Integrity

My focus as a brand man / designer has always been directed more to the brand exterior - how things look, feel and smell. It recently dawned on me that i don't pay as much attention to the brand interior - how things work, why they work and who makes them work. The latter, Brand interior, is actually more important because this is what the exterior is meant to mirror because if it doesn't you end up with a brand that lacks integrity.

I attribute this to the fact that i majored in Art Direction (design) and our focus was always on making shit look cool, fresh, out of the box (hate that term), trendy, funky, innovative and any other term used make creative’s feel better about themselves and the work that they do.

And because myself and my partner have been running our agency like Jomo Sono runs his soccer club, i was not only the business owner, i was the head designer, art director, strategist and head client liaison, as a result the agencies entire culture and work ethic was modeled around me, so for the past 4years i have been running an agency that has produced a lot of slick looking work but if I’m honest with myself, most of it lacked integrity.

2009, the most challenging year in all my 27 years on this earth taught me a lot about integrity, both personally and professionally. Where i used to spend 20% of time on research and 80% on design on a particular project, i now try spend time on projects as follows, 40% on research and 30% on design/concept and 30% on actualisation. The results have been rewarding.

When you take time discover current truths and unearth the real goals and objectives, strengths and weaknesses of yourself or a brand it is then very easy to design the exterior because you have a map. People and brands who represents themselves truthfully stand a better chance of success because people buy into the promise (brand exterior) and when the actual product delivers on its promise then the transaction is very successful and sustainable.

The image?

Mcdonalds. Is it a successful brand? Financially, yes. Is it a brand with integrity? No. So why does integrity matter? It matters because you can only lie to people for so long before they see through the lies and revolt. With Mcdonalds its even worse because their product not only give the consumer a skewed and false sense of satisfaction, it kills them. How is that sustainable?

Image by Bansky

Love & kindness nourishes the soul. Passion & patience nurtures greatness.

Ta,

JK

What do you know about African Swagger!

Brands that are built inside out will always shine brighter than those that are solely defined by the world within which they exist. Our brilliance is in our resilience, unwavering pride in face of adversity.

king of bling & King of hearts

Lamborghini’s, Choppers, Patron, purple bow ties and velvet shoes to match! I don’t think we have ever seen a more flamboyant young South African than Willian "Mashobane" Mbatha. Ostentatious, rich young black South Africans we may have plenty of but I’m yet to see one as extravagant and as stylish as Mashobane.

The thing I find most interesting about Mashobane is that even after the much publicised criminal charges against him the black youth still love and see him as a hero. Check out the article here.

Im not here to pass judgement on whether or not he deserves the praise but I do think his story is an interesting case for the power of brands.

On the one hand Mashobane has been spotted chilling with the likes of R.Kelly and Akon and cruising the streets of Johannesburg in some of the most expensive sports cars the world has to offer. On the other hand he has this Robin Hood persona – owns a club in Artridgeville and frequents the hood to relax at parties and Shisa Nyama’s. He has become the tangible and somewhat accessible representation of “possibility” to many youths who after 15 years of “democracy” still see no hope for the future.

Mashobane represents a promise of hope, possibility and prosperity to a market craving just that – The Appropriate promise to the Appropriate Market. And he does it so well that the question of his innocence or lack thereof is a non-entity.

This phenomenon does not exist in a vacuum. The question the rest of us have to ask ourselves (including myself) is where are the rest of the black role models, both young and old? Chilling in Rosebank? Sandton? Melrose Arch? There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing this, but if that’s all we do, do we have the right question the youth in the townships for hero worshiping a man described as a crime kingpin?

While on this topic i have to give a big up to Zandile Nzalo, founder of Findyofayah, a campaign aimed connecting young people from the employed to the unemployed, students to young professionals in the urban and rural areas with mentors and successful businessmen and women. check out FYF here.

I invited Tumi Motsamai to share his thoughts: Tumi is a Socialite, fashion enthusiast, car expert and my personal description of him, a passionist! Tumi has known of Mashobane for a while now and describes him as follows:

"A man for all seasons, Mashobane has become a brand associated with luxury couture fashion, expensive jewellery, exotic automobiles and the MTV lifestyle. He represents hope and prosperity in the minds of the Mtv generation. He is the black version of lolly jackson, so to speak, surrounded by mystery and controversy but people choose to see beyond that, People like what the brand represents, and they don't mind associating themselves with it."

