Desgrippes Gobé has cultivated three methodological tools for heightening a brand’s emotional resonance with consumers. Implementing these tools in the branding process means the difference between simply creating another marketing emblem and generating a life for the brand based on its human qualities and connections with people. Developed exclusively by Desgrippes Gobé, each tool is unique to the firm’s innovative approach of emotional branding.

“A man always has two reasons for the things he does: a good reason, and a real reason.” —J.P. Morgan

Translated in branding language as: “People buy things for two reasons, the right reason: logic, and the real reason: emotion.”

In order to help a brand create emotion, and therefore meaning and memory, Desgrippes Gobé first goes to the source—to the company vision behind the brand. Brand Focus is an interactive consulting tool that helps a company’s management team align itself with a heartfelt brand vision. Desgrippes Gobé conducts Brand Focus sessions with the team to clarify a brand’s positioning and unveil its potential to communicate beyond its current message.

To initiate the Brand Focus process, Desgrippes Gobé meets with the company’s management team to get a briefing on the project and to discuss specific concerns, considerations, and parameters for the development of the brand vision. By interviewing top executives, project directors, and employees, the team explores the company’s internal business strategy as well as its essential spirit and culture. The brand’s lifecycle—from creation to evolution to repositioning to re-launch and back to creation—is analyzed to clarify challenges ahead.

By conducting either one large session with the client or several separate sessions for each corporate contingent, the Desgrippes Gobé team gathers data that can then be fed into a single, cohesive strategy that is both relevant and meaningful.

Brand Focus is played much like an interactive game, which encourages brainstorming and helps the client to unearth a whole range of unfiltered viewpoints. These flesh out the hidden nuances behind the brand that can be expanded upon in creative and strategic ways.

First, Desgrippes Gobé defines several visual categories, displaying a series of images that represent a range of attitudes and styles, all of which could easily represent the brand. The team assesses the images and selects those cues that represent the brand’s unique point of view. The chosen images are then used to craft a brand portrait, and the words and vocabulary are used to rationalize the image choices as well as open up crucial brand-opportunity discussions. This first visual exercise defines the “state of the team.” The visuals that are shown immediately incite either positive or negative reactions to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the brand. Other categories and visuals are presented along with questions such as: If (brand) were a ride—what would it feel like? If (brand) were a wedding— what kind would it be? If (brand) were a dream vacation— where would it be?

The second part of the exercise focuses on the identification of core brand attributes that will support the visual voice created through the previous image exercise. An adjective brainstorm is conducted to explore a variety of meanings associated with the brand. These are recorded, and at the end of the image game, each participant is asked to pull three words from the board that define the essence of the brand. Desgrippes Gobé then synthesizes the selected visuals and attributes into a brand-positioning platform.

The result of the exercise is a focused brand-positioning expression communicated both visually and verbally. Based on the positioning, Desgrippes Gobé outlines programs for brand development and communication and pinpoints key cultural trends and opportunities in the market and beyond. The final Brand Focus presentation is a multisensory report that can be used internally by the company to brief creative agencies and serve as a foundation for brand-image programs in the future.

One vital result of the Brand Focus process is to humanize a brand. What connections does it make? Where do the disconnections exist? Ultimately, the question is: Where does the brand move the consumer most—in the head, the heart, or the gut? Desgrippes Gobé has designed a Head, Heart, Gut framework to determine a brand’s different contact points with the consumer and whether these match up with consumer expectations. On one end of the trajectory are the consumer’s “head” expectations, which are concerned with the brand’s rational attributes. On the other end are the imaginative “heart” and “gut” expectations, related to the brand’s social interactions and visceral and intuitive connections.

Desgrippes Gobé classifies each point of contact within the Head, Heart, Gut framework to determine how a brand communicates with its target audience and to envision the optimal way of doing so. The team creates a visual territory, or system of visual elements, for each of the Head, Heart, and Gut emotional levels. The visual system it develops for the “head” communications includes any communication in which the identification of the brand is of primary importance, such as signage and sales publications. Here Desgrippes Gobé centers the visuals around core identity items such as logo and color palette.

For the “heart” communications, Desgrippes Gobé emphasizes the humanistic side of the brand, its unique personality, and the socially responsible role it plays though the brand elements that interact most closely with the consumer, such as the physical retail space and the company website. “Gut” communications are expressed through more sensory experiences that are invisible and instinctual and that have to be communicated on a purely subconscious level, including retail atmosphere, design details, and store elements that entertain customers.

By exploring, and ultimately deeply understanding, a brand’s emotional relevance to its target customer through the Head, Heart, Gut framework, Desgrippes Gobé reveals how a company can realize its brand vision through its various marketing communications.

“What relationship and what intimacy will my brand create with its audience, and what role will each of my signs and media play? Today, this is one of the major questions in branding.” —François Caratgé, General Manager, Desgrippes Gobé Paris

The Brand Management System created by Desgrippes Gobé is a tool for assessing the many facets of a brand’s visual personality and its efficiency in the marketplace. Because a brand’s identity expression must reach its customer where and when he or she wants to be reached, BMS presents a strategy for accompanying or escorting a consumer through his or her daily activities.

Desgrippes Gobé first measures the levels of a consumer’s receptivity to a brand’s personality in the course of his daily life—a receptivity that changes depending on whether he is commuting to work, at a nightclub or a ballgame, or on vacation. The team determines when a customer wants to be impacted by the brand presence and when he wants to be contacted. Impact is important when a brand needs to get practical or directional information across; here the emotional relevance is low and the rational, “head” expectations of the customer are addressed. Contact is about the human touch, those instances when the customer wants to get a feel for the brand and interact with it in a personal way. Contact takes place through the atmosphere of a store environment, the community feel the brand presence inspires, and its ability to interact online or on the street.

The Brand Management System ensures that a brand’s message matches people’s acceptance levels and expectations through a multidimensional, sensitive brand dialogue. By understanding these different moments in time and tailoring brand presence programs to interact with consumers with sensitivity and innovation, memorable, emotionally relevant contact with consumers can be attained. A brand becomes like a friend, interacting with the consumer in a sympathetic way.

“Emotional branding is a means of creating a personal dialogue with consumers. Consumers today expect their brands to know them intimately and individually, with a solid understanding of their needs and cultural orientation.” —Marc Gobé

The design process begins with SENSE®, which combines observation and creativity with disciplined research techniques to ensure that design ideas are grounded in the real-life experiences of the target audience. SENSE® is a visual process that identifies a product’s equities, profiles the customer, analyzes the competition, and develops a multidimensional, emotionally charged visual and sensual vocabulary.

SENSE® begins with an analysis of the brand’s inherent values and looks closely at the many ways it interacts with the consumer—intellectually, visually, associatively, and sensorially. The customer profile is carefully illustrated to define the role the product plays within his or her lifestyle. Working with this profile, the design team finalizes a rich palette of imagery that will bring the customer’s emotional connection with the brand to life.

With this image-based strategy in place, the team then moves into a full-scale creative exploration in four different design disciplines: graphic design, industrial design, architecture, and interactive design. The result is powerful, initiating coordinated packaging, graphics, retail environments, and interactive design platforms that are strategically appropriate and that generate an emotional response in the customer to give the company a more competitive edge.