第六季第18集 - 转型亚马逊：与Koto（詹姆斯·格林菲尔德）探讨品牌重塑背后的故事

最近我遇到一件事儿，八年前我们做过的一个品牌，有人发邮件来要他们的logo，我觉得这可能是我见过的最久远的案例了。

Had one of those recently where a brand we worked on eight years ago, someone emailed me and asked for the logo, which I thought was a new record for me.

真厉害。

Wow.

希望现在在那家公司的人手里还留着，不过也不一定。

It's like, hopefully, someone that works there has got it, but maybe not.

好了，欢迎来到《Just Branding》，这是唯一一档专门帮助设计师和创业者打造品牌的播客。

Anyway Hello and welcome to Just Branding, the only podcast dedicated to helping designers and entrepreneurs grow brands.

我是你们的主持人，雅各布·卡斯和马特·戴维斯。

Here are your hosts, Jacob Kass and Matt Davies.

好的。

Alright.

在开始之前，如果你真的想精通品牌建设，打造一个蓬勃发展的创意事业，那品牌建造者联盟就是为你准备的。

Before we jump in, if you're serious about mastering branding and building a thriving creative business, the Brand Builders Alliance is for you.

在这里，你能参加实时大师课，接受我们八位常驻导师的指导，获取丰富的资源库，还能加入一个真正懂品牌的世界级创作者网络。

Inside, you'll get live master classes, mentorship from our eight resident coaches, a stacked resource vault, and a global network of brand builders who actually get it.

如果你已经厌倦了单打独斗，准备好用系统的支持和强劲的势头来扩大规模，那就去 joinbba.com 加入候补名单吧。

If you're done winging it alone and are ready to scale with structure, support, and serious momentum, head over to joinbba.com and get on the wait list.

网址是 joinbba.com。

That's joinbba.com.

大家好。

Hello, folks.

今天在《Just Branding》节目中，我们要深入探讨近年来最具雄心的品牌转型之一——亚马逊。

Today on Just Branding, we're diving into the one of most ambitious brand transformations in recent years, and we're talking about Amazon.

在十八个月里，覆盖十五个全球市场，涉及五十多个子品牌，亚马逊与 Koto 合作，打造了一套全新的品牌体系，实现了全球范围内的清晰性、一致性和可信度。

Over eighteen months across 15 global markets and with more than 50 sub brands involved, Amazon worked with Koto to create a new brand system that delivers clarity, consistency, and confidence at a global scale.

我们非常兴奋，因为今天邀请到了 Koto 的创始人兼首席执行官詹姆斯·格林菲尔德，这家设计工作室正是这次出色工作的幕后团队。

And we're really thrilled and excited because today we're joined by James Greenfield, CEO and founder of Koto, the design studio behind the amazing work.

过去十年里，詹姆斯把 Koto 打造成了一家全球知名的设计机构，在伦敦、柏林、洛杉矶和悉尼都设有工作室，客户名单堪称所有设计师的梦想清单——包括 Airbnb、可口可乐、奈飞，现在再加上亚马逊。

James has spent the last decade building Koto into a globally recognized creative agency with studios in London, Berlin, Los Angeles, and Sydney, and a portfolio that we would all sore our left arms off to have, that includes the likes of Airbnb, Coca Cola, Netflix, and now Amazon.

詹姆斯，谢谢你来参加这次访谈。

James, thank you for doing this.

欢迎来到节目。

Welcome to the show.

非常感谢邀请我来。

Thanks very much for having me.

很好。

Great.

那我们直接切入正题吧，你介意吗？我想问问，当时的brief是什么？

Well, I I wonder if we could just sort of sort of dive straight in if you'd be open to that to kind of ask, like, well, what what was the brief?

在你们介入之前，亚马逊面临的核心挑战是什么？

What was the challenge from Amazon at the start before your work?

我觉得亚马逊自己已经做了不少工作，毕竟像他们这样规模和地位的公司，肯定已经对自己的品牌现状和面临的挑战做过全面评估。

So I think Amazon had done quite a bit of work themselves, as you expect, of a kind of company of that scale and standing where they had kind of assessed where their brand was today, the challenges they were facing.

而在这些评估中，他们特别关注的是消费端的品牌架构问题。

And I think within that, one of the things that they're really looking at was the architecture, particularly within the consumer space.

对很多生活在西方世界的人来说，亚马逊无处不在，但每个人和它的互动方式都不太一样。

I think there is probably, for many of us in the the Western world, a heavy exposure to Amazon and all of us have a different interaction with it.

有些人收到的是棕色纸箱，或者在Prime上看视频，但根本没碰过亚马逊的生鲜商品。

You know, some people are getting brown boxes to their doorstep and maybe watching things on Prime, but maybe have never even looked at the grocery products.

另一些人可能在亚马逊上买药送货上门，却从不看Prime视频。

Other people maybe are getting, you know, their pharmacy delivered on Amazon but aren't watching Amazon Prime.

所以你得明白，很多人一想到亚马逊，脑子里还是那些棕色纸箱——其实很多年前，亚马逊刚开始只是卖书的。

So you have to really understand that I think sometimes people can think of Amazon as brown boxes and, you know, go back many years, Amazon used to be books.

但实际上，它的体验要复杂得多，也丰富得多。

And actually, it's it's a much more complicated and a much more complex multifaceted experience.

他们意识到，亚马逊的业务线太分散了，必须打造一个更统一的体系，才能支撑下一阶段的增长。

And I think what they was they got to the point where Amazon, they felt they could have a lot of strategic, fracturing, and we need to be able to help kind of develop something that's much more coherent for the next stage of their growth.

我有个后续问题。

I had a follow-up question.

你提到亚马逊做过一些研究。

You mentioned research by Amazon.

他们之前已经有一些基础了。

Oh, they had some things beforehand.

你有参与这部分工作吗，还是说他们已经做得足够了？

Were you involved in that at all or was there enough?

