The secrets of top branding (with Sébastien from Akrolab)

Branding is the same thing, in fact, you have a very, very short time to capture attention and that's what branding is for, it's to make sure that you immediately convey the right image, the right information, the right message. Hello, you are listening to the podcast that talks about e-commerce. Once a month, I welcome an inspiring personality from the French e-commerce ecosystem for unpretentious discussions among friends about the subjects that fascinate them. The aim is to decipher e-commerce trends and share concrete tips to make your e-shop a hit. I'm Joseph Aubry, co-founder of Loyoly, the loyalty and referral platform that allows you to engage your customers through more than fifty mechanisms. Sharing, user content, customer reviews and much more to increase your LTV and decrease your CAC. If you like Loyoly Talks, subscribe and don't hesitate to leave us five stars on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to support us. Enjoy listening. OK, let's go. Hi Sébastien. Hi Joseph. I'm really happy to be discussing branding, a subject we don't usually cover. Yes. I'm really interested because I don't know much about it, if anything at all. So we're going to be able to find out together. And then the objective, as usual, is to give tips that can be put into action for the brands that listen to us, the merchants that listen to us. So before that, maybe if you want to before we get started, you can maybe introduce us, tell us a little bit about CROLAB, what you do there. Yeah, I can even go back a little bit over my career path. I trained as a designer. I arrived, went up to Paris to finish my studies in two thousand. That's where I met Edouard at school, with whom I founded Akrolab straight after leaving school. The idea at the time was that we had a kind of dream of becoming the best designers in the world. And then I think we quickly realised that this was not our real aspiration, that there was a strategic aspect that interested us. And so here we are still seventeen years later, so I think we made the right choice in any case. And so today, Akrolab is a branding agency. We help companies define and build their brand strategy and then deploy it across their various communication tools and the different points of contact they have with their audience. Too good. Probably. And you've been doing this for how long We've been doing this. In fact, we've had an incredible history, we've had a bit of a two-phase process, a first phase which was, we were really, had a much more studio-based set-up, so very, very design-oriented. We worked for about ten years, we worked with the vast majority of the big Parisian agencies. We really worked as a creative duo, so Edouard and I were a bit like an outsourced creative team for the agencies. So we worked on advertising, marketing, a lot of advertising anyway. And on the side, just for fun, we still have quite a few clients and projects in the cultural sector. So we did a lot of work in music, we did festival posters, album covers, and so on. And in fact the real turning point, the moment when the strategy took over a bit, was when we met Joachim, who is now our third partner, who came to us with a much more digital, much more layered, more technical background. And that's when we made the decision to finally not to decide not to leave the design completely it's still part of our DNA, but in any case to become an agency, to integrate a slightly more advisory dimension and to promote our culture, our expertise and to try to bring that to the companies and brands we work with. Too good. So to start with, the first question I would have for you is perhaps to define branding, which is ultimately a rather vague notion, I think, in the minds of many people. Yes. What would be your definition of branding? Well, there are many people who tend to confuse it with marketing. For me, they are really two different things. When you work on branding, you tend to focus on the why, the what of the brand or the company. Here too, with marketing, you're much more tactical and you tend to focus on the how. So the first definition I would give is more like that And so with branding, you tend to work on a long-term basis. In any case, that's how we define it. Whereas with marketing actions, it's always a very, very short period of time in which we look for fairly quick results, actions to be implemented very, very quickly that are much more tactical. So branding is much more strategic, it's a long-term thing. We ask our clients to really project themselves, to ask themselves, okay, what are we we're building, where are we going And so that's what branding is, it's perhaps a little more tangible, it's really trying to find out what people are going to feel and perceive of the brand rather than the interest they're going to find in response to a marketing stratum or marketing actions. Ok, ok, you're seeing a little more clearly. There are several components that you quickly started to mention in your definition of branding. You see, I have in mind, well, you mentioned the raison d'être, the why, the values, the mission. What are all the components of a branding strategy? Well, there are two, two obvious ones. The first, which we call a bit crudely the brand platform, is a simple definition of what we are going to include in our brand strategy, and is more about the DNA, about the why and the what. So in the brand platform, we are going to work on the founders' raison d'être. Not everyone does that, but we are very attached to it. There is really a human dimension in any case in working on your brand and so we are going to work on the founders' raison d'être, why they created this particular brand and then on the brand's vision, mission and fundamental values, what are the values that we put into our daily actions and then behind it there is a whole section on positioning, of course, of understanding your audience, who you are addressing, who your privileged target is, etc., and then how the brand is going to position itself in the market, in its market, and what makes the