Add another book to the growing library of guides on how to make information graphics the right way. Dona M. Wong, former graphics director of The Wall Street Journal and now strategy director for information Design at Siegel+Gale, provides the dos and don’ts of data presentation in The Wall Street Journal Guide to Information Graphics.
To read the full article, click here
Behind every great brand, there is a strong, visionary leader. Take the usual suspects: Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook, Jeff Bezos at Amazon, and of course, Steve Jobs at Apple. All three are strong leaders who have crafted the enduring experiences that bring their creative visions to life. We live in the world they create for us, and pay good money to do so. But if their bold and beautiful branding is a sign of managerial geniuses at work, is the reverse true? Do weak brands signal weak management?
To read the full article by Matt Loebman of Siegel+Gale, click here.
NEW YORK, February 11, 2010 – Global strategic branding firm Siegel+Gale announced today the return of Renee Peet, appointed as group director, strategy of the firm’s headquarters in New York.
Working previously at the firm between 2000 and 2004, Peet returns to Siegel+Gale to lead strategy engagements for some of the world’s most notable brands. As group director, strategy of Siegel+Gale’s New York office, Peet assumes responsibility for leading the strategy group to build world-class brands through elegantly simple strategies, communications and experiences.
“President Obama recently held a White House Forum on Modernizing Government with more than 50 corporate executives to discuss how the federal government can make better use of cutting-edge technologies. As the president explained, it is unconscionable that “there are still places in the federal government where reams of yellow files in manila envelopes are walked from desk to desk.” He set many of the right goals: making more information available to the public, ensuring that documents are online as well as in print, and making greater use of social media.”
To read the full op-ed piece by Alan Siegel please visit FederalTimes.com.
According to a JD Power survey of nearly 13,000 passengers who flew on a North American airline between April 2008 and May 2009, customer satisfaction declined due largely to unfavorable customer perceptions on in-flight services, flight crew, cost, and fees.
The importance of developing customer loyalty is part of the crisis airlines face today; this is particularly challenging as charging additional fees is viewed as one of the top tactics to increase revenue. “Unfortunately, any improvements in customer satisfaction are being offset by passengers’ displeasure with cutbacks on in-flight services, increases in fees, and issues with the helpfulness and courtesy of flight crews,” said Dale Haines, senior director of JDP’s travel practice.
These two surveys show additional fees are heavily relied on to increase revenue; however, these fees hinder clients’ appreciation for good customer service. Fees may generate revenue during a tough quarter, but they are undermining their brand’s value. Which is more important? Despite their annoyance to the flyer, ancillary fees have become an integral part of the airline revenue structure. Unfortunately, from a loyalty perspective, long-term brand value does not strengthen immediate revenue. On the flip side, the increase in fees coupled with the lack of clear communication surrounding them have resulted in a steady decline of customer loyalty and brand value.
It’s true that fees are bolstering bottom lines, so is there a way for airlines to keep fees without making customers feel like there’s a trick around every corner? Yes, with transparency.
Of course not every carrier can eliminate baggage fees like Southwest (despite losing $16M in 2009), but all carriers can be clear about what the fees are for and how customers will be charged. For instance, RyanAir “comes clean” on all its charges on its website, which provides a simple table with the facts and data a customer might need to figure out the additional cost on tickets.
Communicating clearly and honestly with customers is just one way to increase revenue through fees while improving customer satisfaction. Airlines can also extend brand value through appropriate trends and promotions. For example, Alaska Airlines recently launched “Mystery City Savings,” offering a 25% discount off fares between Portland, Oregon, and a new destination each day for five consecutive days. Customers are encouraged to log onto AlaskaAir.com to check out which new destinations will be highlighted each day.
“Rollover Minutes” (AT&T’s claim to fame) has just entered the loyalty program sphere. Marriot Rewards is applying this “rollover point” strategy to their hotel loyalty program. With “Elite Rollover Nights,” guests, who stay more nights than they need to achieve an Elite status, can roll those extra nights into 2010. Stemming from this, Delta Airlines recently initiated a rollover program, for members who are at least Silver status. The program allows 2009 miles to be rolled over toward qualifying in 2010—an offer sure to create a more enjoyable customer experience.
After all, it’s that experience, which when aligned with any carrier’s brand promise, supports financial business growth.
According to the Sabre Airline Study, customer loyalty and retention efforts are viewed by most airline decision makers (86 percent) as having the most positive impact on their businesses. Simultaneously, airline customer satisfaction has fallen to its lowest level in four years.
