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AN ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE ORIENTED STUDY ON BRAND DESIGN

PROCESS IN THE CONTEXT OF CHINESE ENTERPRISES

CHENG SHENPh.D

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

2017

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

School of Design

An Organizational Culture Oriented Study on Brand Design Process

in the Context of Chinese Enterprises

CHENG Shen

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

January 2016

Certificate of Originality

I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it reproduces no material previously published or written, nor material that has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma, except where due acknowledgment has been made in the text.

________________________________________(Signed)

___________CHENG Shen__________ (Name of Student)

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Abstract

Commonly seen in brand design practices in China, attention is paid to the designs of the end products and services. The tangible or intangible artifacts are mistakenly believed to be the core of the brands and the key to success by many Chinese enterprises, as the artifacts are considered the above-surface tip of the brand iceberg that is exposed to the market. The input emphases of staff, budget, and other resources are also allocated based on this bias. However, actual brand performance results are unsatisfactory in general. Apparently, the problem lies in the orientation of the brand design focus. Increasingly more Chinese enterprises realize the problem: ambiguity regarding the real core of the brand and the key to success.

Start this doctoral research with an initial focus on understanding culture-specific emotional factors to brand design, I conducted pilot studies with a few local brands of rich culture heritage. Soon I discovered that these brands suffered the same perplexity as described above. The leadership of these brands expected that my studies would provide a practical solution for them to optimize their product designs. They believe embedding culture heritage into the artifact designs is the answer to achieving the desired business excellence and profit goals. Based on years of practice in the brand design field with multiple types of Chinese enterprises prior to this research, the empirical experience, and best discipline practices had taught me that the end products and services as outcomes of the brands should not be designed independently in a holistic brand design process. The backbone of a successful brand comes from its organizational culture, regardless of the company size or its type.

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Therefore, I altered my research focus to discover the key elements of organizational culture that create success in the brand design process.

In this dissertation, I first reviewed extensive strategies and methods, both best and failed practices in the discipline, in order to sort out an explicit context of a generic brand design process and to facilitate Chinese enterprises in general through the stages and steps in their brand design practices. Traits of organizational culture commonly shared by Chinese enterprises that have direct effects on the brand design process are identified and analyzed, to put the research in specific cultural context. Ample field research focused on corporate brand design process was also conducted because the success of a brand design is not only based on theories but is highly subjected to validation of the customer in the market. Through the study, two core elements of organizational culture have been revealed: awareness of quality and the role of leadership. Moreover, a hypothesis has emerged in this research presuming that these two core elements are the essential keys to the success of every brand design process.

Based on this hypothesis, I argued that these two core elements need to be distinctively emphasized with specific attention and direction on ways of conducting a holistic brand design process. Moreover, a culture of quality should become a permanent climate of an organization in every aspect. In the context of a brand design process, quality is the key to continuous improvement; it crucially affects innovation, leadership, decision-making, teamwork, end product and service design, overall internal team and external outcome performance, etc. Two implementation frameworks of quality are also proposed, one for a basic brand design process, another for the creative process of a brand design process, through defining the process phase, and supplementing a preliminary toolkit corresponding to specific stages and steps.

The two frameworks and the toolkit were demonstrated in a real-world case study with a state-owned enterprise for examining the

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logic of the hypothesis. The conception is considered fundamentally valid in the audit of the case performance, and the frameworks are in position for further development in future studies.

This study provides a basis to understand the relationship between organizational culture and the brand design process. It pins out the real core of a brand and the key to success for brands in general and formulates an explicit generic brand design process as a framework for Chinese enterprises to follow. This research contributes to the discipline and practice of brand design by providing brand designers the ground work and necessary aids for optimizing brand design practices in the context of Chinese enterprises.

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Publications

Cheng, S. & Tang, M.X., 2012, “Design and Branding Ke Silk for its 5th Revival”. In poster session, August 8-9, 2012 International Research Conference: Leading Innovation Through Design. Design Management Institute (DMI), Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, Boston, USA.

Cheng, S. & Tang, M.X., 2012, “Lost in Chaos: New Thinking on Branding a Drinkable Culture. A Study of Pu-erh Tea - From the 2007 Bubble Burst to a Proposed Emotional Brand Design Approach”. In proceedings of 8th International Conference on Design and Emotion: Out of Control, September 11-14, 2012. Design and Emotion Society, Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, London, UK.

Cheng, S., Chief researcher and editor, 2015, “2014-2015 Blue Book of Fashion Industry in China”. Released on 7th International Prestigious Brand Forum, May 2015. CEIBS-Jing’an International Fashion Industry Research Center, China Europe International Business School, Economy & Management Publishing House, Shanghai, China.

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Acknowledgement

I would like to show my gratitude to my supervisor, Prof. Tang, Ming Xi for his encouragement, guidance, and support throughout my research, which has enabled me to develop deeper understanding of the discipline of design.

My thanks also go to the School of Design at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, which provided the study environment and study materials that realized my research.

Lastly, I offer my regards and appreciation to my family, all my academician and practitioner friends who supported me in every respect during the completion of this dissertation.

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Table of ContentCertificate of Originality 3Abstract ivPublications viiAcknowledgement viiiTable of Content ixList of Figures xivAbbreviations xviiiChapter One | Introduction 1

1.1 Background of the Research 21.1.1 Brand Design Chaos in China: The Internal Process 21.1.2 Brand Design Chaos in China: The Outcome 5

1.2 Context of the Study 91.2.1 Mixed Economy Status in Transition 101.2.2 Chinese Enterprise and Organizational Culture 121.2.3 Brand Design Dilemmas in Chinese Enterprises 15

1.3 Hypothesis and Research Questions 221.3.1 Hypothesis 221.3.2 Research Questions 25

1.4 Research Aim and Objectives 251.4.1 Research Aim 251.4.2 Research Objectives 26

1.5 Research Scope 271.6 Research Methodology 281.7 Outline of the Study 30

Chapter Two | Pilot Studies 332.1 The Original Attempt of the Pilot Studies 342.2 Initial Hypothetical Framework: The Relation between Emotion, Culture, and Design 352.3 Case One: Design and Branding Ke Silk for its 5th Revival 37

2.3.1 The Situation, Difficulties, and Failed Attempts 382.3.2 The Process 402.3.3 The Findings 43

2.4 Case Two: A Study on Branding Pu-erh Tea as a “Drinkable” Culture 45

2.4.1 The Background 45

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2.4.2 The Process 462.4.3 The Findings 472.4.4 Further Considerations 50

2.5 Case Three: An Initial Discussion with a Booming Regional Brand 51

2.5.1 The Discussion 512.5.2 The Findings 52

2.6 Significance of the Pilot Studies 532.6.1 The Implications 532.6.2 Where do Brand Design and Organizational Culture Meet? 542.6.3 The Updated Underlying Foci 54

Summary 55Chapter Three | Review of Brand Design Process and Relevant Organizational Culture in Context of Chinese Enterprises 56

3.1 Brand Design 573.1.1 Research Definitions 583.1.2 Purpose of Brand Design for Enterprises 603.1.3 Advantages and Difficulties of Brand Design 62

3.2 Brand Design Strategy 643.2.1 Market-driven Brand Design Strategy 673.2.2 Market-driving/Leadership-driven Brand Design Strategy

693.2.3 Brand Design Approaches 72

3.3 Brand Design Process 783.3.1 Classic Brand Design Process 783.3.2 Leadership-driven Brand Design Process 793.3.3 Customer-driven Brand Design Process 80

3.4 Relevant Organizational Culture 813.4.1 Awareness of Quality 823.4.2 Role of the CEO / Leadership 883.4.3 Customer Demands 903.4.4 Internal Branding 953.4.5 Brand Communication Models 97Summary 100

Chapter Four | Research Methodology 1024.1 Measurements of Quality 103

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4.1.1 Net Promoter Score 1044.1.2 Data Collection and Analysis 1054.1.3 Monitoring Social Media 107

4.2 Principles of Total Quality Management 1094.2.1 Representative Total Quality Management Models 1114.2.2 Supporting Tools 1204.2.3 Essential Principles of Total Quality Management 1224.2.4 Significance of Integrating Total Quality Management Principles in Brand Design Process 123

4.3 Field Research 1244.3.1 Participant Observation and Practice 1254.3.2 Comparative Research 1274.3.3 Open-Ended Interview and In-depth Interview 128

4.4 Cluster Analysis 1304.4.1 The Strength of Cluster Analysis 1314.4.2 The Challenge of Cluster Analysis 1324.4.3 Adapting Cluster Analysis in Brand Design Process 133

4.5 Focus Group 1334.5.1 The Strength of Focus Groups 1354.5.2 The Limitation of Focus Group 1354.5.3 Applying Focus Group in Brand Design Process 137Summary 140

Chapter Five | The Frameworks of Quality for Brand Design Process in Context of Chinese Enterprises 142

5.1 Principles of the Underlying Structure 1435.1.1 The Essential Principles 1455.1.2 The Key Elements 1465.1.3 The Proposed Principle Framework of Quality 147

5.2 The Basic Brand Design Process 1475.2.1 The Proposed Implementation Framework of Quality for the Basic Brand Design Process 1485.2.2 The Four Stages 1495.2.3 The Eight Elements 154

5.3 The Creative Brand Design Process 1565.3.1 The Proposed Implementation Framework of Quality for the Creative Brand Design Process 1565.3.2 The Four Stages 158

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5.4 A Preliminary Toolkit for Supplementing the Frameworks of Quality 160

5.4.1 Tool 1: PDCA Problem-Solving Cycle 1615.4.2 Tool 2: Decision Map for Brand Choices 1635.4.3 Tool 3: Strategic Brand Mapping 1655.4.4 Tool 4: 7S for Brand Architecture 1655.4.5 Tool 5: Identify Needs to Demands 1675.4.6 Tool 6: Touchpoint Mapping 1685.4.7 Tool 7: Touchpoint Design 1715.4.8 Tool 8: Modified Expert System 172

5.5 Applying the Frameworks of Quality in Context of Chinese Enterprises 174

5.5.1 Implementation Prerequisites 1755.5.2 Steps in Managing the Transition 1785.5.3 Internal Training and Executive Coaching 179

Summary 183Chapter Six | Demonstration Case Study with an SOE for Applying the Frameworks 185

6.1 An In-depth Case Study of a Real-world Brand Design Practice with an SOE 186

6.1.1 Background of Corporation B 1876.1.2 Description of the Case Study 188

6.2 Input Phase of the Brand Design Process 1896.2.1 Organizational Culture Assessment of Corporation B1896.2.2 Framework Implementation Prerequisites Specified for Corporation B 1926.2.3 CEO Interview and Input of Initial Goals and Strategies193

6.3 Process Phase of the Brand Design Process 1986.3.1 Discovering Customer Demands 1996.3.2 Benchmark Analysis 2026.3.3 Refinement of Brand Design Goals and Strategies 2036.3.4 Creative Process 203

6.4 Quality of the Brand Design Process Performance 2076.4.1 Output Phase of the Brand Design Process: The Deliverables 207

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6.4.2 Audit Phase of the Brand Design Process: Verification for the Frameworks of Quality 209

6.5 Suggestions for Sustainable Optimization of the Frameworks of Quality 212Summary 213

Chapter Seven | Conclusions 2167.1 The Organizational Culture Foci in Brand Design Process 2187.2 The Quality Approach and Conclusions of the Research 2197.2.1 Results of the Study 2197.2.2 The Quality Approach 2217.2.3 Conclusions of the Research 2257.3 Contributions 2287.3.1 Implications and Suggestions for the Pilot Study Cases 2287.3.2 Other Ongoing Attempts in Optimizing the Frameworks of Quality 2307.3.3 Significance for Chinese Enterprises’ Brand Design Process2317.4 Limitations 2377.5 Recommendations for Future Research 238

Appendices 240References 274

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List of Figures

Figure 1.1: “On the current terms, Chinese people's aesthetic is generally in what kind of level?” 7Figure 1.2: “Bad quality” examples from ZUO design APP. 8Figure 1.3: “Good quality” examples from ZUO design APP. 9Figure 1.4: “The battle of the brands.” 11Figure 1.5: Economy phases comparison - The West vs. China - schematic diagram. 12Figure 1.6: Hofstede’s (2010) “Position of Culture”. 13Figure 1.7: Outline of the study. 32

Figure 2.1: Initial hypothetical framework of Emotion, Culture, and Brand Design. 36Figure 2.2: Simplified version of the initial hypothetical framework of Emotion, Culture, and Brand Design. 37Figure 2.3: Equivalency between the emotions of designers and emotions of consumers. 37Figure 2.4: Traditional Ke Silk handicraft: the technique and machine. 38Figure 2.5: The last group of surviving Ke Silk weavers in China who have over 20 years of experiences. 40Figure 2.6: Ke Silk tie. Abstract accessory designs. 40Figure 2.7: KESI Exhibition 2013 poster. 42Figure 2.8: Ke Silk textiles of children’s drawings. 43Figure 2.9: Pu-erh tea cake with Chinese Zodiac design. 45Figure 2.10: Pu-erh tea tasting in retail. 46Figure 2.11: Different Mouthdoleak packaging and marketing strategies. 53Figure 2.12: Brand iceberg. 54

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Figure 3.1: “What is a Brand” equation. 59Figure 3.2: “Where is brand design” in what business does? 61Figure 3.3: Designer’s role in Classic Design Process. 64Figure 3.4: The etymology of branding. 64Figure 3.5: Common brand design strategies and approaches. 65Figure 3.6: Brand development In Asian economies. 67Figure 3.7: A frame work for defining branding approaches. 73Figure 3.8: Lists of negative and positive emotions. 76Figure 3.9: Touchpoint structure in experiential brand deign. 78Figure 3.10: Classic brand design process. 79Figure 3.11: Leadership-driven brand design process. 80Figure 3.12: Customer-driven brand design process. 81Figure 3.13: Transition from Personal Quality to Total Quality. 84Figure 3.14: Total Quality culture. 84 Figure 3.15: Changing scenarios for enterprises. 85Figure 3.16: Paradigm shift of organizational culture. 85Figure 3.17: Paradigm shift of corporate level brand architecture. 86Figure 3.18: Maslow's hierarchy of needs. 91Figure 3.19: Tool for obtaining input of different needs. 92Figure 3.20: Customer satisfaction determines brand meaning. 93Figure 3.21: The broadcast brand communication model. 98Figure 3.22: Designing new product/service under the traditional (broadcast) organizational culture. 99Figure 3.23: The experiential brand communication model. 99Figure 3.24: Designing brands under the experiential organizational culture. 100Figure 4.1: ZUO design APP, primary users, way of grouping. 108Figure 4.2: Design management is defined by what you think of design (vertical axis: the “learning ladder” of design), and by what you thing of management (horizontal axis). 110Figure 4.3: Evolution of TQM. 111 Figure 4.4: MBNQA Model. 114Figure 4.5: EFQM Model. 118 Figure 4.6: Kanji’s Business Excellence Model. 119

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Figure 4.7: PDCA problem-solving approach. 121Figure 4.8: The expert system. 122Figure 4.9: Strategic brand mapping. 128Figure 5.1: Process to the thesis approach. 144Figure 5.2: The proposed principle framework of quality. 147 Figure 5.3: The proposed implementation framework of quality for the basic brand design process. 148Figure 5.4: The four stages of the proposed implementation framework of quality for the basic brand design process. 152Figure 5.5: The eight elements of the proposed implementation framework of quality for the basic brand design process. 155Figure 5.6: The proposed implementation framework of quality for the creative brand design process. 157Figure 5.7: User’s guide of the preliminary toolkit. 160Figure 5.8: PDCA problem-solving cycle. 162Figure 5.9: Decision map for brand choices. 164Figure 5.10: Strategic brand mapping. 165Figure 5.11: 7S for brand architecture and teamwork. 166Figure 5.12: Identify “needs” to “demands”. 168Figure 5.13: Identify touchpoint. 170Figure 5.14: Touchpoint design process. 172Figure 5.15: The modified human-based expert system. 173Figure 5.16: Comparison of the human-based and computerized expert systems. 174Figure 6.1: Expert system for the hotel brand design project by Corporation B. 193Figure 6.2: Decision map for the hotel brand choice. 194Figure 6.3: Fundamental strategies comparison for the case. 196Figure 6.4: Project workflow scenarios for Market-Driven or Market-Driving Strategies. 197Figure 6.5: Future branding and operation team suggestion for the hotel brand. 197

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Figure 6.6: Project-specific implementation framework for the hotel brand design. 198Figure 6.7: Overall research plan for designing the hotel brand. 199 Figure 6.8: Target customer clusters for the hotel brand. 200Figure 6.9: Hypothetical target customer demands’ differentiation based on clusters. 200 Figure 6.10: Initial customer demands clusters based on Maslow’s Pyramid. 201Figure 6.11: Strategic brand mapping based on benchmark analysis for the hotel brand. 202Figure 6.12: Justified steps implemented by the implementation framework of quality for the creative brand design process. 203Figure 6.13: Analysis of target customers' trends. 204Figure 6.14: Design principles based on potential client interviews and model hotel case studies. 204Figure 6.15: Customer segmentation analysis and design principle interpretation. 205Figure 6.16: Visual reference guide for feature design. 206Figure 6.17: Sample feature design and the ranking system. 206Figure 6.18: Inputs for future cycles of brand design process for the hotel brand. 208Figure 6.19: The brand book user's guide. 209Figure 6.20: A brief view of the case study progress for the hotel brand design. 215Appendices from 240

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Abbreviations

ASQ American Society for QualityCCCPC Central Committee of the Communist Party of ChinaCAZ Central Activities ZoneCBO Chief Brand OfficerCBD Central Business DistrictCEO Chief Executive OfficerCI / CIP Continuous Improvement / ProcessCS Customer SatisfactionCSF Critical Success FactorCSR Corporate Social ResponsibilityEFQM European Foundation for Quality ManagementFGI Focus Group InterviewGM General ManagerIPO Input Process OutputIQC Integrated Quality ControlMBNQA Malcolm Baldrige National Quality AwardNPS Net Promotor ScorePDCA Plan Do Check ActPR Public RelationsQC Quality ControlQIT Quality Improvement TeamR&D Research and DevelopmentSME Small to Medium Sized EnterpriseSOE State-owned enterpriseTQM Total Quality Management

INTRODUCTION | �1

Chapter One | Introduction

Contents 1.1 Background of the Research ………………………………………………… 1.1.1 Brand Design Chaos in China: The Internal Process ………….…….. 1.1.2 Brand Design Chaos in China: The Outcome …………………………

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1.2 Context of the Study …………………………………………………………. 1.2.1 Mixed Economy Status in Transition ……………………………….. 1.2.2 Chinese Enterprise and Organizational Culture ………………………. 1.2.3 Brand Design Dilemmas in Chinese Enterprises ………………………

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1.3 Hypothesis and Research Questions ………………………………………. 1.3.1 Hypothesis ………………………………………………………………. 1.3.2 Research Questions ……………………………………………………..

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1.4 Research Aim and Objectives ................................................................... 1.4.1 Research Aim ……………………………………………………………. 1.4.2 Research Objectives …………………………………………………….

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1.5 Research Scope ………………………………………………………………. 27

1.6 Research Methodology ............................................................................. 28

1.7 Outline of the Study ……………………………………………………..……. 30

INTRODUCTION | �2

“If I had only one hour to save the world, I would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem, and only five minutes finding the

solution.” - Albert Einstein

1.1 Background of the Research

1.1.1 Brand Design Chaos in China: The Internal Process

A chaotic phenomenon is happening among the brand market in China, from the way actions in a brand design process being conducted, to artifacts being designed and produced into the market as the outcomes.

In Chinese enterprises, what practitioners in brand design most likely are encountering is that the management of the brand design process is neither rigorous nor standardized. Decision-making in the brand design process is often casual and random, lack of accountability. The input emphases of staff, budget, and other resources are often allocated irrationally based on misconceptions of the branding discipline. The adoption of brand design strategies made elsewhere can sometimes undermine rather than help with the brand design process with new products or services, with unexpected outcomes that are largely barely satisfactory. As a result, for most Chinese enterprises, the internal process of designing a brand is a dominating factor that affected their external performances and market perceptions.

A recent brand design project I investigated in Shanghai did not turn out to be any more positive. This company is a joint venture, and the brand portfolios it manages are mostly well-established brands from all over the world. The Shanghai branch, which is also the headquarters of its China operation, is led by domestic executives and the teams they establish. This is logical for many joint ventures

INTRODUCTION | �3

in China, as the company is looking for ways to expand into the Chinese market and to be localized at a certain level in order to meet specific customer demands. One of the star sub-brands of this company is launching a flagship store in Shanghai. This store is envisaged to become a showroom for their upcoming self-owned stores in other cities of China to align with and to increase the brand awareness throughout its China operations.

This requires that the Shanghai team carries out a corporate level internal brand design project, in order to come up with a series of creative designs and activities for launching the flagship store with a theme appealing to Chinese customers, but without too many deviations from the overall guidance of its unified global brand image. This can be seen as a typical case of brand localization, which is essentially a kind of innovation activities concerning most of the Chinese enterprises which have a global outlook and international collaborations.

Localization at any level of branding is never an easy task in China. It requires professional knowledge, experience gained from practices, understanding of both the culture of its brand’s origin and the customers of the market to be localized for. The Shanghai brand management team received this assignment, with the defined goals, and the budget from its global headquarters. They decided to hire an external, cross-cultural professional brand design consulting team to assist them throughout the brand design process.

Three levels of local executives and more than five departmental managers were involved in this brand design process. It started with all three levels of managers finding a clear, unified view of what should be achieved. The external consulting team was then briefed and they later on developed the corresponding strategies as well as a series of creative ideas to bridge the gap between the brand’s status in the Chinese market and its expectations. The brand design strategies and creative ideas were then presented and approved level by level up to the top Shanghai leadership for their approval.

INTRODUCTION | �4

The external consulting firm then moved forward to the phase of interpreting strategies into tactics, planning the implementations, and seeking co-operations from each concerned department. From this stage on, the process started to go wrong. A middle-level executive who was in direct charge of the project execution, despite others’ advice, derived his own new ideas that he thought of being fit the overall brand design strategies better. Somehow he was convinced that this idea should become a priority in the implementation planning process. He then cut off a majority chunk of the budget and reserved it for implementing his own new idea. Hence, the external consulting firm was then told to have to work on the newly reduced budget instead of the original one. The vendor that the consulting firm carefully evaluated and selected in order to meet the quality demands of the brand design implementation was replaced with another one, which was assigned by the lower level executive due to the budget reduction.

However, the newly appointed supplier had neither the capability to realize all the main creative ideas nor the knowledge to guarantee the quality for achieving some of these creative ideas, the originally approved series of creative ideas were mostly broken apart. In this situation, the departmental managers involved could only aimlessly cooperate in the chaotic process, in order to meet the requirements emerging from the subsequently constantly changing decisions made by the three levels of executives. In this way, the attempted brand design localization for the brand’s flagship store in Shanghai from a series of creative ideas defined based on clear brand design strategies was forced to an inexplicably confusing dead-end.

This enterprise is entirely led by local executives. In this particular example, despite the fact that the objective was initiated for the local market, in the end, it still has the global headquarters’ brand guideline to follow in order to avoid the errors that can damage the brand image. For other types of Chinese enterprises, especially fully SOEs (state-owned enterprises), partial SOEs, private ownership

INTRODUCTION | �5

enterprises, SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises), even emerging startups, the chaotic situation in the brand design process is very common. The result is that these enterprises struggled to maintain an internal brand design process which they believed innovative. But they ended up with the problems and disorders in the process that they did not understand how to overcome, resulting in external bad branding image that is neither acceptable by its original creator or its new customers in China. Such disordered brand design processes often lead to impression of averagely low-quality and chaotic images of products and services created in the Chinese markets, no matter how many resources were used in the branding process. This is a case of lacking of leadership in the innovative process of branding in China and the problem existed in most of the joint venture enterprises, even for those leading companies in Shanghai and Beijing.

1.1.2 Brand Design Chaos in China: The Outcome

In general, even if great attention is paid to the designs of the end products and services by the Chinese brands, the overall Chinese industry is lacking brand design expertise. The consequences are reflected from the details of the tangible and intangible artifacts the brands are supposed to promote into the market, domestically or internationally. The level of customer expectation is fairly low, and tolerance level is relatively high in this market. As the frustration grows, the brand design performances in China are still not gaining international recognition.

China has been trying to make the transition of its products and services from being well known by the outside world only as “Made in China” but to “Designed in China” in recent years. However, from the overall impression is that the level of domestic brands in the Chinese market is low and facing many criticisms. In the Chinese social media, there is a post titled “On the current general terms, at what kind of level is Chinese people's aesthetic taste?” [sic]. With neither any detailed discussions nor any conclusion, it just showed several

INTRODUCTION | �6

images of different scenarios, as labeled in Figure 1.1. The viewers can come up with their own answers to and interpretations of the question.

Many would just laugh at it and possibly retweet the post for fun, considering it just another sarcastic post aimed at gaining reading traffic. The researcher, however, thought that this post directly reflected the overall level of “awareness of quality” in all respects that was causing not only brand design chaos in the Chinese market but also affecting consumer culture as a whole. For instance, and directly relevant to brands, this post gave examples of the average quality and notion of product design, packaging, brand identity, brand image, etc.

Product Design & Packaging

Brand Identity & Brand Image

INTRODUCTION | �7

Website Design & Toy Design

Figure 1.1: “On the current terms, Chinese people's aesthetic is generally in what

kind of level?” [sic] (Image source: http://www.zhihu.com/question/28409136/

answer/40799569?from=timeline&isappinstalled=0)

At a more detailed level, one social media platform was monitored for this study. It is called ZUO, which will be explained in-depth in the methodology chapter, and is a self-educational service created for collecting good or bad examples of brands/designs aiming at improving the overall awareness of quality of Chinese customers. From the examples, they gathered to showcase very specific quality in designs, with which a trained designer can trace back to a series efforts or mistakes made during the design process behind the superficies. Any touchpoint that a consumer may encounter, no matter how small the details may be, could reflect the overall quality of organizational culture in many aspects of the enterprise behind a brand.

INTRODUCTION | �8

(Previous page) (Script: (Left) A notification led light in between the audio holes, makes users feel that it was randomly placed by the designer

without any consideration. (Right) An uncentered USB port makes people question the design process.)

(Script: Where’s the creditability for a brand when even the logo is plagiarized?)

Figure 1.2: “Bad quality” examples from ZUO design APP.

(Source: http://www.zuodesign.cn/)

(Script: Good quality in both functional or emotional designs make customer appreciate the brands.)

http://www.zuodesign.cn/

INTRODUCTION | �9

(Script: Quality in the “little big details” makes the difference.)

Figure 1.3: “Good quality’”examples from ZUO design APP.


1.2 Context of the Study

Behind a phenomenon, there are always its root causes. For the context of Chinese enterprises that are representing the brands and end products/services in the market, the causes of the difficulty in creating successful brands include the economic history and organizational culture. The typical problems they face are reviewed here in order to identify the underlying issues that can help to overcome this difficulty.


INTRODUCTION | �10

1.2.1 Mixed Economy Status in Transition

China’s mixed economy status quo is one of the main reasons for causing many current chaotic phenomena in the commercial market; The perplexity in brand design is resulted from this chaos.

The progress of China’s market economy has been at a relatively initial stage. The current organizational structure and management habits across the majority of Chinese enterprises, which were largely brought over from the planned economy are not suitable for brand design practices in today’s globalized commercial environment, despite the fact that they had dominated the development of Chinese economy for two decades. It takes a longer time to understand and apply the brand design strategies and methods that were rationalized based on a much longer and relatively mature business history of Western practices.

During the Western economic evolution, the strategies and practices of brands co-evolved with it. Figure 1.4 below indicates the development path of the Western economy. Idris Mootee (2013) stated that “in the surplus economy, the marketing battle is a battle of the brands.” He explained that markets become the most desirable to own the factories in competition for brand dominance; owning market-dominant brands also becomes the only way to own markets. As the battlefield of branding competition, rules are constantly redefined, and the frameworks and the methodologies of brand design practices kept evolving. While the brands are continuing to generate poor records of delivering the brand promises through advertising in the previous world of media, the consumers have grown wary of this advertising, since they are frequently disappointed by the mismatching reality. For brand design, the most crucial, strategic transformation during this economic transition is that when the messaging ends the experience begins.


Figure 1.4: “The battle of the brands.”

As a matter of fact, Chinese economic reform started in 1978. After 4 years, the planned economy is officially ended. Since then it has been jumping rapidly in 20 years through each and every economy phase that developed Western countries went through in centuries. This relatively short business history of China’s economy evolution was not given much time to evolve from one to the next following the economic laws. Many enterprises quickly learned from and adapted to the practices of the Western countries, mainly from the US, European countries, and Japan.

China’s current economic phase is labeled as the “economic and social transition era” (Lu, 2015), in which many significant and 1

profound changes are taking place. Until today, the coexistence of these economic changes can all be seen through many perspectives in different industries due to the geographical distinctions, and the complexity of China as a multicultural nation. This situation has inevitably led to confusion for business stakeholders from different standpoints when attempting to adopt frameworks and methodologies from the best Western practices. The advanced

Lu, Z.Y., 2015, “Timely Mission of China Economic Research.”, CCCPC Party Literature 1

Research Office, Retrieved January 08, 2015, from http://www.wxyjs.org.cn/dsgsjsyj_575/gsjsyj/201501/t20150108_167959.htm

http://www.wxyjs.org.cn/dsgsjsyj_575/gsjsyj/201501/t20150108_167959.htm


strategies adopted from the West have to be re-oriented accordingly in order to meet the needs of the surplus economy, leaving many unresolved problems and gaps hidden behind the glories of market growth, including the problems in poor branding and poor quality in products and services.

However, globalization cannot be stagnated; China has no option but to accelerate to align with the global standards. Below is a schematic diagram or comparison between the Western and Chinese economic evolution. It is not precise in details, but it nevertheless reflects the status quo of the situation in China (Figure 1.5).