difference. The purpose of the brand platform is to be able to create what we call the brand compass and in your brand compass, you must have at the end in a fairly clear, formalised and synthesised way your vision, your mission, your fundamental values, your promise and your difference. And that is what will make up the DNA of your brand, so for once the what and the why and the what sorry. And once you have that, you can switch to the more emotional elements, i.e. how people will perceive and feel about the brand, which are the visual identity and the verbal identity. I know you have to tackle that later, but for now you can switch to the more emotional elements. So from there, you have built your brand strategy, which is by no means set in stone. Don't think of it as work, it's an investment that you make once again for the long term, but don't think of it as work that is completely set in stone and that once you're done, it's good, I've done it, thank you, goodbye. Yeah, I tell myself, yeah, it's something that's This work, it feeds on itself, it continues to build and enrich itself. Yeah, it evolves with with the times and then with the the market too the consumers. Absolutely. And you just mentioned the brand identity part. How do you help yourself in concrete terms, how do you actually define your brand identity at the start? It's who we are, it's a bit like we like to say it's a bit like psychology. Well no, no, in a very methodological way when you're working on a brand platform, so mainly the strategic aspect of substance and not form. We work a lot with workshops, workshops where we set up interviews, exercises, we also give a little homework, and so on. It's a job that will last several weeks, which can be quite long, and which is difficult to measure in terms of time from one project to another. You can have completely different project timings depending on the complexity of the subject, the background to be explored. But it's done globally, but we always say it's really co-creation. I'm really there, my role in a job like this, there are two, is that I'm there to crystallise, formalise what the founder or founders of the brand or the people in charge of the brand want to convey. And then we're often, we repeat it, but we're often there to clear up doubts. We realise, at least with our type of customers, that we often find ourselves dealing with people who are full of doubts, who have made choices, who wonder if they are the right ones, if they have made them in the right way, if there are any missing bricks in the construction of this brand strategy. So we are there to sort of rebalance everything, to put everything back in place. That's why I say it's a bit like psychoanalysis because we're going to dig deep to find out what the brand's DNA is, what really makes it tick. And that is what will enable us to find the uniqueness and what really makes the difference. Each each brand is unique and we also take the, often the representation, it's a drawing that I I often share, but the brand it's really like a person. So you can project yourself and imagine a character facing a landscape, you know with a winding path towards mountains. And in fact, we often use this representation to understand how people will perceive the brand as a person. And so we say in a rather silly way, you know that this character has in front of him a landscape with a goal in the distance which can be his vision. And then the road ahead is his mission. And then he will carry the brand's values in his heart and on his sleeve and he is anchored to the ground by the personality of the brand, you see, it's what he connects to the world around him, and so on. OK, so yeah, it's a bad question about how you can define that, so you can guide the founders and marketing managers who work on branding. You're going to compare that to a person, and so you were saying that you're going to basically imagine the person in an environment. I imagine it can make a difference if, for example, the founder imagines their character in a villa or in a bar or in the middle of nature. I don't know, in a villa or in a bar or in the middle of nature. So does that give any indication as to the kind of brand that the person wants to build? That's kind of it, if I understand correctly. Yeah, the environment. And then the people, the people who are actually your audience or your target, it's kind of the people you're going to meet. That's why you see, it's kind of the brand, it's kind of this person who arrives at a party. Nobody knows them, and based on the image you project or what you tell the first people you meet, people will very quickly get an idea of who you are. You see, when you meet someone at a party, you get an initial idea of who that person is from the very first exchanges. Branding is the same thing, in fact you have a very, very short time to capture attention and branding is what it's for. It's to make sure that you immediately convey the right image, the right information, you know, the right message and that's it. And then, you were saying that brands had to be distinctive and a bit unique. The aim is to avoid looking too much like others. What would be your advice or your approach to avoid a brand wanting to work on its branding and it being a copy or looking too much like another brand? That's why, in the introduction, it was good that you asked the question to understand the difference between strategy and tactics. Yeah. In fact, what we're trying to do is to educate as much as possible about this because to achieve authenticity, to achieve uniqueness, we need to detach ourselves completely from the tactical side. So, when we work on the brand's DNA, we really go for pure authenticity, truthfulness. And that's why, once again, I say it touches on psychology because we're going to dig, we're going to dig, dig because at first glance, there is often not always, but a little bit of this tactical aspect that takes over. Yes. You see, I'd better say that this will affect this or that person more and that's a bit more what I want to say. Or you have the la la deviance of, I don't know, you