ABOUT

Brands are really simple things. It’s not what brand consultants would have you believe, but at heart all a brand really is can be captured quite simply as - ‘reputation’ and ‘behaviour’.
Now having set myself up here, let me say right off the bat that while brands are simple, of course bringing a brand to life is hard. Really hard. And often falters.
And it’s mostly because all the effort that goes into the mechanics of a delivery process almost always begins with physical things (well, virtual things as well, obviously) - logotypes, guidelines for application, business cards, buildings, every form and format of the code that drives its presence.
Rarely does it extend beyond the platitudes of some ‘core values’ to the human assets that are needed to deliver the promises the brand sets up.
Which is why I say that brands really are their ‘reputation’ and their ‘behaviour’ - as it’s people, the employees and agents, who ultimately define these things.
And to make a success of brands mean that they need more that just a mission statement.
They (we) need a way to understand how to represent the brand in ways that are action-orientated and simply to apply. And, most importantly, scalable, so as the framework supports decisions that a million situations will present and cannot possibly be capture in a guideline.
So Lotus, having done the ‘asset’ bit, needed to help everyone understand the ‘behaviour’ bit.
And given the brand was born of daring (in engineering terms), where better to begin that in daring others to lead forwards.
The proposition ‘Dare you…’ leads this cultural charge, captured in a series of nonlinear points or places where Lotus meet customers, with just enough of framework to build confidence, but not so much to cause confusion. Or, even worse, try and second guess what might be best and strangle the initiative.
The overall visual language sought to underpin that message - of a dynamic flexibility - by stretching the brand’s graphic toolkit right to the edge. Not to break it, but underpin that if we don’t dare, then we’ll always be following.
The programme was never implemented, due to Covid working restrictions meaning training could not be deployed, and the cultural development task currently remains ‘pending’.