We all know branding is more than just a logo, but how do you brand companies that are still searching for their core market or product? When we practice Lean UX we learn about our customers' experiences, test our assumptions, refine them, pivot, and repeat. This session will explore how we can use this approach to create and evolve a companies' brand through a process of continual brand discovery. Presented at Lean UX NYC 2013

1. Lean Branding for
Startups
Lean UX NYC 2013
Adrian Howard (@adrianh)
quietstars.com

2. What is brand?

3. name, term, design, symbol, or any other
feature that identifies one seller's good or
service as distinct from those of other sellers
- American Marketing Association Dictionary

4. If you are not a brand, you are a commodity.
- Philip Kotler

5. Brand is what people say about you after you
have left the room.
- Dharmesh Shah

6. A logo derives its meaning from the quality
of the thing it symbolizes, not the other way
around.
- Paul Rand

7. A brand is not what we say it is, but what
they say it is.
- Marty Neumeier

8. A logo derives its meaning from the quality
of the thing it symbolizes, not the other way
around.
- Paul Rand
A brand is not what we say it is, but what
they say it is.
- Marty Neumeier

9. Brand creation?

11. Core Identity, Brand Strategy, Brand
Custodian, Brand Architecture, Extended
Identity, Promise, Channel Planning, Brand
Guardian, Opportunity Assessment, blah,
blah, blah, etc.

12. Our business is infested with idiots who try
to impress by using pretentious jargon.
- David Ogilvy

13. External Agencies

14. Expensive

15. One-off

16. Opaque

17. Late

18. Never Wrong

19. The Lean Startup
Minimal Viable Product,
Product/Market Fit,
Customer Development,
Build-Model-Learn,
Hypothesis & Experiments,
Pivot, Innovation
Accounting, AARRR, blah,
blah, blah, etc.

20. Our business is infested with idiots who try
to impress by using pretentious jargon.
- David Ogilvy

21. The Lean Startup

22. Product certainty
Market certainty

23. Product certainty
Market certainty

24. Product certainty
Market certainty

25. Product certainty
WTF
Market certainty

26. Product certainty
Build it and they
WTF
will come!
Market certainty

27. You know, for kids!
Product certainty
Build it and they
WTF
will come!
Market certainty

28. You know, for kids!
$
Product certainty
Build it and they
WTF
will come!
Market certainty

29. Product certainty
Market certainty

30. Product certainty
Market certainty

31. Product certainty
Market certainty

33. Internal

34. Cheap

35. Continual

36. Transparent

37. Early

38. Often wrong

39. Lean Startup =
Brand Discovery

40. “Every advertisement should be thought of
as a contribution to the complex symbol
which is the brand image.”
- David Ogilvy

41. A logo derives its meaning from the quality
of the thing it symbolizes, not the other way
around.
- Paul Rand
A brand is not what we say it is, but what
they say it is.
- Marty Neumeier

42. Great Brand =
Product/Market Fit

43. Rebrand =
Kind of pivot

44. Branding ≠ Bullshit

45. Bring branding
into the Lean fold

46. Thank You
@adrianh
quietstars.com
adrianh@quietstars.com