see, I'm a cosmetics brand and I have a big competitor next to me. And in fact, I'll tell you that my values are this because I want to differentiate myself from that brand with those values. In fact it's bullshit, tell me clearly what your values are, that's it, explain to me how you work on a daily basis, how you convey them to your employees and so on, that's what's interesting. And in fact, once again, like any human being, a brand is necessarily unique as long as it is authentic and true to itself. OK, so yeah, in fact, to be different, you don't necessarily have to look for help. Exactly. You have to try to be yourself and Exactly. In any case, don't use tactics, you have to play fair and be yourself. Not biased by yeah, but my competitor says that too. So you were talking a bit about the different mistakes that brands could make. I'm interested in understanding a little. You see, for the brands that are listening to us, maybe they will already recognise themselves in what we have already said, but also, do you have any weak signals that can tell you that a brand has basically messed up its branding? That's right, it's a big question, to know, you know, if a branding is good or bad, if it's messed up or not. In fact, it's really hard, I think, to judge that because I think it has to be judged over a long period of time, once again. It's, you know, after a certain number of years of actions that are carried out, and so on. You realise whether the brand has acted with a great deal of consistency and, above all, the impression it has left on the minds of its audience. Very clearly, you see, we all have brands in mind. I can name brands and I'm deliberately not mentioning DNVBs or things like that, you see, because for me, they are too young to realise today if they have done a good job on it. But you know, you you take brands, I don't know Harley Davidson, Volvo, Apple, because it's always a reference. I think you sit ten people down at a table, you ask them to say how they feel and what they perceive about these brands. I think nine out of ten people will give you the same answer. And so from there you say okay, they've set their prices, they've succeeded in what. And so it's not obvious to de, in any case on a young brand, you see if we take, I don't know, rebrandings that have made waves lately like Deezer for example, which has done a great rebranding, I would say that the rebranding is successful on the design side. They did a magnificent thing, really unique, which is very, very well done. The agency has done a great job. Then I'll tell you if what I perceive of the brand today is really what it wants me to perceive. Yeah. It's hard to say and I'll only be able to say it when, yeah, in a few months, a few years, I don't know. Talking to lots of people around me, if I realise that we all have the same perception, the same vision of this brand, it means that it has, it will have been successful, you see. And then yes, you have in any case it's always correlated, we don't completely eliminate marketing because you work on the stratum and then behind you have the marketing actions that will also come to confirm that you can judge the coherence. That is to say, you asked me what mistake brands often make. I think that's the first mistake. It's that, in fact, from the moment, if you don't know who you are, where are you going, so if you haven't worked on these brand strategy elements at the beginning, it will inevitably be felt in your marketing stratum behind on your different points of contact, whether it's your e-commerce site, your emails, your social media, and so on. You'll immediately notice the lack of consistency and we see a lot of brands that do a great job on social media, for example. And when you arrive on their site, there's a slightly disappointing effect where you don't necessarily find the extension of this experience or you receive an email because you signed up for the newsletter and then suddenly you've read your assignment or you see the verbal identity is completely different or you don't necessarily find the same quality. So already I think that the basis of the thing and we see on the brands that work today on the pure players or even finally in any case D to C brands or DNVBs, it's already this coherence. Already to put this overall coherence. After that it's hard, it's a lot of work, but the work we do on branding is the basis of all of this and what allows you, you know earlier on I was saying to remove doubts and it also gives you a guideline, that is to say a very very clear path to follow. That's our objective. Ok, very clear. And in fact, you were talking about brands that everyone knows, that immediately bring to mind something very strong when you think of Apple, Nike, brands like that. What are the similar factors, you know, in each of these brands that make it so that immediately, in fact, it remains, it's a DNA that is very, very specific to them. You will probably answer authenticity as you said at the beginning, but you see in a rather down-to-earth way. What are the elements without necessarily talking about branding, but rather perhaps about the design, marketing and all that which really allow brands to be one hundred per cent unique in their kind. Indeed, you put it there, there is authenticity, that's clear today, the lines can be a little blurred because with the arrival of social media, you necessarily have a notion of embodiment that has arrived too, which upsets personal branding and so on a little, which upsets the codes a little. But if we go back to these brands, then in any case, you have the brands that I mentioned, whether it's Apple, indeed Nike or Harley Davidson and everything, Patagonia, you see if we take a brand, a little more recent, but you have founders who are strong. You always have a figurehead, even if they are very present or not present, but in any case, you can see that the brand is the perfect reflection of its founders and that is undeniable. I think that is the basic recipe and once again it echoes what I told you about authenticity, the fact that it is totally faithful to its founders. You