This is an exciting week for us car junkies as the North American International Auto Show kicks off in Detroit. I love the dazzling array of concept cars, future technologies and the ability to see the entire offer of the industry, from the lowliest, cost-conscious commuter to the mind blowing, lotto dreaming, luxury exotics. From all accounts coming out of Detroit, this could be the year that the auto incorporates the app. Just what everyone needs, a 200 MPH smart phone. This new union makes me wonder if the future of the smart phone as we currently know it might be influenced by something the auto industry shares with many categories: the idea of luxury.

I was at a recent client meeting and noticed that nearly every executive at the table placed their phones on the table in front of them during the meeting. Some would check an email on occasion, some took calls. But one thing was consistent—most of them were the iPhone 4. As it turns out, the CEO of the organization had the same phone as my 16 year-old son, the white iPhone 4. My best guess is that he didn’t drive the same car as my kid, an orange Jeep Wrangler. I’d wager there to be something German and much more expensive in his space outside the building. Certainly, my kid and this CEO come from different planets when it comes to pay scale, the CEO can most likely afford anything he might choose. My kid gets an allowance, one I’m told that necessitates multiple weeks to save for a new XBox game, let alone a BMW 7 Series. But, they share the very same phone, as do many of us. So why isn’t there a luxury player in the phone category?

The numbers have been tallied. The spreadsheets all rolled up and put away for another year. And this year’s Best Global Brand is (insert dramatic pause and drum roll here) Coca Cola! The numbers tell us that out of all the brands that meet Interbrand’s global criteria, Coke again comes out on top.

Everyone knows two things about designers. One, we can’t spell. Two, complex math confounds the majority of us. As chief creative officer, no one trusts me with a calculator, so the massive amount of analysis behind the annual BGB report falls to others. But as I look at the league table, it’s easy to see that design makes a considerable contribution to the brands that have risen to the top this year. To prove my point, look no further than number one on our list.

Coke has an incredible assortment of visual assets. The shape of the bottle is recognized worldwide, and Coke leverages that shape to a spectacular degree. At my local grocery, a quick count produced no fewer than six physical executions of the bottle shape, in both glass and plastic, as well as two visual executions where the bottle shape was graphically depicted on the cans. There is the signature type, recognized globally whether it’s in English or other languages and alphabets. There is the classic Coke swoosh, and even, arguably, the color. All of these assets and I haven’t left the product yet! We need to count the polar bears, the Classic Santas and a newer ‘tattoo’ graphic the brand has used recently. When you have such a rich portfolio of visual brand assets to use as tools to communicate what you’re about, getting to number one and staying there seems a whole lot easier.

To compete successfully in today’s global retail market, a company has to do many things exceptionally well. Generally speaking, however, two things are vital. A brand must be managed as an asset and the customer experience must be continuously engaging. At Interbrand, we do not look at isolated measurements to see how well a brand is doing. Rather, we look through the holistic lens of brand value. It’s a point of view that turns up a wealth of insight for business leaders.

One of the measurements for Interbrand’s brand value methodology is Brand Strength: how likely the brand is to secure future earnings by competing well in the marketplace — obviously an area of intense interest. There are actually ten aspects underlying a company’s ability to generate value, and Brand Strength brings them together — people, products, positioning and partners. In this article, we’re going to address the three components of Brand Strength that outwardly affect the shopper: Consistency, Differentiation and Relevance. Consistency is the degree to which a brand’s promise is experienced without fail across all touchpoints. Differentiation is the extent to which the brand is perceived to be distinct from the competition. Relevance is the brand’s fit with needs, desires and decision criteria across demographics and geographies.

By any measure, the Burberry brand would be considered a global powerhouse. The British fashion house boasts strong international recognition and differentiating attributes that resonate across borders and age groups. Although it’s a 150+ year-old heritage brand, Burberry knows it’s more than the past. It’s about the way people feel. The company has been generating excitement and desirability-not to mention sales-by doing rare and exceptional things. Thus making its audience feel the same way.

