Anne Miltenburg:
Branding for change
(Part 2)

Part two of a two-part interview with social enterprise branding expert Anne Miltenburg, a Dutch brand director on a mission to leverage the power of brand for social and environmental causes. Based in Nairobi, Kenya, she is the founder of Brand The Change, an independent learning organization that trains change makers in brand building skills. In this part of our conversation, she discusses the designer’s role in building brands, some of the pitfalls and challenges social enterprise has to navigate, and the increasing commercial success of purpose-driven businesses.

Kevin Finn: There are designers who often struggle working in design studios because of the type of client work they have to do. Of course, they could try to change the studio from the inside. Or they could simply leave. But everything is so uncertain, they often don’t know which way to look. What advice would you offer designers struggling with the client work they might be doing at a studio?

Anne Miltenburg: I think giving advice to young people is very dangerous. [Laughs] There’s a great Baz Lurhman song about sunscreen, which sums things up nicely:

“Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.”

[Both laughing]

Obviously, if you’re very unhappy, it’s never good to stay. But I loved working at Studio Dumbar and I learned a lot at Interbrand, which may not have always been close to my heart but it definitely helped me to build a solid foundation for my professional practice, which I could apply later.

If I look around now, unfortunately I see a lot of people have to be hustlers. Those who come out of college or university and have to make it up as they go along in their independent work, or freelance work, or working online remotely for clients. I believe they’re missing a lot of the training you get at agencies, which helps structure your thinking, how to present work to a client, how to manage projects, how to get paid for projects, what happens if you get the conditions for the work wrong. On the other hand, you might also be learning all the wrong lessons and getting a lot of baggage from another era, which you could simply avoid if you started fresh in your own practice.

I was really lucky to have worked at agencies who are very open to the opinions of younger team members. They even put us on the management team. While that’s great, it also means you’re partly responsible for sustaining 30 jobs. You’ll notice how quickly your thinking will change because of that responsibility.

I don’t envy people who are just starting out now because it’s such a different economy. And there’s so little job security. Plus, they often have more debt. My generation got a pretty good start in 2005.

You mentioned previously how ethically‑minded you’ve always been and the importance of values. Designers are typically optimistic and ethically‑minded. And while there are obvious attractions to working with social enterprise, and purpose‑driven companies, what difficulties have you encountered working in this space as a branding consultant?

A lot of companies in this space are starting out, so funding is an issue and people always see branding as overhead. Of course, there’s a lot of evangelising around why branding is important and obviously I’m also contributing to that—so everyone can just recommend the book [Brand The Change] if you like [laughing].

So there’s the funding issue, and that also means people want to see a direct return on investment. Obviously that’s not easy to deliver. Another issue is that the product or service is often more complex and could shift, so you have a lot of pivots along the way. That can be really hard if you’re developing a brand strategy and all of a sudden, six months later, the product is different. So you need to develop things in a very lean way. There’s no such thing as settling on a strategy and then doing the whole identity part and then doing the implementation, delivering a manual and expecting it will still live on six months later. That just doesn’t happen. At least not in my experience. And then there are often far more types of audiences than the traditional customer. That also makes it more complex.

So I think the designer’s role inside a business is very interesting because you’re the one who will continuously evolve the brand.

Another challenge is simply that clients aren’t so knowledgeable. For instance, a Marketing Director at a large telecom company will be a really good guideline for you, in terms of what the process and deliverables should look like. They know how to brief you and what to brief you on. They know what success looks like. Whereas, clients in the social enterprise space, they just don’t know this because, oftentimes, they’re the inventors of the product or service, they’re not the Chief Marketeer in that particular field.

With start-ups lacking that kind of experience you have to be far stronger in your consultation abilities—your ability to guide a client through the process and explain it clearly and to know the criteria for success. It means building an understanding—in a diplomatic way— an acknowledgement that “a camel is a horse designed by committee.” It just takes a lot more work. And in some cases, that means you have to take a 15‑year step back in the evolution of branding because you’ll have to explain far more.

You will again find yourself saying: “When I deliver a finalised logo you can’t just make it blue and then change it into a triangle next week without telling me.” Because that type of thing does happen. [Both laughing].

