On the mark

Just over a week ago, Integral Identity celebrated its second anniversary, so I thought I’d celebrate by sharing our story with you.

About two years ago, I was bitten by a strong case of entrepreneurial fever. At the time, I was a freelance graphics designer, and I had been studying marketing and economics academically with a view towards securing a BBA. I had two clients that were interested in benefiting from this added knowledge on my part, and at the same time, I was discovering and studying the somewhat obscure, if critical, marketing discipline of brand strategy. I decided I had enough critical mass to launch a brand consulting firm ala Landor Associates or Lippincott Mercer, providing the usual mix of creative (graphics design and naming) and strategic services, and with the help of two backers, was able to launch the business.

My vice chairman from those days, Steven E Hill, gets the credit for coining the name, which, while exceeding the “five syllable rule” advocated so heavily by some of the more opinionated corporate identity commentators, is a name that has continually grown more relevant to our business as time has passed, which is wonderful, in that most corporate names tend to move in the opposite direction, becoming less relevant with the passage of time. I think Integral Identity will only continual to be a name more relevant to what we do, as we help our clients make brand identity and design more integral to their business. Additionally, I think the name itself also reflects our opinion that design, as a discipline, needs to be more integrated, in that there really isn’t any reason why someone who has learned graphics or environmental design can’t also learn industrial design. Increasingly, the design offering of Integral Identity will be, well, integrated, so that our clients can benefit from a more or less seamless creative offering.

Beyond merely integrating branding however, I’ve become convinced that what is currently demanded is integrated brand experience. To advocate that, I made the decision earlier this year that Integral Identity would move beyond being an essentially communications-oriented branding agency to being a more broadly focused brand experience consultancy. Our goal is to be able to advise clients on every internal and external aspect of their brand experience, ranging from employee recruitment and training procedures to the lighting fixtures used at their customer service desk, to the tone of voice used in investor communications. I believe that this level of attention to detail and integration lies at the heart of the compelling brand experiences that companies such as Target and Apple deliver, that have received so much press in recent years, and that having a single consultancy that can help clients bring consistent excellence to all of them is the best way to make this kind of brand experience more ubiquitous.

This was a central theme of my visit to Ghana, in West Africa, earlier this year, where I provided training on the subject of holistic, integrated brand experience to clients such as Ghana Telecom and Unilever. Sadly, there are very few great brand experiences that the average Ghanaian comes into contact with, and I would love to see this concept grow, as limited resources allow, in the developing world.

On a final note, I’d like to apologize for the long delay between this and my previous post. I’d implore all of those (well, all two of them) that are tempted to complain, to cut me some slack, as I have been busier in the past 20 days than I had imagined possible. I am presently at the Design Management Institute conference at the charming Equinox resort in Vermont, and hope to post a wrap-up of that conference in a few days time.

Until then, thanks for reading, and thanks for two wonderful years.