你们有没有必要回头去和他们合作，找其他研究资料，或者验证一下他们的结论？

Did you have to go backwards or, like, collaborate with them to find any other research or confirm it?

说实话，他们之前已经做了相当不错的一份工作。

They'd had they'd had a pretty effective piece of work done there, to be honest.

你知道，像亚马逊这样的公司，我自然觉得他们自己应该也有很强的研究团队。

And, you know, I think a lot of people had built into having a company like that, I would expect them to have a pretty heavy research function as well themselves, you know.

所以尽管如此，我们还是想亲自去核实一些事情，看看有没有值得深入的地方。

And so therefore, that said, I still you know, there was things we wanted to go and check out ourselves, think we wanted to look at.

有些业务领域，我们可能不太熟悉，这也解释了我刚才说的——每个人对这个品牌的体验和关系都不一样。

You know, there were some areas of the company that maybe we weren't that familiar with compared to, and that, you know, leads to what I said a minute ago, which is we all have different experiences and different relationships with this brand.

就我个人而言，我甚至从来没仔细看过他们的药品产品。

And so therefore, some of us, you know, for me personally, I've never even really looked at the pharmacy products.

我知道他们收购了PillPack，这一点我很清楚。

I was well aware that they'd bought PillPack.

我知道他们有做这个，但压根儿没进过我的脑子。

I was aware that that was something they did, just what hadn't even passed my consideration.

这可能让我成了一个很典型的消费者，也反映了他们面临的难题，你知道的。

And maybe that makes me a very typical consumer and a and a challenge that they're facing, you know.

说实话，那时候我从来没进过任何一家亚马逊实体店。

I'm also not somebody that at that point, I have to admit, who'd ever been in one of the Amazon stores.

所以我赶紧去体验了一把，亲自走了一圈。

And so I had to go and quickly rectify that and go and go through that experience.

从个人角度来说，有些事你得亲自去补上这些空白。

And so, you know, from a personal point of view, there's things you need to do to fill in your gaps.

但作为公司，我们通常会从各种渠道收集研究信息，具体怎么搞，还得看项目要求和目标是什么。

But as a company, we generally pull research in in all many different places, and it really depends upon, you know, the specifics of the brief and what we're trying to achieve.

对。

Right.

而且全球各地有那么多不同的接触点，要理清这些确实挺有挑战的。

And the and the vast amount of touch points across, you know, regions, you know, globally, that that that must have been difficult to get your heads around as well.

比如说，翻译上确实存在一些问题。

Like, you know, I guess, there's translation issues.

你们是怎么把这些方方面面都理清楚的呢？

How did you kind of get your arms around all of that stuff as well?

你还需要意识到一点，就是每个市场的情况都大不相同。

I think the thing you need to be aware of as well is is, like, it's very different in each of the markets as well.

有些地方的人才刚用上亚马逊送货，而我们这些国家的人早就用了很多年了。

You know, some people are only just getting Amazon delivery in the world versus, you know, some of us living countries that have had that for years.

但那些地方的人其实早就看Prime很多年了。

And so but those people have been watching Prime for for many years.

所以对他们来说，这更像Netflix或者其他流媒体平台的体验。

And so therefore, it's, you know, it's more akin to a Netflix based experience over here or any other streaming platform.

因此，我们真正需要搞清楚的是，每个市场的成熟度不同，具体发生了什么，用户怎么看，以及它在日常生活中是怎么体现的。

And so within that, actually, the biggest thing we really had to get our head around was maturity market by market and specifics of what was happening and how people saw it and how it turned up in their lives on a regular basis.

我觉得他们在数字空间里的布局也庞大得惊人。

I think they've also got an absolutely humongous digital real estate as well.

所以我们必须亲身去接触这些情况，真正弄清楚它们是什么样子、带来了什么影响、哪些地方成功了，等等。

And so we had to expose ourselves to that and really understand what that looked like, what it did, what it was achieving, what was successful, etcetera.

作为设计师，你很容易觉得，只要把这一切整理一下，把所有东西都归到整齐的盒子里就行了。

Because, you know, I think it's very easy for you to think about as a designer, it's very easy for you to go like, I'm just going to start to put order around all this and start putting everything in neat boxes.

但事实上，这种做法有时太过简化了，你得明白，有些复杂性是存在合理原因的，不能一味地简化一切。

But actually that can sometimes be oversimplified and sometimes you've really got to understand that complexity exists for a reason and you can't just simplify everything.

有些东西就必须保持复杂。

Some things have to remain complex.

因此，在这方面我们花了大量功夫去深入理解这些情况。

And so within that, there was quite a lot of work to really do to understand that as well.

太了不起了。

Amazing.

在你看来，他们有没有放得太开，导致品牌视觉形象变得支离破碎？我知道这个问题不好回答，但我还是想问一问。

And and in your view, was was had they let I mean, I don't know if you can answer this, but I'm gonna ask it anyway.

你觉得他们是不是做得过头了，还是说那时候正是做这件事的合适时机？或者你觉得应该早点动手更好？

But, like, do you think they'd let it go too far and splinter in terms of the visual identity, or do you think it was a you know, was it the right time to do it then, or would you sort of thought it would have been better to do it prior to that?

你觉得你们被要求做的这次整合工作，时机把握得怎么样？

Like, what are your thoughts on the timing of the consolidation work that you were asked to do?

说实话，我觉得这个品牌确实需要这么做。

I think if I was really, really honest, I'd say it's a brand that needed it.

毫无疑问。

Definitely.

有时候做项目，你会觉得，嗯，我们替换掉的那套东西也没那么差，但心里清楚还能做得更好。

You know, sometimes you work on projects and you go, well, you know, what we're replacing isn't that bad, but you can see that it could be better.

但这次不一样，我觉得他们面临的问题相当严重，过度依赖标志确实是他们的一大难题。

Whereas in this case, I think they had a lot of really big problems, and I think overreliance on logo was definitely a challenge that they were facing.

