In a previous blog post One man, 366 logos, I took a closer look at the Swedish designer Fredrik Lundwalls retouch of several well-known brand logos. Lundwall challenged himself to redesign an existing logo each and every day throughout 2012, and the result of his work was numerous potential face-lifts to a variety of both old and new, international and regional brand logos.

In the blog post I tried to raise a discussion on the extent to which companies can change their logos over night. In my opinion logos can be improved over time, but there are some considerations that must be made in advance. A great example of this is Roskilde Festival, who recently decided to redesign their logo.

As a more or less neutral outsider with only one appearance on the grass fields of Roskilde, my personal opinion about the ongoing adjustments to the logo is predominantly positive. I think that the changes have adjusted the logo to an industry endlessly influenced by shifting trends, and I have my doubts about the 1973 editions ability to embrace the concept of the festival today.

At the same time, the continuous reshaping of the hallmark of Roskilde has been a great way to create attention/buzz about the festival - and there has been lots of activity on their social media platforms due to the latest face-lift. Within days from the launch, the first passionate supporter uploaded a picture of the new canopy tattooed on his leg on the Roskilde Festival Facebook-page, which has been a breeding ground for numerous discussions and dialogs about the new logo.

The canopy and the logo

With the new logo Roskilde Festival has kept true to their “original” 1978 logo, in which the orange canopy was unveiled. Apart from operating as the visual trademark of the festival, the canopy also plays an important part in the history of Roskilde Festival. Originally, the canopy was produced for the Rolling Stones’ European Tour in 1976. In 1977 Roskilde Festival spotted the canopy on a photograph from the NME coverage of the Hyde Park Queen concert in London. It was love at first sight and in 1978 the orange canopy was unloaded to the fields of Roskilde. After Roskilde Festival 2000 the original canopy retired due to abrasion. The following year a new and slightly larger model was introduced, and the orange canopy has been synonymous with the Roskilde Festival ever since.    

Since 1971, the festival, which is one of the largest of its kind in the Northern Europa, has kept on fine-tuning their logo, and the canopy, which is the hallmark of the festival, has yet again been reshaped.

 The timeline below shows the progress of the Roskilde Festival logo.

Through the past years Roskilde Festival has received quite some critique on their musical profile, which has been rather fuzzy, according to both music reviewers and a large part of the festival crowd. Therefore, the logo face-lift might herald a new era in the history of Roskilde Festival. Based on the line-up for this year’s festival so far, this is exactly what the festival aims to do.

In terms of the new logo I think it suits Roskilde Festival very well, and as long as they stay true to the canopy and the orange colour, they can keep on fine-tuning the logo.

What do you think about the face-lift of the logo? Is Roskilde Festival moving into a new era? Feel free to share your thoughts.  

Authenticity, that has something to do with spelt bread, organic food and vintage furniture. Has it not? In a recent piece in the New Statesman Steven Poole asks: Why are we so obsessed with the pursuit of authenticity? At Stagis we find such questions exhilarating since we advice organization on how to adapt and thrive in a society driven by the pursuit of authenticity. But I believe recent debates on authenticity have been quite myopic, and in particular Mr. Poole has a narrow understanding of the concept of authenticity.

Often enough, debates by Steven Poole, Andrew Potter and others, on authenticity are about why and how modern consumers suddenly prefer organic foods to conventional ones. Or why people are suddenly flocking to buy responsible and environmentally friendly Starbucks coffee. Sure enough, Mr. Poole also tends to believe that authenticity has to do with certain shallow forms of consumer trends:

”Modern mass-media gluttony, or foodism, has its own cluster of presumed “authentic” virtues. The idea of “real” food is sometimes parsed, adorably, as food with no chemicals, though all food is made of chemicals.”

Now, ‘authentic’ consumer trends are all fine and interesting phenomena in their own right, but what I am arguing is that these consumers’ trends are only symptoms of an underlying movement into the ‘meaning-society’. Or what Charles Taylor has called ‘a culture of authenticity’:

“I mean the understanding of life [whereby] each one of us has his or her own way of realizing our humanity, and that it is important to find and live out one’s own, as against surrendering to conformity with a model imposed on us from the outside, by society, or the previous generation, or religious or political authority.”  