can't, it's difficult to cheat. In any case, if you want to build a long-lasting brand that people will become attached to, I don't think you can cheat. People aren't stupid. Yeah, that's right. And that's why I say again that tactics are good because the tactical elements are inseparable from branding. That's what will enable you to reach the right people and the way you reach them, the message or vision you bring, can't be faked. Yeah, maybe that's also one of the changes in branding compared to before. It's just that now, as you have a lot more channels, in the end, you were talking about social media. In the end, it's maybe even harder than before to keep everything consistent. It's a quagmire. We had schematised it, we're in a pitch, well we're doing it to present what branding is to our customers. We've also done it in start-ups and incubators and everything. We've schematised a bit what the points of contact were thirty years ago and what the points of contact are today. And it's it's it's a it's a quagmire. It's it's super complicated. Well, it's clear. We always say it, you know the the the brands we work with, we tell them yeah, you're coming to a really interesting period because you have tools, but the proliferation of tools also makes your work a lot more complex. Afterwards, you can emerge much more easily, much more quickly, well easily, I don't know, but in any case more quickly. But it's complicated, to achieve this coherence when before you were working on five or six points of contact and today you have about twenty, it's no longer the same job. Yes, exactly. And in fact, could you tell us about a fairly ambitious project you've been working on with Acrollable on rebranding? Yeah, all the projects are ambitious from the word go. Yes, you see in this perspective where you really dig deep to find what will make the brand unique, what will differentiate it, what will make people want to join or at least recognise themselves because that's more or less the point, recognise themselves in the brand's values and so on, it's, you don't want to mess up again you you're laying foundations for for for a long time and for several years. So we, we take on these projects, all the projects are ambitious. The proof is that we are working on few branding projects. So what the tree we are a small agency, it is I who support the brands on these subjects. But you see, I refuse to work on two subjects at the same time because you need to really immerse yourself, to understand fully, and so on. All the projects are ambitious. We've just finished a particularly ambitious project, not because of the size of the brand, because it's a nice brand, a Parisian tea brand, but very ambitious because the idea, the philosophy behind the creation of the brand from the founders' point of view is very advanced, even philosophical. So you see, we were very, very far from tactical levers, and so on, and there was something, there was something real about the people who are extremely cultured, and so that's also what finally makes me love this job, it's that you have to adapt to the people you're dealing with and you have to get up to speed on different subjects. So in this project, I had to read books and immerse myself in the subject. So, even in the world of tea, which I didn't necessarily know about, you don't just make this coffee. So you also benefit from understanding the product, from understanding what it's used for, who it's aimed at, why, how it's different. So you have the whole product dimension that we sometimes wrongly exclude from the subject of branding. The product is always at the heart of the subject anyway, it's the mission. But yeah, so you have projects like that where you really have to immerse yourself in the product universe and then in the founders' culture and be able to respond, to enrich that culture too, so you have to do research. And so all the projects, yeah there's you know this tea project there with something very philosophical around well-being, time for oneself, and so on, which was a super interesting project. And then after that, you have projects with a slightly more commercial dimension. There's surtekmilla, for example, which was a hugely ambitious project because they were entering a very, very competitive environment where there was a lot of mistrust, insurance was complicated and they were entering this world with the aim of revolutionising, or at least turning the insurance world upside down. So it's the same thing there you're going to have to dig deep it's it's different from the tea brand but there you're going to have to focus more on turning to the consumers, to their customers, trying to understand what relationship they have with insurance, why it's failing in certain areas, what specifically is missing, you see what piece of the puzzle might be missing to restore this dimension of trust So there you go, each project is ambitious and different. Frankly, there are there are there are I have I have never had two similar projects Yeah. Each one is made up of a different environment, a different target, different values, different founders. In fact, each project is completely ambitious, well you have to be ambitious in all the projects I think that happens. It's clear, it's a good a good mindset, I think. And now I'd like us to talk a little about the emotional dimension of branding. How exactly does that translate? So here we are perhaps a little more on how you were saying to translate the branding strategy and authenticity into a plan, a marketing tactic to bring out this aspect in a coherent way on all channels and create an emotional link because we know that today we buy through emotion and then we reassure ourselves in a more rational way. But that's more the direction I imagine. So how do you integrate this dimension, which today I think is extremely important, perhaps even more than before, when before you bought features, you bought because you needed something. It's true that today, you don't necessarily need everything that can be found on the Internet, but it makes you, it makes you tick, so you're going to