By Interbrand’s brand metrics, Burberry’s value increased 20% over last year and jumped five rankings, moving up from 100 to 95 on the 2011 Best Global Brands table. Interbrand believes brand is an asset and like tangible corporate assets it can be valued. Its value is a combination of three measurements: Brand Strength (equity; the ability to secure future earnings by competing well in the marketplace); Role of Brand (how much the mark counts in the consumer’s purchase decision); and Economic Earnings (no explanation required).

However, if you’ve been watching Burberry’s remarkable performance for the last couple years, you probably don’t need a detailed analysis to see that Burberry rose in the league table by investing in and leveraging Role of Brand. The idea of Role of Brand is widely understood at a general level. The specifics of Role of Brand — how it is measured, how it is changed and how it is used in management — are less understood by brand watchers.

Ahhh, it’s football season again. A bit of a chill in the air, the leaves around Southwestern Ohio on the verge of changing. Good football weather. While not everyone is a fan, football is a great analogy when looking at your brand through the lens of “team.”

Scoring against your competition isn’t always as easy as it might seem to be. Sure the Tom Bradys of the world make it seem effortless, but a lot of planning, work and details go into making a game plan come to life. Your brand is no different.

Let’s take a single play. The coach evaluates the scenario and picks from a host of plays designed to move the ball down the field, be it a short gain or a big play. The play gets sent in by the players most capable of executing it for the best results. The quarterback huddles up and gives everyone the play to ensure the players all know the plan. They line up, and everyone does their job. They block who they are supposed to block, the receivers run the correct routes, the quarterback gets the protection he needs and makes a good throw. The receiver makes a spectacular catch and outruns the defense to score a quick six points. When everyone works as a team and does what they are supposed to do against a plan, it looks easy. I think some brands get this and unfortunately, some brands don’t.

In the past, when a 21-year-old college student said, “I work at Nordstrom,” it was understood that he or she went to work at the local mall store. The job carried the connotation of a prestigious employer known for style, quality and a relentless focus on customer service. However, the literal translation of “I work at Nordstrom” meant working for one store. Contact with other stores happened on an as-needed basis; for instance, to source an item for a customer. In today’s omnichannel world, however, Nordstrom thinks of itself as a brand first and location second. Thus “I work at Nordstrom” means I represent the brand and everything associated with it. Employees need to understand that their role has a much farther reach today, inseperable as it now is from the interplay of brand touchpoints.

It’s a well-known fact that shoppers perceive and expect a seamless experience across outlets. But retailers have been slow to deliver, due to legacy operations that make creating a seamless experience seem like an insurmountable challenge. As is often the case, what is intuitive to shoppers is perplexing to retailers. Therefore, when Nordstrom connected in-store and online assortments, it was revolutionary within the industry. Ironically, many shoppers assumed the two channels had always been connected due to a “brand first” instinct.

Picture a ballet — a symbiotic dance between many moving parts with thoughtfully choreographed transitions from one touchpoint to the next — and you’ll have an idea what a successful omnichannel experience should be like.

For retailers using a digital toolset, a great omnichannel experience would be the smooth hand-off of the shopper from one phase of their journey to the next, without losing their interest or loyalty. Ideally, they’d be momentarily engaged at one touchpoint, then propelled to the next until ultimately they make a purchase. At which point the retailer is able to serve the shopper post-sale.

The danger is that at any given time along this journey, shoppers can be lured away from your brand by the bright shiny objects put out there by competitors promising bigger discounts, more rewards or a better user experience.

As we always say, the process of channel optimization starts with a good strategy. Time spent creating a great brand strategy will ensure each touchpoint is designed and implemented to do the best it possibly can to influence shoppers along this journey in a smooth and engaging way, reducing the power of your competitors to dissuade them.

Today’s “store” is no longer a quaint building with neatly stocked shelves, it’s a vast network of touchpoints that’s complex and expensive to maintain. However, the one thing about retail that hasn’t changed — indeed it seems to be timeless — is the need to get the right message to the right person at the right moment. A proven analytics process can help you do that.