At Stagis we are exactly helping businesses navigate in the culture of authenticity, a meaning-society, which demands of companies that they develop authentic identities, or as Polonius says in Hamlet: “To thine own self be true”! Authenticity is thus about how persons and organizations finds their own inner strengths and turns them into a competitive advantage, in order not to surrender to market conformity or blind competition over price.  

In our perspective authenticity is not simply about storytelling and biodynamic goods, but about creating coherence between three distinct dimensions of identity: Heritage, Vision and Expression.

All persons and organizations have a history (heritage), beliefs and goals concerning the organization (vision) and the surroundings have an image of the organization (the expression), which together constitutes the identity. And only by developing all three dimensions can companies create a lasting authentic identity that consumers find meaningful.

Interestingly, there are many signs of authenticity one could point to, covered in great detail by Charles Taylors, but one surprising indirect clue is Googles Ngram viewer: As Steven Poole also notes, Google Ngram shows how the use of ’authenticity’ increases in English literature from 1920, which is also the year where the usage if ‘authenticity’ reaches its all time lowest.

Poole believes it “parallels the rise to ubiquity of digital creative technologies”, whereas I personally see the rising pursuit of authenticity from 1920 onwards as a response to the meaningless carnage of WWI. Likewise, in the marketplace blind price competition creates alienated customers who seek towards more meaningful companies with a coherent authentic identity and products, such as Noma or Lego. Thus, authenticity in a business perspective is about turning the organizations inner strengths into the future growth strategy of the company.

So authenticity might after all not be what you think it is….

Since 2006 Stagis has helped Master of Management Development (MMD) – an executive master programme at Copenhagen Business School – with marketing and public relations. After a year off, we are now happy to announce that the co-operation has started again. For the next year or maybe more Stagis will advise MMD about marketing, public relations, video podcasts etc.

In 2010 Stagis arranged the conference “Be the change” at The National museum of Denmark with the participation of over 140 leaders and a variety of speakers.

The latest work in 2011 was the production of several video podcasts with many of the teachers and professors at MMD e.g. Majken Schultz, Allan Holmgren and Ole Fogh Kirkeby.

Last week 35 curious students started on their two years executive master programme at MMD. And the intention is that even more will start in 2015. Focus for the coming year will mainly be on marketing, public relations, an inspiring conference in the autumn 2013 and a marketing campaign with i.e. Google Adwords.

We will be looking forward to working with MMD and CBS in 2013.

Last year on New Year’s day 2012, a creative Swede decided to challenge himself by forming visual facelifts to logos of numerous renowned brands.

Inspired by a photographer, who photographed himself every day during a one-year period, Frederik Lundwall, designer and creative director, decided to reconstruct an existing brand logo each day throughout 2012. To make the challenge even harder Frederik set up a short time limit for his work, allowing him to use only one hour a day modifying the logos.

In the name of sharing, Lundwall has provided 366 companies and brands with a new perspective on their logos. All they have to do is visit Frederik’s website. I admire Frederik’s graphical work; especially the rework on Hestra, KPMG and Boxer, and the re-creations has surely drawn attention to Frederik and his work. The question that pops up in my mind is, to what extent these companies, if it was in their interest, could take the new logos to heart?  A company logo contains so much more than the visual identity, so how straightforward is it to change the logo of a company or brand over night? What do you think?  

Our logo didn’t come across Frederik’s creative hands, and despite the risk of bringing our designers on my neck, I gave myself the Lundwall-challenge, and here is my shot on how the makeover of the Stagis logo could have turned out. 

I have 87 apps on my Smartphone. Believe me, I counted them. For some this might seem like an abnormal amount, but I use them all. These apps give me instant and often very well structured access to news, weather, sports, search engines, social media networks, cloud-services, photo-apps, games and much more. I also have access to my email accounts. My phone is my digital tool of choice, and my computer is now mostly used for work related tasks, and not for random browsing online. 

This development in preference is trending not only with me. A 2012 report done by the market research agency Nielsen shows that the U.S. market (which is comparable to the European market) has experienced a huge growth in users connecting to the Internet through mobile devices. While the amount of unique users connected to the Internet with a PC is down 4 % compared to 2011, the amount of unique users connected via mobile web is up 82 % and connections made through mobile apps is up 85 % (Nielsen, 2012). This is evidence of a shift in user preferences and a result of a growing Smartphone and tablet market. Companies and organizations alike should therefore pay close attention to this trend turned tendency. 