Of course, as a designer, you could switch to this sector [social enterprise] and be totally unsatisfied. Working for people who have the intention of doing something good doesn’t necessarily mean this automatically makes the collaboration wonderful and fulfilling, nor will it necessarily change the way you feel about the work you’re doing. You could actually end up loving your commercial clients for certain things—simple things, like saying “yes” to an estimate.

[Both laughing]

In my experience, startups or emerging businesses often feel they already have a brand, even though they may not have produced a product or service yet. They tend to think a brand is a logo. In your book Brand The Change, you state: “A brand is not built overnight, but requires years of work.” Is this something the startups you work with generally understand and accept, or is it a surprise to them?

For a number of them it’s a surprise. Many feel they already do have a brand. So their eyes are opened through the workshops we do using our tools, and they realise this is something much bigger. It also depends on whether it’s a first‑time entrepreneur or not, because you have startups run by people where this might be their sixth company and they know the difference between brand and branding.

However, with almost everyone we work with we have to start at zero; we have to start with helping to get the first customer, the first investor, the first press contact. It’s so… I don’t want to say naive, but it just speaks to someone’s inexperience when they think the brand is a logo.

For instance, if I consider how much time we invest at Internet of Elephants, where I’m the brand manager, we decided to follow a lean product development process and open it up to the public as a marketing strategy over the course of two years. That involved building an online following, creating a good user experience and relationship, getting credible partners in the conservation space who have the networks we need, building press networks, etc. It’s been two years now and we’re just getting some traction. We’re beginning to harvest the results. We even became one of Fast Company’s 2018 most innovative companies. Then there was a National Geographic Explorer Grant and we received really good press in Tech Crunch. But that took two years! It’s not like: “Oh, we built something, it works. Let’s send people an email. It’ll be in the newspaper soon, and here we go.”

[Laughs] There’s a myth that: If you build it, they will come. But that’s just not the case. For 99.9 percent of us it’s not and, unfortunately, that means that you’re just going to have to build it one person at a time.

You mentioned Internet of Elephants was recently included as one of Fast Company’s most innovative companies. However, there may still be some skepticism around whether social enterprise initiatives can be sustainable and innovative. Building the Internet of Elephants brand over two years—and then getting to this stage with Fast Company and National Geographic—must be great validation for the work you’ve been doing. So, are we seeing social enterprise turn a corner where they’re now accepted in the same manner as some of the more established and innovative businesses we’re traditionally familiar with? If so, what do you think is behind this development?

I think the tech world has had a huge impact on this development. The whole world of disruptive tech has ‘social impact’ written all over it. For all the trouble Facebook is currently in, it also made a huge impact for how people connect, for example the Arab Spring and lots of activist groups. But it can go a bit far… It’s a running gag in Silicon Valley where your pitch will begin with: “We’re going to change the world by… creating a revolutionary newsletter app.”

[Laughs] But the reality is that businesses with purpose are consistently showing really great results versus their competitors. There are obvious examples like Patagonia and Toms Shoes. I often have to check with people—to ask what their definition of social enterprise is because, for me, it’s not an orphanage, it’s not saving the seals, it’s not activism or charity. Social enterprise is very much like business—but with impact. And one doesn’t work without the other.

For instance, Toms Shoes is very well‑known as a social enterprise. But in a way, I’d say it’s a business with a charity. The social impact is not really built into the business model. The companies that I would call true to the definition of social enterprise would definitely fall in the innovative category, because 20 years ago there just weren’t that many people trying to make a difference through business.

A vegetarian corner store, or a hemp t‑shirt maker were the social enterprise pioneers. Now, Whole Foods is a really interesting case study, where a guy started one shop and has built it out to an enormous scale. Considering how well Whole Foods is doing, it’s just incredible!

The more innovative a social enterprise is the bigger audience reach they can have. For me, that’s where the real difference is, compared to some of the more traditional charities or ‘good causes’ because they’re not unnecessarily focused on reaching new audiences. They’re focused on reaching an existing audience—people who are already converted. So, we shouldn’t be selling vegetarian burgers to vegetarians. We should be selling them to meat eaters—and as many people as possible.