Figure 1.5: Economy phases comparison - The West vs. China - schematic

diagram.

1.2.2 Chinese Enterprise and Organizational Culture

The Chinese economy today is a mixed one combining the features of a market economy and a planned economy (Chow, 2011). The bad habits of the planned economy laid a complex and unhealthy foundation for Chinese enterprises’ organizational culture. Such an improper organizational culture makes it difficult for new brands to survive in market economies, affecting operation of a company. Organizational culture determines the success or failure of a brand design from the beginning of the brand design process. Further specific to the context of China, advanced brand design strategies and methodologies from the West may not necessarily suitable for direct uses in a Chinese enterprise without tailoring to its organizational culture circumstance.


Several significant disadvantages of a planned economy feature are still persistently left in today’s Chinese enterprises, which include:

• SOE/Partial SOE leaders are assigned by the government which is dependent more on political factors, rather than commercial considerations. This may lead to the destruction of entrepreneurs and innovators (Parikh, 2012);2

• Lack of consumer or producer sovereignty;

• Quantity is the main measure of performance, rather than the quality;

• Lack of profit motivation for all stakeholders, which may lead to organizations being inefficient;

• Suffers from government bureaucracy (or the style), with delays in decision-making (Parikh, 2012).

When the advanced strategies and methodologies meant for the surplus economy are mixed with the situations with adverse features as listed above, the chaos of brand design among Chinese enterprises described earlier appears. The underlying reason lies in the differences between different organizational cultures.

Figure 1.6: Hofstede’s (2010) “Position of Culture”.

Geert Hofstede (2010) identifies culture as “the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from others”. He indicated the 3

Parikh, V., “Advantages and Disadvantages of Planned Economy.”, Retrieved March 5, 2012, 2

from http://www.letslearnfinance.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-planned-economy.html

Hofstede, G., Hofstede, G. J. and Minkov, M., 2010, “Cultures and Organizations: 3

Software of the Mind.”, New York: McGraw-Hill

http://www.letslearnfinance.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-planned-economy.html


differences between personality, culture, and human nature and illustrated the relations as shown in Figure 1.6.

The five factors of culture - morality, aesthetics, behavior, the way of thinking, and value (Professor Li, L.S., lecture for SD5201 - design collaboration and technology, Xian Jiao Tong University, May 2010), are deeply embedded in emotions influencing consumer behavior and how people perceive brands and use products/services. In principle, it fits in all the situations on a universal level of human nature. However, comparative research on identifying emotional reaction differences between people from Eastern and Western cultural backgrounds have shown strong evidence that people with different culture backgrounds have significant differences in emotional reactions and recognizing emotions (Ekman, Friesen, 1971; Yuki, Maddux, Masuda, 2007). Sometimes, the cultural factors are considered as barriers to achieving effective communication, especially on the collective culture level, as a mass culture is learned and shared by an exclusionary group of people who are always influencing each other to conform. Therefore, when adopting Western strategies and methodologies without considerably localizing them based on the specific local culture background for a particular group of people, contradictions occur naturally. Regarding brand design, the collective culture is clustered in the unit of enterprises, as organizational culture.

An organizational culture is typically established by the leadership from the top down (Schein, 2006). It encompasses an enterprise’s core values, beliefs, and priorities. An organization’s culture is its personality, according to Carter McNamara from the Free Management Library. How the employees and all other stakeholders 4

of the enterprise perceive the organizational culture is an important touchpoint for the brand. It affects the way in which they consciously or unconsciously convey the perception into actions of their work,

Williams, T., “What Are Intangible Forms of Organizational Culture?”, Retrieved September 4

09, 2015, from http://www.ehow.com/info_8383716_intangible-forms-organizational-culture.html

http://www.ehow.com/info_8383716_intangible-forms-organizational-culture.html


and behavior, and collaboration. For the same reason, the awareness of quality among the leadership sets the tone for the quality of a brand's organizational culture, which can influence the brand design from the root to all the aspects and everyone involved in the process, as well as the quality of the products/services of the brand that the customers will directly encounter.

Due to the differences in culture backgrounds between those who created the advanced strategies and methodologies, and those who adopted such strategies and methodologies as local brand design practitioners, brand design chaos does not only happen in the enterprises owning the brands, but also affects international brand consulting agencies’ local branches in the Chinese market. Similar problems also plague the local consultants and their quality of work when they attempt to assist the brand design practices of Chinese enterprises.

The organizational culture in many Chinese enterprises can be typically defined as “low level of awareness of quality”, which means that everyone seems to know the problem or is aware of the situation, but no one is willing or know how to take serious actions to address the issue. In other words, when they try to create a new brand with quality in their minds, they often fail to achieve the targeted consumer experiences, if they were already known what the experiences might be.

1.2.3 Brand Design Dilemmas in Chinese Enterprises

Demands of quality management for the key aspects throughout the brand design process are essential. The most commonly seen brand design dilemmas in typical Chinese organizational culture according to the literature in this field can be summarized as below:

1) Irrational brand architecture, leadership, and staff empowerment at corporate levelThe first dilemma is to organize and recommend a proper and efficient brand architecture model at corporate level adaptable for


Chinese enterprises based on the conventional setups. To overcome this dilemma, a possible approach is to emphasize on the leadership and staff empowerment, given their decisive roles in the brand design process. This issue is a concern for this research.

The concept of brand and branding for most Chinese enterprises is still new, and the critical impact of the notion for the development and survival of Chinese brands is still not receiving the attention equivalent to its importance. In a typical Chinese enterprise sector setting, regular practice is to rename the PR department as the brand department, without upgrading its position in the company relative to other units, or without giving the correspondingly required empowerment. Chinese enterprises’ leaders are commonly confused by the concepts and functions of public relations and branding. In many cases, they believe these two separate issues are the same, which is not the case. This issue creates chaos of brand architecture in many Chinese enterprises, which in turn leads to indistinct staff responsibilities and fundamentally invalid brand design practices.

Frank Gallo (2011) made three main assumptions in his book discussing how to blend best Western practices with Chinese wisdom:

1) Chinese business leadership is in need of improvement;2) Simply importing best Western leadership practice will not work in China; 3) Leaders in China need to blend best Western practices with Chinese wisdom.

The first two assumptions are pertinent to this research, and the third one, put in context of this study, can be rephrased as follows:

4) Leaders in China need to integrate best Western practices into designing corresponding and applicable brand design methods.


Additionally, regarding staff empowerment, Gallo (2011) also made suggestions that one way to introduce empowerment into a workforce is for the leader to provide very clear explanations upfront of why something is being done, how it will work, and what the expected outcome is. Gradually, the aim should be to direct staff to be familiar and comfortable with the rights, obligations, and responsibilities of the empowerment. However, this suggested technique requires the leaders themselves to be able to anticipate the development consequences in advance as well as be confident and precise about directing others; thus, the demand for executive coaching is to be addressed in this research.

2) Lack of brand expertise and trainingThe second predicament points to the fact that most of the brand design practitioners in China do not have the knowledge of this discipline and they have not received any formal education that would allow them to acquire or grow this knowledge. Currently, most professionals engaged in brand design-related work in China, have the backgrounds in advertising, marketing, or visual communication. So far, China still has no specific vocational education for the branding discipline. For most relevant practitioners, the professional knowledge required for carrying out the brand design work is obtained through books on Western practices or training provided by international brand design consultancy firms. Due to the gaps between best Western practices and Chinese enterprises’ status quo, local practitioners are always troubled by not knowing how to apply professional knowledge into everyday practice. Suggestions to improve the training methods will be included in this research.

3) Weak teamworkBrand design by nature is multi-disciplined. Cross-team collaborations are highly involved in every brand design practice, which creates the third dilemma for Chinese enterprises, regardless if they are domestic or multinational local branches. As long as the employees are primarily local Chinese people, cross-team teamwork,


is always a weakness in brand design collaborations. According to the findings produced by Watson Wyatt’s “Work China” research in 2003, which examined over 10,000 employees in China, mostly working for the multinational firm, plus a small sample of local companies, teamwork is a major setback for Chinese enterprises. In this study, it is found that even though Chinese business teams produced better results compared with the business teams in the West, for cross-functional team co-operations, Chinese teams showed a much weaker relationship. The reason behind, as interpreted by Gallo (2011), was believed to be Chinese people’s trait of being loyal and interdependent with other families. Each independent business team could be subconsciously treated as the family in the workplace. Once outside the groups, loyalty reduces and hostility increases, just like a kind of competition and mistrust may exist between families. This issue creates the challenge for cross-team collaborations in brand design practices and requires a method to solve this problem which also is a concern for this research.

4) Inefficient evaluation and decision-makingA holistic brand design process usually encounters many assessments and decisive measures for every key point, from developing strategies to implementing tactics as well adjustments and refinements of various previously made decisions, in order to move forward. Evaluation and decision-making have always been difficult without effective solutions for Chinese enterprises. According to Gallo’s study (2011), Chinese people prefer to be sure that all angles of an issue are reviewed and thought through before coming to a conclusion, which frequently involves going back to rethinking and discussing the process from the beginning. The unguided back and forth processes result in confusions for the leaders, reducing the chances for the right decisions to be made within the necessary time limits. Given that brand design is usually time-sensitive, enterprises in China cannot afford to let too much time go by before making decisions, since any delay may lead to losing competitive


advantages. Therefore, this research will also focus on finding a solution to help to achieve efficient evaluations and decision-making in brand design processes.

5) Invalid best Western practices in Chinese enterprisesThere are two aspects of the fifth dilemma; the first is that the best Western practices, strategies, frameworks, and methods commonly seen in brand design practices are neither tailor-made nor localized for meeting Chinese enterprises’ situations and issues. A very common obsession that Chinese enterprises may encounter is that all they need to do is for the professionals and scholars from the West to tell them what the right things to do for their brands, and what the end results should look like; However, many weren't told clearly, in terms of where to begin, what should be done and how, or why things are the way they are. There could be different reasons for the consultants not consulting from the brands’ perspective, such as culture differences, commercial environment gaps, or sometimes just because of the failure of the experts themselves. The second aspect is that the chaotic brand architecture and inefficient cross-team collaborations make it more difficult for the external auxiliary supports to intervene substantially during the brand design processes. How to blend best Western practices in brand design with Chinese enterprises’ actual demands is a question this research intends to answer.

6) Failed external brand design supportIn many cases in Chinese enterprises' brand design practices, it is difficult for external brand design consulting firms to provide adequate support due to internal brand issues. However, there are many companies accustomed to frequently changing their external consulting teams. This occurs either due to the failure to achieve the brand’s design goals (where the external services get the blame), or the Chinese enterprises believe that different consulting firms can provide different creative ideas as the concepts of branding and marketing are once again confused to be the same. External


consulting firms in China also contribute to this problem, as they tend to criticize intentionally the services provided by the previous teams to undercut the business. There is not much room for the external consulting teams to contribute real productive efforts to the Chinese enterprises. Foreign consulting firms should not be expected to educate or train people in the enterprises for knowing the proper way to conduct brand design practices.

7) Shortsighted in long-term implementationBesides frequently changing their external help, Chinese enterprises also tend to overturn the internal brand design directions often, which produces a consequence of unclear brand design objectives being made at the beginning due to lack of expertise and understanding of branding as a discipline. Other reasons could include confusions created by the unguided back and forth evaluation and decision-making processes, or even replacing the leadership. There are also cases that resulted from China’s policy-related commercial environment, which do not fall within the scope of this study.

This predicament is contrary to the proper approach for any types of brand nurturing. Brand building by nature requires persistent long-term efforts from all departments of an enterprise to try continuously to achieve the expected outcome throughout the life of the brand. One can see through a successful brand that even after decades or centuries, the brand values can still remain the same, because the values were derived from the most fundamental human needs. In general, once the vision and mission of a brand are established, it should not be arbitrarily altered without reasonable causes. Strategies should be reviewed and regularly improved by adapting to changes. However, the frequency of such review still lags behind in current practices in Chinese enterprises. Often the suggestion is that every few years, strategies should be reviewed and adjusted, as the validation of a brand design strategy takes time (Greer, personal communication, lecture for SD5104 - Branding: From Local to Global


Strategies, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, February 22, 2014).

8) Unable to cope with the discontinuous change and uncertainty of successIt is undeniable that, in the present era, discontinuous change anticipated by Charles Handy (1990) 25 years ago is now evidently happening and unavoidable. The study will take this into account and be prepared for such circumstances regarding what it could mean for the brand design practices of Chinese enterprises.

Discontinuous change, by definition, is the “non-incremental, sudden change that threatens existing or traditional authority or power structure, because it drastically alters the way things are currently done or have been done for years.” In the combination of changing 5

technology and economics, a one-time success of implementation tactics is not equal to brand success for Chinese enterprises. The short-term tactics in the past decade commonly seen in China for generating exaggerated sensations for their brands to reach consumers overnight for fast profit are no longer as efficacious as they used to be. Similarly, a one-time tactic failure does not necessarily indicate the failure of the brand design strategy, either. Learning curves and implications from both succeeded or failed experiences are equally valuable for auditing and optimizing the strategies for taking further action. Merely copying successful tactics into different prerequisites or conditions without giving careful considerations to the full picture will not produce the same results. Braun (2004) incorporated Heraclitus’ philosophy into brand design and stated the following: suppose every brand presence in the world is never stable and things are always changing, the relative position of a brand and its reputation will not be the same every day; therefore, each brand management should be also based on constant change. Thus, success cannot be guaranteed in advance;

Definition of “Discontinuous Change”, Retrieved July 02, 2015, from http://5

www.businessdictionary.com/definition/discontinuous-change.html

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/discontinuous-change.html


however, what enterprises can do is to assess based on their reality, plan, and practice for the best results. The expected outcome approach of this research is also intended to achieve a design model that can incorporate perpetual optimizations.

1.3 Hypothesis and Research Questions

The dilemmas caused by typical Chinese organizational culture environment point to the demands of identifying the underlying elements to the success of an internal brand design process that will lay a foundation for its performance excellence in the market. A preliminary hypothesis is reached based on initial literature review and pilot studies documented in Chapter Two and Three alongside guiding research questions defined for this study.

1.3.1 Hypothesis

There is no simple and generic equation for the success of a brand design for any brand; moreover, there are no permanent solutions for the difficulties Chinese enterprises commonly face nowadays in the practice of brand design. Any steps in the brand design process, without considering the influences to quality, could cause deviations from the original objectives. Without sufficient and efficient strategies, the overall practice could simply fail to achieve the desired goals.

Besides, there is no single department that can address an entire brand design process. It is necessary for each unit to adjust their individual touchpoints and try to elevate the whole process. It is difficult for them to tell or control what happens before or after their touchpoints along the way (Ozkan, 2015). Therefore, in China, a 6

holistic approach with flexible tools, specially designed to aid the total quality management from an organizational perspective in brand design is in need for overseeing the brand design process.

When trying to identify the underlying elements of the research topic regarding the difficulties that Chinese enterprises are facing in the

Ozkan, G., “Users First: Why Quality Design is Crucial?”, Retrieved May 28, 2015, from 6

http://www.wamda.com/2015/05/-users-first-why-quality-design-crucial

http://www.wamda.com/2015/05/-users-first-why-quality-design-crucial


brand design process, the researcher started with three pilot studies focusing on the entry points from the artifact angle, in order to understand the relationships between emotion, culture, and design. To clarify, culture herein refers to consumer culture. In branding, customers are the only measurement for determining the success or failure of a brand ultimately. However, the author determined that the pilot studies alone would not answer the dilemmas stated above substantially and hence decided to focus on the brand design process from an organizational culture perspective. Without some previous success, consumers are not able to make valuable assessments regarding brands. This research focuses first on the transformation process as documented in Chapter Two. Based on the findings from the pilot studies, theoretical issues and frameworks for supporting brand design from the perspective organizational culture and Total Quality Management were explored. This was followed by a major case study for the testing and evaluation of the frameworks. In particular, the main case study focused on the issues of awareness of quality and the role of leadership in the whole brand design process and context of organizational culture.

Continuously improving quality at every level, and in all areas of responsibility, directs an organization to optimize its performance. 7

Quality is the top goal for all aspects of a brand design process, and leadership is the key to achieving it. A brand is also its people; every stakeholder of a brand is its touchpoint to the consumer and presents the holistic organizational culture of the enterprise behind it.

Among all stakeholders, the most important role is the leadership, as he/she determines the organizational culture from the top down. The awareness of quality of a brand leader determines his/her branding consciousness during the process of the brand design, and his/her resolve will guides the implementation process of every brand

United States Department of Defense, August 1988, “Total Quality Management Master 7

Plan.”, Washington, D.C., p. 1, OCLC 831675799, ADA355612


strategy. Eventually, every aspect of a brand will be presented through the end products and services.

This thesis discusses the hypothesis in the following logic:

• Customer satisfaction is the ultimate measure of the success of a brand (see discussion in Section 3.4.3);

• Customer satisfaction is determined by the quality of a brand experience as a whole, through every brand touchpoint, including the end products/services (see Section 3.4.3 & Section 5.4.6 respectively);

• The quality of the brand performance excellence is determined by the awareness of quality in an organizational culture (see Section 3.4.1); and depends on how the notion is applied to practices, managed through processes, and reflected by the brand design outcomes (see Section 4.1 & Section 4.2);

• The organizational culture is typically established by the leadership, and the brand design process is preferably initiated and supervised by the leadership in proven successful Western practices. Therefore, the overall quality management should be led directly by the leaders from the top down (see discussion in Section 3.4.2). Which of all these fundamental requirements makes the role of the leadership is another underlying element for the success of a brand.

• For Chinese enterprises, the downside of the planned economy traits left in their organizational cultures, on an individual level, had led to the dilemmas they are facing in brand design practices. Especially, ineligibility of the leadership and the overall low level of quality motivation are common (see Section 1.2).

• A generic framework explicitly demonstrates the holistic brand design process with a preliminary toolkit is considered to be the appropriate outcome from this study to prepare the Chinese enterprises for improvement fundamentally (see Chapter 5).


1.3.2 Research Questions

Essentially, there were four primary questions to be addressed in this study:

1) Where do brand design and organizational culture meet? What is the real core of brands and the key to success from the West?2) If awareness of quality is one of the core elements of brand design, then how can an enterprise measure and manage quality?3) What is the role of leadership? Is it one of the core elements of brand design? In China, if an enterprise is missing competent leadership, what are the alternative solutions?4) What are the shared principles of brand design and the total quality management philosophy that can be adopted to improve the overall brand design process for Chinese enterprises?

1.4 Research Aim and Objectives

1.4.1 Research Aim

The research aim is to propose a generic approach; to improve the overall brand design process for Chinese enterprises that are facing dilemmas in achieving their brand performance objectives.

The research questions indicate the gaps between the hypothesis and possible solutions for Chinese enterprises in resolving the dilemmas in the brand design process. This research aims at understanding, from a perspective of organizational culture, the core of the brand design process. Then, the research will develop an approach to integrating the principles of the total quality management philosophy in brand design strategies and brand design process with flexible tools for different situations in Chinese enterprises in order to bridge the gaps.

The total quality management philosophy is commonly applied to product/service level management today. It has shown features and advantages through successful cases that can be employed to


corporate level brand design and the overall quality management of brand design practices (Pereira-Moliner et al., 2016). The proposed approach in this thesis is intended to help those Chinese enterprises troubled with applying up-to-date strategies and methods extracted from best brand design practices from the West, ease their problems during brand design processes, and also bridge the gaps between Chinese brands’ status quo and their corporate level brand development objectives.

The expected outcome of the approach is a framework with a preliminary toolkit consisting of a set of methods designed for smoothing out main phases of a corporate level brand design process, and the implementation tactics to mainly address the brand design dilemmas as stated before.

1.4.2 Research Objectives

The research objectives could be further sub-divided into the following:

Firstly, understand the shared principles of both the brand design and the total quality management philosophy. Integrate the principles into frameworks of quality that are applicable for directing the brand design process in general.

Secondly, make the approach and methods applicable to Chinese enterprises that are facing brand design difficulties in general. An instructional framework for generic brand design process will be explicitly illustrated; and the implementation prerequisites for increasing the universal applicability of applying the proposed approach to Chinese enterprises’ brand design practices will be defined.

Thirdly, test the proposed approach in real-world Chinese enterprise contexts, examine and verify whether the listed problems (see Section 1.2.3) are resolved or improved by applying the approach to enterprises' brand design practices.


Fourthly, the specific methods and implementation tactics of the proposed approach will be then evaluated and optimized, combined with the significance and knowledge summarized from the practices of the refined approach, converted into applied principles and practical methods, and organized into a preliminary toolkit for Chinese enterprises' self-practices and future studies.

1.5 Research Scope

This research focuses on organizational culture in the context of the brand design process involving Chinese enterprises. The research rationale is that, with a relatively short market economy history after China had changed from a planned economy era, most of the Chinese enterprises are now commonly troubled by not knowing how to apply advanced strategies and implementations of the up-to-date best Western practices in brand design. The economic history of China has resulted in mainly a lack of competent leadership and a corresponding set of quality management methods. Thus, this study is to research, develop, and tailor solutions for bridging the gaps. In the meantime, the study establishes a good understanding of how the Chinese enterprises in specific transitional stages of brand development processes can achieve the goals of their brand design mainly from an organizational culture perspective. This understanding helps to develop or evaluate the generic wisdom and methods in brand design in a universal context thus makes necessary contributions to the field of brand design and innovation by providing solutions to the problems which are complex in local culture but still common from an international perspective.

Therefore, several aspects need to be defined for clarifying the scope of this study as follows:

Chinese enterprise types selected for this research include SOEs (state-owned enterprises), partial SOEs, private ownership enterprises, SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises), emerging startups, as well as local branches of international companies. These


companies have the following problems: 1) chaotic Corporation Brand architecture; 2) inefficient leadership and low-quality teamwork; and 3) lack of practical brand design expertise.

The brand design process mainly discussed in this research is the fundamental corporate level brand design phase relative to the product/service brand design phase. Definitions of brand design specified for the scope of this study are given in Chapter Two.

1.6 Research Methodology

Brand design is a discipline of applied science highly oriented by practices, and ultimately the success of each and every brand design is verified by the market and its customers, despite whether it is a corporate level brand design or a product/service level one. Generally speaking from a macro point of view, a brand is the sum of all things related to its formation; brands only exist in the minds of their current and potential consumers (Braun, 2004).

This is a study aiming at understanding better the core of brand design process from the organizational culture perspective, and it proposes an approach to help Chinese enterprises applying strategies and methods of up-to-date best brand design practices, in order to achieve the desired corporate level brand development goals. To fulfill the research aim and objectives, and due to the nature of brand design, the following research methods, mainly qualitative, are employed.

Comprehensive literature reviews are both crucial and fundamental in any research. The literature review of this study focused on reviews of current brand design strategies and approaches from the best Western practices and different types of brand design processes that existed in various kinds of enterprises. Relevant organizational culture consists of the topics focusing on quality, leadership, customer, and internal branding. Brand communication models are also reviewed. In the methodology section, the representative models and essential principles of the TQM (Total Quality Management) are


reviewed in-depth in order to identify the shared principles to be integrated into the theoretical approach for improving the quality of the brand design process for Chinese enterprises.

After having reviewed the literature, unstructured interviews were conducted with brand owners and professional practitioners relevant to brand design processes concerning the problems that existed in Chinese enterprises’ brand design practices.

Based on the dilemmas summarized, as prerequisites for testing the integration of the shared principles of the TQM philosophy and brand design in practice, focus groups—a widely used research method in studying brand relevant subjects for its effectiveness in providing generous and spontaneous data through interactions between researchers and participants, were designed into the real-world case study to examine the reviewed brand design strategies. Given that a brand is a complicated, diversified, and intangible impression of consumers, which is hard to measure or justify in research in design from a social science perspective, a cluster analysis was adopted by data collected from focus groups to obtain relatively conclusive findings. Moreover, field research as a complementary method was employed for the in-depth understanding of the research participants' cultural background, commercial environment as well as the current and potential customers’ demands in the target market in the case studies.

A real-world brand design case study conducted with a state-owned Chinese enterprise is used to test and verify the proposed approach of the quality management in the brand design process. Data and implications from the case study were summarized and applied to additional early stage brand design processes for continual examinations and optimization of the proposed approach for future work in the area. For the real-world SOE case study, the researcher was highly involved in the practice of developing corresponding brand design strategies and the entire first stage of the particular brand design process. For the other cases documented in this


research, qualitative techniques such as observing unguided experiences, collection and analysis of secondary data, as well as monitoring social media were mainly applied.

1.7 Outline of the Study

This thesis is organized in the following manner. Chapter One is the introduction of the research background, context, dilemmas, research hypothesis and questions, research aim and objectives, scope, and a brief discussion of the research methodology.

Chapter Two documents the original attempt of three pilot study cases conducted at the initial stage of this research. Through the findings, implications of the preliminary case studies led to discovering the updated primary foci of this research.

Chapter Three provides a detailed literature review of research related to brand design concepts and strategies in the brand design process, in which relevant definitions are specified for the research as well as up-to-date brand design theories and approaches, and the key organizational cultures are reviewed and discussed.

Chapter Four firstly discusses the methods for measuring quality then presents an overview of the TQM principles and their significance to brand design in the context of the research problems. In addition to the review of the representative total quality management models, the importance of integrating the TQM principles in the brand design process is respectively discussed. Next, this chapter provides a review of critical methods selected for the needs of this research, which are, field research, cluster analysis, and focus groups.

Chapter Five explains and presents the development steps and the outline of integrating the TQM principles in the brand design process for developing the proposed quality framework, as well as two implementation frameworks of quality for both the basic and creative brand design processes. A preliminary toolkit for supplementing the


proposed approach is introduced in this chapter. Subsequently, implementation prerequisites and other considerations for applying the proposed frameworks in the context of Chinese enterprises are discussed.

In Chapter Six, the frameworks and preliminary tools of the proposed approach are investigated and validated in the form of a real-world Chinese enterprise brand design case study. Suggestions for sustainable optimization for the case study enterprise are given in this chapter.

Chapter Seven draws the conclusions and main contributions of the study. Recommendations for the pilot study cases conducted were suggested, as well as implications of other practices at initial stages are summarized for future relevant study. The limitations of this research are discussed, and suggestions and recommendations are given for future work of the research area. The outline of this thesis is summarized as per Figure 1.7.

Overall, the entire thesis is expected to be of interest to those who study, practice and experience brand design and brand performance in the Chinese market and in general. This research proposed a quality approach which is pragmatic to aid the Chinese enterprises to meet their desired brand design objectives to practitioners from the CEOs to relevant employees, as well as professional consultants in real-world practices. It also provides background information and stimulates in-depth discussion for relevant foreign brand practitioners and scholars who wish to learn about the real situations and obtain a better understanding of Chinese enterprises and the current Chinese brand market. It is my hope that the thesis will invite further valuable investigations, practices, and approaches contributing to the progress of the brand design discipline.


Figure 1.7: Outline of the study.

PILOT STUDIES | �33

Chapter Two | Pilot Studies

Contents 2.1 The Original Attempt of the Pilot Studies ………………………………….. 34

2.2 Initial Hypothetical Framework: The Relation between Emotion, Culture, and Design ……………………………………………………………………..

035

2.3 Case One: Design and Branding Ke Silk for its 5th Revival ……………… 2.3.1 The Situation, Difficulties, and Failed Attempts ……………………….. 2.3.2 The Process …………………………………………………………….. 2.3.3 The Findings ……………………………………………………………..

37384043

2.4 Case Two: A Study on Branding Pu-erh Tea as a “Drinkable” Culture … 2.4.1 The Background ………………………………………………………… 2.4.2 The Process …………………………………………………………….. 2.4.3 The Findings …………………………………………………………….. 2.4.4 Further Considerations ………………………………………………….

4545464750

2.5 Case Three: An Initial Discussion with a Booming Regional Brand ......... 2.5.1 The Discussion ………………………………………………………….. 2.5.2 The Findings ……………………………………………………………..

515152

2.6 Significance of the Pilot Studies ……………………………………………. 2.6.1 The Implications …………………………………………………………. 2.6.2 Where do Brand Design and Organizational Culture Meet? …………. 2.6.3 The Updated Underlying Foci …………………………………………..

53535454

Summary 55


“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other

innovations.” - Steve Jobs

2.1 The Original Attempt of the Pilot Studies

China does not have many world famous brands yet. Statistics released in 2014 based on a second global survey on “China’s Image in the World” jointly conducted by the Center for International Communication Studies of China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration, the Charhar Institute and Milward Brown, revealed the lack of familiarity with Chinese brands. Besides individual banks and airplane brands, the top-ranked brands are not much different than the common perception people have had for famous Chinese brands for the past decade: Crowned, by Lenovo, followed by Huawei, Haier, Tsingtao Beer, as expected.8

However, China has outstanding products in multiple categories. On top of the list, silk, tea, wine, craftsmanship, and many other cultural or heritage-related products, are the first things that consumers associate with China. With so many established brands, how does a new good brand arise to compete? Trying to understand how to make certain brands successfully stand out in these categories was the first aim of this research.

As I learned from preliminary studies, literature reviews, and personal working experience, branding is a systemized and complex process of designing and managing of all elements and aspects of a brand with its perceiving objects; the study needs to be focused. The entry

“Top 10 most well-known Chinese brands”, Retrieved April 03, 2014, from http://8

www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2014-04/03/content_17400003_7.htm

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2014-04/03/content_17400003_7.htm


angle I selected at the beginning of this research was to understand the roles and notions of emotion and culture in brand design, given that consumers are the ultimate measure of the success of brands. As supported by many recent studies, emotions drive people’s consuming behavior. Furthermore, emotion is rooted in culture. The research initially focused on developing a culture-based emotional brand design approach, aimed at understanding the in-depth relationship between emotion, culture and brand design, as well as how culture heritage can be preserved and revived through meeting the required emotional appeal raised by proper brand designs, and developing corresponding strategic design criteria for building potentially iconic brands.

A hypothetical framework was developed, and several pilot case studies were conducted under the preliminary proposition. The pilot studies, the findings, and the implications are documented in this chapter as a track record of the research direction transition of this thesis.