buy it. I'm curious to hear your views on this. Yeah, and you have a lot of choice. You have a lot of choice. Yeah, the emotional dimension is the trendy topic at the moment, we see emotional connection and so on everywhere. But it's true, it's very, very true. In fact, once again, once you've defined who you are, it allows you to know who you're going to address. That is to say, basically, to whom your message, your vision, your mission or your values will resonate. That's why this upstream work is extremely important because if you don't know who you are, you'll have a hard time understanding to whom it will resonate. So once you have defined who you are and the message that the vision you carry will convey, you will define who it will resonate with. So it is from there that a slightly more tactical dimension will come into play to know where you are going to reach these people, in what way, and so on. Of course, the emotional connection is based on what people will perceive and see of the brand. So here we are really talking about visual and verbal identity. Your visual identity, of course, is your logo, your territory of expression, and so on, visually, so your graphic charter, the way the brand expresses itself visually, and then the verbal identity is your tone of voice, the way you address your target audience, the words you choose, so it's very semantic, and so on. And indeed, that is what will create an emotional resonance. After the emotional connection, it's much more complex than that because you can have brands that will have an emotional connection that will touch on memory, you know, at points like that because I don't know, you'll have a good mum. Exactly when they do the thing of de de with their personalised products, so that's where they use somewhat tactical codes to generate emotion so you can actually use tactics around that and then you have emotional brands because, well, who are you going to create an emotional connection with because I don't know, you, you, you, for example, the first pair of trainers you dreamed of having and that your parents gave you, you know, we grew up, we are a generation of sneakers, of trainers. I think that at some point, well not all of us, but many people in primary school, we all had the dream of having our first pair of I don't know what, Airmax, Jordan, Adidas or I don't know what and in fact it's something that stays with you. Because today, when you ask people to name a brand of basketball shoe, in most cases it's the first pair they had, or at least the first pair they wanted and dreamed of having. You see the emotional connection, it's there. So you can't always control that. Branding and marketing are tools that will enable you to generate it, to ensure that you can do it. Then, yes, you have tactical aspects as you said, dear mum, or you have brands that are going to play on codes. We've seen quite a few emerge in recent years, I don't know and me and me, Mathilde Cabana, all these brands that we consider a bit or Cézanne that are love brands, even if we don't really like that word, but which in any case, yeah, have always tried to find the right word, the right message, the right hook, the right product that will generate a little emotion in their communication tactics. Ok. And precisely, so it's interesting to draw the thread of emotion a little bit to loyalty. You were talking about memory. How exactly, I imagine that the more from the start you make a strong impact, you create an emotion and your authenticity stands out so much that suddenly, you manage to remain etched in the minds of the people who see it, but then are there other things too that allow you to really build loyalty through this bond that you were able to create at the start that can be used by brands today. Yeah, I think, I would summarise it as never disappointing. Do you really have this thing where you actually capture attention at the beginning, you create a connection afterwards, that is to say once you have captured attention, you create the connection. So be careful, it's it's work, we also tend to think today with levers of of activation, acquisition, etc. that we can do this easily. We tend to forget that to convert a prospect into a customer on average, it takes 6 to 7 points of contact. So it's huge, actually. You see, we often think when we're working on quise, et cetera that yeah, go ahead, I'll launch some aids and then I'll convert right away. But no, actually, your time. Once you've captured attention, you've created that connection, then you manage to convert. In any case, that's the goal. You're going to talk about e-commerce later on, it's us from our point of view, it's often the flaw of brands, they consider e-commerce as a tool and they forget to put a little bit of the brand in there because in fact in your acquisition strategy, your your, commerce in any case on digital if we really talk about digital here to simplify things but it's a bit we could say of the physical shop it's the final destination it's the the at the beginning you start from from the first point of contact and your objective is to take your prospect to your shop so that they buy and then convert them afterwards. And so throughout this whole experience, the brand has to be present, you have to build and strengthen this connection and it's extremely important. And once you've managed to convert them, you have to continue to extend this experience and ensure that the user is never disappointed. That is to say, from the moment you have convinced them that your product is the right one, that it will bring them this or that value or that it will make them feel better for this or that reason. From then on, it's good, you you you have managed to sell them a dream and make them want to buy, but afterwards, you must not disappoint them. I think the first thing is to ask yourself, okay, how can I avoid disappointing him? The first thing is consistency. Once again, it's that if you lack consistency in the way you are, in the relationship you have created with him, if suddenly this relationship becomes completely incoherent because you have lost