That’s when my commercial mind kicks in, and I definitely have a commercial mind. I’m not really interested in creating a difference for 500 people. I’m interested in making a difference for hundreds of thousands of people.

Coming from Europe—which is obviously very set in its ways and a very nostalgic society—Africa is a continent where there’s a lot of progress happening as we speak. I can’t count the amount of insane skyscrapers and apartments blocks that have been built in the two years that I’ve been in Nairobi.

Of course, I’m not suggesting there’s anything wrong with making a difference for one person. It’s great! But we also need people who are reaching 200 million people. I grew up in a city that’s looked the same for 500 years. Very little has changed. When you live on a frontier you’re confronted with that reality—and that opportunity. This creates a very different mindset.

We don’t necessarily talk about the pitfalls of social enterprise. However, in your book you mention Tony’s Chocolates to illustrate how difficulties often do arise. In Tony’s Chocolonely’ case, the issue was trying to avoid slavery in their supply chain, which is very hard for them to ensure 100%. Equally, for Toms Shoes, there have been recent issues with their supply chain. So how can companies use branding to avoid issues like this, if at all?

I don’t think they can. The issues those companies are trying to tackle are extremely complex. For instance, Tony’s Chocolonely initially set out as an interesting activism project—to create one slave-free chocolate bar. That, in itself, was incredibly difficult to achieve because you want to change a supply chain that is influenced by global economic forces. It’s taken them 10 years to get to the point where I think they can now guarantee 99 percent (or thereabouts) of the chocolate bar is slave‑free.

Of course, that’s an ethical issue and can be dismissed into thinking their whole company, or their whole brand, is irrelevant. But that’s short-sighted. They’re actually proving that a business with purpose can become the market leader in chocolate in the Netherlands. They’re showing all the other companies—like Milka and Droste and Nestle and all the big chocolate companies—that ethical is wanted, that ethical makes you desired.

And it can be profitable too, because Tony’s Chocolonely doesn’t spend much money on marketing so they have an incredible return on their products. People just love it. People love everything they do.

I read a great statement on this issue of being overly critical on those companies that are trying to make a difference. Kevin Sweeney, former Marketing and Communications Director of Patagonia, said: “In any entity where ideology is involved, there is a disparity between ideology and reality. A potential pitfall is that this gap will always be the subject of intense conversation. This can be constructive or destructive. A positive vision is much more impactful. What is important is to create a vision: what the country could be like, what a company could be like.”

Imagine if people were as critical of Nike as they are of Toms Shoes. As soon as you have principles, people will take a punch at them.

So it’s really important to understand all these things are a work-in-progress, that we need to constantly prototype things, instead of attempting to only deliver something that is 100 percent ethical all the time. Because if we do that, we will never launch a thing.

But since branding is communications, isn’t there an opportunity—or a role—for branding to explain these issues and challenges better, sharing the context around why 90 percent or 98 percent is acceptable, ethical and progressive?

I think there is. And I think these companies are trying very hard to do that. But for the emerging businesses and brands it’s a very difficult challenge, especially when you’re talking to people who aren’t as invested as you are in the context that you’re working to help or to solve. For instance, if Tony’s Chocolonely announces a new chocolate flavour they’d probably get 500 likes on a post. Whereas, they’d probably get six positive reactions if they talked about signing a petition to help them pressure Milka to use fair‑trade cocoa butter.

With Internet of Elephants we’re trying to make people feel empowered to do something about wildlife conservation, and we want to do it in a positive way. But people are used to doom and gloom and urgency, and dead animals. They don’t want to think about how their fashion purchases affect climate change and in turn affect wildlife. People want to hear simple solutions, along the lines of: For $10 we can stop a poacher. But the world is not that simple.

These things are really, really hard. If you’re working with a product—which already has significant complexity—and then on top of that the impact model also has a lot of complexity, that becomes a real challenge. People find Toms Shoes incredibly appealing. And a line like ‘Buy one, give one’ has had incredible success. But, in my opinion, they have the completely wrong impact model. There’s a whole complexity issue around the fact we shouldn’t actually be giving away shoes because they ruin a local economy. No shoemaker in the local country will be making money from their trade as a result.