2.2 Initial Hypothetical Framework: The Relation between Emotion, Culture, and Design

One initial theoretical framework was designed to illustrate the relationships between emotion, culture and design in branding (Figure 2.1). How the three notions act on generating business value was also designed, including both profit and benefit, instead of the current commonly seen brand design practices in China—overly weighting on commercial-value-driven strategies that are a backward derivation in reverse to the actual psychological process of consumer behavior. Understanding the emotions that drive brand purchase to obtain the deserved business value corresponding to the effective emotions and quality time invested was the focal point of the initially proposed framework.


Figure 2.1: Initial hypothetical framework of Emotion, Culture, and Brand Design.9

To simplify the initial hypothetical framework shown below (Figure 2.2), the two critical parameters in brand design are emotion and time and more precisely, effective emotion and quality time. Value, meaning commercial value herein, is only a result, not a contributing parameter to the process. It does not matter whether the value that has been valued and desired was profit, they come afterwards depending on the emotions and time that have been invested and successfully embedded into the end products/services of the brands. The other uncertain and indecisive variables are eliminated in this context. Time could be decreased by other means depending on circumstances, technology for instance. This conceptual framework shows that emotion stands in the center role of the relation between culture and brand design. It is clear that culture and emotions are acting as significant roles in brand design, as they affect consumer behavior. Moreover, an efficient design that triggers emotions to obtain brand loyalty from customers requires proper emotions to be embedded, which are rooted in a cultural consensus shared by both the designers and the customers (Figure 2.3). The hypothetical framework developed based on the understanding of the relations between emotion, culture, and brand design was intended to direct

Norman, D.A., 2004, “Emotional design: why we love (or hate) everyday things.”, New York: 9

Basic Books | Hofstede, G., 1991, “Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind.”, New York: McGraw-Hill


the development of a strategy that may have the potential of turning the current commonly seen reversed practices of commercial value-oriented brand design strategies among Chinese enterprises back to the right order of a culture-based emotional branding strategy.

Figure 2.2: Simplified version of the initial hypothetical framework of Emotion,

Culture, and Brand Design.

Figure 2.3: Equivalency between the emotions of designers and emotions of

consumers.

2.3 Case One: Design and Branding Ke Silk for its 5th Revival

The first pilot case study conducted, was on designing and branding Ke Silk for its 5th Revival. Ke Silk, which means “carved silk”, represents the essence and the highest level of the Chinese silk art. The name derives from the visual illusion of carved threads that are created by distinct, unblended areas of colors. This ancient technique can be traced back to more than 4,500 years ago and has not been


changed much (Wu, W.K., personal communication, March 15, 2012). Even today, Ke Silk is still 100% handmade and has retained a unique weaving techniques throughout history. Having experienced four rises and falls in the past, the Ke Silk industry is now facing a severe recession. The ancient technique is endangered. As the weavers left in the industry are aging and retiring with no new force joining the industry, Ke Silk is predicted to disappear in about five years.

To study this lesser-known industry, I conducted in-depth field research in Suzhou to interview and collaborate with the last batch of weavers and entrepreneurs, intending to develop corresponding branding strategies and design criteria tailor-made for preserving and reviving this intangible cultural heritage.

Figure 2.4: Traditional Ke Silk handicraft, the technique and machine.

(Photograph by Cheng, Shen)

2.3.1 The Situation, Difficulties, and Failed Attempts

During the Ming and Qing dynasties, Ke Silk productions were monopolized by the royal family to make the emperors’ dragon robes, senior officials' court dress, calligraphy, and paintings of the masters that were not allowed to be owned by civilians. Therefore, Ke Silk gradually became less well-known; people who could master the technique of making Ke Silk had always been few (Wu, W.K., personal communication, March 15, 2012). One fine piece of handkerchief sized Ke Silk fabric could easily have taken months for a senior weaver to complete. The value of Ke Silk handicrafts is described as “an inch of Ke Silk is worth an inch of gold.” In addition


to its economic value, the Ke Silk technique is selected as a world cultural heritage icon in 2009 by UNECO. This ancient craft as an art form carries unquantifiable historical and cultural value. Among all the silk artworks that have survived throughout the ages, Ke Silk is the most preserved intact. Besides, due to the complexity of the technique and the shortage of skilled successors, Ke Silk artworks are scarce and cannot be forged, which makes Ke Silk very rare and valuable.

In the 1970s, a boom occurred due to China's reform and opening up, large quantities of Japanese orders came to China for making Kimono belts. During the golden days, there were over 80,000 weavers in the Suzhou area in China learning and making Ke Silk textiles. But this prosperity ended with Japan's economic crisis. By 1995, there was only one relatively sizable Ke Silk factory left in the whole Suzhou area, with less than 100 weavers working in the industry (Wu, W.K., personal communication, March 15, 2012).

Ke Silk industry is facing many difficulties in this current crisis; on top of all issues, the most crucial is the people. In the last relatively sizable factory in Suzhou, there are only around 30 weavers left aged in their forties to fifties. With an average of more than 20 years experience, their technique is very mature. However, they are approaching their usual retirement age and could not find individuals to pass on the skill. It is not surprising that today's young generations prefer not to engage in the traditional handicraft industries. The statistics show the Ke Silk industry has almost no new entrants ever since the industry recession (Wu, W.K., personal communication, March 15, 2012). The reasons include the difficulty of learning and mastering the time-consuming Ke Silk technique, the occupational diseases caused by repetitive labor, mismatching income, etc.

Ever since the industry recession, the government and local enterprises have made efforts and tried to save the Ke Silk industry. For example, the Suzhou Government has made proposals, such as offering college degrees, fundings trainees. Local enterprises have


explored the possibilities of collaborating with luxury brands, as well as adding a product line of accessories on their own. However, all attempts implemented thus far have not been successful. Even the world's top ranked luxury brands find the cost of Ke Silk textile to be unbearable to expand a product line (Wu, W.K., personal communication, March 15, 2012). And due to lack of tailored designs to reflect the advantages of the Ke Silk textiles, the sales of the accessories is not satisfactory, either.

Figure 2.5: The last group of surviving Ke Silk weavers in China who have over 20

years of experiences. (Photograph by Tang, Ming Xi)

Figure 2.6: Ke Silk tie. Abstract accessory designs. (Photograph by Cheng, Shen)

2.3.2 The Process

During the pilot study, I, along with a few other research students and the School of Design at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, made the following attempts to develop initial strategies as well as organize an exhibition for branding and reviving Ke Silk.


Strategy: Branding and Brands’ CollaborationsIn order to create a name for Ke Silk in the current market and be appealing for the younger generations, branding is no doubt a critical and effective method to be adopted. A leading industry icon brand is in demand.

As mentioned above, Ke Silk has been out of people's minds for a reason, but the less well-known stories have now given Ke Silk favorable advantages for publicizing itself in today's market as well as providing an opportunity for an intriguing brand image to be established through the methods of strategic brand positioning and storytelling. Another indispensable fundamental branding action to be conducted is to develop a Ke Silk handicraft assessment system, to enable the establishment of the order of the Ke Silk industry to advance. There are many aspects to consider and corresponding strategies to be carefully designed and implemented to build a brand for Ke Silk and to assist its cooperations with other brands, but it is critical to set up an infrastructure for establishing a smooth and promising brand building process. Once the market awareness and acceptance of Ke Silk's value are established, the prospect for this industry is relatively optimistic.

Strategy: Tailored Design for Ke SilkThere are aspects to be considered at this stage and design strategies to be tailor-made for the Ke Silk technique and the practical difficulties of the Ke Silk industry.

For example, in regard to the designs of the Ke Silk textiles, it is crucial to reduce costs given that even the world's top luxury brands found the costs unbearable. Reducing the use of Ke Silk fabric to be the highlights in designs is a promising direction. Another feature of the Ke Silk technique is that it shows more advantages when it is used for making complex, rich, and delicate images. The Ke Silk technique is well-suited for rendering the gradient details of a design, but when the technique is used for making repetitive, fabric structure type of geometric patterns, it may lose its advantages, as the finish


goods may easily be mistaken for machine-woven, resulting in affecting the market perception no longer matching its deserved value. Being handmade is the biggest difference and advantage of Ke Silk that makes it unique and precious from other traditional Chinese textile arts and thus should not be changed. The value of the handmade Ke Silk works is not comparable or replaceable by short-term economic interests. Each piece of a handmade Ke Silk work contains the emotion, wisdom, skill, time, and energy paid by each weaver. The value of the work is proportional to the spirituality and the uniqueness the work carries.

Exhibition: KESI Exhibition 2013

Figure 2.7: KESI Exhibition 2013 poster.

(School of Design, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University)

One exhibition titled “One Inch of KESI (Ke Silk), One Ounce of Gold” was curated and held by the School of Design at Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2013. Over five million RMB worth of art pieces in different forms of Ke Silk were shipped from Suzhou to Hong Kong for this particular event, to raise awareness and expose more people to Chinese cultural heritage through the traditional artworks, commercial products, innovative new designs, as well as


the documentaries of the last remaining Ke Silk factory and its weavers in China.

During the exhibition, one experimental attempt was made to give a new meaning to Ke Silk handicrafts, by crafting children’s drawings into textiles. Through preserving a piece of memory and a moment of childhood, a new value was intended to be given to this traditional technique to showcase the necessity of evolution, regarding emotion, culture, and design.

Figure 2.8: Ke Silk textiles of children’s drawings. (Photograph by Cheng, Shen)

2.3.3 The Findings

A Potential Leading Enterprise As mentioned above, there is one last relatively sizable factory in the whole Suzhou area, and it supported the KESI Exhibition 2013 with exhibits. It has the potential to become the leading enterprise to lead the Ke Silk industry into its 5th revival. The factory with the title of “Jiangsu Ke Silk Heritage Base” awarded by the government, has one last cohort of skilled weavers and technical staff, each with more than 20 years of experience on average. It also set up a museum of Ke Silk arts on the famous Embroidery Street in Suzhou to display


and to spread this ancient technique and form of art as well as to promote the contemporary Ke Silk works. The owner, Mr. WenKang Wu himself, is a Ke Silk master who has been learning Ke Silk for over 30 years, knowing the history and techniques of not only Ke Silk, but also other traditional Chinese textiles. Mr. Wu, with his factory, has the potential to explore and to find innovative ways to revive the Ke Silk industry and create a leading icon brand for the future. The initial strategies proposed during the pilot study were addressed to Mr. Wu in detailed implementation suggestions specific to meeting the existing condition of his enterprise.

The Issues of the Potential Leading EnterpriseHowever, following the KESI Exhibition 2013, the implementations of the strategies initially proposed to Mr. Wu did not go smoothly as expected mainly due to the following obstacles posed by Mr. Wu after his assessment of the suggestions made to him:

• Mr. Wu’s perception of branding equals product design.

• As he fully welcomed the tailor-design strategy, he objected to options that would require any upfront investment for the designs. Given that to his in previous attempts, he was unable to recover successfully most of the costs due to subsequent mismanagement.

• Mr. Wu refused to turn to the government for financial assistance as he could not adapt to the government's application process and working style.

• Once a Ke Silk handicraft assessment system is developed and established, the top ranking weavers’ names will become endorsers to the better-valued products which Mr. Wu believes this will increase the possibilities that these weavers leave his factory to create competitor brands.

Putting aside the external difficulties, Mr. Wu’s propositions and objections had shown that, as a leader, he was not quite skilled at the branding and reviving side of business. His foci were mainly on product-level design details and obtaining profit, yet not taking into


account the overall situation. However, as a master of Ke Silk, Mr. Wu is no doubt the irreplaceable CEO in current circumstances of the industry and this particular brand. This very dilemma and the findings of this pilot case study made me rethink the direction of my research. Would the entry point I selected lead to strategies that are efficacious and contribute to the core issues of brand design and branding? What are the real centers of a brand and the key to success? How can this research truly help Chinese enterprises to develop good brands?

2.4 Case Two: A Study on Branding Pu-erh Tea as a “Drinkable” Culture

2.4.1 The Background

Another pilot case study conducted based on the initial theoretical framework was on Yunnan Pu-erh tea. As a “drinkable” culture with a long history, Pu-erh tea in Chinese consumer culture is considered more of an emotional product in which the whole process of learning, purchasing, storing, the tea ceremony, etc., fulfills the spiritual needs of Chinese traditional culture and lifestyle, rather than simply serve as another Chinese healthy tea beverage (Xu, X., Yan, M. and Zhu, Y., 2005).

Figure 2.9: Pu-erh tea cake with Chinese Zodiac Design. (Photography / Cai Cong

Ting, Image source: http://tea.tw.tranews.com/Show/Style7/News/c1_News.asp?

SItemId=0271030&ProgramNo=a400022000001&SubjectNo=3230043)


However, due to using culture and emotions in an inappropriate way to reap profits that do not match the value (1999-2007), a Pu-erh tea bubble burst caused the collapse of the Chinese tea market. The incident led to subsequences of chaos in branding Pu-erh tea. Irresponsible marketing concepts sprung up raiding the market, which already lacked quality evaluation and monitoring mechanisms. The emotional connections between the consumers and the tea had been replaced by mistrust.

2.4.2 The Process

To look into the in-depth relationships between the Pu-erh tea culture and its consumers' corresponding emotions toward it, I conducted this pilot case study in June 2011. The study was conducted employing qualitative methods through field research in Yunnan province, China, visiting major tea markets, minority commodity fairs, and major tea brand retailers. In-depth interviews with four Yunnan University professors, from both the anthropology and design perspectives, the author of “Theory on Chinese Tea: Art and Culture” (Yang, KN, 2006), and local (ethnic and Han) tea brand owners were also help. Participant observation and semi-structured interviews were conducted with local and non-local consumers in Pu-erh tea tasting and consuming environments.

Figure 2.10: Pu-erh tea tasting in retail. (Image source: http://cahsz1951.blog.

163.com/blog/static/104264315201172155742139/)

http://cahsz1951.blog.163.com/blog/static/104264315201172155742139/


2.4.3 The Findings

Pu-erh Tea Culture and EmotionsPu-erh tea, a post-fermented tea, usually compared with Bordeaux and referred as “a drinkable culture” for its unique feature of requiring storing and aging for improving the taste, is a healthy tea drink advocated in Chinese tea culture because it contains many health benefits, such as reducing cholesterol, aiding digestion, nourishing the stomach, etc., without affecting one’s sleep, as the ripe tea contains less caffeine compared to other tea (Xu, X., Yan, M. and Zhu, Y., 2005).

In addition to the biological features, Pu-erh tea carries rich stories through its long history, which creates a multi-level culture based on emotional bonds with its fans, aficionados, etc. The preference of Pu-erh tea over other types of traditional Chinese teas is usually based on the emotional experience a drinker can achieve through the tea-selecting, tea-storing, tea-making processes, and the spiritual gratification gained by imaging the scenarios of the stories attached to the tea, as well as knowing and feeling the body getting healthier while drinking the tea, rather than being fond of the flavors alone. Pu-erh tea, as it were, is more of a kind of emotional good, rather than merely a healthy beverage.

As an essential part of Chinese lifestyle, the profound tea culture is closely related to the concepts of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, as found in the saying, “Tea and Zen share the same taste; teapot and Buddhism are an organic unity” implies. The environment of the tea ceremony ought to be elegant and quiet, allowing people to be enchanted during the tasting and the appreciation of the process. Through feeling and experiencing the making and drinking of the tea, emotional bonds are consolidated between people and tea. “Chinese tea represents a spiritual cultivation and cultural continuity,” according to Lee and Liao (2009), as a medium that changes direct relationships from form to content; from material to spirit; between people and things, the


spiritual essence of Chinese tea constitutes “a significant portion of the brand positions and advertising that attempt to prompt consumers to attach emotion and spirituality to their buying behavior”. Culture and emotion are two essential elements of the branding strategy of Chinese tea, and Pu-erh tea has its unique cultural background and profound emotional bonding with its consumers.

The Cultural and Emotional ChaosHowever, the 2007 bubble burst nearly cut off the emotional ties between the consumers and the tea. The positive emotional connections have been replaced by confusion, mistrust, and disappointment.

The worst of the chaos is the endless concocted marketing concepts either for recouping losses or simply for pursuing short-term profits. These false notions of Pu-erh tea have caused confusions for consumers and irresponsible dealers. Some baseless assertions even spread through professional articles and books, not only holding back the reconstruction of the chaotic tea market after the market crash, but also damaging the reputation of the overall Pu-erh tea brand. Consequently, Pu-erh tea has lost its real emotional essence and has become a tea commonly referred to—as put by one of the interviewees—as “the tea you can’t understand even if you study it your whole life.” (Yang, Z.Y., personal communication, June 12, 2011)

Beginning in 1999, the marketing focus of Pu-erh tea emphasized promoting the concepts that “wild ancient tree Pu-erh” in every respect is superior to “cultivated bush Pu-erh”, making the scarcity of resources as the basis for price speculation. Pu-erh tea was positioned targeting the high-end consumer market, the price of the tea has increased along ever since. Stories were made up, concepts were concocted, plus numerous exaggerated promotional activities were held, which all together intensified the degree of the Pu-erh tea market chaos. After the bubble had collapsed, the excessive


speculative marketing concepts were left in the market, and people could no longer judge the quality nor the accordingly appropriate price of Pu-erh tea, based on their “knowledge” of the tea implanted by the series of commercial practices. From individual Pu-erh Tea brands to Yunnan’s regional brand of tea were all severely damaged. “Lured by the quick profit temptation during the Pu-erh tea bubble, counties in Yunnan province invested in numerous small tea factories, more than 500 new factories were established in one of the counties” (Ye, Y., 2011). Due to the lack of brand building, hundreds of small businesses became tools of making quick profits during the boom, but after the market crash, to survive in the sluggish market and recoup their losses, they continue to decay the market and overdraw the emotional brand assets of Pu-erh tea.

“During the boom, Pu-erh tea was made for quantity rather than quality, merely to fulfill the increase in orders, and new traders entered the market without any experience of Pu-erh trading. Their sole aim was to make quick money. They bought teas that they did not understand and certainly had not tasted or even seen before buying” (Pettigrew, J., 2009). Based on the concepts of “wild ancient tree Pu-erh” is more valuable, and in the absence of quality monitoring and evaluating systems in the chaotic market, instead of building the brands of their own, low-quality tea cakes were mass-produced by tea merchants and packaged with “wild ancient tree” labels. It may seem like these deliberately misleading branding attempts were to promote one common concept instead of branding individual brands, which in some cases could be an active branding approach. However, in fact, they contributed nothing to benefit market competition between brands and caused the retrogression of the brand building of the Pu-erh tea industry since they fully left out the emotional factors.

Having enumerated the consequences caused by the chaos, surprisingly, research and statistics show no sure signs of a structural downturn of the traditional tea sales over the years after the Pu-erh


tea market crash. An important reason is that the traditional Chinese tea culture accounts for many of the tea consumers nowadays, to fulfill the corresponding spontaneous emotional demands (Wu, J, 2009). This indicates a culture-based emotional brand design opportunity to reunite genuinely with the Pu-erh tea culture and accelerate the industry recovery.

Significance of This Preliminary Case StudyIt had been over four years after the Pu-erh tea market crash when this case study was conducted in June 2011. The whole industry was still suffering from the remaining issues and struggling to recover from the chaotic situation. Although it was an initial case study focused on understanding the chaotic situation of Pu-erh tea branding from a macro view of the overall industry, and sorting out the remaining inauthentic marketing concepts prevalent in the market, the first-hand findings provided a foundation for future research and guidance on ways to restore the relation between the Pu-erh tea culture and the corresponding emotions of its consumers.

2.4.4 Further Considerations

These findings and analyses were turned into a paper - “Lost in Chaos: New Thinking on Branding a Drinkable Culture. A Study of Pu-erh Tea - From the 2007 Bubble Burst to a Proposed Emotional Brand Design Approach”, which was presented and included in the proceeding of the 2012 Design and Emotion conference.10

Having discussed with professors and scholars in the field during the conference, I reviewed this pilot case study before continuing to research in this preliminary direction, as the following concerns and hypotheses had emerged:

• The strategies that were causing the chaos of the Pu-erh tea market did not exclude the emotional factors. In fact, they were

Cheng, S. & Tang, M.X., 2011, “Out of Control - 8th International Conference on Design and 10

Emotion.”, Design and Emotion Society


manipulating the emotions instead of resonating genuine ones from the customers;

• The quality of the products/services received by consumer did not meet expectations, causing negative emotions;

• Most of the leader I interviewed focused only on improving the appearance of the products. They believe that if only one brand’s visual designs of the products stand out among others, the brand would sell more, hence, considered successful;

• I realized that end products were undoubtedly important to the brands; however, they were only the results of sequences of strategies, decision-making, and execution. I learned that the quality of a brand design process, determines the quality of the products.

It became more apparent to me at that stage, that the initially proposed theoretical culture-based emotional brand design strategy, although still considered as an established hypothesis, could be beneficial for optimizing certain aspects in the brand design process; however, might not be the answer to the essential issues that many Chinese enterprises are currently facing in branding.

2.5 Case Three: An Initial Discussion with a Booming Regional Brand

During my Pu-erh Tea field research in Yunnan, I briefly came into contact with another Yunnan descendant brand, named “Mouthdoleak”, a local specialty snack brand. Throughout the doctoral study period, I followed with interest the marketing progress of this brand. This case solidified my intention on researching the real core factors that play the decisive roles in brand design.

2.5.1 The Discussion

I was introduced to the CEO through the Yunnan University as a visiting Ph.D. student researching brand design in June 2011, right after Mouthdoleak launched their new product line, which the slogan was “It would be very dangerous if your mouth lacks snacks.” [sic]


This product line, with a series of controversial advertising slogans, successfully received high exposure and increased the brand awareness regionally in a very short time as expected. The strategy behind it was considered affirmative, according to the CEO at that time.

The brief discussion between the CEO and I mainly focused on the CEO’s perception of brand design. Claimed to be advanced in branding knowledge than many other Chinese enterprises, the CEO listed the brand consulting firms that had been hired for promoting the Mouthdoleak brand, which were all considered as big names in the industry, yet got replaced following only a year of service. The main reason behind the replacements, according to the CEO, was to inspire high-quality innovative ideas. He believed that to constantly try out new marketing strategies is conducive to the development of the brand. Moreover, to win the project, the next branding firm is bound to make different proposals from the previous one's ideas and strategies, which in a way, benefits the product’s promotion. The CEO was convinced that this particular strategy of annually changing external brand design teams was efficacious in achieving desired results.

2.5.2 The Findings

The discussion happened right after the controversial new product line was launched; all statistics collected at the time were gratifying, and it was of no use to refute the CEO’s view under the circumstances. However, as I followed the progress of the brand through monitoring social media, the brand’s exposure and awareness of Mouthdoleak, although it had continued to increase, the perception of the consumer had soon become negative. Soon after, their marketing strategy appeared to be altered once again. Overall, the brand in the following few years left the impression of a brand that only offered a series of new packaging and varied marketing tactics. Given that the CEO attaches great importance to the quality of the product itself, although this brand has not yet


favorably penetrated the national market as expected through the branding and marketing strategies applied, the enterprise and the brand are so far perceived as successful regionally.

Figure 2.11: Different Mouthdoleak packaging and marketing strategies.

(Image source: http://www.maoduoli.cc/)

2.6 Significance of the Pilot Studies

2.6.1 The Implications

Although the original aims for the above-documented pilot studies were to conduct in-depth field research and analysis of culture-based emotional brand design, and verify the initially proposed hypothetical framework, an unexpected pattern emerged during the process, which made me reconsider my research focus:

• The most common misconception was still between product and brand, advertising and branding;

• Understandings of the notion of culture and emotion, importance of quality, and their relationship in branding among Chinese enterprises were still relatively narrow. The overall perception and knowledge of brand design was immature and quick-profit driven;

• Without the leadership continuously being superior in the brand design process, establishing a favorable organizational culture to the benefit of branding would be difficult.

This revealed pattern indicated that the former focal point of my preliminary hypothesis would not tackle the pivotal issues that the majority Chinese enterprises are facing in brand design.


2.6.2 Where do Brand Design and Organizational Culture Meet?

According to Needle (2004), organizational culture includes an 11

enterprise’s vision, values, norms, systems, symbols, languages, assumptions, beliefs, and habits. It represents the collective values, beliefs and principles of all organizational member. In other words, organizational culture exists throughout the entire brand design process; a brand is the representation of the organizational culture behind it. Figure 2.12 below illustrates the relationship between brand design and organizational culture.

Figure 2.12: Brand Iceberg.

2.6.3 The Updated Underlying Foci

Based on the findings and issues discussed above without

departing from the original intention of this doctoral study, I altered my research direction, from studying and developing “a culture-based emotional brand design approach for Chinese enterprises” to foster potentially iconic brands, to conducting an organizational culture-oriented study on brand design process in the context of Chinese enterprises.

The focus has shifted to the process instead of the product, aiming at researching the core elements of an organizational culture

Needle, D., 2004, “Business in Context: An Introduction to Business and Its Environment.”, 11

ISBN 978-1861529923


perspective that fundamentally act on a brand design process, which play key roles in determining the success or failure of a brand.

I argue that the awareness of quality of a brand leader determines his/her branding consciousness during the lead process of the brand design, and his/her resolve will guides the implementation process of every brand strategy. Eventually, every aspect of a brand will be presented through the end products, services, and every brand touchpoint, thereby being perceived, evaluated, selected or abandoned by consumers. Based on this argument, I believe that the two underlying elements are awareness of quality and the role of leadership.

Hence, the objective of this study is to put the research results in the context of real-world practices to develop practical frameworks for Chinese enterprises.

Summary

The pilot studies I conducted on researching culture-based emotional brand design, on a certain level, preliminarily verified the initial theoretical framework and hypothesis proposed for the notions and relationships between emotion, culture, and brand design. It is believed that future research carried out in this valid direction is bound to benefit the study of brand design as a discipline and contribute in brands’ success for enterprises in general.

However, a more fundamental, and imminent issue for Chinese enterprises emerged during the studies, convincing me to adjust the focus of my research yet again. The new primary focus is to understand awareness of quality and the role of leadership from an organizational culture perspective and incorporate the theory into brand design processes for Chinese enterprises.

REVIEW OF BRAND DESIGN PROCESS | �56

Chapter Three | Review of Brand Design

Process and Relevant Organizational

Culture in Context of Chinese Enterprises

Contents 3.1 Brand Design ………………………………………………………………….. 3.1.1 Research Definitions ……………………………………………………. 3.1.2 Purpose of Brand Design for Enterprises …………………………….. 3.1.3 Advantages and Difficulties of Brand Design ………………………….

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3.2 Brand Design Strategy……………………………………………………….. 3.2.1 Market-driven Brand Design Strategy …………………………………. 3.2.2 Market-driving/Leadership-driven Brand Design Strategy …………… 3.2.3 Brand Design Approaches ……………………………………………..

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3.3 Brand Design Process ……………………………………………………….. 3.3.1 Classic Brand Design Process …………………………………………. 3.3.2 Leadership-driven Brand Design Process …………………………….. 3.3.3 Customer-driven Brand Design Process ………………………………

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3.4 Relevant Organizational Culture …………………………………………….. 3.4.1 Awareness of Quality ……………………………………………………. 3.4.2 Role of the CEO/Leadership ………………………………………….. 3.4.3 Customer Demands …………………………………………………….. 3.4.4 Internal Branding ……………………………………………………….. 3.4.5 Brand Communication Models …………………………………………

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Summary 100


“Branding is not just a product, it is also a way of life, an idea, branding is actually leadership.”

- Onyi Anyado

3.1 Brand Design

Brand is a simple word with no simple connotations. It does not even have a common definition. The current definition of brand according to the American Marketing Association (2004) is “a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers. The legal term for a brand is the trademark. A brand may identify one item, a family of items, or all items of that seller. If used for the firm as a whole, the preferred term is trade name.” However, as the concept of a brand 12

continuously evolves along with the changes of business concepts, it becomes more difficult to summarize the essence of brand adequately. Brand is no longer a label for only tangible products or services. It represents the integral essence of what a company stands for, including the non-tangible promises and emotions; brand becomes more of the holistic personality of the branded subject, rather than a name.

When the keyword itself is confusing, the semantics of ‘brand, branding, and brand design’ becomes even more vague and confusing. Various professionals, such as practitioners, consultants, scholars, etc., can have a slightly different interpretation of the terms. With multiple disciplines, phases, purposes and objects involved in the concept of brand, sometimes it is easier to define what a brand is

American Marketing Association Dictionary, Retrieved June 29, 2011, The Marketing 12

Accountability Standards Board (MASB) endorses this definition as part of its ongoing Common Language in Marketing Project.


not than what it is. To give a proper and precise scope of this research, applicable definitions are further specified as below.

3.1.1 Research Definitions

The notion of brand is usually divided into two levels, Corporation Brands and product/service brands, in which the coupled brand building process terms are Corporation Branding and consumer branding. Corporation Branding draws not only consumers, but also business partners through organizations’ name and reputation, emphasizing the organization as the best provider and leading representative of its products/services through high-level brand promises. Where as customer branding creates stand-alone recognition and reputation for specific products and services through promotion and marketing to fulfill consumers’ needs and desires. Even though in common practices, choosing which strategy to pursue or a combination of the two may vary by different industries and businesses, Corporation Branding is, in general, a comprehensive approach that serves as as the foundation of its products and services brands.

A diagram (Figure 3.1) from Idris Mootee’s book (2013) “60 Minute Brand Strategist” has simplified the multiple components of brand and branding into four main stages that form a loop around the core brand strategy of an enterprise. The four phases can be grouped as “behind the scenes”: corporate strategy, internal branding, customer engagement; and “before the scenes”: brand identity, which is constructed mainly by brand image, brand attributes, and brand associations. As brand image is the most intuitive component among all, and usually gets the most exposure; it tends to be misread as the whole meaning of the brand identity or even the brand itself. Thus, the narrow-definition of design of the brand image typically takes over to become the generalized definition, thereby losing the true deep meaning of brand design. However, as Mootee (2013) stated, “It (brand image) is only part of the equation, not the answer.”


