The senior partner at the UK brand consultancy lets us in on the magic formula that wins loyalty for brands.
I¡¯ve noticed that people who work in design tend to be highly visible characters, as if their aesthetic sensibilities allow them to calibrate their own impact on the world. Louise Cantrill is a little like that: she has a vivid personality that makes you sit up and pay attention.
Her company clearly agrees, as she¡¯s just been promoted to senior partner. ¡°It does mean a lot to me,¡± she confirms. ¡°I was the first female partner in the London office, and now I¡¯m the first female senior partner. The new role in itself isn¡¯t that different; there¡¯s a bit more responsibility and oversight. But I¡¯ve always had quite a unique way of working, which in the past has made it difficult to fit in anywhere.¡±
Lippincott, she says, recognised that and knew how to deploy her skills. ¡°I have an education in design, but I¡¯ve always been an ideas person and a thinker. So while I do less of the actual craft of design, in terms of art direction, I bridge the gap between strategy and design. I build the story behind the big idea.¡±
A need, a goal and a mission
She explains that while Lippincott is a brand consultancy, its work is driven by a defined strategy and a clear mission. ¡°We¡¯re not about beautifying things, prettying things up. We¡¯re about finding out what a company needs, where they want to be, and helping them navigate sometimes very choppy waters to get there. So it¡¯s a combination of need, strategy, a real goal and brilliant creativity.¡±
Globally it¡¯s done that for clients like Delta Airlines, DuPont, Starbucks and Walmart, among many others. A recent favourite for Louise is Nokia. ¡°We helped them evolve from an old ¡®engineering¡¯ brand into a modern, kinetic, B2B tech brand. We wanted to pull them into the 21st or even the 22nd century.¡±
A certain generation associates Nokia with the first mobile phone they ever had, so there¡¯s a lot of affection, without much understanding of what the company does now. ¡°And they¡¯re doing really interesting, really exciting stuff. But there were also lots of different business units doing their own thing. We brought coherence. And it showed the power of refreshing a brand identity.¡±
Part of the new positioning involved streamlining Nokia¡¯s iconic wordmark, so that it remains familiar while looking far more current. In a smart touch that¡¯s also a metaphor for the brief itself, the letters were abstracted so they only read ¡°Nokia¡± when placed together.
¡°When you give people something that resonates, that¡¯s beautiful, that¡¯s flexible enough for them to use, everybody wants to play with it. I loved the way we were able to give people freedom to do that within our framework.¡±
We¡¯re about finding out what a company needs, where they want to be, and helping them navigate sometimes very choppy waters to get there.
Learning from teaching
One of Louise¡¯s first loves is teaching, and my brain lit up when I learned she¡¯d taught at Central Saint Martins, the legendary school of art and design in London. In fact she lectured there three days a week while doing assorted freelance design work: ¡°All kinds of things, from graphic design to interiors at BBC Radio 1.¡±
She concluded that every designer, every creative, should teach. ¡°It makes you give a lot of yourself. You can¡¯t be selfish, not when you¡¯re working with a student to help them get where they need to be. You have to listen and give back, all the time. It makes you more collaborative and it also feeds your own imagination.¡±
It made her a better leader, she thinks. ¡°I¡¯m more receptive and open. Somebody comes to you with what looks like a scribble on a piece of paper. But once you investigate it and interrogate it, you realise it¡¯s the start of something beautiful.¡±
Teaching takes its toll, though. ¡°After five years, I think that¡¯s when you start to top out. At least for me. Because you can only be a good tutor when you really love it and you¡¯re really invested. I would always go above and beyond. There were a lot of students on that course, and more of them every year. I couldn¡¯t fit them all into a day ¨C they¡¯d end up being on the train home with me so we could get more tutorials in.¡±
A Go-to Brand is one you¡¯ve always got on the home screen of your phone.
The progress element
She brought her skills to Lippincott instead. On its website I noted that one of its aims is to create ¡°Go-to Brands". What are those, exactly? ¡°Go-to Brands are about connections and progress. A Go-to Brand is one you¡¯ve always got on the home screen of your phone. For example, I¡¯m always going to go to Amazon. I¡¯m always going to go to the BBC. But it¡¯s not enough that you admire them or enjoy them; they also help you make progress in life. They enable you to do things other brands can¡¯t.¡±
If a brand emerges and then disappears after six months, she says, it¡¯s because the progress factor is missing. ¡°You need those two factors: authentic, real connections, and progress. If you¡¯ve got those two things, you¡¯re onto a winner.¡±
Authenticity is going to become even more important, she adds. ¡°Because we¡¯re in the AI world now. You¡¯ve got the data. You can get it done quick.¡± She snaps her fingers ¡°Sell it to your customers, make more money. But the brain of an AI is out of date; it¡¯s based on what happened in the past. So you have strategy by consensus, design by consensus. There¡¯s a danger we¡¯re going to see a lot of the same stuff. But there¡¯s still a need for a creative direction. And above all for originality.¡±
She compares it to looking up the definition of a word online as opposed to in a paper dictionary. ¡°I¡¯m looking for ¡®octopus¡¯ in a dictionary and I stumble on ¡®octagon¡¯, or something like that. And it gives me an idea. We need to make sure we still have those moments. Where¡¯s the random?¡±
The other problem of AI is its tendency to seed doubt. ¡°You begin to wonder if what you¡¯re looking at is real. And that¡¯s another thing about Go-to Brands. A Go-to Brand, above all, is one you trust.¡±