People have a simplistic view that we should be sending free stuff to low income countries, which is the result of 20 or 30 years of misguided development aid and we need to get that out of their minds. But you’re just not going to achieve that with your $5,000 a year marketing budget. So, the communication of complexity is definitely something you try to do—but it’s very hard.

Switching things towards Purpose, Larry Fink is the founder of BlackRock, which as of 2017 oversees $6.3 trillion in assets under management. He recently sent an email to the CEOs of companies in their portfolio stating BlackRock will now be assessing companies based on their purpose, not just their profits. We’re seeing other significant businesses follow suit. Evidently, purpose has become increasingly more important in business—and that’s far beyond the tokenistic ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ we’ve seen for many years. But these companies might be struggling with how they can incorporate a genuine sense of purpose into their business. How do you think a large complex organisation can learn from smaller, more agile social enterprises when seeking to introduce this genuine sense of purpose in their business?

A lot of companies are struggling with finding their purpose because they came of age a while ago. For example, companies began creating fridges because food spoiled, people were getting sick. So a fridge was a really great solution to help people stay healthier, to feed their kids and to have more prosperous families. But 60 years later, no one can really feel as proud of working for a fridge manufacturer because they’ve lost that sense of purpose and fridges are now a commodity. Thousands of companies are creating fridges around the world. In that sense, it’s really difficult if you have a product that’s basically a mainstream product or service but which doesn’t really affect people’s lives in the way it used to.

Therefore, the innovation process is really high on every company’s agenda because they need to uncover what people’s true needs are again. For a fridge manufacturer, they need to understand customer’s pains around food, keeping food and keeping their family healthy. Then they need to undertake product development from that perspective.

In some cases, companies just don’t get it. Here’s an example: we worked with a traditional bank recently. In fact, my great‑grandfather was one of the original founders. They set up a cooperative because they weren’t getting money from banks. The cooperative ensured farmers could now loan to each other. Fast forward one hundred years, and this bank was recently involved in a scandal so they were trying to get back to their roots of being this ‘cooperative’ bank. They wanted to know how to communicate that heritage. But they weren’t so interested in things like changing the criteria their sales managers were being assessed on for lending money to people. If they genuinely wanted to return to their cooperative heritage they should reward the salespeople on how many loans have been given to community‑based companies. So, if you’re not engaging with economic incentives—and not actively putting your money where your aspirations are—it’s not going to work.

Incidentally, it took me a year and a half to get paid by this bank! [Laughs] During the work, we had a three‑hour conversation about why people hate banks. So, if you’re that thick‑skulled—and if you behave in that way—I’m sorry, but you’re going to go the way of the dinosaur.

[Both laughing]

Building on that, there is a direct link between brand and business, and increasingly designers are working closely with founders and business leaders. As a result, we often find ourselves advising on business models, and business strategy, just like we’ve been discussing here. However, few designers are formally trained in business. In your experience, how can a designer reconcile the fact they are often in a position to advise business leaders, yet may have no formal training or experience in running a business?

Yeah, we keep our fingers crossed, don’t we? [Laughs]

But seriously, first of all designers need to be aware they’re not business consultants. We need to stay true to ourselves because you can come up with an idea, but it’s an assumption. You actually have no idea if it will work in reality and there’s nothing more exciting than an idea that hasn’t been tested, because you’re not the one who is going to implement it. I’ve actually seen that quite a bit from designers as a client myself. They always think they’re offering me this huge gift but rarely have I seen a designer take actual accountability over that idea.

The solution might emerge through creating interdisciplinary teams inside a company. One of my friends is a game designer. She was asked to join a fin-tech innovation team at a bank. They wanted someone to think differently. Combining that person with someone who has an MBA, with another person who has a tech background, you can get really great ideas. We shouldn’t be left entirely to our own devices [laughs]. It’s then important to do a good analysis of things together. This is so much more effective than just throwing some nice ideas over the fence. Being actively involved in further development is very healthy.