the thread, and so on, it's still going to be difficult to keep them and then afterwards yeah you have all the marketing tactics for loyalty you can do much better than me on how you go about reactivating to keep a strong relationship and and showing consideration I think that's that's it you see it's really important. Yeah, definitely, and it makes me think, when you were talking about it, typically, if you're a sports brand and you're who have you made them wait at the checkout and it's not quick, so it's annoying, so it's not like a Decathlon, for example, which is ultra-fast, and so without realising it, you're actually consistent, even in the customer experience, even when you want to return your products, it's also quite efficient and fast. It's branding, it's branding because it's once again the relationship between the brand and its customer and its consumer. All of that is branding. It's true that we don't think about it at first glance, but it's super interesting. And so, I think we've understood that branding is not just about redesigning your logo. I think that's clear now. But still, the design part is still important in the branding strategy. How would you define all the design stages to transcribe your brand in your packaging and your visuals? What are some tips on that? We have a, you mean, I can tell you about our methodology. We already put strategy into it. What is extremely important for us is to define the pillars at the beginning, that is to say the strategic pillars. OK. Once we've done this upstream work, i.e. the brand platform that we prefer to call Resi or that a story, you see, it's more of a story that we're going to tell since at the end, you're going to do some storytelling or you're going to have, to write a manifesto about all this so that it's put together in a nice way and once we have that, we say to ourselves ok the the job on the visual identity is that it it responds that it allows to to once again in the perception and in the feeling that we that we have the right ingredients and so for that we are going to define a strategic framework so pillars around precisely perception and feeling. So what do we want people to perceive about the brand and what do we want them to feel when they come into contact with it? And that is what will enable us to draw up the creative brief and then work on developing the various elements that make up the brand's visual and verbal identity. So on the visual identity, once again logo, typography, colour, all the brand assets that we will develop once again according to its DNA. So we are also going to make choices to say to ourselves ok, we want to convey such and such a thing, such and such an emotion, such and such a value. Should we do it through illustration? Would we be better off doing it through photography? That's where there's a bit of tactics too, of course, of saying, ‘OK, what's the best way to do it?’ The logo is something that has been really neglected over the last ten to fifteen years. I'll tell you something, there are people who talk about it better than I do, I'm thinking of Thierry Brainfo for example from BaseDesign who has given a lot of lectures on this, on something he even called blending, you see, that's it. It's still the case that today most brands are similar and they don't necessarily try to differentiate themselves. That's it, for us designers, it's actually sad to see brands emerging with logos that are simply a choice of typeface. And so in the end, you have fifty brands in cosmetics, using the same codes, the same typeface, the same colours, the same stuff, even though they have a background, a DNA that is completely different with different values and so on. So it's that yeah at a certain point there was a failure in how I visually transcribe that and once again just now I was telling you about the mistake that is often made is this mistake of putting tactics before before considering one's own strategy and in fact it is through tactics that you will say to yourself ah well yeah I want to look like I want to look like someone who stands out a lot and yeah that's the trap. Clearly it's a trap because you're going to do things without any consistency or authenticity, and that's a shame. In fact, the question shouldn't be, ‘I want to look like Bottle or Respire.’ It's more a question of how I can have the same impact on my users, on prospects, on my customers as these brands. And by doing it my way, that's kind of it, I guess. Yeah, and again, when you hear the founder of Typologie, for example, when you hear him speak, you understand why the brand looks the way it does. So it's not that obvious because it's a very, very minimalist brand with very refined codes and so on, but when you listen to him talking and you hear how he imagined designing his products, how he finally realised his promise for his products, making cosmetics with a minimum of ingredients, and so on. In fact, you find it naturally in the brand image. And you also find his culture. He is passionate about design and architecture. When you see Tiporgi's image, you say okay, it's true to who he is, to what he wants to convey. And in fact, it helps him, on the one hand, to convey this to his teams because we haven't talked about it much, but that's also the point, you're going to work on this guy. So you can involve all the teams, well a large part of the team in a branding subject, it can be interesting, but also complicated because suddenly, the voices get mixed up, and so on. But in any case, there is a real point in saying okay, what this work that we are going to do, behind it, is going to serve you not only, of course, to better address the right target with the right messages, and so on, but it will also help you with two very important things: to ensure that your teams and your employees understand the brand's strategic issues, what you want to convey and how they will have to work on their various subjects to convey that message. And then also to attract talent because when you have consistency, we haven't talked about it, it's not the subject today, but it also allows you to develop an