Going mobile is going where your audience is. This is by no means a bold statement considering the market research mentioned above. Further research done by e.g. Mobile Marketing Association suggests that companies on average stands to gain an 85 % increase in consumer engagement as a result of adapting their website to mobile usage or creating an app. Additionally, the research claims that companies benefits from added consumer engagement seen as an increase in sales. 

The evidence is all pointing in the same direction. Companies must start, if they haven’t already, to adapt websites to mobile usage or even create apps to service their customers. I am a firm believer that all companies must surrender to at least adapting their website to mobile use. This is a question of usability. If your users have easy, well structured access to your site no matter the device used, they will stay longer and more often than not repeat their visit. Apps are on the other hand not an equally important channel of communication for all companies to utilize. Based on observation, an app should be created only by having identified a specific consumer demand for a key service, or as a branding campaign. An example of a service app is mobile banking. Here users are able to check accounts, transfer money on the go etc. In terms of campaigns, Nike has on of the most succesful mobile apps out there with Nike+. The app engages users to compete with each other on fitness achievements. Another succesful campaign is Coinoffers by McDonalds in Denmark, which gives users the opportunity to collect coins through QR codes and recorded sound bites, that can be exchange for free burgers at one of the company’s restaurants. Both campaigns embrace gamification as a tool of deliverance and both are designed to inspire play, fun and feelings of community when using them. Gamification is not right for every company considering services offered, but giving the users a sense of community and added brand value is. 

The point is that your consumers, the users of mobile sites and apps, are growing in numbers, and they are waiting for you to go mobile. Whether creating an app, adapting your site to be optimal for mobile use, or both, going mobile is a tool for companies to ensure future brand engagement.

On December 10th Nikolaj, Esben and I were in Kolding, presenting the vision for the town council. I was exited to learn if the town council of Kolding would pass the new vision, which Stagis has been working at over the last couple of months. You might already have read about it in earlier blog posts, if not, check them out:

-       A new vision for the city of Kolding part 2. A vision forum involving over 500 people from Kolding, working with three possible new visions.  

-       A new vision for the city of Kolding. Find out more about our vision seminary where almost 100 people were joined, selecting three out of four possible visions for the citizens to work with at the vision forum

After having discussed the vision, a unanimously town council of Kolding passed the new vision which is both bold and ambitious. Through the authentic strengths of the city of Kolding, the vision is going to ensure entrepreneurship and growth in the municipality. And there are already a number of ideas on how to make this possible. There are initiatives to create an award for entrepreneurship and a theme week on all schools in Kolding with focus on design and entrepreneurship. Also, Kolding is focusing at an annual design festival. Their goal is to become the World Design Capital in 2018. This year Helsinki became the World Design Capital.

Kolding also wishes to create a ‘Living Design Lab’, for experimenting with the development of society and new social forms, for the benefit of the municipality of Kolding and the rest of the world.

This is the new vision for Kolding:

“Together we design potentials for a better life through entrepreneurship, social development and education.

With a passion to explore and to use design, Kolding is known as the European design city abroad, and as a place where entrepreneurship, social development and education together form a proud municipality of growth.

Kolding serves as a model for entrepreneurship and the viable concerns of growth attracts investors. We develop knowledge starting from design. Kolding is an attractive place to live where many citizens become inventive entrepreneurs in the innovative companies of Kolding, and in social projects”.    

Take a look at some of the articles (in Danish) written about the new vision.

With the new vision, Kolding’s ambition is to become an inspiration for all municipalities in Denmark and an international beacon for the good life.

But our work in Kolding is not over yet. Right now I am working at an external communications strategy for the municipality of Kolding. This will help them achieve their goals and I am looking forward to seeing the strategy in action, making the municipality of Kolding known in Denmark as well as abroad.

Interested in finding out more? Stay tuned…

The city of Kolding is about to undertake a great journey towards a new vision, in order to put the city on the map and make the city more attractive to future newcomers. We are proud to say that we will help Kolding reach their goal.