You get a lot of people who look at business from the outside and they think they know exactly what’s going on, or how you should improve something. But the day‑to‑day reality is very different. Yet, you still need those people to wake you up every now and then. Playing that role is a really elegant way for designers to be closer to business, if they want to do that. I know plenty of people who really feel designers should have a seat at the boardroom table. But I always wonder, what would happen if they really did get a seat at the table. It’s not a responsibility for everyone, and that’s totally okay. We still need people to design something really, really nice. Not every designer needs to be an excellent entrepreneur or an excellent business consultant. But I do think it would be very interesting for a design student to have an MBA and some MBA students to take a design course. I guess that’s why Design Thinking workshops are so…

So popular! [Both laughing]

Following from this, there are numerous design agencies around the world—some of whom you and I have worked in—who claim they build brands. I disagree with this claim. I strongly believe companies build a brand, day-in, day-out—every day. In fact, it’s customers who decide whether the business is a brand or not. Of course, designers help facilitate this process through branding tools and materials, and that contributes significantly to how a company is perceived. But I don’t believe agencies necessarily build the brand. What’s your view on this?

I couldn’t agree more. [Laughs] Can I put that on a poster and put it on my wall? [Both laughing]

Seriously, you’re totally right. And it’s something I’ve just taken as a learning point for myself. After working in agencies for over 12 years and then building my own company, working in-house—working as a client, basically—I’ve realised there’s so much more to this than what we were doing at those agencies. But we were just blind to it. As a designer, if you’ve ever wondered why things have taken so long for clients to get back to us about a proposal, or wondering why things aren’t moving forward quick enough, it’s not because people are sitting on their hands. It’s because things are incredibly complex and you need to build support, justify spending the money and create excitement for something in the team because what you do will affect everyone.

By the time you can define a brand, by the time you’ve actually embedded some of that thinking in a whole sales team, for example, and in the customer experience, and in all the different products, that’s going to take years. And that’s done by the company, not by the brand consultants. As designers, sometimes we suffer from consultancy syndrome. We think we know it all; we think that we make it happen. A designer’s contribution is important but oftentimes it’s small in comparison. But we still like to pretend it’s super valuable.

So, what’s your definition of a brand?

My definition is: “Directing other people to think and feel about you.”

That’s the psychological aspect. The bigger picture is about why the organisation even exists and how that is translated to every single interaction that we experience with them. From how you hire people, who you hire, who you put in the spotlight, through to where you’re located, why you’re located there, how people experience your events, etc. As a designer, you can’t have that holistic view. You can’t define how HR brings the brand to life.

The designer does play a role in defining what the core is. From there, the in‑house team—the client—is going to work on the creative thinking and strategy around what that means for their HR department or for their supply chain, or their communication.

So, the designer’s role is to provide clarity and focus and the client will then run with it? That echoes something you stated in your book, that branding is a mind game—a mindset.

Yes and it has moved away from the industrial revolution mindset where the context is: butter looks like this, or butter looks like that, and now you can make a choice on the supermarket shelf. All that’s changing. For example, consider Artificial Intelligence. We have two clients and their product is basically a chatbot—a virtual person. The brand is a virtual person.

What does that now mean for how they interact and respond, and what they talk about? There are no traditional branding elements; there’s no logo or visual identity. The tone of voice is nothing compared to the entire psychology that needs to be developed around that chatbot.

There is another side to these changes. Recently, Gainesville City, Florida worked with IDEO to develop a brand refresh. Part of that process was to remove the word ‘city’ from Gainesville City. They adopted a human‑centred design approach, which put their citizens at the centre of the brand, which makes sense. This moves away from the traditional approach cities often take with branding. However, they have referred to the whole process as ‘debranding’ even though they use all the tools and assets of regular branding. Are we in danger of getting caught up in brand jargon, which will likely damage the profession in the long term?

I think Gainesville was a very good example of smart branding. I’m sure they were thinking: “How can we spin this so it stands out from other city branding projects?”

