UNCERTAIN WORLDS
PART 3: SYSTEMS THINKING FOR BRAND DESIGNERS
12-15 MINUTE READ. PUBLISHED 11 DEC 2023. UPDATED 20 JAN 2024.
CREATIVE COMMONS CC BY ELECTRO STRATEGY STUDIO. WRITTEN BY ADRIAN JARVIS. EDITED BY TIM WILD.
TL;DR Systems Thinking introduces brand designers to concepts such as emergence, leverage points, chaos, feedback loops, cohesion and adaptability. Adopting a systemic approach can help designers create resilient and responsive brands that thrive in our dynamic, uncertain world.
TAKING A MORE SYSTEMIC APPROACH TO BRAND DESIGN.
In an uncertain world, brands don’t live in a vacuum. They’re an active part of dynamic systems — products, services, customers, communities, partners, regulators, activists, and more. This article looks at the principles of Systems Thinking for anyone interested in modern brand design.
So, let’s start with a useful definition:
Systems Thinking is a perspective that views the world as a set of interconnected and interdependent systems, where changes in one part of the system can have ripple effects throughout the whole. Donella Meadows, Academy for Systems Change
The principles presented here are inspired by two decades working at leading studios such as R/GA, Organic Inc, and Accept & Proceed — for iconic brands such as Nike, British Library, BBC, Kia, and Specialized. Typically, projects start with a short discovery phrase, which leads to a workshop to co-create a blueprint for brand design.
Jump to Part 1 — Exploring Connected Brands and Ecosystems or Part 2 — Designing Brands as a Force for Good.
SYSTEMS, CONNECTIONS AND BRAND DESIGN.
Systems Thinking gives brand strategists methods and tools to design for change. By focusing on the connected nature of everything, brands can develop specific strategies to respond to complexity and uncertainty.
There are no general theories of brands. Brands are the opposites of a generic. Each brand is unique and each one has its own system, approach and meaning. Mark Riston, Melbourne Business School
While Systems Thinking can seem an intimidating and big topic — often wrapped up in mathematics, technology and biomimicry — it offers some key advantages for designers:
Help brands to grow in fast-moving markets — especially those affected by rapidly changing behaviours, evolving technology, and shifting regulations.
Decode the trends and drivers of change in our dynamic world — uncertainty amplifies short-term priorities and impedes longer-term transformation.
Design connected brands for digital-led ecosystems — from broadband, sensors and smarter devices to platforms, communities and collaborations.
CREDIT: UNIST Design ShowroomPRINCIPLE 1: KNOW YOUR ECOSYSTEMS
Interconnections are critical in Systems Thinking. For brand strategy, this means understanding the role of the brand in its ecosystems. Essentially, where does your brand connect and what does it connect to?
Here are three key ecosystems to explore:
BRAND: how a company’s people, products and services are functionally integrated.
DIGITAL: how technology transforms lifestyles, cities, industry, and sustainability.
BUSINESS: how each player connects, collaborates, and competes in a market.
A connected brand is an ecosystem catalyst — supporting the design of more valued experiences and sustainable ways of doing business.
CASE STUDY: IKEA's dedication to affordability and sustainability appeals to environmentally conscious consumers. It also sets a new benchmark for the category — reshaping supply chains, and building their global reputation. With a commitment to being climate-positive by 2030, IKEA's initiatives have made them a leader in brand, digital, and business transformation.
Design exercise: Sketch the key elements of your brand's ecosystems and map their interactions. What role can your brand play as a catalyst for positive change?
Example tools & methods: Ecosystem Mapping
CREDIT: RAPHA.CCPRINCIPLE 2: CONNECT ALL THE ELEMENTS
In Systems Thinking, emergence is the advantage gained when individual elements connect. It's the brand magic when purpose, people, platforms and products all work together.
To put it simply, people have a better experience if your products, services and story are part of the same connected system. The brand becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
CASE STUDY: Rapha exemplifies emergence in brand design, starting out as niche cycling apparel and evolving into an icon of cycle culture. Their success stems from a blend of high-quality products, community, and a design-style rooted in cycling heritage. Rapha amplifies their value through innovation, collaborations, and events that combine to create a postive halo for the brand.
Design exercise: Describe how a brand you admire integrates purpose, people, platforms, products, and practice. How does this help create a highly-connected brand experience?
Example tools & methods: Brand Narrative and Storytelling, Journey Mapping
CREDIT: RAPANUIPRINCIPLE 3: FIND YOUR LEVERAGE
Systems Thinking uses the principle of leverage points — finding the places where focused effort can produce transformational change. Finding these points in brand design — such as an inconvenient truth or unsolved frustration — can generate huge benefits. This can be especially useful for scaling with limited budgets, or repositioning to escape commoditisation.
