[Innovation and creativity efforts across all industries, worldwide, borrow a lot from the design industry. The proven, repeatable processes developed by many design firms have been termed “design thinking.” As an example, the ongoing, cross-industry accomplishments of design firms like IDEO—as measured by thousands of patents and successful new product and service launches—bear testament to design thinking’s applicability to any firm or specific business challenges. Given the high rate of success and practical outcomes, asset managers and RIA firms should also look to borrow and harness that proven power of design thinking for their branding and client engagement strategies.
To better understand how design and design thinking is being applied to financial services firms, we decided to have a creative discussion with Institute member Paul Leibowitz of Leibowitz Branding & Design—a NYC-based design firm that delivers smart solutions in branding, communications strategy, marketing, digital design and development. While Paul’s recent article Five Steps to Effective Branding and Marketing for Smaller Asset Managers does a great job of synopsizing the steps to his process, we wanted to dig deeper to uncover the critical thinking behind them and how they shape perception and forge emotional connections with prospects and clients. What can advisors learn from the practiced thinking of designers that alchemically combine strategy, creativity, and technology to unleash multiple long-term benefits for their client firms?]
Bill Hortz: What drew you to the design field and motivated you to build a design firm?
Paul Leibowitz: Growing up, I was the ‘class artist,’ the one kid who could draw, so attending art school was natural for me. While there, I enjoyed my design classes and recognized that images, color and typography can be combined to create powerful messages and moods. It became clear to me that strong design can position a company in so many ways and inspire people to act. Combined with solid research, design and branding are an integral foundation to a company’s success as they strive to separate themselves and provide their audiences with information to engage with them over their competition.
This is especially true for asset management companies because there are many firms with similar products and strategies. How you differentiate yourselves will provide investors with confidence to invest with you—in all market cycles.
Hortz: You speak a lot about critical thinking in describing your firm and value proposition. Can you explain what you mean by that and how you apply that skill to your clients?
Leibowitz: At Leibowitz Branding & Design, our value proposition is “Critical Thinking Fosters Creativity.” Critical thinking is defined as the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment or course of action. It’s a detailed process of asking really challenging and relevant questions and getting rid of all ideas that are not essential to developing key points about your firm. In applying that to our clients, we bring in a honed process to truly understand the client firm and their business goals and, further, to develop creative, unique solutions that solve for their specific challenges. I take pride that we don’t have a ‘Leibowitz style,’ as every project is tailored to each client.
Hortz: The first step of your branding process focuses on research to fully define the problem and goals of the firm, but don’t most business executives consider that the easy part?
Leibowitz: A good brand design agency will conduct research that includes isolating and challenging assumptions imbedded in the firm that busy business leaders may not even be aware of. Every stakeholder in an asset management firm, or any company for that matter, approaches a rebrand or website project with a priori assumptions and that’s great because who better knows you’re your business than you? However, it’s our job to be objective, ask tough questions, make strategic recommendations and present fact-based research that will uncover unique strengths and align all the stakeholders. Our research and discovery enables us to create a road map for all to follow and provide a rational strategy that informs the visual and editorial messaging. The first step to a strong brand is clearly defining what your company stands for.
Hortz: Your second step is building strategy. What is the goal when you are developing strategy?