这并没有帮助用户理解B2B和B2C体验之间的各种差异，也没能有效引导用户发现内容。

Not necessarily helping people navigate around the fact that there was these various aspects of the b to b and the b to c experience and and how you could collate that, not helping people through discovery.

而品牌本身，其实可以在这上面承担很多责任。

And I think brand could do a lot of heavy lifting there.

我觉得这反映了一个普遍的趋势——过去人们总靠大量投放广告来解决问题。

I think it it kind of speaks to a to a trend we're seeing generally, which is I think people used to just advertise heavily.

而且不管是什么品牌都一样。

And and it didn't matter what brand it was.

以前靠广告就能建立认知、塑造好感，甚至在某种程度上掩盖了品牌本身的问题。

Advertising was the way to build awareness, to build sentiment and in a way almost excused the challenges that people had with brands.

但现在，人们与品牌互动的方式变得更加分散了。

But now, I think in a world where people are a bit more fractured in terms of how they interact with brands.

你不能再说所有人都会在周六晚上看同一个电视节目了。

I don't think you can say that everyone's watching the same TV program on a Saturday night.

所以你不能随便扔几百万美元，就说‘我把钱投出去就行了’。

So you can't just throw, you know, x million dollars and go, I'm gonna put that back.

你懂的。

You know?

像超级碗这样的场合还是少数，那时候确实能吸引大量关注，所以这些时刻的媒体资源才这么抢手。

You have those rare moments like the Super Bowl and other things where you probably have got a lot of eyes, which is why there's such a premium on media in those moments.

但我觉得，我们再也无法像以前那样，把所有人都聚集在同一个渠道里了。

But I don't think we can guarantee that we can collect everybody in that kind of universal way.

就连茶水间里大家讨论的热门剧集，也不像以前那样了。

Even water cooler TV is not as what it was previously.

人们看剧的方式和时间都变得五花八门。

People are watching kind of shows in very different ways at very different times.

在这种情况下，品牌建设对很多人来说已经变得至关重要。

And and so within that, I think brand building has really become up the agenda for a lot of people.

说到安德森这家公司，这是我个人的猜测，我觉得他们推出的一些产品可能没达到预期的反响。

And I think in Amundsen's case, this is me guessing, but I think maybe some of the things that they'd launch weren't necessarily getting the traction that you'd expect.

正因如此，你才会开始问：为什么大家根本发现不了这个产品？

Within that, I think that's the point where you go actually, why are people not discovering this?

为什么我们没能做好这件事？

Why are we why are we not doing this?

所以，这确实是普遍存在的难题。

And so, yeah, it's it's a common challenge.

我们之前也见过其他品牌遇到同样的情况。

We've seen it with other brands.

好的。

Okay.

那我们接下来聊聊，你们是怎么着手解决这个问题的。

So let's shift shift on into kind of like how you began to attack the the challenge.

你提到做过调研，让团队真正理解了其中的复杂性。

You've talked about the research and getting at your heads and your team's heads around all of the complexities.

在那之后，你们接下来具体做了些什么？

So after you've done that, like, kind of what what what did you do next?

你们到底是怎么推动这个项目往前走的？

Like, how did you actually begin then to move move this project forward?

我们最要紧的一件事，就是把用户分成几个群体。

The number one thing we had to do was to work into a number of cohorts.

所以，我们用这几个群体来重新梳理整个品牌结构。

And so therefore, really organize the brand through a set number of these cohorts.

那么，用户是怎么看待这个品牌各个方面的呢？

And so so, you know, within that, how do people see the various aspects of the estate?

他们怎么在这些之间穿梭呢？

How do they navigate around that?

所以，娱乐这个板块里头，有游戏、购物，还有各种各样的东西。

And so therefore, you know, the entertainment cohort, there's gaming, there's shopping, there's all these things.

那你怎么把这些东西组织起来？

How do you organize that?

回头来看，确实很容易把事情想得太简单。

And within that, you know, it's very easy to look back on something and then kind of oversimplify it.

但从我们的角度看，关键是要把色彩用得特别到位。

But from our point of view, it was really about trying to make use color in a really effective way.

亚马逊这么多年一直用橙色，我们就顺势强化了这一点，专心把橙色做好。

And so, you know, Amazon has been for many years orange and so we really lent into that and made sure that, you know, we really focused on getting that.

看起来像是设计师随便改了下颜色，但我们其实让橙色变得更有力了。

And so it seems like a a graphic designer tweak but we we kind of made the orange a little bit more impactful.

确保它能一眼就被注意到。

We made sure it stood out.

所以当你知道亚马逊在向你推送广告时，就会看到这种非常醒目的橙色。

So therefore, when you know that Amazon is advertising to you, you know, you get this very strong orange.

还有那个微笑的表情。

You've got the smile.

我们确实调整过标志，有时候我觉得人们改标志只是为了改而改。

You know, we we tweak the logo and sometimes I think people tweak logos for the sake of it.

但在我们看来，真正需要的是让品牌跟上时代。

In our case, I think what we really felt was modernization needed to happen.

这个品牌原本有个标志性的logo，但它的设计其实来自九十年代中期——那会儿互联网还没真正兴起，不管我们愿不愿意承认。

You know, this was a brand that had a an iconic logo but and as much as it was for an internet store, was, you know, the mid nineties which is ultimately a pre Internet age, whether we like it or not.

所以当时的平面设计根本没考虑过缩放、可读性，也没想过我们后来在2000年代才发现的那些关键问题。

And so therefore, the way that graphic design was applied, it wasn't thinking about scaling, it wasn't thinking about legibility, it wasn't thinking about any of these things that we discovered throughout the 2000s.

因此，通过重新审视这些设计，我们觉得能让这个品牌真正数字化。

And so therefore, by revisiting that, we felt that we could digitize a brand.

说亚马逊是最早的互联网品牌之一，听起来有点奇怪，但事实就是，设计师们花了整整二十五年才终于跟上互联网的发展步伐。

Now that seems a bit funny talking about Amazon is one of the original Internet brands, but that is the way that designers had to catch up with the Internet over the twenty five years we've had of this century so far.