[Laughs]

Because there are a lot of people who love ‘brand‑bashing’. They like to think it’s de‑branding. There was another example recently in a Wallpaper magazine article featuring a de‑branded product line. Well, I’ve never seen anything so branded in my life. It’s just totally clean design. It has a great story with a very strong value proposition. Whoever is convincing these journalists to write articles like that must be laughing because those companies are getting their PR time; they’re getting their story in the press without anyone putting critical thought to it.

Naomi Klein wrote a whole book about anti‑branding—No Logo—which was actually just anti‑capitalist. Branding is made the evil main character. But really, it’s the fact that Nike just has a really poor sense of ethics. No Logo simply focused on people who are finding ways to sell a not‑so‑great product with maximum margin.

As a society, we just really love to think of branding as this horrific cosmetic surgery procedure that others fall for—but that we don’t—and if only there was no branding then the world would be a better place. Well those ethics are great, but if you’re going to wait until the world is a level playing field for ideas, and when they will purely be measured on their own merits and not how they are promoted, you’re going to have to wait a long time.

[Both laughing]

When I was reading the article about Gainesville it struck me that cities are social enterprises on a massive scale, when you consider the complexity involved…

That’s true!

In that regard, where do you see cities moving towards in the future? You’re in Nairobi, which is changing massively. We’ve got Gainesville who are looking at a different model by putting citizens at the centre of their brand, which is obvious but few cities are truly acting on this. So, where do you think cities are moving, in terms of branding?

Living in a city with three million people definitely makes you think a lot about cities, especially since this one doesn’t have a master plan.

You can’t manufacture place branding purely based on PR. In the Netherlands, Rotterdam recently decided to position itself as a city of women. Well, I can tell you, it’s not a city for women. Regardless of how the city wants to be seen, things are going to happen in the city, beyond their control, and which will counter the narrative they’re trying to create. As a government, you would need to have such an extreme grasp on everything happening in a country in order to actively guide the plan. So, the only city or country which could do any sort of universal nation branding or city branding is actually a dictatorship.

It’s a compelling point! Similarly, a few years ago I spoke with Helen Palmer, a cultural tourism expert, who believes cities and places shouldn’t have logos or straplines or slogans—just culture. She believes the experience of a city or a place develops what that brand is in people’s minds. That it’s not something to be controlled, but that it’s facilitated and it’s strategic, deciding what the actions are, the activities and what will reflect who they are as a place or as a city. She gets really upset about design agencies suggesting to brand places…

I’m sure! [laughs]

Wrapping things up, you first published your book through a successful Kickstarter campaign under the title Branding Toolkit for Changemakers. This has now been republished through BIS Publishers under the title, Brand the Change. What do you hope this book is going to achieve?

I hope it puts good brand thinking on the map as a really powerful way of looking at the world and looking at things you want to change. It’s really for people from all walks of life, hopefully helping them to be smarter and clearer about what they want to do, understanding who they need to reach and how they can get those people onboard, whether that’s for their personal careers or on behalf of a company. It’s really to encourage people to start looking at branding as a mind game and using this to your own advantage.

Of course, you could argue some people are thinking too much like brand strategists these days. But then some of us can definitely use a little nudge in the right direction, which could go a long way.

Finally, we talked previously about where you think the future of branding is heading. You suggested that will include more in‑house design roles. Where else do you see the field moving towards in the future?

I think a lot more professions will get involved in this space, for example psychologists. There will be a much bigger role for language and writing. And there’s obviously going to be a much bigger role for technology. Other than that it’s hard to predict, and I’m not the person to try to predict it. I mean, I didn’t think people would want to sleep at strangers’ houses in the way AirBnB has developed, or that anyone would shop for a dress online, so I’m not sure if I’m the right person to answer that question.

[Laughs] But you’re optimistic about where it’s heading?

Yes! I think one of the nice things about my work is that I meet various people trying to make a genuine difference. We’re at a very scary moment in time, where people are deliberately promoting a lot of fear regarding certain religions, nationalities, and cultures. When you travel, you realise everyone is similar, everyone wants their children to grow up healthy, everyone wants to listen to music and have a great time with friends. Young people everywhere want a job and want to have a purpose in life.

I meet an incredible amount of like‑minded people, and that has made me an optimist.

Image credits

Anne Miltenburg portrait provided by Anne Miltenburg