Much love, peace be with you. JK

Faithfull brands

Id be very interested to see where Christianity would fall if it where to be included in the yearly survey of the worlds top 100 brands by Interbrand. I was chatting with a friend the other day, I can’t remember exactly what the topic of our conversation was but she happened to refer to religion as a brand. I realised that I had never looked at religion from a brand perspective in the technical sense. Once I did, I found that religions have all the classic components of brands. Ill use Christianity as an example as it the leader in this category with an estimated 2.1billion customers.

At its core a brand is a promise, a big idea and the expectations that reside inside a customers mind. Alina Wheeler goes on to say, “people fall in love with brands, they trust them, develop strong loyalties to them, buy them and believe in their superiority. According to this description it can then be said that Christianity is "the" quintessential brand.

A quick look at some of Christianities brand components:
1. The brand promise: Salvation
2. The logo: Holy Cross
3. Chairman of the Board: God
4. CEO: Jesus
5. Brand managers: Priests & Elders
6. Brand Standards Manual: The Bible

I personally find spiritual fulfilment from eastern teachings such as Buddhism, I don’t necessarily practice Buddhism but find the teachings to resonate with me. On occasion I do attend Christian church (with my mother whenever she’s in country) and when I do, I go to Grace Bible Church. Not many “businesses” are run as well as I have seen this church being run and the brand management is truly professional. As a result the church is in excellent financial standing and growing very fast.

As all brands have challenges, so too does Grace. I think that the Grace brand has been built around what is currently the Grace Senior Brand Manager, Pastor Musa Sono – he truly is a gifted individual, people attend Grace to listen to him, I attend to listen to him. Now as the brand grows and more branches are opened the challenge will be to develop more “Pastor Musa’s” as he is intrinsically liked to the brand promise and cannot be at two places at once (well, with technology maybe he can).

With religion playing the role it does in world politics and as a result the world economy I think it would be very interesting to see where the top two religions Christianity & Islam would be placed if they were considered in the annual top 100 survey.

I will try to get Pastor Musa to share his views on the topic. Hopefully ill have better luck with the pastor than i had with Thebe Ikalafeng!

Top 100 Brands 2008 click here
Major reliions of the world click here

Much love, peace be with you. JK

And for my birthday I got myself a blog…

It is said that people like nothing better than the sound of their own voice, personally I think we like it more when other people hear our voices and a tad more when they actually listen. So the blogging phenomenon should not be a surprise, its just an improved medium for our inherent narcissism.

I'm designer and brand man, you wont find a group of people more narcissistic than us - So for my birthday I got my self a blog! If you've read my very first post, you would know that a branded perspective is a journal of my interests, beliefs and passions all told from a design & branding perspective. So as part of an introduction (and the first and last time I will focus a post purely on myself), I thought id do a personal brand audit. To do this and to keep it short I will borrow “The 7 C’s to Personal Branding” by Mr Thebe Ikalafeng (click here to listen to Thebe on The 7 C's). I will attempt to get Thebe to comment on this post so watch this space.

Joey Khuvutlu The Brand (one of my favorite brands might I add)

1. Context Context refers to self discovery, how you feel about yourself in relation to how others see you. In this case I see my self as brilliant designer entrepreneur who cant spell to save his life. Those around me describe me as a better than average designer, hard worker and very forgetful (im bad with names).

2.Clarity Clarity refers to how you would position yourself. If you had to describe/sell yourself what would you say? As my profiles says, “I am a capitalist hippie and lover of all things beautiful. Design & Brand Strategy is not just my profession, it’s my passion.”

3. Competency What is your expertise, experience? What are you good at? I am designer by training (BA Communications Management – Vega), self schooled brand strategist, co-founder and creative director of Plutonic The Design & Brand collaborative and a lover.

4. Core identity This is the outer layer, the look & feel. Me? - Im Mr GQ styling! I love looking good as you shall soon discover. Bring on the fitted single button blazer with a skinny tie to match and a pair of classic black lace-up shoes and im good to go. I like it classic with a touch of swag.

5. Community This is your network, your influences. Read my very first post to find out more about this aspect of my life.

6. Consistency This is where brands become brands! This where every contact point of a brand reinforces the overall brand promise. Every thing that I do, be it a boardroom presentation, my dress, what I drive, the way I think and most importantly what I believe, is all done within a brand ideal – my beliefs being the core of it all.

7. Chutzpah If you don’t understand the concept of having chutzpah, then you don’t understand the concept of chutzpah – like Jay-Z says (the rapper, not my president) – say no more.

Bellow are some example of the attention to detail that I try to give to myself as a brand

The Mont Blanc
Yes, my Mont Blanc is fake! Bought it in downtown Maputo city for the equivalent to R80.00, but it has the same effect as an original. Hand one of these to a client to sign a proposal and they will stop behaving like cheap skates that are always expecting to pay R1000.00 for a logo.