To clearly show the scope of this research, a dotted divider has been added to this diagram on the “behind the scenes” stages to indicate the corporate level branding process that this study will emphasize. The brand design notion discussed in this research is not oriented by figurative designs of product/service brands, but towards targeting the design of organizational brand strategies and their implementation processes.

Figure 3.1: “What is a Brand” equation.13

Here are the refined definitions for this research:

[BRAND]: A symbolic construct created within the minds of people, which represents the sum of all cognitive aspects and expectations associated with a subject.

[CORPORATION BRAND]: A name that represents the total personality of a corporate entity, as opposed to specific products or services, yet directs and endorses the subsidiary product/service brands within the given corporation.

[BRANDING]: The process through which a brand is established with target audiences, including external customers and internal stakeholders, and embedded in the organization.

Mootee, I., 2013, “60 minute brand strategist: The essential brand book for marketing 13

professionals.”, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey


[BRAND DESIGN]: The creation of the plan of branding as well as the direction of the construction of branding processes, including the operational brand architecture and brand management. A sum of all design processes involved in a holistic branding process.

[BRAND DESIGN STRATEGY]: A plan of action designed to achieve a specific set of goals or objectives of a brand design process.

[CORPORATE LEVEL BRAND ARCHITECTURE]: The operational structure of sectoral arrangements for collaborative brand design and branding process within an organizational entity, instead of the structure of a subsidiary product/service brands portfolio.

[CORPORATE LEVEL BRAND MANAGEMENT]: Analysis and planning on how brand design strategies are effectively implemented throughout the brand design and branding processes, as oppose to customer relations to specific products or services in marketing.

3.1.2 Purpose of Brand Design for Enterprises

B.B.De Mozota (2002) has asserted the four powers of design: design as differentiator, integrator, transformer, and good business. Among the powers of design in general, proper brand design allows competitive advantages to the enterprises on the market through brand equity and customer loyalty. As process it creates modular and platform architecture of project management. As resource it improves an enterprise’s ability to cope with change, creates new business opportunities, and better interprets the brand and the marketplace. Eventually brand design increases brand value, and financial value for enterprises (Mozota, 2002).

No matter what kind of enterprise, to sum up the significance of its existence is nothing less than the following three objectives or


functions: serve customers, develop products/services, and fill orders/deliver experiences. The overlapping part of the three is branding, and when the design process is involved in solving the business problems, regardless of whether it is on an organizational level, a program level, or a project level, brand design sits where they meet (Figure 3.2).

To understand the purpose of brand design for enterprises, the first concept to comprehend is the brand purpose. Many companies understand the concept of the brand promise, and every brand makes one; however, it is not as easy to make a promise that differentiates one brand from another, except by having an explicit purpose. Mootee (2013) suggested that enterprises today have stepped into a hyper-competitive and uber-connected world; thus, it is necessary for brands to have a clear purpose and meanings for consumers. An important point enterprises should always keep in mind is that authentic brands come from within. The brands expose what a company truly is. The process of defining brand purpose, and all design activities around this purpose, designating a series of tactics designed accordingly to be efficiently carried out, and successfully achieving the objective and delivering the promise of a brand, comprise the significance of brand design to an enterprise.

Figure 3.2: “Where is brand design” in what business does?14

Mootee, I., 2013, “60 minute brand strategist: The essential brand book for marketing 14

professionals.”, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey


Brand design links the design process to business problems, fundamentally, supports the branding process to structure the objectives and functions of enterprises, and aligns external and internal perceptions and performances of a brand at each and every touchpoint to integrate and deliver the intrinsic quality of the brand from the inside out. A brand design process coincides with the organizational culture of the brand.

3.1.3 Advantages and Difficulties of Brand Design

Brand design is a philosophy and culture that influences every business decision, and enterprises that embrace design create more appealing content and deliver better brand experiences. To quote 15

Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO of Box , “The first 20 years of the 16

web were won by those that built the best infrastructure. Now it is won by those that build the best experiences.” Brand design, by its advantages, helps enterprises to build both the brand infrastructure and brand experience. High-quality brand design helps businesses make a lasting impression on consumers. However, Asian brands have often struggled to develop quality images through branding (Henderson, Cote, Leong, Schmitt, 2003).

Brand design is not a single discipline effort of the designers, it involves the entire organization’s involvement and participation, as all personnel within or related to the brand are touchpoints of the brand temporarily or long term. Only when every stakeholder of the brand is truly aware of his/her role and obligations can he/she sufficiently contribute to the brand.

During a brand design process, brand designers shoulder significant responsibilities and act as the collaborative role to connect and cooperate between the teams traditionally separated to only focus on their own duties and not consider the brand as a whole. The

Adobe, “The Design Advantage.”, Retrieved July 28, 2015, from http://15

whitepapers.energyefficiencymarkets.com/content50930

“Why such a focus on brand & design?”, Retrieved May 19, 2015 , from https://16

medium.com/@switchyards/why-such-a-focus-on-brand-design-43dc92e9a591

http://whitepapers.energyefficiencymarkets.com/content50930

https://medium.com/@switchyards/why-such-a-focus-on-brand-design-43dc92e9a591


difficulties of brand design are multifaceted, especially for many Chinese enterprises: the lack of brand expertise, poor awareness of quality, inefficient leadership, etc. One of the main difficulties for designers who are responding to the brand design process is, the traditional role of designers in brand design process. In typical practices, the managers give input to designers regarding the assignments and then select the designs from a pool presented by the designers. Through such processes, both the managers and the designers rely primarily on intuition instead of methods in the decision-makings (Henderson et al., 2003), which will lower the changes to successfully create perceptions of quality for the brands eventually.

In the classic brand design process, which will be discussed further in the next section, there are four typical phases that designers are included in (Figure 3.3): 1) problem definition; 2) concept design; 3) detail design; and 4) execution.

Brand designers’ role and level of activity in such a process are shown as the graph suggests: low in problem definition. Usually, defined tasks are given to designers to directly initiate formative stage without allowing the designers to research on their own and understand the problems fundamentally and creatively. Designers are highly involved in the stages of substantial creative design work and in many cases have to work through these stages alone as other teams and specialties do not consider creative work to be their responsibility. In the execution phase, brand designers are relegated because the departments and staffs in charge of carrying out the executions would prefer not to have the brand designers to find faults, make changes, or interfere in any way as they try to finish their jobs. There is normally also a fifth phase after execution = evaluation, which usually does not require the designers’ presence. The classic design process and the role of designers definitely cause low-quality and inefficiency during brand design practices, thereby affecting the entire enterprise and its brands.


Figure 3.3: Designer’s role in Classic Design Process. (Greer, 2014)

3.2 Brand Design Strategy

The etymology of branding (Figure 3.4) indicates, in general, evolution of the understanding of brands, and the two indicators show the differences of progress stages between the common cases in the West and the majority circumstances among Chinese enterprises. However, both are moving forward, and to adapt to globalization, China is catching up expeditiously.

Figure 3.4: The etymology of branding. (Greer, 2014)

The overall trends of this advancement are highlighted as follows (Lockwood, 2010):

• The ownership of the brand is shifting from marketing to the entire organization;


• The content of the brand is shifting from stressing organizational strengths to framing a vision of the relationship the organization aspires to have with stakeholders;

• The role of the brand in business processes is shifting from the end to the beginning, especially with processes that deal with innovation.

With the overall progress of brand awareness and position in the market and organizations, the corresponding brand design strategies, approaches, and process models evolve together. Some are less effective than the upgraded ones or are just no longer applicable in this less and less predictable discontinuous era; others coexist as alternatives or are combined depending on specific situations of each enterprise or brand’s needs. Five of the most commonly seen strategies are as shown in coordinates of unit sales growth and customer satisfaction. Only when the brand strategy is geared towards the high end of both axes is the enterprise moving in the right direction on the path to profitability (Figure 3.5):

Figure 3.5: Common brand design strategies and approaches.

(Source: pmtribe.wordpress.com)


The five strategies are:

• Competitor-driven (outdated): Analyzing what competitors do, in order to make a plan either to imitate or to differentiate. This approach has been prove to have the lowest profitability.

• Sales-driven (commonly applied by Chinese enterprises currently): Revenue is the only pursuit. Always ask the question of “Where's the next sale coming from?” This results in low customer satisfaction.

• Customer-driven: Learn from the customers what to bring to market and when. There are debates for where this one should sit in the coordinate diagram as above, as supporters believe customer-driven strategy leads to the ultimate goal of profitability; yet brand innovators argue that customers frequently do not know or are not able to tell what their actual demands are.

• Market-driven: Strategy favored by most enterprises nowadays, using market knowledge and defined processes to discover unsolved problems and bring products/services to market that delight customers and expand markets.

• Technology-driven/Innovation-driven: Innovation has the dominant role. Might not be applicable or practical for some enterprises that do not have the qualified supporting talents.

Essentially, similar with the technology-driven/innovation-driven strategy, always in comparison with the market-driven strategy, is the market-driving strategy which is not indicated in this diagram, as it is not suitable for enterprises in general. Compared to technology-driven/innovation-driven strategy, market-driven strategy is even more rigorous in terms of overall requirements for staff and the branding team. A brand that is capable and successfully implements this strategy is usually rewarded with radical business innovation as a result, thus granting the chance of becoming the dominant player or leader of its brand category.


Market-driven strategy and market-driving strategy, as the two most popular brand design strategies that many enterprises ponder implementing, are reviewed in-depth in this section.

Another set of parameters to look at the key driving factors of the brand design strategies and approaches is based on Michael Porter’s theory of “the competitive advantage of nations” (1990). In this theory, the core points are determined and defined by development levels of economies. As suggested in Figure 3.6, the four main types are: 1) factor-driven; 2) investment-driven; 3) innovation-driven; and 4) wealth-driven.

Among Asian nations, China is considered in between the stages of investment-driven and moving towards innovation.

Figure 3.6: Brand development In Asian economies. (Greer, 2014)

To define and design a method more suitable for Chinese enterprises, this section reviews in details the advantages and disadvantages of different types of brand strategies, approaches, brand design processes, and communication models.

3.2.1 Market-driven Brand Design Strategy

To conduct a market-driven brand design strategy, current practice requires exhaustive and careful market research to fully understand an existing customer demands. The approaches employed could be both analytical and experiential. Multiple validation cycles with documentations of requirements and detailed specifications of


features and benefits will be performed to develop differentiated products or services for the well-defined static segments. The value of being market-driven is unquestioned in companies today; therefore, it is the most commonly applied brand design strategy (Kumar, Scheer, Kotler, 2000).

However, from a long-term point of view, many companies realize, that the market-driven strategy is becoming less attractive, as this approach is set to react to customer demands that inevitably change with the market. By the time enterprises follow through with the market-driven strategy steps and deliver the end-products and services, they might be out of date already. Although the market-driven strategy is one step slower than the ever-changing market today, it could still work before the targeted customer demands and the distinct segments are altered, but the time between changes is getting shorter and smaller. To maintain the performance and to succeed requires a hefty amount of works for a brand to prodigiously repeating the market research, validation cycles, and product/service replacements. In other words, market-driven strategy is more suitable when applied in fluid condition. This means that the kind of variation over time is expectable and understandable, yet it becomes less applicable when adopted in the discontinuous changing condition, where the situation is not expectable or understandable because there is no precedent for this kind of change.

The key characteristics of market-driven brand design strategy include the following: reactive, incremental, insignificant, features, 17

rigid, tentative, unsure, confused, static, product, can be copied.

One of the biggest challenges facing today’s brands, is to create barriers. When a brand is based on a strategy that makes it copiable, it might increase the possibility of the brand to be outperformed by its imitators.

Stein, A., 2012, “9 Differences Between Market-driving and Market-driven Companies.”, 17

Retrieved from http://steinvox.com/blog/9-differences-between-market-driving-and-market-driven-companies/


3.2.2 Market-driving/Leadership-driven Brand Design Strategy

Sometimes confused with market-driven, the market-driving or leadership-driven brand design strategy is substantially different. The market-driving brand design strategy is truly innovation-oriented and should be lead and followed through by the top leadership of the brands. By introducing unique values and exceptional products and services, creating new possibilities and brand categories, companies that adopt the market-driving strategy set their eyes on the future and consistently surprise their customers. Apple is no doubt one of the most successful examples. Brands that successfully apply and implement this strategy have the chance to become the dominate player of the new market categories they created and are able to maintain these advantages by substantially altering the landscape of their respective industries.

The success of market-driving brands based on radical innovation stems from two dimensions (Kumar et al., 2000): 1) a discontinuous leap in the value proposition (combination of benefits, acquisition efforts/costs and price offered to customers) and 2) the implementation of a unique business system. The leap in customer value provided by market-driving brands may involve either breakthrough technology or breakthrough marketing. Either by adopting new technology or aggressively exploiting the existing ones and viewing the marketplace differently, these brands serve their customers in an unconventional manner and create a holistic and unique brand experience that overwhelms customer expectations. Market-driving companies focus on a vision for the future, unhampered by traditional thinking and conventional industry norms. Their key to success is to create and deliver a leap in authentic benefits (Stein, 2012).

In-depth study of 25 market driving firms (Kumar et al., 2000) indicates that the brands adopting the market-driving brand design strategy share certain common features:


• Guided by vision rather than traditional market research

• Re-draw industry segmentation

• Value creation through new price points

• Sales growth through customer education

• Channel reconfiguration

• Brand attachment by capitalizing on the “buzz network”

• Overwhelm customer expectations

• Obstacles to market driving in established firms.

The following compares the key characteristics of market-driven brand design strategy and market-driving brand design strategy in a clearer manner (Stein, 2012).

Market-driven Market-driving Reactive DisruptiveIncremental InnovativeInsignificant CreativeFeatures ValueRigid AgileTentative CompetitiveUnsure DecisiveConfused ClearStatic DynamicProduct BrandCan be copied Cannot be copied

The purpose of comparing these strategies is not to identify one as substantially better than the other. Although market-driving is the trend and a better solution for brands to adapt to the discontinuous changes, this brand design strategy involves inherently high risks, which is only recommended when an enterprise’s various conditions and implementation prerequisites are proven suitable. Most companies are still better off with a relatively conservative brand design strategy as market-driven.


Especially for most established firms that have too many obligations and well-established habitual operating processes, it would be too much to lose to justify the obvious risks of chasing only radical market-driving innovations. In such enterprises, the search for radical business innovation should not be pursued to the detriment of improving the existing business. Incumbent enterprises should continue to devote the majority of innovation efforts to market-driven activities (Kumar et al., 2000). However, there should be some room left for market-driving attempts on a project level for market-driven dominant companies. In such attempts, projects should be chosen in the context of the entire brand portfolio in order to maintain an adequate balance between incremental and radical innovation proportions of the enterprise. What is required today for branding is a deeper level of insight, the underlying principle of brand design has to do with the nature of societal change, enterprises need to become a driver of change by anticipating the emerging values (Bevolo, & Br, 2002). The same rules apply to Chinese enterprises in general. The case study that will be comprehensively demonstrated in Chapter Six of this research is a semi-market-driving brand design attempt for a well-established Chinese SOE. It is anticipated that brand design will evolve far beyond its traditional foci in the future, it also has the ethical duty of providing a long-term ideology, actionable in the narratives and organizational culture of companies. Brand design needs to guide the creation of solid and sustainable foundation for brands (Bevolo et al., 2002).

As there is no guarantee of the success of a market-driving brand design strategy, as when or whether the radical innovation idea can be generated is unpredictable. A few practices to increase the probability of developing market-driving innovations are recommended as (Kumar et al., 2000):

• Allow space for serendipity;

• Select and match employees for creativity;


• Empower potential entrepreneurs and offer multiple channels for new idea approval;

• For established enterprises, cannibalize categories;

• Encourage experimentation and tolerate mistakes;

• Implement TQM throughout all practices.

3.2.3 Brand Design Approaches

No matter how an enterprise chooses to take the market-driven or market-driving brand design strategy or adopt both, three commonly used approaches also employed in this research’s case study are reviewed in-depth. They are analytic, emotional, and experiential approaches.

Before getting into the specific approaches, Figure 3.7 showcases four types of branding approach features that represent the evolutionary improvement in the understanding of brand design. The bottom two are the more conventional methods commonly applied when brands are heavily communicated through broadcast media: on a strategic level, it is brand management, and on a tactical level, branding as the look and feel. The upper two approaches are favored by most practices today, as the brands emphasize on communicating through customer experience. On a strategic level, the spirit is about experience being the brand, and on a tactical level, is branding as communications of value. These four categories of approaches co-exist today and are employed by enterprises based on their status quo. It has been proven through research and can be demonstrated through management concepts that business managers should know about design (brand) management’s power to create value (Mozota, 2006) compare to managing brands in a conventional way. In China, most of the practices are still within the bottom range, but the good sign is that evidently many new startups are moving upwards.


Figure 3.7: A frame work for defining branding approaches. (Greer, 2014)

The features of each approach are suggested as below (Greer, personal communication, February 22, 2014):

Broadcast Media/Tactical—Branding as Look and Feel:

• Driven by creative agencies

• Normally serves as updates for already well-defined brands.

Broadcast Media/Strategic—Branding Management:

• Classic brand strategies

• 4P marketing approach (Product, Price, Place, Promotion)

• Strong academic pedigree

• Functional organization structures

• Long term portfolio stewardship.

Customer Experience/Tactical—Branding as Communication of Value:

• Requires experiential strategies

• Addresses limited touchpoints

• Regular updates of long-life product / service

• New product/service added to strong brand.

Customer Experience/Strategic—The Experience is the Brand:

• Executive ownership

• Foundation of vision, mission, values


• Crossed organizational boundaries

• Business performance drive

• Powerful innovation driver

• New business or major change.

The three major brand design approach types are as follows:

Analytical Brand Design ApproachThe analytical brand design approach is commonly employed when a market-driven strategy is adopted by a brand. Brand practices and management becomes analytical when an effort is made to integrate both market and customer information collected through exhaustive researchers and analytics into the brand design process, to ensure brand design team utilizes relevant market and customer knowledge when developing branding tactics that cope with the brand objectives and effectively deliver the brand promise (Greer, personal communication, February 22, 2014).

Emotional Brand Design ApproachEmotional brand design refers to the practice of building brands that appeal directly to a consumer's emotional state, needs, and aspirations (Barakat, 2014). Today, consumers personify brands as 18

“Your brand is the truth about you, well told.” For a brand to bond 19

with its customers, the brand should be equally equipped with intellectual depth that can psychologically generate and trigger the desired emotions of the customers. Approaches to conventional brand design strategies gradually become emotional-oriented. The emphases on surface feature designs are shifted to the inner core of culture and emotions that support and endow meaning to the exterior features due to the fundamental changes in the following:

Barakat, C., Jan. 12, 2014, “Emotional Branding and the Emotionally Intelligent Consumer.”, 18

Retrieved September 12, 2015, from http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/emotional-branding-emotionally-intelligent-consumer/141454

Anonymous quote., “Branding definition.”, Retrieved September 12, 2015, from http://19

www.how-to-branding.com/Branding-Definition.html

http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/emotional-branding-emotionally-intelligent-consumer/141454

http://www.how-to-branding.com/Branding-Definition.html


• Consumers used to buy a brand; they now live and experience a brand;

• Consumers used to need a brand; they now demand a brand;

• Consumers used to choose brands rationally based on functionality; they now simply prefer brands based on emotional satisfaction;

• Consumers used to pay more attention to brand identity; they now care more about brand personality;

• Brands used to focus on communicating through broadcast media; they now focus on dialogue and sharing through customer experience;

• Brands used to show honesty to the consumer; they now earn trust from them.

Based on Rousseau’s philosophy, Braun (2004) stated that, sanity is not the answer, a brand is about feelings and emotions, which are the inherent quality of our human nature. A brand’s charm is precisely the ability to free us from the bond of sanity. People should trust their instincts and emotions; the power and value of customers’ emotions should never be underestimated. Watkinson (2013) also suggests that brands need to keep a clear picture in mind of how they want the customer to feel at a given stage of the brand experience and use it as a reference point throughout the brand design process. Emotional success criteria should be identified and matched with the functional ones.

A set of universal emotions, including the negative and positive ones, may apply to brand design are listed as below; how they could be interpreted as principles at work will be further reviewed in Chapter Five (Watkinson, 2013):

NEGATIVE EMOTIONS POSITIVE EMOTIONS

Anger Acceptance

Annoyance Admiration

Anxiety Amazement


Figure 3.8: Lists of negative and positive emotions.

One thing to note here is that negative emotions might not be necessary the must eliminate for the purpose of brand design. In fact, negative emotion branding is becoming popular in certain fields, commonly seen as cases for amusement parks, horror films, and activities, e.g., Halloween, extreme sports, etc. The most recent study shows that the negative emotion of fear is much easier to stimulate than other emotions in virtual reality settings and creates more realistic feelings for the users. Therefore, games and applications designed correspondingly to arouse this particular negative emotion, which has become a dominant trend in virtual reality designs.

Experiential Brand Design ApproachThe experiential brand design approach is all about touchpoints and design for the five senses; it holds a positive view of that experience is the brand. Today’s consumers are confronted with countless choices and a multitude of information when they are choosing between brands (Brakus, Schmitt, Zarantonello, 2009). The experiential brand design approach is considered the process to

Apprehension Anticipation

Boredom Calmness

Disappointment Delight

Disgust Excitement

Distraction Interest

Doubt Joy

Embarrassment Pride

Frustration Relaxation

Neglect Satisfaction

Regret Surprise (positive)

Surprise (negative) Trust

NEGATIVE EMOTIONS POSITIVE EMOTIONS


create and drive sensory interactions with the customers in all aspects of a brand experience to emotionally influence their preferences and to actively shape their perceptions of the brand. 20

The sensory interactions sit in four brand interaction phases. First is the pre-purchase relationship development, during which, the customer encounters a brand for the first time. Once intrigued, through different channels, the customer gets familiar with more aspects of the brand. When the demand for the brand is triggered, the customer decides to purchase the product/service and reaches the second phase, investment. The satisfactory level of the usage phase determines the post-purchase relationship management. If the customer enjoyed the experience, most likely she/he would invest again and become an additional promotion channel by praising and recommending the brand to others. The post-purchase relationship management phase sometimes would, but should not be taken lightly. Instead, brands should attempt to maintain or even increase brand loyalty before the customer makes the next investment (Greer, personal communication, February 22, 2014).

During the four phases, the customers are expected to experience six major stages: from consider to evaluate, decide to buy, experience the product/service, advocate when expectations are met, and satisfaction. Last, but not least, is to bond and stay loyal to the brand to begin another cycle until one or a few of the six stages are altered, and then the customer may abandon the brand. The techniques for identifying and designing the key influence touchpoints will be further reviewed in following chapters from other respects (Greer, personal communication, February 22, 2014).

“Experiential Branding: Using 5 Senses to Build Brand Equity", Retrieved September 22, 20

2015, from http://www.labbrand.com/brand-source/experiential-branding-using-5-senses-build-brand-equity

http://www.labbrand.com/brand-source/experiential-branding-using-5-senses-build-brand-equity


Figure 3.9: Touchpoint structure in experiential brand design. (Greer, 2014)

3.3 Brand Design Process

Different brand design strategies and approaches lead to different brand design processes. There are three main types of brand design process: classic, leadership-driven, and customer-driven.

3.3.1 Classic Brand Design Process

As reviewed earlier in this chapter, the classic brand design process, which is still typically seen in practices especially in Chinese enterprises, consists of four main stages: problem definition, concept design, detail design and execution. Regarding each of the four's level of activity, namely, how much companies consider and paid attention to their values gradually increases from stage one to stage four, as indicated in Figure 3.10. Designers’ positions in brands’ value-creation processes are relatively downstream from the strategic decision-making processes. Senior management defines the brand image and target customers, then asks the designers to create goods that communicate the decided messages accordingly (Sanchez, 2006). In general, the problem definition phase is valued the least; however, without efforts and time input for understanding the substantive issues, only exterior problems can be found; this may


steer design solutions off track from the outset. Moreover, evaluation, which is supposed to be stage five, in most cases is not even considered as part of a classic brand design process. As explained earlier, the role of designers in such a process are frequently not valued in the evaluation and decision-making phases (Greer, personal communication, February 22, 2014). Therefore, the classic brand design process, is equivalent to branding as look and feel.

Figure 3.10: Classic brand design process. (Greer, 2014)

3.3.2 Leadership-driven Brand Design Process

The term leadership-driven brand design process sometimes causes confusion. The leadership-driven brand design strategy is recommended and related to market-driving brand design strategy, as it requires leadership’s full commitment and participation throughout the entire strategy implementation. On the other hand, the leadership-driven brand design contends that designs are made to meet the expectations of the leadership, instead of the customer, which sometimes results in failure (Greer, personal communication, February 22, 2014).

But again, the leadership-driven brand design process is also commonly seen in Chinese enterprise’ practices. As seen in Figure 3.11, the arc shows the leadership’s involvement throughout the four phases of the brand design process is as well from low to relatively high processes. The leadership’s participation level synchronizes


with how much the enterprise considers the values and emphasizes the four stages, which is similar to the classic brand design process. Moreover, the leadership, similar to the designers, but for different reasons, usually do not participate in the evaluation phase either in such brand design processes. In some cases, the evaluation phase, if based on market results and customer satisfaction, could stop the cycle of the leadership-driven process, and get things back on the right track for the next round.

But as leadership-driven brand design process usually exists in enterprises that already have a complementary organizational culture and management style, it would be quite difficult for the overall climate to be altered unless the change is from the leadership.

In rare cases, this design process is successful unless the leaderships' demands and expectations happen to be consistent with the customers’.

Figure 3.11: Leadership-driven brand design process. (Greer, 2014)

3.3.3 Customer-driven Brand Design Process

The customer-driven brand design process, among the three, is considered the most advantageous and beneficial. As in Figure 3.12, it embodies all five stages in the brand design process.

It is given the highest investment for the problem definition phase, and is supplemented with methods like customer observation and rapid prototyping, to precisely identify the underlying design


problems. These strategies distinguishably lessen the invalid efforts put into the concept design, detail design, and execution phases caused by the misleading problem definition that the other two types of processes bring about. Besides, the evaluation phase is included in the overall brand design process, which allows the same team who has worked through it to understand the successful or failed points, so that for the next round, these points can be either reinforced or revised. The main features of the customer-driven brand design process are the following: 1) a customer driven approach to problem-solving; 2) focus on common goals; and 3) requires a symbiotic client relationship (Greer, personal communication, February 22, 2014).

Figure 3.12: Customer-driven brand design process. (Greer, 2014)

Extracted from Descartes’ philosophy, Braun (2004) advocated that an enterprise should understand the core of a brand is tightly linked to the customer, which means that the enterprises need to find ways to synchronize with the consumer's mind, understanding their deeper motivations (demands) and thought processes. Once this is clear, the brand design process should always be conducted focusing on the core elements defined.

3.4 Relevant Organizational Culture

Different brand design strategies and approaches employed are differentiated by the underlying organizational culture of the enterprises. Organizational culture acts as the philosophy behind a brand design process in achieving the desired brand design goals.


As discussed in previous Chapters, similar to brand, the notion of organizational culture itself is a big topic; here I selectively reviewed the following aspects, which are believed to be essential to the brand design process based on the previous studies.

3.4.1 Awareness of Quality

Quality is a perceptual, conditional, and somewhat subjective attribute and may be understood differently by different people or purposes. In the modern competitive business world, quality has a pragmatic interpretation as the non-inferiority or superiority of something (Kim-Soon, 2012).

There are many definitions made by different quality gurus. Gavin (1988) has concluded the quality of different definitions in five principles:

• Transcendent (excellence)

• Product-based (amount of desirable attribute)

• Manufacturing-based (conformance to specification)

• User-based (fitness for use)

• Value-based (satisfaction relative to price).

Recent study supports that quality management has a key impact on the characteristics of organizational design and positively influence differentiation competitive advantage (Pereira-Moliner et al., 2016). To the extent of brand design on both corporate and product/service levels, Gavin’s five principles of quality (1988) can coexist as user-based (internal and external customer) and product/service-base; the former reflects performance of all aspects of a brand, while the latter showcases conformance to specification.

On top of quality, the concept of total quality relevant to organizational culture is considered as a description of the entire culture, attitude, and organization of a company that strives to provide all stakeholders with results that satisfy their needs, and the culture requires quality in all aspects of an organization’s operations


(Feigenbaum, Juran, 2015). In general, awareness of quality has 21

penetrated into every professional/business aspect much further regarding how the concept of total quality is understood and valued in Western practices.

Transition from Personal Quality to Total QualityThe result of the concept of total quality being highly valued and broadly applied in the West did not happen all of sudden but evolved over time and practice.

As discussed earlier in Chapter One, the West has gone through the evolution of economic phases from agriculture to today’s surplus economy over the past century (Mootee, 2013). Along with the economic changes, there are four relevant parameters of the awareness of quality:

1) fundamentally, there is a psychological transformation, the scarcity mentality has been turned into an abundance mentality caused by the surplus economy; 2) the interpersonal benchmarks of success experienced through the changes from dependence to independence then to interdependence; the public victory is now more valued than the private victory that was once more desired; 3) through each significant change of era, the most representative characteristics of the times changed from personal and professional development to interpersonal relationships to managerial effectiveness, and to organizational productivity; 4) taken together, the overall awareness of quality has gone from personal quality to process quality, and then to total quality.

Feigenbaum, K. I., & Juran, J. M. At its core, Total Quality Management (TQM) is a 21

management approach to long-term success through customer satisfaction. In a TQM effort, all members of an organization participate in improving processes, products, services and the culture in which they work. The methods for implementing this approach come from the teachings of.


Figure 3.13: Transition from Personal Quality to Total Quality.

. (Source: Operational Excellence Consulting)

Figure 3.14 below clearly indicates the three levels of organizational culture under the concept of total quality. The underlying quality mindset leads to commitment to quality; otherwise, there is no way to archive quality in artifacts, as the Ke Silk and Pu-erh tea CEOs expected.