But enhancing the overall customer experience through clear, consistent communications and interactions increases customer satisfaction, retention, and loyalty—giving airlines the fuel to obtain both increased revenues and brand value.
Law firms may well be the last bastion of the unbranded. Consider these statements, found on the websites of some of the market leaders:
+ “one of the world’s leading law firms”
+ “a world-class international law firm”
+ “one of the most prestigious law firms in the world”
+ “our people are our difference”
+ “a commitment to delivering high quality service”
Any of the firms we reviewed could claim any of these, and that’s the point. None stand out.
Let’s be clear, there is a sense of tiering that separates Magic Circle law firms from the rest in the UK. Most qualify for this elite club on the basis of being big. But big is a precarious leadership claim. Reed Smith has proven how easy it is to become a top 15 firm from nowhere in 5 years. The merger of UK-based Lovells and Hogan & Hartson, the US law firm, is seen as just the start of industry-wide consolidation. It will be interesting to see whether the new Hogan Lovells brand will be launched with a clear sense of the organisation’s unique points of differentiation. It will be a shame if this incredible opportunity becomes a naming exercise following the path of least resistance.
Marketing has long been seen as beneath many law firms, overly commercial in a business that is about relationships and service. But branding is, of course, much deeper than marketing. The firm’s brand should clearly reflect the philosophy behind the business and the firm’s way of working, both of which should provide means to the end of ‘leadership’, ‘world-class’ and even ‘prestigious.’
This clarity of purpose will deliver real business results. When shortlisted among their peers, they should be winning more often. When recruiting graduates, they should be attracting the best, for whom their culture is distinct and ‘for them.’ When discussing fees, they should be able to maintain a premium because their added value is clear. This has to be a priority of any Managing Partner or CEO, particularly if the leaders in the industry want to emerge from recession and command premium pricing again.
I met this week with a management consultant who specialises in dealing with senior management of US and UK law firms. He wholeheartedly agreed that law firms overlook their brand at their peril.
Goldman Sachs and McKinsey have shown how a single-minded approach to their positioning relative to their peers can set them apart and drive real, long-term business value. So the question seems to be: which of the law firms is going to step up in order to stand out?
Do your information graphics pass the 5-second clarity test?
NEW YORK, JANUARY 27, 2010 – Many business charts have sophisticated and intelligent underlying information, but the presentation fails to convey the intended message. That’s the underlying premise of a new book, The Wall Street Journal Guide to Information Graphics, authored by Dona M. Wong, strategy director of information design for global strategic branding firm and simplified communications pioneer Siegel+Gale.
“In our increasingly data-driven world, we have to convey our message clearly and visually. Whether through PowerPoint, charts and graphs, reporting graphics, or budget illustrations, we must enhance our audiences’ understanding – in five seconds or less,” says Wong. “Professionals from marketing to finance to medicine need to understand how to analyze the data, use colors to their advantage and choose the right chart form.”
Wong is the strategy director for information design at Siegel+Gale, the renowned branding firm whose signature mission for the past 40 years has been promoting clarity through simplification in all aspects of business communication. Now, she shares the insights from her twenty-year career – including eight years as graphics director at The Wall Street Journal – in The Wall Street Journal Guide to Information Graphics: The Dos and Don’ts of Presenting Data, Facts, and FiguresT (W.W. Norton & Company, 2010, $29.95).
Wong was also graphics editor for The New York Times business sections, and earlier, developed financial graphics for international tax clients at Deloitte & Touche. At Yale, she studied information design with renowned professor and author Edward Tufte.
“Presentation software makes it possible to create charts easily, but not necessarily well,” says Alan Siegel, founder and chairman of Siegel+Gale and a pioneer of the plain language movement. “Executives who value clarity, simplicity, and transparency in the language of their customer communications can also use the best principles of information graphics to their strategic advantage.”
The best charting practice is to follow four essential steps: research, edit, plot and review. “Always assess data with a critical eye,” says Wong. “If there is something wrong with one number, it is important to get to the bottom of it. DO sweat the small stuff. One wrong data point can destroy the credibility of the whole chart.”