所以在这一点上，我们意识到颜色的运用非常关键，这个标志必须既能小到极致，也能大到极致。

And And so within that, I think a really strong use of color and understanding of actually this logo needs to work tiny and needs to work massive.

它得能在时代广场上以最大的规模呈现，同时也要能在某个图标上只用几个像素显示。

It needs to be in Times Square in the biggest way possible, but it also needs to be a few pixels on an icon somewhere.

但我们发现，原来的标志根本做不到这两点。

And what we found was it couldn't do both those things.

如果把它放大到很大，看起来就有点过时，感觉不像我们这个时代的东西。

If you made it really really big, it maybe felt a little bit old fashioned and it felt like it hadn't really been created in the time that we live now.

如果缩得太小，它就特别模糊，填充和细节处理都成问题。

And if you really made it really small, it really struggled and you had lots of fill in challenges and stuff.

所以，你可以想想这两种极端情况。

And so therefore, you know, think about the kind of two extremes of that.

至于颜色，我们得认真思考：这毕竟是超市，这里发生的是什么。

In terms of the color, really thinking about how do we really go, you know, this is grocery, this is what happens here.

绿色是一个明确的象征。

Green is a clear signifier.

你知道吗，我们总是参考一组数据：在大多数市场里，大多数人首先是视觉型的，然后才是语言型的。

You know, we always pull on a piece of data which is majority of people in most markets are visual first and verbal second.

很多品牌在考虑用户时，总想着用文案和巧妙的标题。

And I think many brands think about people, you know, they use copy lines and clever headlines.

我们都明白这很重要，但大多数人对事物的第一反应其实是视觉上的，而不是语言上的。

Now we all know that that's important but most people have a visual reaction to things before they have a verbal reaction to it.

当你在刷屏的时候——我们都懂，信息飞快地从眼前掠过。

And you know, when you're scrolling, as we all know, a lot of things are going past our brains in a very, very quick succession.

所以我们必须在亚马逊的生态里，充分利用色彩这个工具。

So we really need to lean into color within the Amazon ecosystem to really be able to use that.

色彩一定要足够鲜明。

So color very strong.

最后一点，我们很早就确定了一个方向：我们需要一套通用的字体。

And then the final part of that is we really early on set upon this idea that actually we needed a universal typeface.

对。

Yeah.

又是设计师的惯性思维，能简则简。

Again, designer habit, simplify everything.

让它变得特别简单。

Make it really easy.

但我们最终发现，只要用一种简洁统一的字体，有冲击力、有个性、足够醒目，让人一看就觉得：这是亚马逊。

Make it But ultimately what we found was if we could get a simple singular typeface which had impact, which had character, which really stood out, which made you think, oh, this is Amazon.

把这种字体和更新后的标志结合起来，再配上统一的色彩，我们就做到了。

The combination of that with the updated logo which used the same type style and the color, we're able to do that.

还有另一点，你开头提到过，有五十个子品牌。

And then the other thing is that, you you talked about at the top of the show, 50 sub brands.

这些子品牌之前都是各自为政开发的。

Those sub brands had all been made in a silo.

有的用了笑脸，有的就没用。

And so some had this, you know, smile, some didn't have the smile.

有的用单色，有的用双色。

Some were one color, some were two color.

那时候简直像法外之地一样。

There was you know, it was an absolute wild west.

每样东西都有自己的标志。

And everything had a logo.

所以我们还得回答一个问题：什么东西配得上用标志？

So there's also a question we had to answer which was what deserves a logo?

因为如果你到处都贴上笑脸，那这些东西就都失去那种冲击力，失去脱颖而出的能力了。

Cause ultimately, if you start slapping smiles on everything, then everything starts to lose that kind of impact, that ability to stand out.

我接触过的很多品牌都遇到过类似的问题——某个团队觉得他们需要一个标志。

You know, that's a common challenge I've seen on many many brands that I've worked with which is, you know, this team decided they need a logo.

然后你就开始给功能、服务、内部项目、外部项目这些乱七八糟的东西都加上标志。

This and you start putting logos on features, you start putting logos on, you know, little services, internal stuff, external stuff, etcetera.

所以我们对所有这些东西做了一次全面审查。

So a massive audit of all of that.

我们和字体合作伙伴南一起，设计了一款专属的标志字体。

And we worked with our type partner, Nan, and they made a logo typeface.

这意味着，亚马逊的任何员工都可以直接输入logo，系统会自动为他们生成对应的文件。

And what that means is that anyone that works in Amazon can type out the logo and the logo file autoly auto generates for them.

这是一种很巧妙的技术方案，能避免一个特别常见的问题——总有人问：‘谁有这个logo？’

And so it's a kind of clever technological solution which means that you also don't have that really common problem we have which is people going, has anyone got the logo?

你知道的，那种在邮件里来回转发的请求，我们天天都能收到。

You know, these emails bouncing around that we that we get.

我最近就收到一封，是关于我们八年前做过的一个品牌，有人问我拿logo，我觉得这破纪录了。

I have one of those recently where a brand we worked on eight years ago, someone emailed me and asked for the logo which I thought was a new record for me.

真没想到。

Wow.

希望现在在那儿工作的人手上有，不过也说不定没有。

So hopefully someone that works there has got it but maybe not.

总之，一开始我们重点是搞清楚核心原则是什么。

Anyway, and so I think, you know, early on it was all about working well, what the key pillars were gonna be.

比如色彩的使用、字体的选择，还有这套新的logo系统，只要把这些基础统一做好，就能为品牌后续的多样化表达打下坚实的基础。

So the use of color, the use of typography and and this new logo system to really understand that actually if we could get that universally all cracked, then we would have a foundation which would allow us to start to express the other things that brands needed.