Figure 3.14: Total Quality culture. (Source: Operational Excellence Consulting)

Changing Scenarios for EnterprisesInevitably, the scenarios for enterprises have changed as consequences to changes in awareness. As shown in Figure 3.15, many of the essential components in business practices have evolved significantly with the transition of the perception of quality, as well the possibilities made by technological advancements. Although there are no precise conclusions to the diagram below, an assumption could be made: that by daily business and technology cases, we can see that the West is already proceeding from the


middle quality management phase and is exploring towards the next stage, innovation & quality. Meanwhile, the standard practices of Chinese enterprises should be placed in between quality control and moving towards quality management.

Figure 3.15: Changing scenarios for enterprises.

(Source: Operational Excellence Consulting)

The changing scenarios for enterprises regarding quality is considered as a paradigm shift, which means every transformation is a different way of looking things. Paradigm shifts are quantum changes, slow, deliberate or instantaneous (McLeod, 2014); they need enterprises to be more active in their continuous improvements.

Figure 3.16: Paradigm shift of organizational culture. (Source: Operational

Excellence Consulting)

Figure 3.16 shows what an organizational culture paradigm shift means in detailed comparisons when enterprises are changed from functional organization to team-based organization using a 7S’ parameter system of structure: strategy, system, style, staff, skills,


and shared values. A well-designed brand architecture can have significant benefits to firms (Park et al., 2016). Again, in general, Chinese enterprises would be counted as the left-hand category as most of the characteristics fit the commonly seen status quo. Figure 3.17 demonstrates that how corporate level brand architectures should transit and reconstruct accordingly in this paradigm shift of organizational culture.

Figure 3.17: Paradigm shift of corporate level brand architecture. (Source:

Operational Excellence Consulting)

The Concept of Continuous ImprovementFrom the underlying organizational level to the artifact level, a continuous improvement process (abbreviated as CIP or CI), as ongoing efforts to improve the total quality of products, services, and design processes, is an important principle for an organizational culture. These efforts can seek incremental improvement over time or breakthrough improvement all at once. Delivery (customer valued) processes are constantly evaluated and improved in the light of their efficiency, effectiveness, and flexibility. They are not limited to the 22

narrow interpretation of quality initiatives, as improvement in business strategy, business results, customer, employee, and supplier relationships can all be subject to continuous improvement (Fryer, Antony, Douglas, 2007). Continuous improvement deals not only with improving results, but more importantly, it improves

“Learn about Quality.”, ASQ, Retrieved June 30, 2015, from http://www.asq.org/learn-22

about-quality/continuous-improvement/overview/overview.html

http://www.asq.org/learn-about-quality/continuous-improvement/overview/overview.html


capabilities to produce better results in the future. As for brand 23

design, from high-level strategic planning and decision-making to precise execution of working-level elements in each and every customer touchpoint, could be beneficial for continuous quality improvement. It is necessary for work environments of Chinese enterprises to develop and make permanent a culture of continuous improvement in which individuals are growing, learning, and contributing to the overall goal (Waldman, 1994).

Quality Culture in Chinese CultureDue to the complexity and varied reasons of the Chinese business environment and business mindset influenced historically and culturally, Chinese companies tend to value profit over quality. When other business indicators show conflicts with quality ostensibly, especially when the indicators have a direct impact on profit, Chinese enterprises most likely choose to sacrifice quality if must make a choice among the two. Illogical priorities of values lead to unwise decision-making and actions, gradually causing the issues in Chinese enterprise activities.

However, when organizations look for quick wins, which is a more pragmatic approach, most often quick win equivalents to slow fail. Quick wins make things far worse later on, and often do not make things better in the short term either (Watkinson, 2013).

Based on my previous study and experience through conducting brand design practices with various Chinese enterprises and experts for over ten years, one inference drawn from this research is that the underlying cause of the issues in Chinese enterprises lies in the injustice perception of quality in brand design. To solve the problem, the awareness of quality must be significantly increased, and quality must be the top priority among all perspectives of brand activities in an organizational culture.

“An Overview Of The Quality Mega-tools", Retrieved June 30, 2015, from http://23

www2.parkland.edu/businesstraining/documents/TheQualitymega-tools.pdf

http://www2.parkland.edu/businesstraining/documents/TheQualitymega-tools.pdf


3.4.2 Role of the CEO / Leadership

As previously reviewed, the leadership is the most important role in a brand design process. Organizational performance is affected mostly by top management and improves under the existence of the explored practices of quality management, leadership should consider quality improvement strategies as a top priority to enhance and promote the organizational performance and effectiveness (Sweis et al., 2016). The leadership required in leading organizational culture refers to the top management, namely, in most cases the CEO (Chief Executive Officer), not the fractional management level leaders. Specific to brand design, if an enterprise has set the specific position - a CBO (Chief Brand Officer) also plays a crucial role. The main difference between top management and fractional management is that CEOs and CBOs create an organizational culture in which the awareness of quality can exist and flourish. They must understand quality, believe in it, and demonstrate their belief and commitment (Padhi, 2007) with a comprehensive view through their daily practices from a top-down angle. Meanwhile, managers delegate tasks relying on control, focus on doing things right from the bottom up. On the other hand, brand design is too important to be left to the marketing department alone, argued by Rubinstein (1996), the leadership needs to ensure that the brand remains in-line with the business objectives and strategic intent of the organization, approaching brand design as an integrated process instead of a communication add-on at the end of a product-level development program.

From inspiring vision, clarifying missions and objectives, making strategic directions, instilling values to guide subordinates, leadership is in every detail in forming and leading organizational culture, and requires full commitment at all time to lead an organization to achieve business excellence. Leadership is evidently effective when it provides psychological and motivational resources lacking in the organization’s culture (Hartnell et al., 2016). Moreover, leaders need


to serve as role models through ethical behavior and their personal involvement in planning, developing, coaching, enabling, counseling others, reviewing organizational performance, and recognizing employees (MBNQA). An organizational culture and the management of quality has to be introduced and led by top management (Hill, 1991).

However, in China, the understanding of leadership-driven can be literal or practical. The differences between the leadership’s commitment and participation in directing the brand design process, are not to be misread with unconditionally obeying the commands and following the cues given by CEOs. Because in the end, even though the brand design process is directed by the leadership, the brand's success is determined by the customer. CEOs are liable to align this thinking with the entire organization including the employees and all other stakeholders, especially, the shareholders.

Watkinson (2013), argues that unilaterally focusing on maximizing shareholder value brings the CEOs into direct conflict with the interests of customers. It is not possible to fully satisfy and seek both the real market that is the customer satisfaction and the expectation market regarding financial profit, simultaneously.

Research published in the Journal of Accounting and Economic points to an alarming discovery, Martin (2011) states that: “A majority of executives freely admit to sacrificing the future of their companies to meet the whims of the expectation market”. When faced with 24

such situations, the CEOs, especially in many cases of Chinese enterprises, are usually inclined to cater to the expectation market. For reasons as explained by Watkinson (2013), - not only are they incentivized to do so, but comparing the tasks to create genuinely exceptional experiences for the customer, it is relatively easier to manipulate the expectations of the stock market. However, this does not result in the loss to customers, but the enterprises themselves.

Martin, R.L., 2011, “Fixing the Game.”, Harvard Business School Publishing, p.9924


3.4.3 Customer Demands

From the philosophical level, awareness of quality seeks to integrate all organizational functions to focus on meeting customer demands to reach organizational objectives (Slater, Mohr, Sengupta, 1995). Customer demands, among all, get the top priority. Patnaik (2009) explained, "Companies have become so dependent on models that many organizations have started to lose touch with reality. Without a personal connection to the people they serve, companies lack the context, immediacy, or experience they need to make good decisions. Far too many leaders make critical decisions without any personal feel for the territory”. One way to interpret it is that 25

customers are ought to becoming the co-creators of the brand value, and the brand itself becomes the experience (Prahalad, 2004, as cited in Payne, Storbacka, Frow, & Knox, 2009).

While this research attempts to study the underlying cores of the brand design process and develop a set of relatively generic toolkits to help Chinese enterprises to be upgraded and aligned to achieve the total quality from an organizational culture perspective, customers as the primary component of the brand design and the final referee of the brand performance is never neglected.

Customer Demands in Discontinuous ChangeDiscontinuous change, describes the “non-incremental, sudden change that threatens existing or traditional authority or power structure, because it drastically alters the way things are currently done or have been done for years”. Charles Handy (1990) wrote, 26

“The changes are different this time: they are discontinuous and not part of a pattern.” The discontinuity is caused by the combination of 27

changing technology and economics. Technologies are developing at an exceptional speed, and the outputs become unpredictable. When

Patnaik, D., Mortensen, P., 2009, “Wired to Care.”, New Jersey: FT Press, p.2325

Definition of “Discontinuous Change”, Retrieved July 02, 2015, from http://26

www.businessdictionary.com/definition/discontinuous-change.html

Handy, C., 1990, “The Age of Unreason.”, Harvard Business School Press27

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/discontinuous-change.html


the society and ways of living are changing in a dramatic fashion, a new question is raised regarding how to manage customer demands in discontinuous change.

Different from needs or wants, demands are what customers desire and are able to purchase. Even though in fact a product can be differentiated by whether it satisfies a customer's needs, wants or demands, here from a Corporation Brand design level as well as organizational quality control perspective, it is the demand that make the final counts and the most differences. In a practical way in brand design, demand can be seen as needs + desire + possession. To manage the customer demands, one must understand the fundamental needs of the consumers.

According to Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (1943), human needs have five basic dimensions from physical needs to spiritual needs, which as indicated in Figure 3.18, are physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization.

The Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs clearly indicates different levels and aspects of each of the needs to be fulfilled in achieving customer satisfaction in brand design; depending on various industries, objectives, and foci, which may differ. This chart is an effective tool to gain insights and assist the management of customer demands in the era of discontinuous changes.

Figure 3.18: Maslow's hierarchy of needs.


Customer Demands in Strategic Brand Design“One of the primary goals of any business is, if we can really understand our customers, the world can be ours” (Watkinson, 2013). The following question is how to obtain the accurate and useful input for pinning down the fundamental yet decisive needs for achieving each brand design objective. Patnaik‘s (2009) view is that as the quickest way to have empathy for someone else is to be just like them, which for companies means hiring their customers. The limitation to this proposal is although the point could be valid, it is, unrealistic for most companies, especially in China. The chart below (Figure 3.19) is a method reviewed that could be employed as an in-depth supplementary tool to interact with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

This tool focuses on finding out three types of needs: explicit needs, tacit needs, and latent needs, using three methods, ask, observe/discover, and prototype/experience.

Through only asking, the tacit needs could appear as vague. When a user/customer is questioned, they tend to answer what they want instead of what they need. An experienced interviewer, however, can obtain the explicit needs. Hence, observation to discover in the related contexts should be adopted to capture this information more accurately. By far, the latent needs still will not be revealed as clearly as expected, but based on assumptions, prototypes and experiences could be demonstrated for verifications while stimulating the uncovering of unexpected needs (Greer, personal communication, February 22, 2014).

Figure 3.19: Tool for obtaining input of different needs. (Greer, 2014)


These needs are the most valuable input in the first phase of the brand design process; they are the basis of all subsequent actions; if the needs data are not accurate, the entire brand design will be misguided. Once the needs are collected and screened, they can be correspondingly put into the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to prepare for the next step’s uses. Subsequently, the next step in brand design is to map out a customer journey and define the touchpoints.

Customer Satisfaction in Emotional Brand DesignAs the primary goal of brand design, how customer satisfaction changes over time can determine what a brand stands for and its relevance to its customers, which is the brand meaning.

Customer Satisfaction is a never-ending and interactive process; as long as a brand exists, none of the elements are fixed but are determined by the circumstances of the previous factor (Figure 3.20).

Figure 3.20: Customer satisfaction determines brand meaning. (Greer, 2014)

Each brand, through its promises to potential customers, generates expectations. Once the customers experience it, they can be either satisfied or dissatisfied by how the experiences matched their previous expectations; this would then lead to new perceptions of the brand. Based on the new perceptions, the original expectations are continuously adjusted higher or lower until the customers get to re-experience the brand’s performances. Moreover, during the processes, the brand meaning to the majority of its consumers changes with their satisfaction status in time. Even when a brand


successfully achieves high satisfaction in one round, it is not made permanent for subsequent rounds. When satisfaction is high, customers raise their expectations, and if the experience followed does not match up, the customer will be dissatisfied; vise versa, when the satisfaction is low, the expectation will decrease, and then a similar experience may become satisfactory temporarily (Greer, personal communication, February 22, 2014). Therefore, managing customer satisfaction in brand design requires non-stop and timely adjustments, no method can be terminative once and for all. It is confirmed by research findings that customers positively relate to brand reputation and so their perception of brand performance and benefits are affected by it (Brodie, Whittome, & Brush, 2009). The expectations are tied to the brand’s reputation in conjunction with its offering. For high reputed brands, the expectations are relatively higher, and customers view them as delivering superior services (Sengupta, Balaji, & Krishnan, 2015). This customer satisfaction cycle explained well the issue that Pu-erh tea market is facing. As discussed earlier in my pilot studies, when the quality of the products/services receive is lower than what the consumers expected, the consequential emotions are bound to be negative. To achieve the opposite, a brand needs to exceed customer expectations constantly.

Touchpoint MappingIn brand design, touchpoint mapping is the most common and efficient method of managing the customer experience. Because the touchpoint is the interface of a product, a service or a brand with customers, before, during and after a transaction (Spengler, Wirth, 2009), the brand promise and the higher objectives are delivered through each and every interaction a customer has with the experience (Watkinson, 2013). The touchpoints create the opportunities for the brand to interact with its customers, at which opportunities, emotional brand design can play its role. One thing to note is, touchpoint not only matters to the customers, but also the non-customers, employees, and stakeholders of a brand, which applies for business-to-business as well as business-to-consumer


markets. Therefore, the method of touchpoint mapping is also a relevant aspect of organizational culture and is crucial to a corporate level of brand design.

Regardless of whether a touchpoint is tangible or intangible, physical or spiritual, people will primarily perceive it as an emotional experience. Knowing the rationales behind the induced emotions are crucial when directing a brand design and deciding its validity. As Watkinson (2013) explained, understanding objectives in light of their emotional weight helps build empathy for the customer and also provides additional consideration when prioritizing which elements to focus on. Likewise, understanding the meaning, impact and effectiveness of each tangible and intangible touchpoint provides the required logical basis for strategic brand thinking to be converted into emotional brand designs. Proper emotional experiences convey the veracious brand image and messages; active emotional experiences create stronger customer and employee loyalty, yet inviting emotional experiences attracts new customers and kindred spirits.

Notably, not all touchpoints equally influence the customer experience. A company identify the vital ones that are relevant to specific brand objectives and can achieve maximum results with reasonable and manageable efforts.

3.4.4 Internal Branding

Corporate level brand design acts as a primary phase and a continuing process within the main scope of internal branding. Purposeful internal branding programming counteracts the quality of the corporate level brand design. As Buckley & Carter (2016) concluded in their study, the internal activities of firms constitute a process or a set of processes, and that the organization problem of the firm centre around optimizing the outcomes of eternal processes. The long-term consequence of internal branding affects not only the organizational culture, but also the design of the companies’


subsidiary product and service brands. Internal branding and the brand design process are supposed to mutually reinforce each other.

Traditional enterprises often ignore internal brand building, the concept of branding is sometimes confused with marketing within such organizations in the first place. Or in many practices, internal branding is misleading to superficial actions of announcing decisions or even results of marketing tactics or strategic initiatives, such as letting employees know about the new advertising campaigns, reiterating the companies’ vision, mission and value statements, or unifying the dress codes, etc.

But true internal branding is/or should be about borrowing a definition given by Inward Consulting—a consulting firm dedicated to promoting the power of internal branding for the past 15 years: “a cultural shift within an organization, where the employees become more customer focused and more business focused”. In other 28

words, everyone in the organization is a stakeholder of the brand, entrusted with the mission of one unit as a touchpoint. Instead of being taught about the tactics of the brand, stakeholders should live the essence of the brand. Internal branding should be achieved through organized communications and behavior-driven processes. Only then can the employees play their rightful roles in every position in the brand design process and generate the desired benefits for the brand.

Inward Consulting illustrated the importance and effectiveness of internal branding through data supported by McKinsey’s study on the connection between understanding and internal change (n.d.). The study of change programs at 40 organizations concluded that change management programs succeed only when employees at all levels share the will and the skills to change. A high correlation between good skills for managing change and the value an organization carries were found through these programs. Inward Consulting

Internal Branding., Inward Consulting, Retrieved July 07, 2015, from http://28

www.inwardconsulting.com/who-we-are/news-and-events/internal-branding/


added to the findings that they believe these skill, are the product of effective change communications and internal branding programming. This finding also provides the indirect proof that internal branding acts as a crucial role in the brand design process, especially for enterprises in business-management-model transition phases, which this particular research concerns.

Internal branding is a crucial tool of organizational culture. The main principles of internal branding are as follows (Inward Consulting, n.d.):

• Internal branding should be a process driven, long-term proposition;

• Align the brand externally and internally. Allow the inside to function like the outside: what an enterprise says externally should be the same thing it says/does internally;

• Evaluate the effectiveness of internal branding through the beneficial interactions with the brand design process. Together with brand design, successful internal branding should lift brand equity, customer focus, and ultimately shareholder value;

• Internal branding follows a sequential process, through which employees achieve internal brand success. There is a difference between communicating a message, understanding it, with changing behavior;

• Similar to the brand design process, senior leadership participation and involvement throughout the process of internal branding is a must-have. They cannot be driven by the department managers.

3.4.5 Brand Communication Models

The brand communication model is an important representation of an enterprise's organizational culture. It delivers the brand with the strategies, approaches, designs, and determines how the end products/services are interpreted. In a way, it represents the relationship between a company/a brand and its customers.


There are two main brand communication models, co-existing and dominating the brand design practices today. One is considered the old world model—the broadcast model, and the other complies with the era of discontinuous change and advancements compared to the broadcast model as it is customer oriented—the experiential model (Greer, personal communication, February 22, 2014).

The Broadcast ModelThe broadcast model is still heavily employed by some of the incumbent well-established enterprises, in China especially the SOEs. These big companies design their products/services (not brands) based on market research, yet communicate the products/services as the brand mainly through visual designs (look and feel). These broadcasted brand communication become the governing experiences their customers perceive, and what the customers perceive results in their brand image and reputation. Figure 3.21 and 3.23 showcase the broadcast model structure and the typical process when designing the products/services in this type of organizational culture.

In the traditional (broadcast) view, designers and strategies respond to what customers want. However, evidence suggests the contrary, that the purchase process is not nearly as rational as marketing theory would like to believe. What customers say they want to purchase are not always what they buy; customers in reality realize what they like through the brand experiences but not before. The broadcast model on a certain level explains the myth of why a focus group does not always work. The method and the questions raised toward regarding this model will be discussed in-depth in the methodology chapter (Greer, personal communication, February 22, 2014).

Figure 3.21: The broadcast brand communication model. (Greer, 2014)


Figure 3.22: Designing new product/service under the traditional (broadcast)

organizational culture. (Greer, 2014)

The Experiential ModelThe experiential model is favored and applicable to any enterprises as the principle is to design holistic brand experiences based on the values to the customer. Instead of telling the customer what a brand is, but makes him/her believe that the experience is the brand, customers interpret brands based on their experiences and determine the reputation and meaning of the brand. The initiative is in the hands of the consumer in the experiential model (Greer, personal communication, February 22, 2014).

Figure 3.23: The experiential brand communication model. (Greer, 2014)


Figure 3.24: Designing brands under the experiential organizational culture. (Greer,

2014)

Compared to the broadcast model, instead of designing new products and services, the experiential model is more appropriate for planning new categories, the advantage also includes creating barriers through developing unique customer experiences for potential competitors to entry, which could be crucial for survivals (Greer, personal communication, February 22, 2014).

Figure 3.24 compares the old and new world of brand design in a more comprehensive yet direct view. The two major shifts are as 1) regarding brand ownership: Marketing is becoming more organizational culture oriented; and 2) regarding brand design and branding: Broadcast (ask and tell) is shifting towards experience (dialogue) (Greer, personal communication, February 22, 2014).

Summary

Brand design is extraordinarily complex, as it is multi-discipline, multi-industry, and various professionals and practitioners have different roles in the process. This chapter mainly reviewed and discussed the relevant concepts, brand strategies, approaches, brand design processes, and organizational culture aspects specific to this research study that actively exist in enterprises in China today. Based on the argument I made in Chapter Two, the two underlying components of: awareness of quality and the role of leadership,


which act as the cores of brand design process, are highlighted and reviewed in-depth. It was concluded that quality is the top priority goal for all aspects in every detail of a brand design process, and leadership is the key to achieving it. Furthermore, another vital component is customer satisfaction, which is not part of the course of organizational culture, but it is the only measure of success for both objectives of the organization and the brand in the long run.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY | �102

Chapter Four | Research Methodology

Contents 4.1 Measurements of Quality …………………………………………………….. 4.1.1 Net Promoter Score …………………………………………………….. 4.1.2 Data Collection and Analysis …………………………………………… 4.1.3 Monitoring Social Media ………………………………………………..

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4.2 Principles of Total Quality Management ……………………………………. 4.2.1 Representative Total Quality Management Models …………………… 4.2.2 Supporting Tools ………………………………………………………… 4.2.3 Essential Principles of Total Quality Management …………………….. 4.2.4 Significance of Integrating Total Quality Management Principles in Brand Design Process …………………………………………………..

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4.3 Field Research ………………………………………………………………… 4.3.1 Participant Observation and Practice ………………………………….. 4.3.2 Comparative Research …………………………………………………. 4.3.3 Open-Ended Interview and In-depth Interview ………………………..

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4.4 Cluster Analysis ...................................................................................... 4.4.1 The Strength of Cluster Analysis ……………………………………….. 4.4.2 The Challenge of Cluster Analysis …………………………………….. 4.4.3 Adapting Cluster Analysis in Brand Design Process ………………….

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4.5 Focus Group ………………………………………………………………….. 4.5.1 The Strength of Focus Group ………………………………………….. 4.5.2 The limitation of Focus Group ………………………………………….. 4.5.3 Applying Focus Group in Brand Design Process ……………………..

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Summary 140


“Methodology must be flexible. Companies often do not adopt the materials & methods they were trained on because they

aren't flexible enough.” - Brian Lawley

4.1 Measurements of Quality

There are many kinds and aspects of quality. On a philosophical level, a quality is an attribute or property; on a brand design level, it could be tangible or intangible. An organizational culture can be grouped as tangible artifacts—from the physical forms of a brand identity to its end products/services, as well the intangible forms as shared mental models of work related issues (Klimoski & Mohammed 1989). Tangible and intangible quality exists in alignment with all aspects and forms of organizational culture.

Tangible quality is easier to be captured, as its carriers could be seen or touched. It usually falls in the area of whether an item can perform satisfactorily in service and be suitable for its intended purpose. 29

There are relatively unified standards for people to judge the quality of the tangible forms. On the other hand, intangible quality in an organization’s collective values, principles, morality, innovations, efforts, behaviors, etc., is harder to evaluate and sometimes could be missed or ignored.

Therefore, as one of the most critical elements of an enduring brand design process, how to measure the quality of brand design becomes one of the key questions.

“What is Quality?”, The Institute of Internal Auditors, Retrieved May 19, 2015, from https://29

www.iia.org.au/quality/qualityservices.aspx

https://www.iia.org.au/quality/qualityservices.aspx


As discussed and concluded in the earlier chapter, the only metric for the long-term success of a brand design is determined by the customers. Consequently, the measurement of quality is after all essentially the measure of customer satisfaction. Three efficient methods in the measurement of quality are reviewed and selectively applied in this study.

4.1.1 Net Promoter Score

One simple yet proven powerful management tool commonly applied for gauging the loyalty of a brand's customer relationships, assisting proficiently in the growth of a business, and indirectly reflecting the quality of brand design on a product/service level is the net promoter score (NPS).

NPS is a metric that asks just one single and very simple question to every client: "On a 0 to 10 scale, how likely is it that you would recommend us (or this product/service/brand) to a friend or colleague?” (Reichheld, 2011). The respondents are then reclassified as follows: If the respondents have replied with a 9 or 10, they are labeled as promoters and classified as really happy and loyal customers. For ones who have given a seven or eight, they are labeled as passives, as they would most probably leave if a competitor were offering attractive alternatives; brands should aim to turn the passives into promoters. The ones who have rated any score of six or below are the non-happy customers and are labeled as detractors. The detractors tell the brand there is something wrong with the quality; problems identified these customers should be taken seriously by the enterprises as they are the ones who have had bad experiences and spread negative reviews of the brands. To get the final NPS score, one can simply calculate by taking the percentage of the promoters and subtract the percentage who are detractors (Watkinson, 2013).

Extensive research has shown that NPS can act as a leading indicator of business revenue growth. If an organization’s NPS is


higher than its competitors, this organization has a greater chance to outperform the market; or in other cases, by managing to increase the score also improves business performance. As simple as asking one ultimate question, the NPS method quantifies the intangible metrics for measuring the success and the total quality of a business; tracks and assures the satisfaction level of the customers; reveals the score of how well a brand is doing during the survey; identifies an organization’s position in its competing category; and provides insights for improvement (Watkinson, 2013). But how to improve a brand and how to increase and manage the quality after measuring it, goes back to the fundamental brand design processes.

One string attached to NPS is that the method is only applicable after one brand is exposed to and experienced by a sufficient number of customers. The key implication here is that it is beneficial always to bear in mind the ultimate question of NPS: ”On a 0 to 10 scale, how likely is it that you would recommend us (or this product/service/brand) to a friend or colleague?”.

4.1.2 Data Collection and Analysis

Secondary data is data collected by someone else (Boslaugh, 2007). It provides efficient, larger, and higher-quality databases that individual researchers would be unfeasible to obtain on their own (Koziol, Arthur, n.d.), and is therefore considered as an efficient 30

way of measuring quality in the brand design process. Collection and analysis of secondary data could be either qualitative or quantitative, or a mix of both.

The continuous cycle of a brand design process involves a sufficient amount of secondary data collection, namely desk research, which typically covers subjects of the users/customers, the markets, benchmark brands, and designs. With the findings, in-depth analyses are conducted accordingly and the outputs clustered; the analyzed

Koziol, N., Arthur, A., “An Introduction to Secondary Data Analysis.”, Research Methodology 30

Series, Retrieved May 19, 2015, from http://r2ed.unl.edu/presentations/2011/RMS/120911_Koziol/120911_Koziol.pdf

http://r2ed.unl.edu/presentations/2011/RMS/120911_Koziol/120911_Koziol.pdf


data is then input into appropriate methods and frameworks for the next steps. Desk research conducted at different phases of a brand design process may serve different specific purposes: defining the target audience and customer segmentations, conducting competitor and benchmark brand analyses, and providing insights and inspirations for creative designs, etc. No matter what the specific purposes may be, they are all part of, and could directly examine the quality of the process if conducted properly.

However, a lot of the data collected could be misleading in analysis, with the real significance concealed under the superficies; the surface problem may not reveal the core issues directly. One of the most powerful problem-solving techniques in the Japanese continuous improvement philosophy, Kaizen, Toyota’s Five Why’s Analysis, can be adopted to solve the issue. This method can be 31

used to trace a problem way back to its original cause. One case was given as (Watkinson, 2013) : “There is a puddle of oil on the shop floor. Why? Because the machine is leaking oil. Why? Because the gasket has deteriorated. Why? Because we bought gaskets made of inferior material. Why? Because we got a good price. Why? Because purchasing agents are evaluated on short-term cost savings achieved. The solution, then, is to change the evaluation policy for service agents.”

The Five Why’s Analysis method is not only able to analyze the customer experiences back to their original causes, but is also helpful for corporate level brand design problems’ analyses. An example of a phenomenon commonly seen in Chinese enterprises’ brand design practices is the following (see Section 1.1.1): A brand has to cancel an entire event planned for increasing its brand awareness in the market. Why? The budget is no longer sufficient. Why? The majority of the budget previously assigned to this event has been moved to pay for advertisement on an inefficient media channel. Why? Because the department manager who has been

Liker, J.K., 2004, “The Toyota Way.”, New York: McGraw-Hill, p.25331


authorized to manage this budget personally is convinced that a media channel could be an excellent publicity opportunity. Why? The manager confuses brand publicity with brand reputation and values it over quality. Why? The overall operation of brand management and the process of decision-making lacks measurement for quality due to low awareness and false perception of quality. The first thing to tackle here is to increase the awareness and amend the perception of quality until it becomes part of the permanent culture of the organization.

The same “Five Why Analysis” can be employed another way around: keep asking why until the super-objective of any relevant design question is reached. When the secondary data collected is queried and analyzed to its cause, it becomes a way of measuring and managing quality, thereby contributing to the brand design process.

4.1.3 Monitoring Social Media

Social media monitoring or social media measurement refers to actively monitoring of social media channels for information. The 32

method is mainly used for monitoring the brands’ perceptions by consumers for the brands’ overall performances. Social media monitoring allows researchers to find insights into a brand’s overall visibility on social media, usually by tracking of various social media content, such as blogs, wikis, news sites, social networking platforms, video/photo sharing platforms, etc., to determine the volume and sentiment of online conversation about a brand or a topic. As social media by function allows brand users to identify 33

opportunities for engagement with brands, and share voices, it provides equal rights and pathways for researchers to observe,

Lawrence, R., Melville, P., Perlich, C., Sindhwani, V., Meliksetian, S., Hsueh, P. Y., & Liu, Y., 32

2010, "Social media analytics. Marketing & Social Media.", IBM Corporation, Retrieved October 30, 2012, from: https://www-950.ibm.com/events/wwe/grp/grp004.nsf/vLookupPDFs/8.%20Lawrence%20-%20IBM%20Apr%2013,%202011/$file/8.%20Lawrence%20-%20IBM%20Apr%2013,%202011.pdf

"Social Media Monitoring.”, Financial Times, Retrieved October 30, 2012, from: http://33

lexicon.ft.com/Term?term=social-media-monitoring

https://www-950.ibm.com/events/wwe/grp/grp004.nsf/vLookupPDFs/8.%20Lawrence%20-%20IBM%20Apr%2013,%202011/$file/8.%20Lawrence%20-%20IBM%20Apr%2013,%202011.pdf

http://lexicon.ft.com/Term?term=social-media-monitoring


interact, and measure the impact of the acts. Brand managers can also access competitor activities and be alerted to impending crises by monitoring social media. In practices, this is usually a joint effort conducted by a cross-section of groups that include, but are not exclusive to, brand design teams, market researchers, marketing teams, social engagement and community staff, and consulting agencies, etc.