In this book, Wong shows how to:
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About Siegel+Gale
Siegel+Gale is one of the world’s premier strategic branding companies and a pioneer in simplifying complex customer communications. Since it was founded by Alan Siegel in 1969, the firm has applied the art and science of simplicity to create branding programs that have helped many of the world’s best-known organizations excel. Driven by its philosophy of “Simple is Smart,” Siegel+Gale has led the way in bringing innovation to the corporate branding field, including transforming complex, incomprehensible customer communications into plain English; helping clients create distinctive brand voices across all their communications; transporting brands onto the Internet; and aligning the brand experience with the brand promise.
The firm’s clients include AARP, Aetna, American Express, Bank of America, Dell, The Four Seasons Hotel Group, The Internal Revenue Service, Lexus, Merrill Lynch, 3M, Microsoft, Motorola, the National Basketball Association, Pfizer, and Sony PlayStation. Siegel+Gale has offices in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, and Dubai, and strategic partnerships around the world.
Siegel+Gale is part of the Omnicom Group Inc., a leading global marketing and corporate communications company. Omnicom’s branded networks and numerous specialty firms serve over 5,000 clients in more than 100 countries.
For more information please contact Gail Nelson at 212.453.0400 or gnelson@siegelgale.com.
Remember how we learned to write, starting with A, B, C?
We were taught to form words and sentences before writing papers and essays. Yet with graphics, professionals in every industry received little or no training, which has left them scrambling to effectively express themselves in the language of graphics.
Most people try to use charts and graphics to enliven a critical presentation or a high profile report. The irony is that we often let the software do the thinking for us. We don’t expect a word processor to choose our vocabulary or prose style. But we expect a graphics program to choose our chart style, color and practically every element of the graphic.
And we blame the software when it falls short.
Following a few basic rules will make the difference between an effective chart that engages your audience and an inadequate chart that masks your intended message.
Take the pictogram below for example.
People take in charts in their totality, not vertically or horizontally. Therefore graphics must engage first and inform second. If a chart is not clear and direct, your audience has to make a lot of effort to understand the information presented. They become distracted, don’t hear your intended message and move on.
Every graphic is an opportunity to communicate and influence your decision maker. Why leave such an important task to the software default settings?
To view more of the Dos and Don’ts of presenting data, facts and figures, click here.
Dubai - United Arab Emirates (26 January, 2010): Siegel+Gale, the global strategic branding consultancy (Omnicom Group) is announcing the appointment of Miss Christine Anis to the position of Strategist at the company’s regional Middle East office in Dubai, UAE.
Miss Anis joins Siegel+Gale with 7 years of experience having previously worked on branding projects for Emaar, Nakheel, Dubai Pearl, Baccarat Residences, Atlantis, Dubai Healthcare City, NBK, GEMS and Sudatel.
“I’m delighted to be joining one of the world’s premier strategic branding companies. Sieigel+Gale’s philosophy of ‘Simple is Smart’ is an idea I truly believe in and think that organizations in the region need to adapt in the way they communicate and present their brands.” she said. “My primary role at Siegel+Gale will be to help clients gain a deep understanding of their customers’ needs, identify market gaps and competitive offerings, then translate those into simplified, unique brand ideas that drive the way their organization communicates and behaves.
“Christine is a great addition to the S+G team and we are very excited to have her on board” said Tarek Sultani, Managing Director of Siegel+Gale Middle East.
“Christine takes a very rigorous and strategic approach to helping regional clients better understand what their brand should stand for and what they need to do to deliver on their brand promise. She will leverage her insight of the region, local culture and the Arabic language to develop client brands that are truly relevant to this market and have a strong appeal to their audiences.”
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About Siegel+Gale
Siegel+Gale is one of the world’s premier strategic branding companies. Since Alan Siegel founded it in 1969, the firm has applied the art and science of simplicity to create branding programs that have helped many of the world’s best known organizations excel. Driven by its philosophy of Simple is Smart, Siegel+Gale has led the way in bringing innovation to the corporate branding field, including transforming complex, incomprehensible customer communications into clear language; helping clients create distinctive brand voices across all their communications; transporting brands onto the Internet; and aligning the brand experience for customers with the brand promise.
Siegel+Gale has full-service offices in New York, Los Angeles, London, and Dubai and strategic partnerships around the world. It is part of the Omnicom Group Inc., (NYSE-OMC) (www.omnicomgroup.com), a leading global marketing and corporate communications company.