CASE STUDY: Rapanui has leveraged ethical sourcing and transparent manufacturing to build presence and premiumisation in Fast Fashion. They have scaled with eco-conscious consumers, and without large media spend reached buyers who wouldn’t normally consider sustainable clothing.
Design exercise: Imagine you’re rebranding a company with limited resources. Identify and rank potential focused-efforts that could lead to brand transformation.
Example tools & methods: Stakeholder Interviews, Desk and Ethnographic Research
CREDIT: NIKEPRINCIPLE 4: EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY
Chaos is central to Systems Thinking. It recognises that systems are complex and changes often have unforeseeable consequences.
This demands that we become more comfortable with uncertainty. Changes to marketing, product design, or customer service are unpredictable. But embracing uncertainty, rather than trying to mitigate it, can have positive benefits for a brand.
CASE STUDY: Nike's strategic marketing campaigns and product innovations are renown for the attention they receive. The release of modest swimming apparel for Muslim women and their 'Dream Crazy' campaign exemplifies their embrace of uncertainty in action. These bold moves attracted significant controversy, and had a positive effect on growth.
Design exercise: Using your brand or another brand as an example, reflect on past activity. What unexpected outcomes were there? What could have been done to manage risk?
Examples tools & methods: Scenario Planning, Risk Analysis & Management
CREDIT: NETFLIX X 21 LAPS ENTERTAINMENTPRINCIPLE 5: ACTIVELY SEEK FEEDBACK
Feedback loops are a key concept in Systems Thinking. Feedback — both active and passive — is crucial for connected brands. This could be data from valued customers, competitor audits, or even a dialogue with anti-brand activists.
A systemic designer is always observing, testing and learning. Continually seeking feedback informs choices that shape brand perception, drives innovation, and anticipates trends.
CASE STUDY: Netflix makes excellent use of feedback loops. It incorporates viewer data and preferences into content creation and experience design. This data-driven approach helped the ongoing success of Stranger Things, where viewer feedback directly influenced changes to the storyline, characters, and themes.
Design exercise: Review your current feedback mechanisms. How could better feedback loops inform design decisions?
Example tools & methods: User Surveys, Usage Data, Social Listening, A/B Testing
CREDIT: CARHARTT WIP X UNDERGROUND RESISTANCEPRINCIPLE 6: BUILD MORE NETWORKS
In Systems Thinking, collaboration plays a vital role for cultural alignment, problem-solving, and approaches to sustainability. Brands need to actively build networks within their ecosystems — connecting with customers, partners, suppliers, and even competitors.
CASE STUDY: Carhartt is renowned for its traditional workwear. When they wanted to expand, they faced the challenge of not alienating their core customers — blue-collar workers skeptical of hipster and music industry trends. So they introduced Work In Progress (WIP), a collaborative platform with fashion designers, artists, and cultural influencers. These partnerships, and campaigns like History In The Making, helped Carhartt to build a premium, respected streetwear brand.
Design exercise: Imagine you’re expanding into a new market. What can you do to promote collaboration with influencers, partners, and customers?
Example tools & methods: Co-creation Spaces and Workshops, Digital Platforms
CREDIT: OPENAI USING DALL-EPRINCIPLE 7: DESIGN FOR FLEXIBILITY
In Systems Thinking, cohesion is elements working together to achieve a common goal. In brand design, cohesion helps maintain a core identity and narrative that’s flexible enough to react and evolve.
CASE STUDY: In a rapidly changing industry, Citroën's journey with vehicles like the ë range and their DS line demonstrates how the power of cohesion. They introduced new electric technologies and luxury features, while preserving their trademark comfort and unique French design. The brand effectively evolved, while retaining its DNA.
Design exercise: Find brands, in or close to your category, that have effectively reacted to changing culture, technology or behaviours. What choices allowed for this flexibility?
Example tools & methods: Brand Archetypes, Brand Playbooks
CREDIT: INTELPRINCIPLE 8: STAY TUNED TO CHANGE
In Systems Thinking, adaptability is the ability to respond to change. Keeping track of trends and behaviours helps make informed choices and future-proof the brand. Brand designers need to stay tuned to cultural dynamics and educate themselves about the world their brand lives in.
CASE STUDY: Intel effectively adapted to smaller processors and cloud computing, but significantly underestimated the scale of smartphone adoption. This highlights the importance of understanding the drivers of change, especially in markets where technology can rapidly disrupt established business models.
Design exercise: Describe how 3 macro trends are driving change in your category. What is the implication of each trend for brand design?
Example tools & methods: Trend Forecasting, Insight Safaris, Iceberg Model
GET IN TOUCH TO DISCUSS SYSTEMS THINKING FOR BRANDS…
This article was written by Adrian Jarvis, who founded Electro, an independent strategy studio based in London. Building on a master’s degree in System Dynamics, Adrian has 25 years experience of working with enterprises of all sizes. The principles discussed here are highly scalable from start-ups to multinationals, across a range of categories. Find out more.