Recently we hosted a seminar in Kolding for one hundred of the city's politicians, business leaders and leaders of important institutions in Kolding, in order to define the authentic strengths that Kolding should be known for now and in the years to come.

The participants at the seminar discussed scenarios based upon an anthropological study conducted earlier in the year. The study had found a number of strengths particular to Kolding. These were articulated into the following scenarios then discussed at the seminar:

1) The enterprising design city

2) The knowledgeable design city

3) The voluntary design city

4) The cultural design city

From our previous mapping of Kolding, we found that design was a well-rooted strength, and that it would be impossible to make a new vision for Kolding without it. Therefore the term ‘design city’ is repeated in all scenarios.

The participants were divided into 15 groups where they eagerly discussed each of the different scenarios in groups, and if one of these scenarios were to become the new vision of Kolding. The groups were then asked to appoint a spokesperson that were given the task to imagine themself as mayor of Kolding and speak of the effects a possible new vision would have for Kolding in the year of 2022. Every speech was remarkable in its own way, and highlighted the results of the group work. As a special feature, everyone who gave a speech carried the Mayor of Kolding’s chain.

At the end of the day the participants commented on the seminar. Everyone had had an inspiring day filled with laughter and interesting discussions. The politicians and the Mayor of Kolding took with them many new exciting ideas and inspiration, promising that this seminar would lead to real action soon.

The next step in the process will be the civic forum held in Kolding on the 21st of November with 900 citizens partaking. 

What makes your public transportation experience a good one? There are obvious factors like on-time arrivals and clean vehicles, but for most of us a good service from the man or woman at the wheel is of equally high importance. The public bus transportation industry in the greater Copenhagen area have for many years had a poor image in the public eye, which affected both commuters and potential job applicants. In collaboration with Stagis, the industry decided to turn around the negative image with the project ‘Chauffører med karaktér’ (Bus drivers with character).

"My passengers and I have great experiences together" - Gunnar, bus driver

‘Chauffører med karaktér’ has over the course of nearly four years focused on creating a positive image of public bus transportation and, chiefly, bus drivers in the greater Copenhagen area. We are very proud to hand over a project that has experienced very positive and measurable results.

The primary goals of the project have been to increase job satisfaction among bus drivers and to change the overall image of the public bus transportation industry. Before the project was launched in 2009, almost half of the involved bus drivers thought that their job and the bus industry in generalhad a bad image. A recent survey from August 2012 shows that this number has dropped to 12 per cent. Actually 84 per cent of the bus drivers take pride in their job today – compared with 66 per cent in 2009, and 90 per cent thrive at their workplace, which only 71 per cent did in 2009. This change for the better is a direct result of the project, and is especially due to the success of both internal and external communication efforts.

‘Chauffører med karaktér’ was a classic Stagis project in the sense that it called for our particular method of approaching a project where there is a need for finding, developing and expressing authentic strengths. Our certain method relies on the following five phases: 

1. Research – research and mapping of the company’s authentic strengths.
2. Strategy – Development of strategy, process management and planning of e.g. scenarios to develop authentic strengths.
3. Structural changes – Change management through cultural and structural changes, development and operation of change programs, new services, cultural interventions and internal education programs.
4. Design – Development of the company’s symbols, surfaces and digital interaction.
5. Communication – Communication and marketing across media channels, development of external image through e.g. events, campaigns and PR.

In our extensive research and mapping of the authentic strengths of the public bus transportation industry, we found, that the bus driver was the biggest asset. Therefore we concentrated on making the bus driver more accessible, showing the person behind the uniform.

Sulajman Baftijari wins "Busdriver with character of the year" at event on Christiansborg Slotsplads 2 September 2012

Changing the image of the bus driver in the public eye meant that the passengers had to be involved. We created a text message service where passengers could praise their local bus driver when he or she had made the commuting experience a good one. This was a huge success and a lot of passengers took part. Improving the image of the bus drivers and the industry in general naturally had to be backed up by internal change. Therefore we created an academy for mid-level managers and bus drivers, where they learned how to communicate better with each other, and also how to communicate better with passengers.

A very clear and recognisable design line was created for the project, and implemented in both internal and external communication. The clear graphic design line created a strong visual identity for the project, which both bus drivers and passengers immediately links to the project.