employer brand that is consistent, that resonates, that shines, and so on. Yeah, definitely, ok. And I was wondering about something, I think, which is a bit tricky. You started to answer it a bit, but specifically, how do you measure once you've done your rebranding? Did it work? Did it not work? That's kind of the big question. Yeah, at first glance, what I told you earlier is that it's a long-term thing, so you're going to improve over time the impact it's had on your consumers, on your audience, that's what they understood. Then there are ways to do it more quickly with studies, quite simply. There are agencies that specialise in this, that do consumer studies, that will call consumers, ask them questions and so on. So you can do it in exchange for a donation and so on, but there are ways to measure it quite quickly on your own, you know, you can do reputation studies to find out if on subjects of, on perception studies, so there are studies. After that, it gets quite expensive. You see, even the small DNVB that is starting up and growing fast and all that, it doesn't have the means to pay for a study like that because it's a large-scale job. How much does a study cost, for example, just to measure the branding for a brand? I don't know, if we go into the figures, you see a... Yeah, I don't tend to for a brand that does between five hundred cases and three million in turnover, which I think is a bit the big majority of NVB brands in particular. A branding project is already a big investment. You have to let go of a lot of social media channels to get started on this project, knowing that it's going to have an impact on your overall image, so you generally have to redesign your website, you have to come up with a new editorial line on your social media, potentially a new dimension of photo, video and so on, so it's still a very, very heavy investment. Yeah, that's for sure. But it would be interesting. Today, these consumer studies or the studies that we have partners who do that, we see that they are aimed at a target that is more of a key account, which is in any case on the supermarket product brand, and so on. It would be good to have more accessible players entering the market. And it's true that we can see that this market is being shaken up by turkeys like Bottle, for example. And today, I think that those who do the work on these subjects are more data analysts who go and analyse your acquisition, your SEO, and so on. And that can happen at the same time. Yeah, yeah. Like, these are subjects that I'm a little less familiar with, again, that are very tactical. Yeah, yeah, no, but it's always interesting for brands to see a little bit how it can cost them to review all their branding, all the impacts it can have, how, how it can also cost them to measure the impact once the branding has been effective, even if you still have to wait a minimum amount of time in between so that it can sink in in the minds of one and all. Very cool listening, I think we've had a good go around, what might be interesting maybe to finish, it's what I often ask if that's for one I like to differentiate a bit on the one hand between brands that are launching and on the other hand brands that are already a bit established and you see who want to go back to a slightly more pure player or in any case digital dimension for each of these categories. What would be your advice in summary, in bullet point mode, for a brand that wants to review its branding. So really for a brand that is launching in two thousand and twenty-four, if it wants to review its branding, what are the questions to ask to perhaps find out if it is the right time to do so, and in the same way for a more established brand to have your content. For a brand that is just starting out, my advice is to do it. You will simplify your life, but there is one point, well you see once again on this thing of not having any doubts about the actions you are taking, of being a little driven by something. So of course, it's important that we, it's important when we're working on a project, that there is total buy-in from the founders because otherwise it won't work. So here too, we demand a lot of authenticity, of coherence, of saying to oneself, okay, there has to be there really has to be buy-in, excitement around the fact of carrying this this this strategy, it's extremely important. So yeah, when you're launching your brand, it's never too early to take care of it. Even if you do it in a maybe a bit light-hearted way at the beginning because you don't have the experience, you don't have the perspective, you're launching a product, you may not even have your product market fit, you see, you don't even know if your product will fit with this or that, but doing it is never a waste and so you can do what is sometimes called a little branding, you see, a little something at the start, but already having a basis, a strategy, that's what it's all about, don't just work on your visual identity, don't just make beautiful packaging, try to understand the background of your project, your target, how you are going to create a connection with it so that you can already produce something interesting and coherent from the start that will capture a little attention. And I think that today, in any case, it is, it is becoming really essential to do this because if you want to emerge in your market, whatever it may be, in the digital world, everything is so saturated that you have to come up with something unique and different right away. For a brand that is just starting out, that's it. And for a more established brand, rebranding is always an issue, because generally we started out with something that was a bit of a patchwork or because we had a mate who had a small studio who was a freelancer or something, who gave us a visual identity, something that we didn't necessarily get attached to in the end and then again, there is learning in the early years of brand development and so there is bound to come a time when it becomes a subject and in most cases, I think that the managers feel it. They can sense that there's something up somewhere, you