因为如果你卖的是杂货，你讲的故事就得跟在顶级流媒体平台上推广好莱坞内容时完全不同。

Because, you know, if you're selling, I don't know, groceries, you need to be doing a very different story than if you're talking about, you know, Hollywood's leading content within a prime environment.

所以这里头需要很大的灵活性，但同时我们也得保持中间的连贯性。

And so therefore, there's a lot of flex that's required there, but also we need that consistency that sits between.

不错。

Nice.

我有几个后续的问题。

I've got a couple of follow-up questions.

你刚才说的这些，听起来像是要提炼、简化并统一一套独特的品牌识别元素，对吧？

Obviously, what you're talking about there, it sounds to me like kinda like distinctive brand codes, right, that you were gonna kind of codify, simplify, and then use.

你们在竞品市场里做了多少调研？

To how much research did you do, like, in competitor markets?

我想这应该挺难的。

I guess that would be quite difficult.

是吧？

Right?

比如说卖杂货，你确实得走绿色路线，还得做出特定的视觉风格。

Because say the grocery is right, you're gonna go green and you're gonna make it look a certain way.

当然，在英国这种风格可能很突出，但到了西班牙或者别的地方，要是竞争对手也差不多，你们是怎么应对这种全球范围内的复杂性的？

Obviously, you might find that that is quite distinctive in The UK, but then when you go over to Spain or some you know, a competitor that looks a little similar to how did you kind of get your heads around the complexity of that on a global scale?

还是说你们根本没太在意，直接决定就这么干，管他竞争对手呢？

Or did you not worry too much about that and think, right, we're gonna do this and, you know, stuff stuff the competition kind of thing?

每个品牌都得关注竞争对手，但不能被他们牵着鼻子走。

Every brand needs to be competitor aware but not competitor obsessed.

我觉得这是最重要的一点。

And I think that is like the number one thing.

有些人太盯着对手了，结果反而把自己困住了。

And I think some people become competitor obsessed and what they do is they put themselves in a box.

要知道，这个世界上，颜色是有色轮的。

Because, you know, the greatest world in the world, there is a color wheel.

在大多数品牌密集的领域，大家都把各种颜色用遍了。

Everyone in most brand areas where you're working in an area of like high concentration has used all the colors.

如果某种颜色没人用，那很可能有它的原因。

And if a color is not being used, it's probably for a reason.

不过在新兴技术或者某些特定领域，情况就不一样了。

Now that's not the case when we're looking at like emerging technologies or certain areas.

有时候你会遇到那种难得的机会。

And you know, you you get those rare moments.

很多年前我参与过EE品牌的重塑，当时发现一种很漂亮的青绿色配黄色，英国的电信公司全都没用过，所以我们就能直接切入这个空白。

Many years ago, I worked on the EE rebrand and there was a really nice teal and yellow section that was completely unused by telcos in The UK and so therefore you can kind of step into that.

但在这个案例里，因为这个品牌太多元了，而且可能是全球最知名的牌子之一，我们并没有太盯着竞争对手。

But I think in this case here, you know, because it's such multifaceted brand and because it's probably one of the world's most recognizable brands, we weren't too competitor obsessed.

就像你提到的超市业务，我们其实为他们自有品牌做了大量包装设计，深入理解了在消费者线上购物的环境下，如何让亚马逊自有产品线的各类商品脱颖而出。

What we did particularly with things like grocery, which you pull up in the question is we did quite a bit of packaging design for their own lines and so therefore really understanding actually in an environment where someone's shopping digitally, how can we make sure that whether we're looking at the various ranges that they sell under the Amazon brand.

这样做其实很有帮助，能让我们拿它去和其他市场的领先零售商做对比。

And actually what that does is that becomes quite a useful thing for you to then compare to leading retailers in other markets.

关键在于品牌整体形象、自有产品线，再加上销售场景的综合考量。

And it's the combination of the brand overall plus their own lines and then also thinking about the context of the way that that's put for sale.

所以，我们会关注竞争对手，但不是说别人用了绿色，我们就不能用——说实话，很多食品品牌用绿色是有原因的。

So yes, competitor awareness, but not in a way of like company X has used greens, so we can't because let's be honest, a lot of grocery brands use green for a reason.

因此，对我来说，关键在于所有元素的综合搭配。

And so therefore, I think it's for me, it's all about the combination of the elements together.

我们也很幸运，能参与一些全球顶尖品牌的打造。

We're lucky enough to work on some of the world's leading brands as well.

久而久之，你就积累起了一套对品牌认知的自然数据库。

And so therefore, what you do is you build up a pretty good natural repository of brand awareness as well.

这样一来，当你开始接近其他领域已有的标志性设计时，你就能敏锐地察觉到。

And so therefore, you are aware of when you start to stray into other signatures that other areas have.

如果你正在打造一个品牌，并且想把它做对，那这个内容就是为你准备的。

If you're building a brand and wanna do it right, this is for you.

加入品牌建设者联盟，获取专业指导、实时大师课，以及一群始终支持你的品牌同行。

Join the brand builders alliance for expert coaching, live master classes, and a crew of brand builders who've got your back.

现在就前往 joinbba.com，加入候补名单。

Get on the wait list now at joinbba.com.

好了，我们继续回到节目。

Now back to the show.

还有一个跟进的问题。

Another follow-up question.

在你们开发创意配色这些内容的时候，有没有做过很多用户调研，看看市场的真实反应？

As you were sort of developing the creative colors and all that stuff, did you do much in terms of customer research, like to get kind of, I guess, the the response from from the market?

还是说，你们主要依赖团队以往的经验来做判断？

Or, again, was that something that that that, you know, you basically lent into your team's experience on?

在品牌环境中，你得特别小心测试的内容。

I think you have to be really careful about what you're testing in a brand environment.

像字体的可读性这类事情，我们确实做过，这次项目就是这样。

I think you can do things like legibility within typography, which we did do for this project.

你可以在做广告时直接和人聊聊，看他们对某个创意的反应。

I think you can do things such as talk to people when you put advertising together and see how they respond to an idea.