Jones (2012), explains how social media has empowered the consumers: “Brands are defined by what consumers say to each other about them, not what a brand says to consumers... The key to today’s successful social brand is to create the best possible reality. ” It fully illustrates the importance and imperative need of including the social media monitoring technique into the brand design process and quality management nowadays.

ZUO, as mentioned earlier as an example, a self-educational service and brand created for monitoring the quality of brands/designs on social media for improving awareness of quality of Chinese customers in general, was the primary social media channel employed in this research for elaborating the background and objectives of the study.

Figure 4.1: ZUO design APP, primary users, way of grouping.




Brands cannot identify the critical opportunities by relying only on traditional segmentation and trend reports as social media has transformed how culture works into influential crowd-cultures and weakens certain branding techniques (Holt, 2016). The ZUO platform collects design professionals’ and consumers’ reviews, comments, opinions, and suggestions on any tangible or intangible carriers of quality they have discovered in daily life. In the application, one can label the discovery as good design or bad design and give reasons; others can comment below to agree or suggest other opinions. The intention of ZUO as the platform is to launch possible and meaningful redesign projects once opportunities are spotted. The data can also be collected by researchers or designers who find them useful for getting insights and inspirations for their purposes. A platform as such could be a very helpful supplementary tool for increasing the overall level of brand design practices in China as well as beneficial for individual brand design processes.

4.2 Principles of Total Quality Management

During my methodology research, I had an impromptu interview while I was on an Uber ride. The driver was chatty and told me proudly that he was ranked in the top 1000 qualified taxi drivers in Shanghai when he was driving for the best taxi company back in the 1980s-1990s. The taxi company he worked for was a state-owned company, named ZhenHua before merging into the Jinjiang Taxi Group, which is still one of the largest state-owned taxi businesses in Shanghai. It was a total surprise and unexpected acquisition to me that he told me about 30 years ago, in ZhenHua, they ran a TQC (total quality control) system strictly for maintaining the best name and their branded services, which you rarely see in today’s taxi companies in China anymore. The TQC system they practiced was precisely focused on customer satisfaction management, through customer complaint rate, to reward and penalize the drivers. In comparison, the driver complained that the overall quality of Jinjiang today is dropping, not only for the customers, but also for employees,


as the TQC system was abandoned after the merge. He concluded that this is one of the main reasons he chose to drive for Uber instead.

After learning how to measure quality, I began focusing on finding answers to the next question: how to manage quality, so I began concentrating on total quality management (TQM). The Uber driver’s personal experience strengthened my confidence in employing this quality management philosophy for the research questions of my study.

Figure 4.2: Design management is defined by what you think of design (vertical

axis: the “learning ladder” of design), and by what you thing of management

(horizontal axis).34

Management as Command & Control

Management as Art of Collective Action

Management as Managing Change

Design as Strategy

Controlling Design ROI & Business Performance and Brand Value

Design Leadership. Coherence of the design system and driving the future “Advanced Design”.

Design as resource for the challenges of contemporary managers-Socially Responsible Enterprise.

Design as Process

Design research methods-ethno design etc. DM as managing the design function.

Integrating design in other processes: Brand, Innovation, TQM. DM as improving the performance of processes.

Integrating Design in Management Decision Processes. DM as inventing the future and “Sense Building” in a changing environment. DM for the quality of staff.

Design as Styling

Integrating Design in Marketing, R&D, Corporate Communications. DM as managing a design project.

Mozota, B. B. D., 2006, “The Four Powers of Design: A Value Model in Design 34

Management.”, Design Management Review, 17(2), pp.44–53


Of course, there is the academic basis. Mozota (2006) has also mentioned by integrating design into other processes, such as brand and TQM could improve the performance of processes (figure 4.2). As described in Mozota (2006)’s chart, when design is integrated into other processes such as brand or TQM, it facilitates management as art of collective action. In this study, what I intend to research, is to integrate the essence of TQM in the processes of brand design. Therefore, the meaning of management becomes managing the total quality in a continuous changing environment.

4.2.1 Representative Total Quality Management Models

Total quality management (TQM) as a management approach originated in the 1950s, after decades of evolution, and became more popular between the early 1980s and the early 1990s, before becoming overshadowed by further optimized and specified approaches, such as Lean & Six Sigma, etc (Feigenbaum, 2002). While there is no widely agreed-upon approach in TQM’s evolution, TQM now is more of a generic term for representing the concept of collective organization-wide efforts to install and make permanent a climate in which an organization continuously improves its ability to deliver high-quality products and services to consumers rather than one specific method itself (Fragassa, Pavlovic, Massimo, 2014). Figure 4.3 below shows an approximate evolution process of the concept of TQM over the past century.

Figure 4.3: Evolution of TQM. (Source: Operational Excellence Consulting) 35

Operational Excellence Consulting, Retrieved July 22, 2015, from http://35

www.oeconsulting.com.sg/


As a consequence, there is no single set of unified principles for the implementation of TQM. The laws vary from different leading organizations and TQM Gurus. This research has selected and focused on the reviewing of three representative models, MBNQA (Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award), EFQM (European Foundation for Quality Management), and Kanji’s Model, which their principles are considerably relevant to the features of brand design. The review substitutes the methods into the brand design context, to study the relation, analyzes to identify the universal and applicable key principles, and defines supplementary tools to combine into the integrated toolkit that will be discussed in Chapter Five as the outcome of the research.

Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) ModelThe MBNQA is designed to recognize organizations (American) in all sectors of the economy for demonstrating performance excellence using the systems perspective and other core concepts and values of the Baldrige Excellence Framework. The purpose of this award is to promote the awareness of quality as an increasingly important element in competitiveness. The Baldrige Excellence Framework is revised every two years in three sector-specific versions for MBNQA: 1) business / nonprofit; 2) education; and 3) health care. 36

Despite the different scenarios of industries, there are seven shared examination categories in the framework, which are designed to address full dimensions of an integrated, prevention-based quality system built around continuous improvement, and embody the common core values and concepts of the MBNQA model.

The seven categories as Baldrige criteria for performance excellence as shown in the framework of Figure 4.4 are summarized and explained according to the ASQ (American Society for Quality) :37

Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, MBNQA, Retrieved June 20, 2015, from http://36

www.nist.gov/baldrige/

Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence, ASQ, Retrieved June 20, 2015, from http://37

asq.org/learn-about-quality/malcolm-baldrige-award/overview/overview.html

http://www.nist.gov/baldrige/

http://asq.org/learn-about-quality/malcolm-baldrige-award/overview/overview.html


1) LeadershipLeadership is the top priority in all TQM models; it provides the energy and motivation for continuous improvement and innovation (Lee, Zuckwiler, Trimi, 2005). In the MBNQA, the criteria for leadership interprets as how upper management leads the organization, and how the organization leads within the community. It is defined as visionary participation that sets the organizational direction and creates customer focus, clear and visible values, as well as high expectations (ASQ). 2) Strategic PlanningStrategic planning represents the relationship between an organization’s quality planning and the overall organizational strategy (Lee et al., 2005). As criteria, it asks, how an organization establishes and plans to implement strategic directions (ASQ).3) Customer FocusThis criteria concerns how the organization builds and maintains healthy, lasting relationships with customers (ASQ). It focuses on improving customer relationships as well as their satisfactions, which the key to success is the effectiveness of an organizational process for knowledge acquisition about current and future customers and market information.4) Measurement, Analysis, Knowledge ManagementThis category focus on the needs for management of information and information technology, to evaluate the process of measuring one organization’s performance on the scope, validity, and management of relevant data and information. The criteria concerns how the organization use data to support key processes and manage performance (ASQ).5) Workforce FocusThe human resource focus examines on workforce engagement and environment, as how the organization empowers and involves its workforce (ASQ). Efficient use of human resources and the organizational ability to maintain high-performance


workplace are requirements for an organization to achieve and maintain high levels of quality.6) Operations FocusProcess management, has been designed around work systems, core competencies, and work processes; it focuses on how the organization designs, manages and improves essential processes (ASQ) during operations.7) ResultsThis category asks, how the organization performs and how the organization compares to its competitors (ASQ). As the overall score of categories 1-6, it is measured by the following segments’ performances:

• Product and Services

• Customer-focus (Customer Satisfaction)

• Financial and Market

• Human Resource

• Organizational Effectiveness

• Leadership and Social Responsibility

Figure 4.4: MBNQA Model (Source: MBNQA 2003).

Moreover, by TQM’s fundamental concept of the IPO model (input-process-output), MBNQA’s Categories 1-3, are considered as the input phase, Categories 5-6 become the process, and Category 7 is


the output stage. Category 4 acts as the feedback to create a loop system for making the continuous improvement to the TQM.

European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) ModelThe EFQM excellence model is a non-prescriptive business excellence framework based on nine criteria, for organizational management systems, promoted by EFQM, and designed for helping organizations in their drive towards becoming more competitive. 38

Among the nine criteria shown as in Figure 4.5, five are enablers that cover what an organization does which includes both the inputs and processes phases; four are results include what an organization achieves as outputs. The reversed innovation and learning acts as a feedback step to improve the enablers; overall it forms the IPO based loop for continuous improvement. The nine criteria of: 1) leadership; 2) people; 3) policy and strategy; 4) partnerships and resource; 5) processes; 6) people results; 7) customer results; 8) society results; and 9) key performance results; indicate that the EFQM model concerns the excellent result in performance and for customers, people, and society, which are achieved through leadership, policy, and strategy, which are delivered through people, partnership, and resources (Michalska, 2008).

Specifically, each of the criteria has a few subdivisions (EFQM):

1) LeadershipHow the leader leads an organization to the fulfillment of its mission and vision, develops long-term strategies required for success, and implements plans through appropriate actions and behaviors, affect the organization's total quality management system. Specific activities include the following:

• Leadership to propose mission, vision, and values, and be the role model to represent the organizational culture;

EFQM Excellence Model., EFQM, Retrieved May 24, 2015, from http://www.efqm.org/the-38

efqm-excellence-model

http://www.efqm.org/the-efqm-excellence-model


• Leadership personally involved to ensure the development, implementation, and continuous improvement of the organizational total quality management systems;

• Leadership to participate in interacting with customers, partners, and representatives from the society;

• Leadership to motivate, support, and pay attention to the employees.

2) PeopleHow an organization manage its employees from individual, segmental to organizational levels, stimulate the potential, put expertise in use, as well plan activities for employees to support the policies and strategies throughout productive processes. This more specifically involves:

• Human resources planning, management, and improvement;

• Identifying, improving, and making use of employees’ expertise and abilities;

• Employee participation and empowerment;

• Encouraging dialogue between staff and organizations (leaderships);

• Rewarding employees, paying attention, and caring for them.3) Policy and StrategyPolicy and strategy refer to how an organization focuses on a stakeholder-based strategy by developing the relevant policies, plans, objectives, and process supports to achieve the organization's mission and vision. The detail criteria comprise the following:

• Policies and strategies based on needs and expectations of the present and potential beneficiaries of the organization;

• Policies and strategies based on relevant performance measurements, research, learnings, and information-based innovation activities;

• Continuous development and optimization of the policies and procedures;


• Policies and strategies to be developed through the constitutional process framework;

• Policies and strategies communication and implementation.4) Partnerships and ResourcesPartnerships and resources entail how an enterprise plans and manages its external partnerships and resources to support the effective operations of its policies, strategies, and processes. The criteria comprise the following:

• External partnership management;

• Financial management;

• Properties, equipment and materials management;

• Technical management;

• Information and knowledge management.5) ProcessesProcesses herein means how an organization support its policies and strategies, through design, management, and improvement of its procedures, add values, to reach the complete satisfaction of customers and other stakeholders. The steps are:

• Process design and management;

• Process improvement—achieve customers and other stakeholders’s satisfaction and add values through innovation;

• According to consumer demands and expectations to design and develop products and services;

• Production of goods and services, delivery and after-sales services;

• Customer relationship management and expansion.6) People ResultsPeople results are what an organization aims to achieve for its internal employees:

• Measurement of feelings

• Performance indicators.7) Customer ResultsCustomer results refer to what an organization aims to achieve for its external customers:



• Performance indicators.8) Society ResultsSociety results focus on what an organization aims to achieve for regional, national, and international communities:


• Performance indicators.9) Key Performance ResultsKey performance results concern what an organization desires as expected performances outcomes:


• Performance indicators.

Figure 4.5: European Foundation for Quality Management Model.

Overall, the EFQM model contains eight primary concepts: results-oriented, customer-centric leadership and uncompromising goals, processes and fact-based management, staff development and participation in continuous learning, innovation, and improvement, partnership development, and social responsibility (EFQM).

Kanji’s Business Excellence ModelGopal K Kanji is considered a TQM Guru and introduced a business excellence model in 1998.


Figure 4.6: Kanji’s Business Excellence Model.

Kanji argues that even many business excellence and TQM models exist to provide a means to measure the satisfaction of customers, employees, and shareholders simultaneously; none of the models address full dimensions of TQM. Kanji's Business Excellence Model is developed from Kanji's modified Pyramid Model (1996), by translating the core concepts and principles into a structural model for business excellence, which consists of four principles by which each is divided into two core concepts, with leadership serving as a prime (Figure 4.6):

1) Delight the customer• Customer satisfaction

• Internal customers are real;2) Management by fact • All work consists of processes

• Measurement.3) People-based management• Teamwork

• People make quality.4) Continuous improvement• Continuous improvement cycle

• Prevention.

Kanji's Business Excellence Model performs the simultaneous computation of mathematical equations of factor relationships, to


obtain factor and business excellence indicators that allow organizations to compare themselves with their competitors, therefore, considered an improvement model. It will give organizations that are not doing as well as they should be an incentive to do something about their failings (Kanji, Wong, 1999). On top of all, leadership in this model must be addressed through all the principles to achieve business excellence (Kanji, Wallace, 2000).

For the purpose of this research, the structure of Kanji’s improvement model of one prime, four principles, and eight concepts is used as a foundation to be superimposed on the IPO loop for restructuring an integrated model for applying the selected TQM principle essence into the practices of brand design.

4.2.2 Supporting Tools

In addition to the three models, two supporting tools have been reviewed.

PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) Problem-Solving ApproachPDCA (plan-do-check-act or plan-do-check-adjust) is an iterative four-step management method which is used in business for the control and continuous improvement of processes and products (Sokovic, Pavletic, Pipan, 2010), which is a commonly seen and useful supplementary tool for implementing TQM.

A typical continuous process of PDCA has the following steps (Tague, 2005):

Plan: Identify and analyze the problem;Do: Develop and test a potential solution;Check: Measure how effective the test solution was and analyze whether it could be improved in any way. This phase can be iterated as many times as necessary;Then Act: Implement the improved solution thoroughly.


Figure 4.7: PDCA problem-solving approach.

(Source: Operational Excellence Consulting)

The PDCA cycle provides an effective approach to problem-solving and changing management. It ensures that ideas are appropriately tested before proceeding to full implementation. It can be used in all sorts of environments from new product development to marketing (Mind Tools, n.d.), and of course, brand design.39

The Expert SystemThe expert system describes a computer system in artificial intelligence that emulates the decision-making ability of a human expert (Jackson, 1988). Different from conventional procedural code, it is originally designed to solve complex problems by reasoning about knowledge, represented primarily as “if-then” rules.40

The expert system is considered a valuable tool for assisting the leadership throughout the decision-making process in TQM especially when the leader personally does not have a distinct advantage of showing great foresight, but instead relies on mostly the working team to provide information/knowledge based evidence and arguments to make decisions. Given that in the system, the two sub-systems of “the knowledge base represents facts and rules, the

“Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA)—Implementing New Ideas in a Controlled Way.”, Mind Tools, 39

Retrieved August 09, 2015, from https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_89.htm

"Conventional Programming.”, Retrieved August 10, 2015, from https://pcmag.com40

https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_89.htm

https://pcmag.com


inference engine applies the rules to the known facts to deduce new facts.”41

Figure 4.8: The expert system.

However, in the context of brand design in Chinese enterprises, the expert system is intended to be adapted into managing human expert-oriented practical circumstances instead of machine-based as it was designed originally, where experience and cultural variables input high proportion of values and therefore are given equivalent considerations. This study mainly references the concept of this approach and adapts it as a supplementary tool in context, rather than literally apply the method.

4.2.3 Essential Principles of Total Quality Management

Based on the above reviews of the three representative TQM models and two auxiliary tools, given the context of the actual needs of this particular research, commonly shared essential principles of the TQM management philosophy, applicable to brand design are summarized and selected for the purpose of this study as the following:

1) Leadership / Management Commitment2) Teamwork / Employee Empowerment

Nwigbo Stella and Agbo Okechuku Chuks, School of Science Education, Expert system: a 41

catalyst in educational development in Nigeria: "Knowledge-based systems collect the small fragments of human know-how into a knowledge-base which is used to reason through a problem, using the knowledge that is appropriated"

http://www.hrmars.com/admin/pics/261.pdf


3) Customer Focus / Customer Satisfaction4) Strategic Planning (“PDCA”)5) Process Management (“PDCA”)6) Fact-Based Decision-Making (“Expert System”)7) Continuous Improvement8) Key Performance Results / Business Excellence

There are two prime factors considered equally important as the cornerstones for integrating these essential principles of TQM in brand design practices, quality and leadership. Quality is the top priority goal for all aspects of the brand design process, and leadership is the key to achieving it.

4.2.4 Significance of Integrating Total Quality Management Principles in Brand Design Process

Hyde (1992) summarized TQM as the foundation for organizational activities. TQM brings forth comprehensive benefits and makes the organization more competitive. As for the corporate and product/service level of brand design activities, the specific significance, direct and indirect benefits of applying TQM principles can be identified as the following:

Corporate Level• Enhanced shareholder and stakeholder value

• Improved and innovative processes

• Improved employee performance

• Reduced costs and better cost management

• Adaptability to changing or emerging market conditions and to environmental and other government regulations

• Strengthened competitive position

• Improved customer focus and satisfactionProduct/Service Level• Enhanced market image

• Increased customer loyalty and retention

• Elimination of defects and waste

• Higher productivity


• Higher profitability

Additionally, aligned with the most concerned for enterprises’ survival, TQM positions quality as a critical component of strategic business advantages, by eliminating of non-confirmed and repetitive work, unnecessary steps, and wasteful expenditures, proves that quality is in fact the key to decreasing costs and achieving better productivity.

Sanchez (2006) also argued that as enterprises engage in different kinds of activities and processes, there are four core processes that all organizationals must carry out at a fundamental level: 1) Product creation; 2) Product realization; 3) Stakeholder development; and 4) Transformations. Among the four, the first two concepts are mostly well established in Chinese enterprises. Stakeholder development, according to Sanchez (2006), defined as the process of developing the skills and capabilities of the people and companies who provide resources to an enterprise’s value creation process. And transformative processes are periodically changing the way people in an organization think and act (Sanchez, 2006). These also indicate the significance of integrating TQM (a transformative process) principles in brand design processes as the processes require continuous improvement, and well-designed communications among all stakeholders.

4.3 Field Research

Once the theory began to take shape, practical research methods were employed for a better understanding of the organizational culture behind a brand and its brand design process; field research was the next step in my case study for examining and verifying the argument and framework proposed. The case study is documented in Chapter Six, and the techniques applied in the field research are reviewed in this section.

The approaches and techniques used in field research vary across disciplines; the purpose is to obtain a collection of information outside


of a laboratory, library, or workplace setting (Burgess, 2002). Similar to practices in the discipline of social science, conducting field research in brand design practices may involve interviewing or observing people in their natural environments to learn their behaviors, emotions, expectations, demands, and satisfactory statutes relevant to brand design objectives in general or in particular.

Watkinson (2013) explained in his book, The Ten Principles Behind Great Customer Experiences, “What people say is not always an accurate reflection of what they think.” When researchers simply ask customers what their goals are, the customer either cannot or will not give a useful answer. As reviewed earlier, the tool shown in Figure 3.19, asking questions may only reveal the explicit needs of the respondents. A better solution, in brand design, is to focus on building empathic connections with the study subjects, the customers, rather than just interviewing them, or trying to create something collaboratively. Watkinson (2013) emphasized that research should not be just something conducted at the start of each project. it requires building deeper empathy over time with the subjects to always be attuned to their tacit and latent needs. There is simply no substitutional research methods to spending time with the customers, experiencing what they experience. Therefore, field research is critical and can not be omitted in brand design.

Field research involves a range of well-defined techniques. Mainly employed and discussed in this research case study include participant observation, comparative research, open-ended interview, in-depth interview, and touchpoint mapping. Although the field research method is characterized as qualitative, it may include quantitative dimensions in some cases.

4.3.1 Participant Observation and Practice

Participant observation is a widely used methodology as a type of data collection method typically done in the qualitative research


paradigm (Creswell, 2008). It aims to gain a close and intimate familiarity with a given group of individuals (Spradley, 1980), such as a particular cluster of consumers defined by brands or other indexes and internal brand design team members of enterprises in the research’s context.The practices are normally conducted through an intensive involvement with people in their cultural environment, usually over an extended period (Creswell, 2008). Different from the objective observers who primarily research through interviewing approaches a culture from outside, the participant observers study the culture from within. For participant researchers, involvement and detachment happen spontaneously as the researchers can personally experience with the research subjects in the environment as internal personnel of the culture and at the same time conduct the work as a trained investigator. In the case study of this research, I was in a role of a full-participant researcher by doing real-world brand design with the study subjects. For one who studies organizational culture, it is best to live the organizational culture to gain firsthand experiences.

The advantage of conducting participant observation and real world practice in brand design is that instead of relying on the perceptions of the study subjects, but by participating in the study, the researchers can get direct access to the real state of affairs and obtain firsthand information, especially when studying the organizational culture in the intangible forms. Although information obtained from questionnaires, surveys, and interviews may be also considered as firsthand, they are less likely to reflect the actual behaviors of the research subjects. Additionally, participating in a culture for a particular period grants the chance of experiencing a sequence and pathway of events that could contribute to the meaning of a phenomenon as a whole, rather than for the researcher to try to piece together a meaning from diverse clues from the outside. This method allows an observation and participation as the research context unfolds itself in reality.


However, there is also the downside of the method because it could require a substantial time commitment on a case-by-case basis.

4.3.2 Comparative Research

Comparative research is a research methodology often applied in the social sciences that aims to make comparisons across different countries or cultures (Ragin, 2014). It is commonly adopted in practicing brand design, more specifically, for benchmarking analysis, which requires field studies in the subject markets and benchmark brands’ location to obtain valuable data and findings.

Benchmarking analysis is a tool assisting in strategic planning when designing a brand; this method requires preparatory comparative research on the design subjects’ direct and indirect benchmarks as well as competitors. Conventionally, competitor analysis as a marketing tool for assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and potential competitors are more commonly adopted. The competitor analysis provides strategic context to identify opportunities and threats in both offensive and defensive ways. It gathers all of the relevant sources into one framework in the support of efficient and effective strategy formulation, implementation, monitoring, and adjustment (Fleisher, Bensoussan, 2003). However, in the climate of discontinuous changes, to trigger or even follow new categories of customer demands and expectations, in many cases, is a different case. Particularly, one situation nowadays is that for many new brands favoring the market-driving brand design strategy, they position themselves as pioneers/innovators who may not have direct competitors to conduct systematical and insightful competitor analyses on. This situation in the boom of Internet-based Chinese startup companies nowadays is particularly common.

Under such circumstances, a useful tool as a substitute of conventional competitor analysis for conducting a more suitable and helpful comparative research for the purpose of strategic brand


mapping to identify opportunities and forming positioning is demonstrated as below:

Figure 4.9: Strategic brand mapping. (Greer, 2014)

By analyzing the collection of information gathered and assembled through the field research of the benchmark brands and markets, active key factors can be identified as the coordinate indicators. Then, by showing where the approximate location of each indicator is for both the integrated benchmark brands, and if any, the competitor brands that the to-be-positioned brand is trying to differentiate from, a plain view of 'where the opportunities are' becomes apparent for in-depth strategic planning. Study supports also that leaders as moderating role of organizational culture will be motivated to use performance data to understand, manage, and explain the effects of diversity (Andersen & Moynihan, 2016). A demonstrative strategic brand mapping using the tool will be included in Chapter Six.

4.3.3 Open-Ended Interview and In-depth Interview

Interviews are a standard part of qualitative research and an important part of field research. The primary task of interviewing is to find out the real meaning of what the interviewees say, to understand the experiences of the research subjects (Patton, 2005). Two different types of interviews are briefly reviewed here, as they were applied principally in identifying the research problems as well the case study of this research.


Open-Ended InterviewThis type of interview is considered open-ended because an interviewer asks questions to a respondent, who then answers the questions; even though the questions can be scripted beforehand, the interviewer usually does not know what the contents of the responses will be. These interviews are not for gathering basic factual data but mostly focus on the participant's descriptive thoughts, feelings, experiences, expectations, ideas, and preferences (Rapley, 2001) regarding the relevant subjects in the context of brand design research. Following the response, the interviewer could either get in-depth with an unexpected but intriguing answer with more improvised questions generated spontaneously or could choose to leave the answer as open-ended as it is. Among the three particular types of open-ended interview techniques, informal (least restrictive), semi-restrictive, and structured (most restrictive), the first two are more commonly 42

applied in brand design research.

In-depth InterviewFor the in-depth interview, the interviewer tends to investigate deeply to uncover new clues, or to open up new dimensions of a problem 43

based on the personal experience of the respondent, rather than leaving the answers open-ended without further exploration.

In-depth interviews are usually flexible and continuous; during the process the participants are encouraged to tell their stories in their words without the interviewers’ attempts to interfere due to any needs to guide the directions of the interviews. There is no rigid questionnaire designed to ensure the structures of in-depth interviews. The objective is to provide sufficient flexibility for the researchers to follow up interesting ideas and for people to develop their framework of beliefs and values that they selectively and

Thibodeaux, W., “What Is an Open-Ended Interview?”, Demand Media, Retrieved August 42

12, 2015, from https://pcmag.com

Qualitative Field Research, Oxford Journals, Retrieved December 25, 2015, from http://43

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subjectively use to build meaning and significance of events (Oxford, n.d.). Complex issues can be probed during the conversations. Therefore, this method is broadly welcomed by researchers across disciplines.

The disadvantages of the in-depth interview are often related to facts that data can be excessively collected and is difficult to analyze. Interviewer bias could be introduced during the discussions, and due to the time-consuming nature, the sample size of the subjects would be fairly small (Rubin, 2011).

4.4 Cluster Analysis

As Watkinson (2013) put it in his book, “It is almost impossible to translate something that is qualitative into something quantitative, especially when the experience is inseparable from the functionality that delivers it.” The methods adopted in this research are mainly qualitative.

In the era of discontinuous changes, determined by their characteristics, brand design practices show a tendency less favoring the quantitative methods customarily used in marketing in the past, mainly due to that the methods seldom provide sufficiently valuable data. One of the top-ranked Japanese multinational information technology companies admitted (Xu, personal communication, April 15, 2015), the yearly customer research data based on questionnaires and surveys, are semi-concocted to achieve the pre-planned results by hiring a group of people to be their sampling pool instead of following the proper procedures to conduct quantitative methods. The main reasons are two - one is that they need the numbers and quantified data as most of the employees are already trained to follow protocols and find it easier to meet quantifiable standards, rather than to deal with the descriptive data that requires additional decision-making and actions; second is that these statistical data will not evoke unfamiliar or unprepared impacts when it comes to brand design.


Traditionally, cluster analysis is considered as a quantitative method. By definition, cluster analysis is a “statistical classification technique in which cases, data, or objects (events, people, things, etc.) are sub-divided into groups (clusters) such that the items in a cluster are very similar (but not identical) to one another and very different from the items in other clusters. It is a discovery tool that reveals associations, patterns, relationships, and structures in masses of data”. Cluster 44

analysis is a typical quantitative method for finding the relationships between a set of data. Such relationships are subjectively analyzed with numerical algorithms and then represented in a different (sometimes visualized forms) to enable a better understanding of the data set in the context of a hypothesis or an assumption (Professor Tang, personal communication, lecture for SD5804 - design research methods, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, November 21,2011). Moreover, it is mainly used for classification, data reduction, or hypothesis testing or generation, which can give a more concise and coherent explanation of the observations under consideration.

Adopted to serve the purpose of this research and put in brand design practice, the conventional quantitative practice of cluster analysis, is combined with the qualitative techniques to meet the requirements of brand design practice; the principles and superiorities have been adapted rather than applied mechanically. The specific output will be demonstrated later in the case study to be discussed in Chapter Six.

4.4.1 The Strength of Cluster Analysis

The strength of cluster analysis, especially in the field of brand design, is mainly the ability made by helping to segment customers into a small number of groups for in-depth analysis once a large amount of, or equivalent qualitative data, is collected from existing and potential customers. Cluster analysis is also useful for classifying the subcategories when an individual subject, such as an emotion,

Business Dictionary, Cluster analysis, Retrieved from http://www.businessdictionary.com/44

definition/cluster-analysis.html

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/cluster-analysis.html


could have many variations of meanings and trigger different responses when put in different contexts.

The rest of the reasons for adopting cluster analysis, especially how the benefits apply to brand design, can be summarized as follows (Professor Tang, personal communication, November 21, 2011):

• Forming a structure of entities with a similarity measure

• Classifying entities according to that similarity measure

• Can be used for data reduction and focusing

• Can be used to test a hypothesis and to predict a feature

• Can be used to reveal the relationships among entities.