know, they're having difficulties with, there are issues that are coming to the fore at certain points of contact where they can't crack the thing. They don't understand why, I don't know, they have an acquisition cost that is that is that is completely crazy or they don't reach a conversion rate that is not good, so there you go. Who is not getting younger or who is Yeah or then subjects that are a bit more design-related where they don't really know if I have the right image, if I really like it. So there you go, it's often a feeling. And then there are managers who have a culture of this and who immediately manage to say to themselves yes, I have to activate it, and then there are others who have more difficulty because, once again, of doubts. But I think that in any case you have clear indicators and once again they can come from data as well as communication issues or things like that. So you have indicators that are little warnings that tell you, look, you can't hit your target properly or in any case when you hit it it costs you a lot and it's not normal or you mustn't have the right messages or you mustn't. It's usually warnings that trigger the thing of saying there's a need and then you have other subjects that can trigger a need, strong growth with also the need to staff and so there too you see the need to be able to properly manage your teams and so on with once again the right strategy, the right messages to ensure that what they're going to do behind the scenes is coherent, efficient, etc. This is a topic that we are seeing more and more because we are no longer in the Covid period and there are once again many players on the market, especially on the pure players, it's internationalisation. Yeah. It's a real issue. Yeah. You're going to be at ease with your name already. Your tone can call a lot of things into question. It can call your name into question, it can call your image into question. Take cosmetics, for example. Today, the American market is quite similar to ours, with different codes, of course the commercial ones, but addressing the Asian market, for example for a French brand, there is a real branding issue in the opposite direction, but there is a real, real branding issue. And so where you may not have a dual strategy, but you may need to overhaul a number of things to address that market, for example. Yeah, yeah. And what we often hear is, yeah, you have to think international right away, your brand and everything. Then what I tell myself is that, on the one hand, if you do that from the start, you're not necessarily going to talk to the people you sell to in the first few days. It might be better to do something that is one hundred percent you, what you think, who you address, even if it means rethinking when you want to take the next step or creating subsidiaries that are not totally different branding, but different names, things, things like that. Internationalisation is very complex. All right, as we can see, the French brands that work internationally are those that benefit from a culture and a reputation. It's luxury, in fact, the main sector of brands that work internationally, well luxury or industry. But anyway, when it comes to brands, we're talking a bit more about sexy brands, and so on. So we can talk a bit more about luxury. Luxury benefits from French culture, credibility, history, and so on. And so they have much less trouble reaching international markets. Now it will be interesting to see French brands in cosmetics, especially TNVM, which are going to start targeting the international market. And it will be interesting to see if it catches on, if it works in concrete terms or not. You see, it's addressed. We in France don't realise that if we don't go to the United States, for example, and get involved, in fact, all the brands, there are already a lot of copycats, there are a lot of French brands that are born of American inspiration. We don't realise that we are actually in our own thing, we look at our own thing and everything, so we have our own ecosystem of brands, yeah, cosmetics, fashion, textiles, trainers, whatever. In fact, in the United States they have the same thing. So you arrive in this market, which is already ultra-saturated like it is in France, how do you make a place for yourself in the middle of all that? You see, what makes you different, what makes it interesting? Especially since you have areas of course with room for manoeuvre because transport, and so on, eco-responsibility and all that, but yeah, it's internationalisation, it's something that calls a lot of things into question, which is really interesting. And my advice on that is to be careful, don't try to go too soon. You need a bit of, in any case, we see it, on the brand side, you need a bit of time to be ready to go. Yeah, that's clear, and a bit of cash too. Of course, you need to help out with cash. Sure, OK. Well, cool, we'll follow all that carefully and finally, where can we find you and what's your news at the moment, if you have any to share with us? We're not very, very visible, but on LinkedIn, at least, I'll be happy to talk to anyone who wants to contact me. And then the news, there are some interesting things happening. Try to keep doing what we're doing, doing it as best we can. And then develop a number of things that will happen soon. Too good. Can't wait to get to that after this teasing. And then, listen, too cool. Thanks a lot for stopping by. It was great. I learned a lot of stuff. Thanks to you. So, if you're listening to us and you're a brand that wants to review your branding or at least understand all these key ideas, feel free to contact Sébastien on LinkedIn. Thank you. Thank you, bye. Thank you for listening to this episode of Oyally Talks right to the end. I hope you enjoyed it and found lots of tips to try out for your brand. If so, be sure to follow us so you don't miss the next one. Spread the word and leave us a five-star rating on Apple Podcast, it helps us a lot. Finally, if you need to increase your LTV, don't hesitate to contact me on LinkedIn or on our website Loyoly.io. See you soon.