For further media information from S+G Middle East, please contact:
Natalia Rawlinson
Siegel+Gale Middle East
Dubai Media City
Tel: +971 4 425 8600
Mobile: +971 50 457 8912
E-mail: nrawlinson@siegelgale.com
I’ve been diving deeper into mobile design and mobile brand strategy for clients and recently published my first iPhone app. I learned a lot about the mobile industry along the way—the technologies involved, new design standards, and now, mobile marketing. One thing has become very evident—and perhaps it doesn’t take a digital brand specialist to see it—most brands are making the same mistakes with apps that we all made with early websites.
We all rush to add a new platform without understanding how it works and what it means to our brands. As in the early ‘90s when every company raced to build a website because everyone else did, companies now race to publish mobile applications. And the same problems the industry had back then persist today with mobile.
Back in the ‘90s most websites weren’t websites as we know them today but more like brochures full of corporate information. Websites have come a long way since then, and now many of them are sophisticated web applications that have become branded software products unto themselves. Companies have learned to leverage their brands online in more intelligent ways.
Now we’re facing the same challenge with mobile.
Companies need to understand how mobile will best benefit their brand and what kind of technologies to invest in. Right now the most excitement is around apps, and with over 10k iPhone apps submitted to iTunes every day and over 3 billion (yes billion with a “B”) paid and free apps downloaded so far, it’s clear that building apps is a big, serious business.
According to Pinch Media, however, most mobile app usage drops off to nothing within one month, and many apps get deleted altogether. Mobile desktop space is prime real estate and with the right approach, a well crafted mobile app can function as a small part of a brand that becomes an integral part of a person’s daily life. But it has to stay on the users’ desktop to get the job done and to stay on the desktop; it’s got to be well planned.
Mobile devices have become the “Swiss Army Knives of the digital generation.” They go with us everywhere, they remind us of what we need to do, they get us where we need to go (most of the time), connect us to friends and family, and supply us with endless amounts of entertainment. Branded apps that figure out ways to add similar functionality—a bite-sized, anytime, anywhere extension of the desktop experience—have a good chance of staking a claim on a user’s personal real estate (i.e., their mobile desktop).
Brands like Wired Product Reviews and NPR News are both great examples. Their mobile apps offer rich media content broken out into manageable pieces for different mobile devices. Essentially they’ve made their brand and content modular by repackaging it into discrete mobile apps. Tracking how mobile users consume media allows them to effectively port content out to this new platform and create an ongoing relationship through it. They’ve learned that tiny pieces of personal real estate can become a daily point of contact between brand and user.
Applications like Oakley Surf Report and REI Ski Report apps may not be used every day (unless you’re very lucky), but they’ve become a trusted source of information for iPhone users gearing up for outdoor adventures. These apps are great examples of how physical products/brands extend themselves in the mobile world. They may not be on the first or even the second page of a user’s desktop, but they still have a secure spot.
Of course, apps can also deliver clever, emotional brand connections that are meant to be fleeting or tied to a seasonal campaign or launch. In the world of luxury brands, some excellent examples come to mind. Bell&Ross has an iPhone app that allows users to try on their watches (virtually). Customers can select a watch from several models and colors, then hold their iPhone to their wrist, and check out the watch face details and the sweeping movement of the second hand. They might be done with the app once they’re done shopping for a new watch, but there’s no arguing the impact this app has on the Bell&Ross customer.
Mercedes Benz offers an iPhone app that creates the experience of the new C63 AMG. Users can watch videos, check out detailed specs, and peruse the AMG sound library where they can hear the cars, ignitions, engine revs and even a high-speed drive-by. And, once they’ve finished shopping, they’re likely done with the app but in that brief window of time, they’re probably opening it up several times a day as they think about their purchase decision.
Realistically, an app with a brief life span but high rate of daily usage is just as impactful as one that stays on the desktop and gets used once or twice a week—maybe even more.
Point being, when thinking about wading into this new space, it’s important to consider how to make a connection with it. This isn’t a banner ad or even a microsite. And it’s not —and should never be—a website. It’s a whole new way of interacting with the audience and if done right, the benefits will be huge. There are plenty of excellent examples out there—it just takes wading through a sea of poorly conceived ones to get to them or wait to hear about them from a friend.
Like other new industries, there is always excitement and a rush to be first to market, but it pays to listen to your brand followers and develop mobile products that fit their lives and go beyond the novel flavor of the week. For most brands right now, their apps are generating a lot of initial PR and not much else. The few that are doing their homework are successfully taking claim on users’ personal real estate—and are definitely the ones to watch.