but does not mean that the established big boys cannot also capitalise on this trend.

Good Brands
Anheuser Busch has made a recent push into the ‘conscious’, or ‘goodness’, market with an organic/local/green beer called Wild Hop. A venture masterminded by Anheuser Busch and a small California brewery, Wild Hop uses ingredients from co-opt organic farmers in the area. The design reflects the nature of the product and moves away from the more traditionally symbolic and graphic cues associated with lager labelling to embrace a pictorial design reflecting the hop and how and where it is grown. On top of this, the packaging is 100% recycled materials.

Water brands are, of course, goodness personified and whilst they are undoubtedly the new money spinners, what is really giving one the competitive edge over another? Biota Water is positioned as the US’ premium spring water and boasts the ‘planet friendly’ strapline. The graphic design is simple and reflective of the message and whilst graphics and naming have the power to directly convey what’s good and what’s not, brand owners should remember that design can also be built in, as per Wild Hop and Biota, through structure, form and materials. In fact, most notably for Biota, is that they have partnered with Natureworks PLA the leading manufacturer of 100% sustainable packaging. A clear plastic made from corn starch, PLA packages are compostable when they disintegrate under high heat after 75 days. With Biota, the focus feels very much about not just about the product or the packaging but the whole thing – indeed, the whole is very much greater than the sum of the parts. This is real integrity and real meaning and not just lip service or short-term solutions.

And this is the key to goodness being successful for your brand. Brands cannot just imply good values. If the packaging and the product offer do not marry then the brand message becomes confused and fragmented. The challenge to designers moving forward will be to take more responsibility and ensure that what they offer is holistic and not gimmick.

And what of the luxury brand sector? The consumer desire for goodness is based on being more open and honest and transparent whilst the luxury sector, by its very nature, is exclusive rather than inclusive and possibly not as visible about its corporate social responsibility or its good philosophy. For example, How many of us know that Chanel’s fragrance production is underpinned by a truly good initiative with an exclusive commitment to Grasse, the local French community, where its flowers are grown and harvested? It is definitely time for brands such as Chanel to address more than their brand face and understand that luxury today is not about money but about connection; about merging business and our collective health, wealth, environment, culture, commerce in a more seamless and transparent way. In contrast, LA based ‘eco luxury’ designer Linda Loudermilk blends eco-conscious choice into the world of luxury goods and is being feted as ‘nu-luxury’ simply because the brand is rooted in luxury but inherently ethical.

The future of goodness
The expression of goodness will keep changing and brands need to recognize that there will continue to be many ways to be good and that goodness is more than just skin deep and needs to be about behaviour and everything the brand says, does and delivers. However, if they focus on what is right for their brand truth and put the focus on design, as an honest and meaningful way of promoting their good message, then they should be in a phenomenal position to build in goodness, seduce the consumer and create and maintain consumer desire moving into the future.

About the author
Jonathan Ford is designer and co-founder of Pearlfisher, a future-focused design consultancy in London and New York.

This article was originally published in the July 2006 issue of Step inside design magazine.

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