如果你把一种颜色拿给人看，问他们：这颜色好看吗？

I think if you put a color in front of someone and say, is this a nice color?

我觉得你把他们带入了一个他们根本不会主动思考这些问题的领域。

I think you're taking them into an area where they're not really actively thinking about those kind of things.

标志也是类似，如果你问别人‘这个标志好不好’，他们很难给出有实际价值的反馈，因为没人会边走边想：‘这是个标志，那是标志，这也是标志’。

Similarly with logos, if you say to somebody, is this a good logo or not, you're probably not gonna get a really useful answer just because people aren't walking around going, that's a logo, that's a logo, that's logo.

毕竟，我们本来就不希望他们注意到这些。

Because by design, we don't want them to be doing that.

我们希望他们关注的是信息本身，或者别的内容。

We want them to be looking at whatever the the message or whatever it is.

所以，测试必须非常谨慎地设计。

And so therefore, I think testing has to be really carefully considered.

这次我们没有专门测试标志，因为我们在原有标志基础上做迭代，只能依靠团队自身的经验。

And in this case here, we didn't test the logo particularly because we were evolving a logo that already existed and so therefore we had to lean lean on ourselves there.

我们做测试的时候，只在那些根据我们作为顾问的经验判断能获得真正有用反馈的领域进行。

And where we did use testing, we only used it within areas where we really think in our kind of experience as consultants, you're gonna get a read that's actually useful for for the project as a whole.

那你们和亚马逊的内部团队，还有Koto，是怎么协作的？

So how how did you work in collaboration with the Amazon's in house team, you and Koto?

是的。

Yeah.

所以呢，这显然是个很大的公司。

So it's, you know, obviously a very large company.

他们有个中央市场团队，我们算是他们的直接客户。

There's a central marketing unit, which we were kind of like direct clients.

那边有创意总监、设计师、策略师，还有其他不少人，我和亚马逊的首席创意官合作得特别多。

Creative directors and designers there, strategists, various other people, a chief creative officer of Amazon I worked quite heavily with.

在那个团队里，我觉得合作氛围特别好。

And within there, I think, you know, very collaborative.

对公司来说，共创一直是我们工作的核心原则之一。

As a company, generally, co creation is one of the key tenets of our work.

我们知道，客户不是那种被动等着我们拿方案去给他们看的人。

We know that our clients are not passive audiences that are gonna just sit there and expect us to present to them.

我觉得设计圈里有些地方存在一种误解，以为就该那样做。

I think there is this slight misnomer within certain areas of the design world that that's what should happen.

在品牌咨询这个领域，我们更关注你们到底想达成什么目标，怎样才能更好地支持你们的团队，把你们内部的经验和我们的外部洞察结合起来。

I think in our area, in the kind of brand consultant area, we're very much more focused on what are you trying to achieve, how can we augment your team, can we take your internal knowledge plus our external experience and combine those together?

我发现内部团队常面临一个挺有意思的问题：如果他们职业发展顺利，通常只深入做过四五个品牌。

Because one of the things that I find is a really interesting challenge for internal teams is if they've been successful in their career, they've probably worked at a reasonable level on four or five brands.

而我们公司，已经服务过上百个品牌了。

Whereas us as a company, we've worked on hundreds of brands.

所以我们能带来涵盖各个领域的丰富经验，这对你们来说是非常有价值的补充。

And so we can bring in an absolute encyclopedia of experiences in all areas, which can be very additive.

他们可能会问我们：公司X当初是怎么做的？

They can say to us, oh, how did company X do it?

我们会说，这确实挺有意思。

And we go, that's really interesting.

他们当时遇到的挑战是X、Y或Z，可能是视觉表达上的问题，或者在数字领域遇到了瓶颈，最后找到了某种解决方案。

The challenge they had there X, Y or Z or they were struggling with imagery or whatever the challenge was or in the digital realm, they found this.

我们就把这些经验带过来，和你们的深度理解结合起来。

And so we bring that experience in and so that kind of multifaceted plus their depth of knowledge.

我们总是跟客户说，你们对自家品牌的了解绝对比我们深得多，毕竟你们每天都在那里工作了五年，而我们只是刚进来。

What we always say to our clients is that we're never gonna know as much as you do about your brand because you've worked there every day for five years and we're coming in.

不管我们花一个月、两个月做多少调研，都不可能达到那种深度，也不可能完全理解所有的使用场景和细节。

However hard we crunch for like the month or two months of research, we're not gonna hit that depth and we're not gonna understand all the use cases and everything.

所以关键在于我们要像一个团队那样紧密合作。

And so it's really about that one team mentality.

因此需要高频互动。

So high interaction.

每周都要有大量的沟通。

So lots of conversations every week.

团队成员遍布全球各地。

People spread all over the world.

所以视频会议是我们主要的沟通方式。

So heavy use of video to do that there.

这个项目主要由我们在纽约的团队负责，但我本人当时常驻伦敦，项目期间还经常在其他地方出差。

This project was mainly run out of our New York studio, but but I was based in London and various other places while I was traveling, while I was doing this.

我们与全球各地的人合作，确保能全面把握这个项目的全球视角。

We worked with people globally to really bring this together to make sure we had that global perspective.

所以，确实需要高频互动，真正理解大家面临的挑战，同时充分准备材料，让那些没参加通话的人也能及时跟进。

And so yes, high kind of interaction, making sure that you're really understanding what the challenges are, high preparation of materials to make sure that people that aren't necessarily on the calls can then be updated.

我们还得为公司里一些高层制作材料，让他们感觉信息是更新到位的。

You know, we we had to make some materials for, you know, quite senior people in the business for them to feel like they're updating.

因此，两个团队必须紧密配合，把故事讲清楚、讲透彻。

So therefore, you've really got to make sure that the two teams working together really crack the storytelling there.