Then you have my journalist style Moleskine notebook. Whenever I pull this out to take notes in meetings a compliment is always given - "stylish notebook" is the usual. The job has not started but already i am being complimented, a good start to the relationship. There are many things that can raise people’s confidence in you, the fact of the matter is a book is judged by its cover and as frivolous as these items may seem, remember that every contact point must represent the brand.

I never lose notes because I never lose my note book, I never lose my notebook because I love my note book – it inspires me to write! Exclusive Books has the widest range.

The blog & the books

Fancy pens, notebooks and fitted Jackets can never compensate for competence. One of the reasons i started this blog was to learn more by sharing my thoughts and engaging in conversation. There is a Chinese proverb that says “One who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; one who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.” More than anything this blog is my platform to ask questions.

Im currently on a selfstudy crusade, focusing on brand strategy as I did not major in strategy during my studies. Currently im reading;
Brand Gap by Marty Neumeier
Origin of Brands by Al Ries and Laura Ries
Designing Brand Identity by Alina Wheeler
Please feel free to suggest any reading or web surfing material.

The London style cab
Recently a tree stepped in front of my car as i was driving along the road minding my own business, needless to say my beloved 330ci is a write off.
So how do i get around? SA Cab. If i have to do it I’m going to do it in style. Pull up to a date, meeting or event in one of these and trust me you will make the right impression.

On a practical level these cabs are hell of a comfortable and spacious to allow accessibility for disabled individuals. Price wise they a fraction more expensive than your average cabs – but why chose average when im not an average brand?

Ive also come to realise how overrated driving actually is. Let me give you an example. A 1 hour meeting in Brynston will take up 3 hours of my day. How? 15min getting ready to leave, 45min drive (JHB/2010 road works traffic), 1hour meeting, 45min back to Rosebank, 15min to settle back in. Now with a SA Cab I use the 1hour and 30min travel time to either read, relax and prepare for presentations or work in the spacious cabin. I don’t know, I may just buy an old Mercedes and hire myself a chuffer. http://www.sacab.co.za

Much love, peace be with you. JK

a branded perspective

Music, fashion, politics, cars, women, architecture, film, extreme sports, soccer, South Africa, Africa, travel, theism, love and life are some of the things that I like to call my interests, things that I like to do, study and talk about – I can however confirm that my interest in all these subjects is somewhat fuelled and perhaps sustained by the fact that I surround myself with individuals, be it family, friends or colleagues that are dedicated and truly fanatical about at least 1 of the topics – For instance, I have a friend that loves soccer or should I say “Sundowns” so much that we call him Mr Stats, he knows everything about every team, player, coach, club owners and can describe with great detail the events and results of almost every world cup ever held.

Then I have another friend whose love and knowledge for music is unmatched by anyone I have ever met – the guy can name a song, the writer, the producer, the year and country in which the song was recorded and the number of remixes done on the track. And this he can do across multiple genre’s, Dub, House, hip hop, reggae, jazz you name it. When you are surrounded by people with broad interests and deep passions one should feel blessed and enriched by the diversity that enriches your life experience.

What is my passion? My love? What gets me excited? Design & Branding! These two disciplines are a tangible reflection and description of who I am, a cross between a hippie and capitalist entrepreneur. On the one hand I believe that design, though not easy is very simple, its about creative problem solving, be it for basic needs - clothing and shelter, luxurious wants - sports cars and ipods or social challenges, traffic signs & hybrid cars. Everywhere you look everything we see has gone through a design process, and for those of you who are religious the first example of design is illustrated in the book of Genesis that opens with the six day process of the creation of the heavens and earth.

Branding on the other hand is about packaging an idea, service or product for commercial appeal. There are many factors that contribute to building strong brands but I believe that at the centre of all those factors is the art of understanding people, what they want vs what they need, what they say vs what they are thinking - this I find fascinating. The theoretical and practical steps that one walks through in the branding process also deliver amazing insights for effective design. Take Nelson Mandela – his life, from the boxing days to the ANC youth league to Robin Island and back – that was the branding process, his design – The South Africa we currently live in today, the rainbow nation, a model country for Africa.

I see the world through design and brands, and this is what the blog is about. It is not meant to be a technical look at the two disciplines, in fact it’s the very opposite of that, it’s a personal journal on my interests written from MY design and brand perspective. A perspective that I hope will evolve as I share my opinions with you and engage in dialogue.

I hope you will enjoy.