These relations may form an initial structure that can be further generalized or specialized, as such it can be used as a first step for concept formation or concept analysis.

4.4.2 The Challenge of Cluster Analysis

The challenge of cluster analysis comes in at the stage of choosing the relevant and appropriate variables. The process of determining variables is described as (Professor Tang, personal communication, November 21, 2011): “ The basis data set for cluster analysis is a set of N entities (objects) on which P measurements have been recorded. This initial choice of the particular set of measurements used to describe each entity constitutes a frame of reference within which to establish the clusters, and the choice presumably reflects the researcher’s judgment of relevance for the purpose of classification.” The initial selection of variables itself is a categorization of the data which does not necessarily have any mathematical or statistical guidelines, and it must be determined by the researchers, and tested if necessary until the reasonable choices are made.

Furthermore, as there is no theory for guiding the appropriate number of variables should be chosen, the problem is approached from an empirical basis, which intensifies the level of uncertainty of


the validity of individual choices. The process of determining variables is highly reliant on the researcher’s judgment based on the justification of the data collected through qualitative methods in identifying the variables in brand design practice. In some cases, a quantitative method, such as questionnaire, could be employed to verify statistics.

4.4.3 Adapting Cluster Analysis in Brand Design Process

There are ten main steps to conducting a typical cluster analysis (Professor Tang, personal communication, November 21, 2011):

1) Define primary attributes for each object2) Collect data for a set of objects with attribute values3) Form a data matrix4) Standardizing the data matrix5) Select a similarity measurement strategy6) Form a distance matrix7) Cluster the objects according to the distance matrix8) Draw the results with a dendrogram9) Analyze the results and examine the similarity between objects10) Make conclusions about the clustering.

In the context of brand design practices, the method of focus group interview (FGI) is in most cases paired with the method of cluster analysis. FGI can be applied before the clustered analysis or act like the first two steps of collecting useful data and assisting in choosing appropriate variables, which sets up a basis for the following steps in order to obtain concise, understandable, and valid conclusions. After the ten steps, the results generated from cluster analysis can then serve as prerequisites to guide more directional FGIs for hypothesis verifications and identifying relatively targeted design opportunities.

4.5 Focus Group

A focus group is a broadly used research method in both academic research and brand design; it provides generous and spontaneous


data through interactions between researchers and participants. Given that customer demands and the related emotions are in nature intangible and difficult to measure or justify in research in design from a social science perspective, as discussed in the previous section, a cluster analysis could be adopted in between a preliminary FGI and a in-depth FGI, on the basis of data collected from both the FGIs for obtaining relatively conclusive findings (Morgan, 1997).

A focus group as a qualitative research method is defined as "small group discussions, addressing specific topics, which usually involve 6-12 participants, either matched or varied on particular characteristics of interest to the researcher"(Fern, 1982; Morgan, Spanish, 1984). There are pre-screening requirements in selecting the participants for focus groups. The conventional way of selection is usually based on the criteria of screens that consist of age, income, and gender specifications. FGIs in brands are normally for seeking consumer's advice on products/services; however, in academic research, as well as in the case of brand design practices, FGI subjects could be extended to any topics that suit the researchers’ intention and are considered suitable for adopting the FGI method.

A typical FGI usually has 6-12 pre-screened participants, and in the case study of this research, two FGIs each with 6 participants were applied. One moderator in the room with the participants asked the essential questions pre-designed, drew out answers, and encouraged discussion on the interactions between the moderator and participants, as well as among participants themselves while the interactions were spontaneously progressing. Meanwhile, the observers/researchers were usually behind a one-way mirror observing in another room and recording data without any additional interferences. A typical focus group interview could run from one hour to the needs of specific research topics as well as the concentration limits of the participants. Screener questionnaire and moderator


outline designed for the case study, as well as sample outcomes of the FGIs conducted, will be recorded in the Appendices section.

4.5.1 The Strength of Focus Groups

In comparison to the traditional questionnaires and surveys, which usually elicit broad but relatively shallow or inflexible data, FGIs are used to extract more in-depth data that are relevant to and could reveal traces of motivations, attitudinal structures, emotions, and likewise. And in the context of this research, tacit and latent customer demands. When in comparison to the one-to-one interview, focus groups allow researchers to study the subjects—people in a more natural setting from the perspective of social sciences. Furthermore, the observers/researchers are in favor of capturing and studying the natural facial expressions that reveal the true emotional link to specific topics of the participants.

These benefits/strengths contribute particularly in the context of a brand design study. As focus group interviews allow the mixture of participants from different potential customer clusters to discuss the same subjects and share their feelings towards the topics through group discussions, and allow the observers/researchers to capture those emotions aroused by the same factors but projected differently due to the differences between clusters.

4.5.2 The Limitation of Focus Group

Other than the significant benefits/strengths a focus group interview can bring to the studies, it does have the downsides of using relatively small sample sizes, which leads to questioning the generalization of the results.

Another criticism is that during focus group discussions, one participant’s opinions can be influenced by the others in the group due to the psychological need of conformity. This issue may be more severe with participants from Asian backgrounds; hence, for the purpose of Chinese enterprises related brand design study, this issue


requires special attention and professional techniques of the moderators.

Additionally, two other major problems and criticisms were considered for this particular research:

• Focus groups are "one shot case studies unless they are repeated.” (Nachmais, 2008) “Focus groups can create severe issues of external validity, especially the reactive effects of the testing arrangement.” (Campbell, 1963) A fundamental difficulty with focus groups is that the results obtained are influenced by the researcher, raising questions of validity, due to the issue of observer dependency (Nachmais, 2008).

• Another issue is that when the focus groups are held in laboratory settings with obtrusive recording instruments, the participants may try to answer the moderator’s questions with what they feel the moderator may want to hear, or they may hold back on their responses. On the other hand, the focus group setting is lack of anonymity; there cannot be guarantee of confidentiality for the participants (Krueger, Casey, 2009).

These limitations are all to be taken into consideration when designing the control methods and arranging the interview settings. To address the issues, a relatively large amount (based on the empirical judgment of the researchers) of participants carefully screened may need to be randomized into groups, and researchers may need to repeat the interviews of the same content to maximize the validity of the data. Furthermore, the possibility of interference from the moderators and the observers must be controlled and reduced to the minimum. Participant observation can be creatively embedded into the focus group setting design.

Apple’s design chief Sir Jonathan Ive once replied in an interview when asked how Apple knows their consumers will want their products, “We do not do focus groups—that is the job of the designer. It is unfair to ask people who do not have a sense of the


opportunities of tomorrow from the context of today to design.” 45

However, this does not mean that Apple deliberately ignores customer demands. Although many may debate that Apple has been affecting our ways of living and leading inconceivable changes without adopting the method of FGI, this is, in fact, part of the natural phenomenon of the discontinuous change era. Apple may be able to influence the evolution of habits and trends without asking what do customers demand explicitly, but the cause of any of Apple’s designs is still fundamentally based on human needs, which are not to be created or altered. Besides, Apple as a dominant player who is taking control of leading the trend, their internal team is a well-functioning expert system itself. Apple’s fastidious attention to detail also suggests that they are in good condition of implementing TQM. Apple as a rare case may have the immunity of eliminating FGI from their methods during brand design, but it is not a common privilege or the reality for most enterprises.

4.5.3 Applying Focus Group in Brand Design Process

The screening criteria for the participants: the consideration of customer segmentationThe current standard practices of customer segmentation in branding still tends to be based on the physical attributes of similarities, such as income level, education level, social status, occupation, age, and gender, etc., which aligns with the current practices in focus group screening criteria for market research. Mood boards would be developed for the in-depth understanding of the selected target audience in those relatively comprehensive and preferable practices. But according to the above discussion, a demand tendency to include an additional dimension for customer segmentation for in-depth FGI has emerged. It also seems to be more reasonable to segment object and topic relevant emotional attr ibutes supplementing the physical and functional ones, targeting the

“Sir Jonathan Ive: The iMan Cometh”, Retrieved March 12, 2012 from http://45

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desired group that has the certain level of potential to be induced with an emotional resonance with the corresponding emotional attributes that could be encoded into a brand.

The basic rules of screening to comply, are as follows:

• The participants should not know each other;

• The participants should speak the same language unless it is for specific research intentions that require multilingual interactions;

• The participants have not been involved in other focus group study in a certain amount of time before the recruitment.

Moreover, screening criteria relevant to this particular research that should also be considered are as listed:

• Participants should be screened under consideration of the relevant emotional attributes;

• The diversity of the physical profile is to be screened in two settings, similar social status, income level, education level, etc., in comparison with mixed physical profiling;

• The diversity of psychological differences is needed even when the participants are under a similar physical profile.

The control and the role of the moderatorComparative research on identifying emotional reaction differences between people from Eastern and Western cultural backgrounds have shown strong evidence that people with different cultural backgrounds have significant differences in emotional reactions and recognizing emotions. Even though emotions are universal phenomena, they are affected culture-specifically, geographically or differentiated by genders and generations. The same emotions may “show considerable differences in the way they are experienced, the reactions they provoke, and the way they are perceived by the surrounding society.” According to the Asia Market Research 46

“Cultural Differences in Expression of Emotions.”, Retrieved August 25, 2015, from http://46

vapidvapidity.blogspot.com/2009/05/cultural-differences-in-expression-of.html

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Association, “there has been some controversy related to the use 47

of focus group interviews as a research methodology in Asia, citing a general belief that Asians are less likely to disclose personal feelings in groups. However, these detractions are usually based on running standard focus groups without consideration for the culture, emotion, and make-up of the target group in the first place.” These emotional and behavioral differences differ by psychological factors with Asian culture backgrounds and may become an issue in the research study when data are collected through qualitative methods, such as focus group interviews.

Given that the observers/researchers are usually in another room observing and recording through a one-way mirror, the interferences from the observers/researchers could be ruled out once the focus group interviews are in progress. However, the moderator in the room asking questions, encouraging discussions, and interacting with the participants is in the critical role to be professional, with dependable judgment and on-site responses based on the moderator’s empirical experiences. It is the moderator’s responsibility to be aware of the psychological need of conformity as well as the psychological changes of the participants along the discussion in the laboratory settings and knowing how to guide the participants to interact and respond as much as they are in natural conditions. To be able to do that, the moderator should fully understand the research objectives. Experienced moderators should be able to read instant emotions and dig beyond spontaneous answers. They should be able to draw out the respondents' attitudes, opinions, beliefs, feelings, perceptions, and behaviors that are relevant to the 48

intention of the research.

FGI serves as both the basis and verification of cluster analyses and hypotheses in brand design practices. As a method, it forms an

American Marketing Association, Dictionary-Brand, from http://www.marketingpower.com/47

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“How to Choose Focus Group Moderators?”, Retrieved August 25, 2015, from http://48

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essential part of the case study conducted during this research, which provides rich and spontaneous data through interactions between researchers and participants for conducting a valid cluster analysis and other in-depth analyses on this basis, with the assurance from carefully structured screening system and control design.

In general practices, when allowed, repeated focus groups of the same content with both unified or mixed settings are suggested to minimize the effect of bias, psychological interferences, etc., to maximize the validity of the resulted data, as demonstrated in the case study of this research.

Summary

Watkinson (2013) states, “I use the term qualitative to reflect the fact that an experience (towards a brand) is perceived by individual’s sensory and psychological faculties: it is not something that can be measured quantitatively like profit, cost, weight or task completion times.” When the essential question of research is not about what an object or a brand does, but how it does, implying that it is not the features and functions that are the research purposes, but how the brands’ overall performance in each touchpoint will make people feel eventually. For researching subjects that are in nature qualitative and qualities that may be intangible, this study mainly focused on the methodologies of how to measure quality and how to manage quality during a brand design process. The methods reviewed and applied in the real-world case study documented in Chapter Six including methods for quality measurements, the management philosophy of TQM, qualitative methods of FGI, cluster analysis, in-depth field research with benchmark analysis, participant observation, as well as interviews with multiple research subjects.

Among the methodologies, the management philosophy of TQM is essential to this study. TQM, in different representative models, highlights the underlying elements of quality and leadership, which


are the two underlying elements of brand design this dissertation argues. Based on the key principles shared by TQM and brand design, frameworks of quality and supplementary tools are developed and discussed in Chapter Five.

One more point to make here is that the term “customer” used when reviewing the methodologies and applying them to the real-world case study is not limited to the narrow-definition. Although the consumer is the only determining factor in the success of a brand design performance in the market, eventually and correspondingly, the methodologies employed in brand design practices are mainly consumer-oriented, the subjects of which the methods are relevant to, could be differed depending on different situations to tackle. The term includes but is not restricted to consumer, non-consumer, client, supplier, leadership, employee (internal customer) as well as all other stakeholders of an organization.

THE FRAMEWORK OF QUALITY | �142

Chapter Five | The Frameworks of Quality

for Brand Design Process in Context of

Chinese Enterprises

Contents 5.1 Principles of the Underlying Structure ……………………………………… 5.1.1 The Essential Principles ………………………………………………… 5.1.2 The Key Elements ………………………………………………………. 5.1.3 The Proposed Principle Framework of Quality ………………………..

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5.2 The Basic Brand Design Process …………………………………………… 5.2.1 The Proposed Implementation Framework of Quality for the Basic Brand Design Process ………………………………………………….. 5.2.2 The Four Stages ………………………………………………………… 5.2.3 The Eight Elements ……………………………………………………,..

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5.3 The Creative Brand Design Process ……………………………………….. 5.3.1 The Proposed Implementation Framework of Quality for the Creative Brand Design Process ………………………………………………….. 5.3.2 The Four Stages …………………………………………………………

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5.4 A Preliminary Toolkit for Supplementing the Frameworks of Quality …… 5.4.1 Tool 1: PDCA Problem-Solving Cycle ………………………………… 5.4.2 Tool 2: Decision Map for Brand Choices …………………………….. 5.4.3 Tool 3: Strategic Brand Mapping …………………………………….. 5.4.4 Tool 4: 7S for Brand Architecture …………………………………….. 5.4.5 Tool 5: Identify Needs to Demands ………………………………….. 5.4.6 Tool 6: Touchpoint Mapping ………………………………………….. 5.4.7 Tool 7: Touchpoint Design …………………………………………….. 5.4.8 Tool 8: Modified Expert System ……………………………………….

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5.5 Applying the Frameworks of Quality in Context of Chinese Enterprises .. 5.5.1 Implementation Prerequisites ………………………………………….. 5.5.2 Steps in Managing the Transition ………………………………………. 5.5.3 Internal Training and Executive Coaching ……………………………..

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Summary 183


“Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction, an skillful

execution. It represents the wise choice of many alternatives.” - William A Foster

5.1 Principles of the Underlying Structure

(Brand) Design is to be treated as core competency (Mozota, 2009) of an enterprise: design should be treated as internal skills, process , and knowledge; a design management system should be implemented. Based on the pilot study findings, relevant literature, and methodology review, this chapter introduces the underlying structure of brand design process in the context of Chinese enterprises, as well as recaps the essential principles and fundamental elements shared by the quality management philosophy of TQM and brand design process in general. Given that the elements of awareness of quality and the role of leadership are the two focuses proposed in this dissertation, firstly I introduce in this chapter the principle framework of quality developed by integrating the principles of TQM into the brand design process. Secondly, I extended the principle framework into two modes to meet the needs of the process of brand design: one is implementation framework of quality for the basic brand design process; another is implementation framework of quality for the creative brand design process. Thirdly, I proposed a selective preliminary toolkit for supplementing the frameworks of quality from the best practices of both brand design and TQM. Last, but not least, situated in the context of Chinese enterprises, I examined the implementation prerequisites and several key points for applying the proposed frameworks of quality, in preparation for conducting the real-world case study that is documented in Chapter Six.


Before getting into the details of the approach, to clearly recap the process of this empirical study, Figure 5.1 is drawn to showcase the procedures and methods designed and adopted for concluding the proposed frameworks of quality for the brand design process in the context of Chinese enterprises.

Figure 5.1: Process to the thesis approach.


5.1.1 The Essential Principles

The proposed hypothetical approach is an assumption that by integrating the principles of the TQM philosophy, it can improve significantly the overall quality of decision-making in selecting the appropriate brand design strategy and approaches, and meet the total quality objective of the corresponding brand design process. The frameworks of quality are developed for ameliorating the status quo of Chinese enterprises’ brand design practices, to improve the critical dilemmas as stated in Chapter One. They are expected to aid the enterprises to meet their brand design objectives and contribute in assisting the brands to obtain the desired results.

There are many benefits come from implementing principles in general to originally unguided activities (Watkinson, 2013), in brand design, principles are particularly beneficial for help structuring thinking and guiding decision-making. The specific features include the following:

• Principles are easy to understand;

• Principles are quick and efficient;

• Principles are scalable;

• Principles are flexible;

• Principles can be de-centralized;

• Principles foster innovation;

• Principles complement existing ways of working;

• Principles last longer than ideas;

• Principles create deeper understanding;

• Principles establish a culture and set a climate for long-term and continuous improvement.

Recapping the essential principles of the TQM philosophy extracted from previous studies that are equally applicable and important to brand design, they are the following eight that I designed into the proposed frameworks of quality for the brand design process in context of Chinese enterprises:


1) Leadership / Management Commitment2) Teamwork / Employee Empowerment3) Customer Focus / Customer Satisfaction4) Strategic Planning5) Process Management6) Fact-Based Decision-Making7) Continuous Improvement8) Key Performance Results / Business Excellence

5.1.2 The Key Elements

On top of the underlying principles identified, there are three prime key elements emphasized in the proposed frameworks of quality: quality itself, leadership, and customer. As argued in earlier chapters, awareness of quality and the role of leadership are the two most vital elements for the performance level of a brand design from an organizational culture perspective. Furthermore, customer satisfaction, although not part of the organizational culture itself, but the degree of attention an enterprise pays for it and how it is valued throughout the brand design process, in fact, reflects the organizational culture and determines the success or failure of the brand, as the customer is the only genuine and ultimate measurement.

These three elements are also the first things an enterprise should be asked based on a general impression before applying the full process of the proposed approach. Sample questions may include, “What’s the overall awareness of quality level in this enterprise’s organizational culture?” “On what level is the current leadership, CEO and/or CBO qualified in terms of being capable to lead through a brand design process that requires him/her to oversee the efforts, fully committing, participating, making fast and accurate decisions at each checkpoint throughout the process?” “Is this enterprise customer-oriented essentially? Are their customers satisfied about their brand experiences in general?”


5.1.3 The Proposed Principle Framework of Quality

Figure 5.2: The proposed principle framework of quality.

The TQM philosophy aims at improving the total quality of the managed objects and identifies the best ways to measure quality, for matching or exceeding customer expectations in comprehensive brand experiences, to prevent damages made to the brand value due to customer dissatisfaction. This principle framework proposed as an underlying structure (Figure 5.2) indicates the relationships between the three prime critical factors and their roles in the continuous improvement of a brand design process. Total quality is at the center as the highest priority goal for all aspects of a holistic brand design process. Leadership, as the key role to drive the process, delivers the total quality through designed experiences to the customer, to achieve a level of expected customer satisfaction. Customers provide feedbacks on the overall quality of the brand experiences, which will become the basis for the leadership to audit and plan to improve the total quality through refined and upgraded experiences for the process to be continued as a virtuous cycle. Based on the principle framework, the approach is then extended into two detailed implementation frameworks for both the basic and creative brand design processes.

5.2 The Basic Brand Design Process

As Braun (2004) interprets Socrates’ philosophy, he asserted that in brand design, everything associated with a brand should be


questioned rigorously; nothing should be taken for granted. There is no room for compromises in a brand design process or to decide anything relying on feelings. Braun's view points out why enterprises need a comprehensive framework to guide the complex brand design process, instead of mistakenly initiating the commonly seen practices of generating creative ideas randomly as brand design.

5.2.1 The Proposed Implementation Framework of Quality for the Basic Brand Design Process

The hypothetical implementation framework of quality as in Figure 5.3 is an extension to the proposed principle framework, designed based on the generic procedure of brand design process, integrating the eight extracted principles shared by brand design and the TQM philosophy, to provide Chinese enterprises a method for tracing clear thinking and logical design sequence.

Figure 5.3: The proposed implementation framework of quality for the basic brand

design process.

In this framework, a high-level comprehensive process of brand design as a continuous improvement is clearly showcased. At the top range are the three most important elements that lead, evaluate and judge the total quality of a brand design practice. The overall process


is designed based on the IPO(F) pattern, which contains four main phases of input-process-output-(audit and) feedback, to form the process cycle. The eight core principles are embedded into their corresponding stages. Before the eight principles with their matching elements will be expounded upon in the following sections, I will first discuss further the element—goal.

Alan Cooper (2007) explains (as cited in Watkinson, 2013) in his seminal text on user-centered design, that goals are important because they explain why a customer is performing the task in the first place: “Goals perform certain tasks give designers the great power to improve or even eliminate those tasks, yet still accomplish the same objectives.” As the first element in the input phase of this proposed theoretical implementation framework of quality, goals input the vision, mission, and objectives of each and every brand that is to be designed. These determinations, as reviewed earlier, in advanced branding strategies, should no longer be expectation market oriented, or namely short-term profit driven, but real market and customer oriented. The goals of an enterprise and its brand(s) should align with the goals of their customers; there should be only one set of unified common goals from the internal to the external, rather than two sets of expectations. Only in this way can the fundamental input of the theoretical implementation framework of quality in the brand design process be seen as valid, and the rest of the process would continue on a rational basis, to create and deliver an exceptional customer experience. It gives the enterprises a basic hierarchy to work within: goals underpin activities, which are in turn composed of tasks.

5.2.2 The Four Stages

Stages to StepsSelecting from the shared essential principles and key components that have direct relevance to brand design, this study aims at proposing a relatively generic approach adoptable by a majority of Chinese enterprises for improving their brand design processes’ total


quality. To form the prototype of this generic model, one practical method is employed: stages to steps.

Watkinson (2013), proposed the method—"stages to steps" for the quality management of designing through valuable touchpoints of the customer journey for creating a desired customer experience. He explained that during the creative design process, the temptation is always to charge in and start creating stuff or bouncing exciting ideas around. Similarly, adopt from the method, for quality improvement in brand design process, designers should know and keep in mind exactly what needs to be designed without being driven away by the temptation of boundary less innovation. In doing so, it is easiest to break the brand design process down into two levels of stages and steps, for the four reasons below:

1) Distinguishing between broad stages composed of small steps allows us to look at the brand design process at different levels of details. Having a bigger picture to refer to when getting into the small interactions during the process can prevent one gets lost in the minutiae;2) Breaking the brand design process down into a sequence of small and controllable steps allows us to understand all the dependencies between different stages along the process, to prevent the situation of having to re-design whole chunks because a critical dependency was missed;3) Looking at the brand design practice as a series of small steps allows us to get the sequence of events in the correct order so that the brand design process can be conducted smoothly from end to end;4) It helps to identify and prioritize the problems within the brand design process so that efforts can be concentrated in a way contributes to total quality and continuous improvement. It can also help to keep projects to a manageable size.

In addition, keeping projects to a manageable size is evidently associated with the success of many brands. Watkinson (2013)


believed that the desired scenario is to have the lowest number of the best possible people, working to a clear and achievable objective, resulting in more successful with a smaller scope, shorter timelines, lower budgets, and fewer people.

This "stages to steps" method was originally developed focusing on creating the customer experience, but the concepts and method can be employed in the integrated quality management process of the overall brand design practices. Replacing the word/subject of “experience” with “brand design process,” the above reasonings remain as valid.

To conclude, the beneficial points that were referenced from the "stages to steps" method when designing the four phases of the implementation framework of quality are as follows:

1) It is always useful to have a bigger picture to refer to; otherwise, it would be easy to get lost in the minutiae in conducting tasks;2) Stages are helpful for the users to identify and understand the dependencies in between stages;3) Stages divided into steps allow users to get the sequence of events in the correct order from end to end;4) Stages and steps are helpful for the users to identify and prioritize the problems to concentrate efforts to make a real improvement and keep the overall project to a manageable size.

The Four Stages and Corresponding StepsThe four stages in the IPO(F) pattern of the proposed framework makes sure the brand design process is sustainable as a continuous improvement and helps the steering committee to understand the attributes and purposes of the critical tasks so that they can manage correspondingly (Figure 5.4).


Figure 5.4: The four stages of the proposed implementation framework of quality

for the basic brand design process.

For different industries or brands, the actual contents of each phase is different, but in a generic brand design process, they are divided as such, and each contains the following steps:

InputIn the input stage, there are generally two steps: goal and strategy. Every brand design practice starts with the preset goals to be achieved, and strategies developed accordingly to achieve. As discussed earlier, the goals are shared by both the enterprise/the brand and the potential customer, which consists of vision, mission, and explicit objectives. Strategies are also to be analyzed, selected, and planned into execution tactics at this stage. Both of the goals and strategies could be adjusted and optimized in the overall continuous improvement process to comply and maintain expected customer satisfaction level as the entire process being tested in reality. ProcessThe process phase contains mainly four steps: teamwork, customer demands, creative process, and fact-based decision-making in generic brand design process. Although every employee and stakeholder should be involved in the


overall corporate level brand design, teamwork discussed in this framework is the core team more directly involved in the planning and execution of the brand design process, which the structure of a brand design team (if not as incumbent) is adjusted or reformed according to the strategies selected; as discussed previously, customer demands sit at the priority of brand design on both corporate and product levels, it is a essential step in the process phase that all in-depth works should be focused on; the step of creative process includes specific execution plans based on the design criteria extracted from customer demands that are aligned with the goals and strategies, transforms the abstract aspects of a brand into perceivable communications; and a critical key step in every specific process phase is fact-based decision-making, which at each critical checkpoint shall be conducted by the leadership to ensure and enhance the total quality of the process, the fact-based decisions should not deviate from or override the overall brand goals.OutputOutput phase is the key performance results as a whole. By this stage, all the internal preparations are executed and implemented to meet the external market for real-world tests and experienced by the customer.Audit and FeedbackBased on the satisfactory level of the customer, after the output phase comes the audit and feedback stage. Positive or negative, comments from the customer (widen definition, see Chapter 4, Summary) are to be collected externally and internally for auditing. Then, based on the assessment to reexamine the goals and strategies for adjustments, the next round of the process cycle to achieve an improved result is implemented.


5.2.3 The Eight Elements

The eight summarized key principles shared by brand design and the TQM philosophy are modified into eight elements and integrated into the steps of the framework of quality for the basic brand design process indicated as in Figure 5.5. These elements, some are one-offs, which means once determined, they should be followed throughout the whole brand design process without major alterations; some are recurring, which are re-evaluated and optimized whenever necessary; and some are subsidiary continuous improvement processes within the holistic one, always in circulation operations themselves.

The eight elements inline with the matching principles as well their traits are listed as below:

1) Leadership (Management Commitment): One-off• Top management

• Steering committee.2) Customer Satisfaction (Customer Demands/Customer Focus): Continuous improvement process• Customer and market knowledge

• Customer relationships.3) Strategy (Strategic Planning): Recurring• Strategy development

• Strategy deployment.4) Teamwork (Employee Empowerment): One-off• Organizational work systems

• Dedicated structures

• Employee learning and motivation

• Empowerment and delegation.5) Creative Process (Process Management): Continuous improvement process• Value creation processes

• Support processes and operational planning.6) Fact-Based Decision-Making: Recurring


• The expert system

• Executive coaching.7) Continuous Improvement: Continuous improvement process• Measurement, analysis and review of performance results

• Information and knowledge management.8) Key Performance Results (Business Excellence): Recurring• Brand experience outcomes

• Customer-focused outcomes

• Product and service outcomes

• Financial and market outcomes

• Organizational effectiveness outcomes

• Leadership and CSR (corporate social responsibility) outcomes.

Figure 5.5: The eight elements of the proposed implementation framework of

quality for the basic brand design process.

One concept to further discuss here is customer expectation, which is at the opposite end to the customer satisfaction in the brand meaning loop. As reviewed and discussed earlier, these two ends act on each other. Therefore, the relationship between the two is never


stable, and the levels of the two could be balanced but not equivalent. The same goes for customer satisfaction; customer expectation matters throughout the whole process in each single step. Expectations are a huge aspect of the customer experience. Therefore, consistency of information across all aspects and channels is important (Watkinson, 2013). When aiming to achieve an excellent customer experience, careful considerations into the finest details of all steps must be made. Moreover, when an audit of customer satisfaction comes back as poor, it often triggers an alarm to check for bigger problems back to the beginning, such as the goals or strategies.

5.3 The Creative Brand Design Process

Compared to the other steps in the “implementation framework of quality for the basic brand design process” that involve relatively rigorous approaches and professional knowledge to follow, the creative process (step five) is highly empirical experience-based and requires the experts associated with proper training and talents for conducting innovative works. Here, I further expand the proposed framework of quality to focus more in-depth on this particular step.

5.3.1 The Proposed Implementation Framework of Quality for the Creative Brand Design Process

If we define art in the simplest way as expressing philosophies, design can be described as simply as solving problems. By generic definition, a design is the creation of a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system. Although a brand design 49

process, including the embedded creative process step, is in general considered a logical process rather than an artistically creative one, the involved designers and other experts are in most cases required to have certain endowments and abilities to interpret the abstract and intangible goals, strategies, criteria, demands, and expectations into

Dictionary meanings in the Cambridge Dictionary of American English, at Dictionary.com 49

(esp. meanings 1–5 and 7–8) and at AskOxford (esp. verbs)


tangible objects plus intangible but intuitive brand experiences. The process should be coherent and integrate the full essence of the elements mentioned above through ways of communications, to stimulate the sensations of the customer and meet both the functional and emotional demands of them, and also to achieve a certain level of expected customer satisfaction.