那些一周没参加四小时会议的人，可能只花十五分钟看材料，但也要让他们清楚当前进展、重点和我们要探索的方向。

And so someone who's maybe not sat in four hours of meeting that week and is gonna look at something for fifteen minutes is gonna make sure that they're tracking against what's happening and what's important and what we're trying to discover.

别想着一下子把所有事情都解决掉。

And then, you know, don't try and attack the whole thing at once.

最好把问题拆成小块，一步步来，逐个应对挑战，这样才能真正考虑到每个细节。

Really try and think about it in a much more kind of like incremental piece and just really trying to, you know, work through each challenge as you go because then you're kind of taking consideration to it.

像亚马逊这样有丰富经验和背景的内部团队，让整个项目变得特别有意思。当然，我不会说这不具挑战性。

And so with an internal team that has the experience and has the background that the Amazon's did, that made it a really interesting Now I'm not gonna claim it wasn't challenging.

当然，这很有挑战性，很多事情要扛起来，要克服的障碍不少，同时还有很多事情在发生。

Of course, it was challenging as, know, a lot of heavy lifting, a lot of things to overcome, a lot of things happening as well.

这就是关键所在，你知道的。

That was the thing, you know.

我们不是在处理一个固定项目，一坐下来就停掉其他所有事。

We're not like working on a fixed asset that, you know, the first day we sat on it, just everything else paused.

这是一个不断推出新产品、新服务，时刻都在变化的公司。

This was a company that was launching new products, launching new services, constantly changing things all the time.

所以我们得不断调整和优化。

And so for us, we kept on having to tweak and adjust that.

因此，内部团队对我们跟上节奏至关重要。

And so internal team is vital to keep us on top of that as well.

听起来像是一团乱。

Sounds like chaos.

最大的挑战是什么？

What were the biggest challenges?

你刚才提到了一些，比如政治因素，还有保持大家的信息同步。

You know, you mentioned a few there, like the politics even and keeping people updated.

但你在运营或创意方面遇到的最大挑战是什么？

But what were the operational or creative challenges you experienced?

我觉得，这种规模的项目，最大的挑战其实是变化——有些东西过去很成功，但现在该改了，这不光是亚马逊的问题。

I think the biggest challenge on any project of this scale, and this isn't unique to Amazon, is change and the idea that some things that have previously been very successful, it's time for them to change.

比如字体，这就是个大难题。

And, you know, and so that's typography, big challenge.

很多同事，尤其是产品团队的人，早就习惯了那些用了好多年的字体。

I think a lot of people are very used, particularly within the product team, to typefaces that they've been using for many years.

现在我们突然说，要换掉它们。

And we're coming in and saying, we're going to change that.

所以，这些产品日常迭代中，字体改不改就成了个大问题。

And so therefore, out of the day to day evolution of those products, that's a big question.

当然，每天都有大量用户在使用我们的数字产品。

I think, obviously, you've got a lot of people utilizing their digital realm on a daily basis.

所以大家都很担心，你一改就会出问题，要么性能下滑，要么搞砸了什么。

And so everyone's very concerned that you're gonna see, you know, some kind of down lift or you're gonna break something or something's gonna go wrong.

因此，这方面你得特别特别小心。

And so therefore, you gotta be really, really careful with that stuff.

另外，关键是要别被一个个具体问题带偏了，忘了整体目标——其实就是保持一致性。

And then I think really making sure that you didn't get sucked into like individual challenges and lose the overall vision of what you're trying to achieve, which is consistency basically.

你知道，一致性这事儿挺有意思，人人都说需要一致，但没人会早上起床就想着：今天我要做到一致。

You know, and I think consistency is an interesting thing because everyone knows they need to be consistent but probably don't get out of bed in the morning and go like, oh, today I'm gonna be consistent.

它本身并不是特别能激励人的东西。

You know, it's not it's not necessarily the most motivating factor.

所以我们的工作就是得有这份自律，不被干扰，一直提醒大家：我们追求的是什么，为什么这很重要。

And so therefore in that, I think our job very much was to kind of have discipline to that and not get distracted and keep on kind of go like, you know, what we're trying to achieve is x and this is why it's important.

要做到这一点，就得不断去强调和说服。

And to do that, you have to keep on making the case for it.

你提到排版是最大的变动之一，这倒挺有意思。

It's funny you mentioned typography has been one of the biggest hiccups or things have changed.

是的。

Yeah.

我职业生涯里遇到过好多次这种情况。

It's I've experienced that many times in my career, you know.

有时候一群产品团队正忙活着，我们突然过去说，哦，对了。

Some poor product team and we turn up and go, oh, yeah.

顺便说一下，我们要把所有字体都换了。

By the way, we're gonna change all the fonts.

他们只能无奈地说，行吧。

And they go like, I've right.

明白了。

Okay.

这得看具体怎么编码、怎么搭建的，诸如此类的因素。

And you know, it depends how things are coded, how things are built, all that kind of stuff.

就亚马逊来说，他们还得处理大量标识，毕竟全球门店那么多。

You know, in Amazon's case, they've got a lot of signage to work through as well because they got a lot of stores around the world.

所以他们现在得挨个去找那些旧标志，这事儿可真够麻烦的。

So they're gonna now go through that thing, which is really difficult, which is spot the old logo.

后来标志又改过好几次，但我当年可是参与过贝宝的标志更新。

It's changed again since, but many years I worked on a PayPal logo change.

之后整整六年，我走到哪儿都能看见旧标志。

And for about six years later, I was still watching seeing old logos everywhere.

所以说，这事儿真不是小问题。

So, you know, it's a big thing.

确实挺头疼的。

It's a tough one.

而且还得花不少钱。

And and an investment.

对吧？

Right?

就像你说的，要是没法从效率、品牌认知这些角度说清楚投入的必要性，财务那边肯定有人会嘀咕，毕竟还得继续花钱换广告牌什么的。

And as you say, unless you're making that kind of business case, I guess, for efficiency and, you know, recognition and, you know, and and and and that side of things that it's gonna it's gonna always kind of frustrate someone in the in the finance team somewhere that they're paying for signage, you know, still.