The internal communication effort included, but was not limited to, newsletters, break room posters, posters compiling praise from passengers, a project website and a Facebook-site to make sure that everyone working in the bus industry knew about the project. Externally we involved the passengers through campaigns in the busses, a text message service to give praise to the driver and to vote for the driver of the year. Additionally we made films about the daily life of a bus driver, created a website and Facebook-site, and twice coordinated an event celebrating the bus drivers with the most character based on the passengers text messages- just to name a few of the many activities in the course of the project.

Stagis initiated the project in 2009, and it stands as one of our biggest projects to date. The project ended in 2012.

During the last few months Stagis has developed and implemented the new identity for Flakkebjerg Efterskole. The identity is developed in close collaboration with students and teachers of the boarding school. The project began with an investigation of the inherent authentic strengths of the school, by interviewing a range of students and teachers. The investigation led to 3 authentic positions, one of which direct the further development of the identity, both visually and strategically.

The obvious choice for Flakkebjerg was to focus on the core of being a project school. Already, all activities are practical and educational focused on the project approach. From learning to cook in the kitchen to develop project work within the 6 subject fields. With the new identity Stagis helped Flakkebjerg to use this strength to position themselves and use the project approach as a tool to develop and enforce how they want to continuously teach and express themselves.

The new identity plays with the idea of process and development, and the clean design gives space to vivid project content. The website navigation is based on vertical 'curtains' revealing content on the pages. This system refers to the idea of process and projects in a developing mode.
One of the core elements on the new web platform is a project space, driven by students who upload their current project experiments. The projects are presented as work-in-process projects, allowing the students to show what they have learned and how they got there.
The project space is directly linked to Facebook, giving students the ability to share their projects with friends and family, spreading the word of Flakkebjerg with the voice of the students themselves.

We look forward to follow future projects from Flakkebjerg at www.flakkebjergefterskole.dk

”One of the best books in Danish on this subject. (…) The Authentic Company is an interesting book that invite leaders to focus on the company's inner strengths instead of market analysis and spreadsheets”.

The reviewer Henrik Ørholst from the newspaper Berlingske seems to be fond of my book even though he thinks the book has too many pages, and that the language is a bit to academic. I’ve certainly considered shortening the cases and the book in order to make it a quicker read and easier to get an overview. On the other hand, I know that some of the managers from the public sector are happy that I use examples that fit their mindset specifically, and managers from public and private healthcare organizations who appreciate the stories and examples that fit their everyday view of work.

The review is accompanied by an interesting article about the corporate museums, largely using examples from the book. I think the upside of the many pages (about 360 including introduction etc.) is that different people with a different focus can find examples, case-studies, research and knowledge that suit their need. I personally hate professional books that only refer the theory and the numbers – I want the story aswell. What did they do? How did they do it? And in their own words, please... So I’ve included the voices of Jørgen Vig Knudstorp from LEGO, René Rezepi from Noma, Alberto Alessi from Alessi, hoping that when you read the book you get to meet them and find inspiration from them, just like I did when I met them. Even though I largely view organizational authenticity as a strategic way of focusing the business, it is also about personal meetings and the way leaders are able of telling the story about what they did and where they want to bring the organization next.

I am considering making a shorter version of the book by shortening some of the case studies, taking out some of the contextual descriptions of what I call the “meaning society” (meningssamfundet) and focusing a bit more on the possibilities and tools that a manager can use in order to create an authentic company. So maybe by the end of this year or next year Henrik Ørholst get a book on the subject with fewer pages.

Here is a short extract of the review in Danish:

”Bogen har flere eksempler, som alle er spændende. Her finder læseren den utilpassede kok René Redzepi fra restaurant Noma. Her er der opbygget et stærkt brand med udgangspunkt i det nordiske fortælling, hvor der er mad fra vores del af verden, som er i centrum, og iscenesættelsen får alt hvad den kan trække pågodt og ondt. Bedst er historien om den italienske motorcykelfabrikant Ducati, der rejste sig fra ruinerne og blev forvandlet til et succesfuldt brand (…). Sidetallet er oppustet, og det er med til at sløre for budskaberne. Men nårlæseren får destilleret budskaberne, er det en af de bedste bøger på dansk om emnet. Forfatteren har eksemplerne parate igennem hele bogen.”