Three-dimensional Shopper Insights: The Cube
Retail has always been a game of chess. But now its complexity makes it more like three-dimensional chess. Luckily, we have analytics, which have allowed us to design a tool to show us the appropriate insights for any touchpoint network: The Cube. Imagine a data table with three axes. One axis lists out all of your potential touchpoints. The second axis lists potential messages you may want to deliver. The third axis represents the fact that you need to repeat this exercise for all of your key target segments of customers. The content of the table shows which messages are most important to your customers and where they work best.

The Cube is a brilliant way to use the shopper data you’ve collected. With it, you build a fact base of what your customers want to hear and where they want to hear it. It helps prioritize your opportunities and gives you a jump on what your touchpoint experiences should look and sound like.

Shoppers’ preference for new physical channels — such as automated retail, airport kiosks or specialty store-within-stores — have retailers eager to adapt and diversify their store formats. And as shoppers shift to these other channels, the brick-and-mortar store is introducing new categories and reducing or eliminating others. In some cases, the reduced need for square footage has retailers subdividing their space for new tenants.

Subdivide and conquer
If your organization is looking to subdivide a retail space that is too large for current operations, start with this list of questions to help you avoid common pitfalls:

One of my favorite parts of being a designer and working with brands on a daily basis is asking the question: Why not? I have always believed that design is a fluid activity, and in a lot of cases, a completely subjective endeavor. Our ideas against your inputs. It isn’t black or white. It’s gray in many cases. Unlike accounting, sometimes the numbers don’t, and shouldn’t, add up. A bit clichéd perhaps, but 1+1 can equal 3. And oftentimes innovation happens when you break a few rules.

When I look around the retail industry, I see a lot of parity within categories when it comes to format. Take a minute and compare yourself with another brand in your particular competitive set. Are there any similarities? Are there any differences? Other than color, would you be able to tell the difference between your facility and the other guy down the street if your signs were swiped in the middle of the night? More importantly, can your customers tell the difference? I see a lot of categories defining the rules in which you, as brands, play and I wonder why it can’t be different.

I recently saw a video of Tesco’s experiment with virtual stores in the subway stations in Seoul, Korea. Busy Koreans can shop large format digital images of existing stores’ shelves by using their smartphones to capture QR-coded products. The order is delivered when the shopper gets home, fulfilled by their local Tesco Homeplus. This won the local stores new customers and drove higher sales out of their existing properties. They didn’t build a new store, they came up with their own rules about how their brand could behave and present itself. They asked: Why not?

This is great video from Au Bon Pain describing where the brand is headed. We partnered with the bakery café to create an engaging and differentiating “marketplace” concept with a focus on giving the store more personality, distinction and improving the ease of shopping. Au Bon pain’s CEO, Sue Morelli describes the company’s focus on their three brand pillars and the importance of the environment and service to the brand experience.

The new concept gives the brand credit for the things that it does really well. We’ve created destinations for core competencies and we’ve made it easier for customers to navigate the experience, inviting them to buy more.

The new design is bright, welcoming and energized with color and comfort.Communication zones clarify the offer and enable customers to build their order with speed and convenience. The old pencil-and-paper sandwich ordering method is replaced with wireless devices. This new efficient system allows customers to maximize their dwell time in the space and explore the complete Au Bon Pain offering. New, deeper trays with handles enable customers to build their orders easily.

In South Korea, Tesco Homeplus opened a virtual supermarket in a subway station.

Romanticism, a Chinese women’s wear retailer, designed its Hangzhou flagship of netlike material inspired by woven fabric and the idea that clothing should be like a second skin.

Australia’s health and beauty chain, Aesop, believes unequivocally that good design can improve your life. The brand collaborates with designers and architects to create the stunning showcases for their specialty products with materials of local origin.

In an imaginative use of technology, one retailer created an interactive installation in order to play music that matched the style/genre of the clothes tried on, whether indie, punk, rock or hip hop.