是啊。

So yeah.

这确实挺棘手的。

So it's a tricky one.

当你开始取得进展，品牌、颜色、字体这些决策逐渐成型时，有没有人请你介入，帮助不同地区的团队理解并适应这些变化？

When you had started to get traction on this and decisions had started to be made around the brand, the colors, the fonts, and so on, were you asked to get in and to kind of help them understand it or or get their arms around it, different teams across the world?

这种内部认同和新体系的培训，具体是怎么开展的？

And how did that kind of work, that kind of internal buy in or or or education of the new system?

对。

Yeah.

他们邀请我们参与了很多工作，这其实很典型——当你面对众多团队时，巡回宣讲特别重要。

They brought us into many things, and that's like a classic thing again, you know, roadshowing work, it's really important when you've got a lot of teams that you need to talk to and and kind of get in.

所以我们的团队曾去西雅图做过几场活动。

And so, you know, some of our teams went to Seattle and did some sessions there.

我们还开了大量视频会议，这类工作确实占了很大比重。

We had very, you know, many Zoom calls and the equivalent and really a lot a lot of that kind of work.

而且，我们跟很多人交流，努力理解他们各自负责的部分以及遇到的困难。

And, you know, interacting with a lot of people and really trying to understand their particular part of it and and and what the challenges were.

我觉得，归根结底，一切还是靠沟通。

I think like all things, it's all about communication, you know.

我们很幸运，合作的客户内部沟通非常到位。

And we were lucky we were working with a client who communicated heavily internally.

所以我们没遇到其他项目里常见的问题——一开电话会，大家就问：这到底是什么？

And so we weren't dealing with the problem that we do have in other cases where you turn up on a call and people go, what's this about?

这次每个人参会前都做了功课，这是最关键的一点。

And so then you have to go right back to the beginning and say, yeah, everyone turned up with context, which is the most vital thing.

太棒了。

Amazing.

现在项目已经落地了，咱们聊聊它的实际影响吧。

And now and now it's been done, let's sort of talk about the impacts.

他们有没有反馈，说这个系统有多有用、多成功？

Like, have you heard from them in terms of how helpful, successful, useful it's been?

你指的是哪方面的增长呢？

What sort of, I guess, growth?

关于这一点，有什么可以分享的吗？

Any anything you can share on that, like, terms of Yeah.

我觉得最明显的是，他们在品牌认知和回忆率上都翻了一倍，而且品牌好感度也大幅提升——这对我们来说才是最关键的，我们就是希望人们能认出这个品牌。

I think I think the the heaviest thing is they've seen a double increase on recognition and recall, and it's a really strong brand sentiment, which for us is the kind of be all all and end all for this stuff as we want people to recognize this brand.

我们希望人们的好感度能提升。

We want people to have increased sentiment.

我们希望人们能记得住它。

We want people to be able to recall it.

我们经常遇到一个很普遍的问题：做了不少营销推广，但放出去之后，人们却搞不清楚是谁在打广告，或者产品到底是什么。

It's a very interesting common challenge we find all the time, which is we'll see a lot of marketing work put out there and then it's put in front of people and people misconstrued who was advertising or what the product was or whatever.

我不能透露客户是谁，但我最近听说一个例子，有个超级碗广告花了大价钱，结果90%的观众还以为是他们最大竞争对手的广告。

And, you know, I'm not gonna reveal who the client is, but there was one I heard recently about a Super Bowl advert where they spent a lot of money on this Super Bowl advert and 90% of the people that watched it thought it was for their biggest competitor.

天啊。

Wow.

你知道吧？

You know?

作为搞创意的人，我真的没法理解这种事怎么会发生——你看完广告，明明有个大大的logo，怎么还会搞错呢？

And as someone who's creative, I I cannot even begin to understand how that happens because you see the end and there's a big logo and so therefore I don't understand how someone does that.

但说到底，这就是问题所在。

But you know, that's the that's the thing.

我就生活在一个信息泡泡里，这让我老婆特别烦，我走到哪儿都要指指点点，看那个品牌、看那个品牌。

It's like just because I live in this awareness bubble which is, you know, irritates my wife massively as I everywhere I go, look at that look at that brand.

有点怪是吧？

That's a bit weird.

这个颜色我不喜欢，那个设计也不行，天天这么挑毛病。

Don't like that color and all the other things that I'm constantly pointing out day in day out.

但这不是普通人的日常体验。

That's not people's lived reality.

所以，看到这种提升才是最重要的，而且长远来看，这还能省成本——品牌不统一，就得用各种方式推广，太折腾了，统一起来就能解决这个问题。

And so therefore, know, I was getting that uplift is the most important There is also as well, I think, hopefully gonna be in the long run a cost saving piece to it as well because when you have a fractured brand, you're having to roll it out in all these different ways and all, you know, and so unification will lead to that.

不过我觉得现在还为时过早。

But I think we're a bit early for that.

我们还在继续做品牌更新的工作，因为要涉及的方面实在太多了。

We're, you know, we're still doing work today on the brand refresh because there's a lot of things it has to touch and get to.

是的。

Yeah.

对。

Yeah.

那你们是什么时候开始做的，如果

So so when did you start the work, if

你不介意的话。

you don't

我可以问一下吗？

mind my asking?

我记得大概是十八个月前开始的，我听说的，不过

I think it was about eighteen months ago, I I I heard, but

是的。

like Yeah.

我觉得差不多快两年了。

I think I think I think we're almost at two years now.

对。

Yep.

是的。

Yeah.

你觉得这事儿还得持续多久？

How long do you imagine it's gonna be?

我记得PayPal都八年了，是吧？

I mean, mentioned, was it PayPal still eight years later?

你觉得接下来几年我们还会看到旧版亚马逊标志吗？

Do you think that you'll be spotting old Amazon logos for the next few years, do you reckon?

我肯定还得再过一阵子。

I'm I'm sure we've probably got a little while longer yet.