What the Heck is a Brand Experience Designer?
I have been asked numerous times during my current job search to explain in detail what my role at GE Appliances was, what my daily work day looked like and what my key performance indicators would have been. I thought that this would be a great topic for my first blog post. So here it is! I will describe, generally, what the role might entail in any organization and also provide some examples from my experiences along the way.
I had never heard the title brand experience designer prior to my role at GE Appliances. I have to admit that the combination did sound contrived at first, but I learned pretty quickly how big of a role it was. There are likely similar roles at many other companies that have different titles—Brand Director perhaps, if leaning more toward a marketing function; or Brand Visual Designer more toward UX—yet the common through line for these roles is brand and people.
The competencies one should expect to have master of include Empathy for your target user base, visual and verbal Communication, specifying Consistency in brand design language across al touch points, and of course, the Design of products whether they are goods and services. That last competency will likely differ business to business.
At a granular level, my daily work might look different than what, say, a health industry service designer might experience. I would expect that on some level, there is a lot that might translate. Here’s what I was looking at with regard to my competencies and utilization.
Empathy - Speaking directly to end users of the products and witnessing their experiences directly through research and observation has allowed me to put my natural empathetic nature to use - translation into actionable insights meeting business goals.
Communication - Building coalitions and leading myself to be a proactive catalyst for design with my cross-functional counterparts, research and technical partners and suppliers - often harnessing my passion and tenacity to influence up and down to bring teams together.
Consistency - Not only design language or brand language consistency, but championing new and existing processes to build credibility to the design function, the larger organization and ultimately build an expectation repeatable outcomes.
Design - Of most importance to me is my user-centered philosophy. While not unique to me as a designer, yet I have found that putting the user first from the early stages of a program lays a foundation for success in any context B2C, B2B and so on.
But is it fair to call this role a UX role? According to Nielson Normon Group UX is a brand differentiator:
While branding has been around since people began buying and trading goods, the definition has evolved in the Digital Age. Consumers now have a wider range of interaction with companies and greater choice in product selection. Today, brand is the holistic sum of customers’ experiences, composed of visual, tonal and behavioral brand components, many of which are shaped by interaction design. Brand Is Experience in the Digital Age
My wildly over-simplified UX model above is an attempt to show what my experience was like at GE Appliances during my tenure there. From strategic to tactical workloads across the design process the distributing of competencies vary. For example, while planning research to uncover latent user needs Empathy is a far more important and leveraged quality for a Brand Experience Designer. However, when delivering a design specification to interaction designers or product teams, clear communication of design intent would be emphasized.
So what makes the role of Brand Experience Designer important in an organization? In some organizations, from department to department, communication channels work effectively and perhaps this role isn’t necessary. However, larger organizations, or even growing companies diversifying their offerings, may begin to see the consistency of there visual brand language, tone, and even behaviors begin to drift. This is where this role would begin to provide value. Here’s how it looked in a little more detail at GE Appliances:
It is important to stress that collaboration is a big part of the role. The Brand Experience Designer is a huge catalyst for ensuring that all stakeholders are driving down the same winding road together. Sometimes it is a bumpy one, and sometimes we lose someone at a rest stop along the way, but this role has the authority to rally the team, circle the wagon, and go find that wandering and adventurous contributor and coax them back on board. Now that that metaphor is exhausted, let me talk a little about leadership and contribution.
As I was thinking about the questions I have been asked about the role and how it compares to others, it hasn’t always been clear as to whether this is a leadership role or an independent contributor role. Without a doubt in mind it is both. Above I’ve briefly described a few of the activities a Brand Experience Designer should expect to get involved in as a part of the job. Would this person need to know how to build pixel-perfect UI screens and build behaviors into interactions? No, but it would be a helpful skill to have in order to visually explain an idea to the executing team member. Would a this person need amazing sketching, CAD modelling and rendering, motion graphics, and video editing skill? Again, no, but every design communication skill that one can bring to the table gives the Brand Experience Designer more tools to influence the organization and articulate the Brand User Experience.
One brief example: I have a knack for composing articulate and compelling verbiage and have been doing so since the 5th grade. Well, it turns out marketers love it and others have leaned on me to create and/or proofread their copy for their particular projects. One simple, useful skill has opened many doors in the organization and amongst my peers. Which, in turn, has only improved my standing as a great collaborator.
What do you all think about the role? Any questions? Do you know of any similar roles in your org?