Creative brand design requires the brand designers to possess two abilities that are substantially in conflict: being coherent and rigorous regarding processing logic; and being incoherent and innovative when generating creative ideas. In commonly seen Chinese brand design practices, due to a lack of qualified creative brand designers who have received comprehensive professional trainings, the creative process outcomes are prone to show two extremes of performance: one being excessively careful with a low level of creativity; some designers may even consider plagiarizing is safer to avoid mistakes; another being randomly designed without careful thinking and guidance. Perhaps the second extreme could still generate interesting experiences, but the outcomes would be in high-risk of lacking real connections to the brands themselves.

Figure 5.6: The proposed implementation framework of quality for the creative

brand design process.


Based on these concerns, to ease the creative situations of most Chinese enterprises, an implementation framework of quality followed the same structure and fundamental principles specially designed for the creative process within the brand design process is proposed (Figure 5.6).

5.3.2 The Four Stages

Following the same underlying structure, this proposed “implementation framework of quality for a creative brand design process” is also designed with the core elements of leadership, total quality, and customer satisfaction as the most important and essential principles. This framework also consists of the four phases of IPO(F) that form a continuous improvement cycle.

Input PhaseThe input phase of the proposed creative process framework consists of three central tasks. The first is research.

In many creative brand design practices in Chinese enterprises, the research phase is considered time-consuming, troublesome, and costly; therefore, often omitted altogether, the brand design process jumps directly to a step of unguided brainstorming ideas, which the step later would become a waste of time and budget.

A proper creative process ought to start with research that covers three areas:

1) Customer research, understanding customer demands and expectations both functionally and emotionally; 2) Market research, study benchmarks and competitors;3) Design research, becoming familiar with the 'sensory communication trends' in the assigned brand category as well as overall.

The research could be qualitative, quantitative, or mixed, depending on the case. Once the results are obtained and thoroughly analyzed, they will be interpreted as design criteria,


which means to translate abstract concepts or data into direct instructions that the creative designers can understand and follow when designing. Based on the design criteria, a round of brainstorming to generate an initial “ideas pool” with less specific restrictions could be conducted as part of the input for the process stage.

Process PhaseThe process phase requires in-depth and accurate design interpretation and realization based on the initial ideas pool. Design verification by customers and suppliers should be implemented into the design step, using prototypes to gain preliminary feedback for guiding the revisions. Moreover, financial audit should regularly be conducted to check whether the creative ideas are realistic to realize within the allowed budget. The process phase of the overall creative design process is a self-circulation until the design prototypes are considered ready to be output to real-world executions.

Output PhaseThe output phase of the proposed framework for the creative design process is design execution. When the design concepts as prototypes are finalized through the process stage, they are brought to realization as holistic brand experiences to have real-world interactions with examinations by the customer.

One important thing to note here is that for creative brand design exercises in China, design execution of tangible objects are normally relatively well delivered as the quality is easier to measure and control. In comparison, the intangible services where the brand staff as important touchpoints who are considered as crucial elements of the comprehensive brand experience for the customer, may not deliver the experiences as designed. The quality of the intangible design executions in overall creative brand design in China will be given more attention and strengthened.


Audit Phase and OptimizationThe audit phase, specifically for the proposed implementation framework for creative design processes, is to collect feedback from customers based on their experiences with the design executions of the brand. The creative designers, as well as the entire brand design team, are encouraged to participate personally as customers through all stages and steps of the designed brand experience. The integrated feedbacks and audit results are to be analyzed and input back to the first phase of this continuous improvement cycle for next round of adjustments and optimizations.

5.4 A Preliminary Toolkit for Supplementing the Frameworks of Quality

Figure 5.7: User’s guide of the preliminary toolkit.

The proposed theoretical implementation frameworks of quality are overall generic, and the practicability might be found insufficient especially for Chinese enterprises lacking professional knowledge and experience in brand design practice. Although external consultations are highly recommended for Chinese companies when attempting to apply a framework as such, a few supporting tools are


preliminarily selected, modified, and matched with critical steps in the proposed frameworks to further assist the implementation of the method in this study (Figure 5.7). More specifically, Tool 1-5 and Tool 8 are supplementing for the “implementation framework of quality for the basic brand design process”, Tool 6 and 7 are specified for the “creative brand design process”.

5.4.1 Tool 1: PDCA Problem-Solving Cycle

As previously reviewed, the PDCA cycle is a simple but effective approach to problem-solving, ensuring that ideas are appropriately tested before committing to full implementation (Mind Tools, n.d.). Other than the PDCA sequential model reviewed in Chapter Four, one more detailed framework is also selected to be combined to provide a more comprehensive tool for the users (Figure 5.8).

To recap the PDCA steps:Plan: Establish the objectives and processes with the expected output (goals);Do: Implement the plan and execute the process, collect data during, for the next steps;Check: Measure and analyze the results, compare against the goals, ascertain for differences, and deviations in plan and do, for improvements.;Act: Adjust baseline and implement the improved solution.

The PDCA problem-solving cycle is a comprehensive management tool for continuous total quality improvement in the theoretical frameworks, which can be regularly used as a checklist for stages and steps, to ensure each of them meets the specific requirements to contribute to the overall level of the total quality of brand design.


Figure 5.8: PDCA problem-solving cycle.


5.4.2 Tool 2: Decision Map for Brand Choices

There are two supplementary tools for the element of strategy in the input phase of the proposed framework. The first one is the decision map for brand choices by Mootee (2013) (Figure 5.9).

As stated in research problems, to keep the continuously internally circulating process moving forward as a whole, a comprehensive brand design process would usually encounter many evaluations and decision-making for every key point from developing strategies to implementing tactics as well adjustments and refinements of various previously made decisions. One of the most important corporate level brand design decision-making questions, which also serves as the cornerstone of designing and building a brand when an enterprise already has multiple brands, is the question of “how to strategically position a brand in terms of brand portfolio management?” This question links to “what a brand’s purpose is” and affects how the enterprise will organize the staff and resources allocated towards a brand. In reality, branding decisions are often made based on a piecemeal assessment of a firm’s strengths and future growth options which reflects a narrow brand focus that does not square with the notion of an overarching strategic focus (Park et al., 2016).

In many practices, when a Chinese enterprise decides to launch a new brand, they tend to forget to ask one crucial question to clarify the goals before selecting the corresponding strategies but carry on the rest of the implementation process. The question is, “how to position the brand internally?”—whether it is designed into a leadership brand or considered a sub-brand, and what the expected relation of it is to the other brands within the enterprise’s brand portfolio, if applicable. The answers to this fundamental question and many other related questions define the goal clearly and should become the grounds for selecting brand design strategies. However, many Chinese enterprises do not know how to answer even if the questions were asked. Mootee (2013) showcased a decision-making tree that is commonly used in Western brand design practices. This


tool efficiently addresses the issues as mentioned above and is able to answer the question for positioning a brand in an enterprise’ brand portfolio as the first step of a corporate level brand design. This proven tool is included in the preliminary toolkit for these reasons and demonstrated in the case study of this research.

Figure 5.9: Decision map for brand choices.


5.4.3 Tool 3: Strategic Brand Mapping

The second tool for the element of strategy was reviewed in Chapter Four, the strategic brand mapping system (Figure 5.10).

Figure 5.10: Strategic brand mapping.

Employing this tool into strategic planning allows the users to conduct a comparative analysis to identify opportunities and establish positioning for the to-be-designed brands. Moreover, the corresponding execution plans and tactics could be developed accordingly based on the mapping. As a supporting tool for the element of strategy, the mapping itself should be revised and optimized after the audit and feedback stage, when necessary.

5.4.4 Tool 4: 7S for Brand Architecture

Stated earlier in Chapter One, one of the dilemmas in Chinese enterprises’ brand design practices is teamwork, especially cross-team teamwork, which is also an essential element in achieving successful quality management.


Figure 5.11: 7S for brand architecture and teamwork.

Suggested by Phdhi (2007), good teamwork could provide more permanent improvements in processes and operations; when people are working in well-functioning teams, people feel more comfortable to bring up problems that may occur and seek help from co-workers to proactively find a solution and put it into place. In an article posted by California State University of Bakersfield, three main features were summarized for the importance of teams in quality management:50

“The Importance of Teams in TQM.”, California State University of Bakersfield, Retrieved 50

August 23, 2015, from http://www.csub.edu/%7Emattaran/mgmt460/intro/notes/notechap-7/tsld003.htm

http://www.csub.edu/%7Emattaran/mgmt460/intro/notes/notechap-7/tsld003.htm


• Teamwork enables various parts of the organization to work together in meeting customer demands that can seldom be fulfilled by employees limited to one specialty;

• The TQM philosophy recognizes the interdependence of various parts of the organization and uses teams as a way to coordinate work;

• Teams provide the capacity for rapid response to changes in customer demands.

The fourth tool as reviewed in Chapter Four combined a restructuring proposal for the organizational structure and a checklist of the 7S’ parameter system. This tool is selected for supplementing the element of teamwork for the basic brand design process, where the forming or reforming of the dedicated brand design team, the same as the overall organizational brand architecture, should follow the principles provided in this tool (Figure 5.11).

5.4.5 Tool 5: Identify Needs to Demands

The charts (Figure 5.12) for identifying needs to demands are a set of practical tools dedicated to the element of customer demands. The first chart is used to find out customer needs that can be labeled as explicit, tacit, or latent. Then, the needs are to be reorganized into Maslow’s model for categorizing the identified and assumed demands. This tool can be employed in any occasion, or any techniques, in all four stages of the proposed framework when encountering the customers from time to time, to grasp the changes in their demands.


Figure 5.12: Identify “needs” to “demands”.

5.4.6 Tool 6: Touchpoint Mapping

Tool 6 and Tool 7 are prepared for supplementing the creative brand design process.

When creating brand experiences for fulfilling customer demands both functionally and emotionally, designers firstly need to identify the touchpoints where the customer would experience and interact with the brand. The method of stages and steps by Watkinson (2013) reviewed earlier defined that stages are the sequence of greater


scenes a customer would typically encounter during a brand experience. For identifying stages, given scenarios of possible and comprehensive customer journeys with the brand would be helpful, and meanwhile, critical success factors (CSF) and specific success criteria can be defined for each of the stages. Secondly, the brand design team need to identify the steps within the stages, map out the key touchpoints under each stage and give priority, so that the creative designers know where and what to emphasize when they work on the experiential designs.

In the tool selected and revised (Figure 5.13) for identifying touchpoints, the stages are demonstrated as a high-level progress of how a customer would experience a brand: touchpoints the potential customers encounter during the pre-purchasing stage intrigue them to learn about the brand; good impression of the brand lead to consumption; satisfaction level during the use stage determines the customers’ choices for the post-purchasing phase - whether they will re-purchase, promote the brand to others, or end the journey if they were disappointed with the brand. However, depending on case-specific requirements, the stages could be defined as needed. For example, stages of one single dining-out experience could be identified as making the reservation, getting to the restaurant, waiting by the bar, ordering dishes, being served, dining, paying bills, leaving the restaurant.

The bottom half of the tool is an emotion checklist, which is summarized by Watkinson (2013), and provides as a demonstrative part of the overall tool for tracing emotions to principles at work when designing and revising prototypes for specific touchpoints. The checklist should be continuously improved to a comprehensive set of emotion success criteria and adjusted accordingly to different situations for each particular brand design practice.


Figure 5.13: Identify touchpoint.

Emotion Checklist (Watkinson, 2013)

NEGATIVE EMOTIONS

PRINCIPLES AT WORK POSITIVE EMOTIONS

PRINCIPLES AT WORK

Anger Occurs when the pursuit of an objective is obstructed. May also be caused by inaccurate expectations, and a loss of control.

Acceptance Occurs when expectations are accurately set.

Annoyance Less intense than anger, occurs when the pursuit of an objective is hampered, or when a task requires excessive effort.

Calmness Felt in the absence of stress.

Anxiety Strongly related to stress. Delight Strongly related to pleasure and exceeding expectations.

Apprehension This uncertainty relates back to stress factors, especially competence, and an over-abundance of choice.

Excitement A high arousal state, most often in anticipation relates strongly to expectation.


5.4.7 Tool 7: Touchpoint Design

One more tool to include in the proposed implementation framework for creative brand design process is a chart for guiding a specific touchpoint design process (Figure 5.14).

Once both the functional and emotional critical success factors are defined with the previous tool for identifying touchpoints of each key stages and steps, Tool 7 is then to be employed for conducting concept designs for execution. Integrated data of explicit, tacit, and

Boredom Occurs when there is a lack of progress or stimulation. Can be traced back to time on task, which is a function of effort.

Interest We are interested in those things that help us achieve our objectives and are sources of pleasure.

Disappointment The feeling of our expectations not being met.

Pride Relates strongly to both social pleasure (status) and feeling in control.

Distraction Distraction is a component of stress.

Relaxation Felt in the absence of stress.

Doubt This relates to uncertain expectations and also stress factors, especially feedback.

Satisfaction Occurs as a result of achieving our objectives.

Embarrassment A violation of social pleasure. Also relates to competence.

Surprise (positive)

Positive surprise occurs when expectations are exceeded.

Frustration Typically occurs when progress towards an objective is hampered, often as a result of errors.

Trust A function of consistently meeting expectations.

Neglect A violation of social pleasure.

Regret A strong failure to meet expectations.

Surprise (negative)

Occurs when expectations are not met.

NEGATIVE EMOTIONS

PRINCIPLES AT WORK POSITIVE EMOTIONS

PRINCIPLES AT WORK


latent needs identified by stages and steps, filtered through the design criteria including the CSFs, are to be transformed into concepts and categorized as, e.g., products/services, order fulfillment, and customer service.

Figure 5.14: Touchpoint design process.

5.4.8 Tool 8: Modified Expert System

Last, but not least,, Tool 8, supplementing for the proposed implementation frameworks of quality for both the basic and creative brand design processes, is designed for the element of fact-based decision-making. This tool is modified based on the computerized expert system into two variations: one is a generic model for the overall use of the basic brand design process; the other is a model for the creative brand design process, and the modified expert system is human-based instead (Figure 5.15).


As pointed out earlier in the brand design dilemmas, Chinese people prefer to be sure that all angles of an issue are reviewed and thought through before coming to a conclusion, which frequently involves going back to rethinking and discussing the process from the beginning. The unguided back and forth processes result in confusing the leaders, reducing the chances for the right decisions to be made within the necessary time limits (Gallo, 2011). To fulfill the needs of leaders to be assured that the others in the firm buy into the decisions and will effectively carry them out, also considering Chinese enterprises in general are lacking expertise in brand design, the modified human-based expert system models are proposed as the solution for resolving the issues mentioned above.

Figure 5.15: The modified human-based expert system.


The modified generic model of the human-based expert system is put in the comparison below with the original computer-based model for a clearer demonstration (Figure 5.16).

Figure 5.16: Comparison of the human-based and computerized expert systems.

With the foundation of “fact (data)” and “rule (criteria)” not necessarily altered, the modified expert system replaced the explanation system, inference engine, and knowledge base editor with human experts with a wealth of expertise and empirical experiences from brand design related disciplines. Specialized industry experts are required by different brand design purposes. These experts can be selected from qualified internal specialists, combined with external consultants, to form a rich professional knowledge and empirical experience-based think-tank to provide the data and reasoning required by the leadership and other relevant users when making fact-based decisions during the brand design process in a timely fashion. At the same time, the human-based expert system ensures that the decisions are rational, efficient, and executable.

This proposed modified expert system is examined along with the frameworks and other tools in the real-world case study of this research for validation.

5.5 Applying the Frameworks of Quality in Context of Chinese Enterprises

The proposed implementation frameworks of quality for brand design processes is a generic method developed for Chinese enterprises in


general. As discussed earlier, China is now experiencing a transition stage towards a mixed-type market-driven economy, with many forms of companies including SOEs, partial SOEs, private ownership enterprises, SMEs, emerging startups, as well as local branches of international companies; each form; due to its specific status quo, may encounter its own particular issues in terms of brand design. As this hypothetical approach is not yet able to achieve a case-specific level of problem-solving, for the purpose of better applying the method in Chinese enterprises in overall, I have included further discussions of several major considerations in this section, such as : implementation prerequisites, steps in managing the transition, internal training, and executive coaching.

5.5.1 Implementation Prerequisites

The implementation of the proposed frameworks requires certain prerequisites of the enterprises. This hypothetical approach with the supplementary toolkit is proposed to optimize the brand design processes in general. For many Chinese enterprises without sufficient preconditions, this approach may not be competent yet to play an efficient role to achieve the desired results if the enterprises simply apply it mechanically.

Implementing and making permanent an excellent quality management organizational culture into an enterprise, in general, should contain the following fundamental elements:51

• Quality information must be used for improvement, not to judge or control people;

• Authority must be equal to responsibility;

• There must be rewards for results;

• Cooperation, not competition, must be the basis for working together;

• Employees must have secure jobs;

“Role of CEO in TQM”, Retrieved June 20, 2015, from http://www.answers.com/Q/51

Role_of_CEO_in_Total_Quality_Management

http://www.answers.com/Q/Role_of_CEO_in_Total_Quality_Management


• There must be a climate of fairness;

• Compensation should be equitable;

• Employees should have an ownership stake.

As China's situation has certain characteristics of the times, and is relatively complicated, there are a few additional specific concerns that need to be raised.

Qualified Leadership Multiple surveys show a shortage of Chinese leaders when compared to the need (Gallo, 2011). Outstanding leadership is considered an advantage, yet a qualified leadership is a requirement and prerequisite for implementing the proposed frameworks. For different forms of Chinese enterprises, the common lack of talent is due to various reasons. For example, leadership of SOEs are usually appointed by higher authority with more political concerns than commercial concerns; heads of private companies and SMEs might have the equivalent professional skills to establish and make businesses functional, yet once the companies expand to a certain scale, how to manage them could be beyond the scope of their abilities. For emerging startups nowadays in China that are mainly internet or technology based and innovation-driven, most of them are leading by relatively young founders. Due to a lack of comprehensive capacities and a variety of life experiences, such enterprises often appear as fast-famed yet short-lived.

According to Gallo (2011), many surveys indicate the enormous financial loss to China because of its inability to meet its leadership needs. As the most important guiding role of the proposed approach, China’s leadership development programs and executive coaching are indispensable prerequisites not only on an enterprise level, but a societal level.

Existing Staff QualityThe success of implementing the theoretical frameworks of quality counts on the collective efforts of an entire organization. Therefore,


the existing employee quality and empowerment to its staff in brand design is another prerequisite.

Discussed in the earlier chapter, as direct-empowering has complex issues in Chinese enterprises, Gallo (2011) suggests trying delegating before empowering. Delegating does not transfer ownerships but instead shifts responsibility for getting jobs done as expected. Chinese employees tend to understand delegation much more quickly, and for leadership, this option is considered more secure, especially when the overall quality of employee is not yet a satisfactory. In the case an enterprise being ready for empowerment, leadership is suggested to introduce empowerment gradually, providing very clear explanations upfront of why it is being done, how it will work, and what is expected as an outcome. This process should become a crucial part of internal training for every Chinese enterprise.

Another issue that links to the current staff quality is the general problem of talent source in China. Worldly recognized, GUANXI as a culture, influences many aspects of Chinese people’s life, including, of course, recruitment. Nepotism is still commonly seen in Chinese enterprises, especially SOEs and partial SOEs. Although more and more private companies, emerging start-ups, and even family businesses realize that nepotism could be harmful to a corporation's organizational culture in long-term development, there are other issues causing the overall deficiency of the talent market, including but not limit to the low average quality of higher education and professional education and the current Chinese government encouraging entrepreneurship over obtaining employing to the entire society, etc. There is a unique phenomenon throughout the Chinese talent market that the number of entrepreneurs is increasing so fast that they cannot find enough qualified talents who are willing to be subordinates. Once again, fundamentally, this is a societal level issue that is causing the lack of precondition for many Chinese enterprises to effectively implement this proposed approach. Before the overall


situation can be improved, for the time being, solutions for businesses to prepare their prerequisites, hiring external professional teams, and strengthening internal training are recommended.

Institutional issuesThe institutional issues are more specific to the SOEs in China. To put it in a simple way, other than the appointed leadership, and nepotism among staff, the SOE system, in general, offers lifetime employment, and the entire organization’s survival relies on state-owned resources. Despite the rules and regulations from higher authorities applied to the SOEs that do not comply with the provisions of the market rules, when these enterprises themselves lack a sense of crisis, there is no urge for them to improve the total quality. Therefore, awareness of quality is in many cases missing in SOEs' organizational culture fundamentally.

To implement the proposed approach in brand design for enterprises under the SOE system, the least to do is to rotate the more motivated and capable employees to the critical positions to improve the situations. More efficient than incentives such as rewards for results, is that psychologically people spontaneously feel the need for a change. Promotions stimulate motivations, even in SOEs.

5.5.2 Steps in Managing the Transition

Regarding Beckhard and Pritchard (1992)’s outline of the fundamental steps in managing a transition to a new system, in this context, the steps are as follows:

1) Identify tasks to be done;2) Create necessary management structure;3) Develop strategies for building commitment;4) Design mechanisms to communicate the change and assign resources.


Explained in Khurram Hashmi’s article (2000), task identification 52

includes a study of present conditions through assessing current reality and readiness as preconditions of required prerequisites, then creating a model of the desired state. Once a new approach is ready to be implemented, announcing the launch and the transition goals to the entire organization is the next step, followed by the transition structure of the management as well as the working teams and assigning responsibilities and resources to corresponding teams and specific positions. Meanwhile, securing outside consultation is necessary, a collaborative relationship with consultants and clear role definitions as well specification of activities must be established (Hashmi, 2000) and proclaimed to all employees including leadership and management.

Top management along with an organization committee should also be responsible for overseeing the organizational effort (Cohen, Brand, 1993; Hyde, 1992). Implementing a TQM method, in general, as well hypothetical approach with the shared principles integrated, is a not easy, but a comprehensive and long-term process. Leadership is required during the holistic and full process to maintain commitment to keep the process operational and visible, provide necessary support, and hold people accountable for achieving the expected results (Hashmi, 2000). Finally and importantly, internal training and executive coaching are not to be omitted.

5.5.3 Internal Training and Executive Coaching

Internal TrainingTraining, in quality management, is intended to make employees highly productive. It starts with increasing the overall awareness of quality and rectifying the misperceptions. Only when the principles of quality management are established as a culture in an enterprise and made permanent organization-wide, the implementation of the

Hashmi, K., 2000, “Introduction and Implementation of TQM.”, Retrieved from http://52

www.isixsigma.com/methodology/total-quality-management-tqm/introduction-and-implementation-total-quality-management-tqm/


proposed approach can be productively carried out as expected. It is equally important to positioning the brand, having it explained and communicated internally (Keller, 1999) as to the market and target customers.

The entire organization, including management and employees not involved with the brand design process must clearly understand clearly the brand purpose and objectives and must learn how to conduct each role accordingly, through internal training.

Both plenary and divisional internal training sessions are necessary. Even with the leadership to oversee the organization effort from the top, managers are responsible for implementing the proposed approach and reinforcing the principles of TQM within their departments.

A few specific tactics are suggested as follows:

• Similar to the brand design process, senior leadership participation and involvement throughout the process of internal training is a must-have. Departmental supervisors are responsible, but the scheme itself should not be driven by the managers (Vallaster, De Chernatony, 2005);

• Participation, consensus, and employee dialogue as approaches for internal training work better than edicts and policies that travel down the hierarchy (Inward Consulting, n.d.);

• Training should start with a clear brand vision, mission, and purpose. These are to be communicated throughout the organization by both words and actions (Deiss, Sullivan, 1998);

• Set clear objectives of the trainings and well-defined roles at the beginning, and revisit them throughout the process (Inward Consulting, n.d.);

• Conduct an audit of the enterprise’ understanding of the brand design objectives and strategies to learn the cognitive blind spots of the staff (Best, 2006);

• Making complex concepts and ideas simple facilitates understanding and communication during internal training,


especially for employees unfamiliar with the discipline of brand design. External help from experts and consultants in the field are recommended;

• Successful internal training allows staff to transition from being informed to committed. As mentioned earlier, rewards for results are necessary as positive reinforcement for recognizing the progress;

• Obtain metrics and measures before, during, and after internal training. Research staff regularly and track their progress over time (Inward Consulting, n.d.);

• Internal branding is a crucial part of the internal training of the hypothetical approach, align the brand experiences externally with staff behaviors and actions internally.

Executive Coaching“An incapable soldier is just one soldier, but an incompetent commander would bring about a team of incapable soldiers,” is a famous Chinese proverb for emphasizing the importance of leadership. Reviewed from different perspectives, the critical role of leadership in this proposed approach is unquestionable. In Western practices, plenty research and experiments have shown executive coaching in brand design increases demand among enterprises. However, these types of programs or workshops are seldom seen in China, as several barriers still exist that impede the improvement of Chinese executives’ capabilities in leading brand design practices (Gallo, 2011):

• A short-term focus on business results at the expense of long-term needs, such as leadership development;

• A lack of know-how and experience by those in China who are charged with designing and implementing leadership development programs;

• A general discomfort on the part of current senior executives about trying something new and different, such as a leadership development program.


This discomfort may also be caused by a sense of insecurity. Employees might question and challenge the leadership’s previous guidance and ruling once they find out the leadership is in fact assigned to advanced studies and being educated by others. In the spontaneous interviews I conducted with CEOs encountered through projects and seminars, most of them consider the notion of executive coaching workshops to be much more appealing as opposed to leadership development programs. The next executive coaching form most likely to be accepted by Chinese enterprises is hiring dedicated individual consultants in each necessary professional field as full-time advisors and think-tank of the CEOs.

As most of Gallo’s (2011) suggestions towards executive coaching are generally valid; a modified version of the list for the context of this research is provided below:

• A trial period with the coach is a recommended approach in China to help the executives feel comfortable with the coach and with the potential value of being coached before making a commitment;

• Putting a time limit on the coaching assignment reassures that the process is not open-ended, which could be considered threatening by some Chinese executives who do not want to be seen as always needing this kind of external help;

• Having the CEO being coached as well helps set the organizational culture for internal training in the firm. It is much easier for a leader to hire a coach for a subordinate executive if the CEO is also being coached;

• For workshops of case studies, the CEOs from different enterprises should form a temporary but fully functioned brand design team to work together on one brand design exercise. The CEOs should be assigned to different roles as a real brand design project may request, such as strategists, researchers, industry experts, relevant professionals, even designers. Regardless their education backgrounds or skills, the CEOs in


each role during the scenario exercises should be practice real-world simulations from conducting research with real customers to physically design brand experience prototypes without judging how good they are at visualizing and realizing concepts as some of the tasks request a natural gift. The exercises are supposed to get the CEOs hands-on in different roles so that they can understand the critical factors and points of each specific tasks, each role’s responsibilities, and the reasons behind every step in their work flow. When CEOs returns to real-world brand design projects of their own, they will know how to better evaluate and make proper decisions throughout the processes.

Summary

A theoretical approach as an assumption integrating the principles of the TQM philosophy into the brand design process is proposed in this Chapter based on previous studies. The aim is to significantly improve the total quality of a brand’s performance and the design process in general, to achieve its desired brand objectives. The approach is expected to unclog the brand design problems the Chinese enterprises are facing, to meet their brand design objectives, and contribute in assisting the brands to obtain the desired results.

Three levels of theoretical frameworks of: the principles framework of quality; the implementation framework of quality for the basic brand design process; and the implementation framework of quality for the creative brand design process; are proposed. The quality frameworks clarified the main stages of a brand design process and the necessary elements. Moreover, eight tools as supplementary aids are selected and modified into a preliminary toolkit. Together the frameworks and toolkit form the proposed approach of quality management in brand design process for Chinese enterprises.

Several particular major concerns for applying the generic approach in Chinese enterprises’ brand design practices are discussed in-


depth, including implementation prerequisites, steps in managing the transition, internal training, and executive coaching.

Why the frameworks and toolkit are needed? The answers share the essence of the question asked by Mozota (2006) - why are designers suffering from lack of recognition and support from managers? The answers modified to the question of this research, are three: 1) Brand design processes are also suffering from the incompetent organizational culture environment commonly among Chinese enterprises; 2) Brand design teams in general, include but not limit to the designers, lack of knowledge of brand design expertise and brand management as a science; as well as 3) The difficulty in implementing a value model in their everyday practices (Mozota, 2006).

The frameworks and preliminary supplementary toolkit were applied to this real-world case study for examination and verification of the proposed theoretical approach. The progress and the results are documented and demonstrated in the following chapter.

DEMONSTRATION CASE STUDY | �185

Chapter Six | Demonstration Case Study

with an SOE for Applying the Frameworks

Contents 6.1 An In-depth Case Study of a Real-world Brand Design Practice with an SOE …………………………………………………………………………………. 6.1.1 Background of Corporation B ………………………………………….. 6.1.2 Description of the Case Study ………………………………………….

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6.2 Input Phase of the Brand Design Process …………………………………. 6.2.1 Organizational Culture Assessment of Corporation B ……………….. 6.2.2 Framework Implementation Prerequisites Specified for Corporation B 6.2.3 CEO Interview and Input of Initial Goals and Strategies ………………

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6.3 Process Phase of the Brand Design Process ……………………………… 6.3.1 Discovery Customer Demands ………………………………………… 6.3.2 Benchmark Analysis …………………………………………………….. 6.3.3 Refinement of Brand Design Goals and Strategies ………………….. 6.3.4 Creative Process …………………………………………………………

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6.4 Quality of the Brand Design Performance …………………………………. 6.4.1 Output Phase of the Brand Design Process: The Deliverables ……… 6.4.2 Audit Phase of the Brand Design Process: Verification for the Frameworks of Quality …………………………………………………..

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6.5 Suggestions for Sustainable Optimization of the Frameworks of Quality 212

Summary 213


“Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se.”

- Charles Eames

6.1 An In-depth Case Study of a Real-world Brand Design Practice with an SOE53

Research conducted by Li, Anderson and Harrison (2003) applied the TQM method among 428 Northern Chinese companies representing different forms of ownership showed that implementation of quality in highly variable. SOEs scored poorly comparing to joint venture companies as well as privately owned companies in quality practices overall; the research concluded that the poor quality performance of SOEs can be attributed to the attitudes and structures created during the period of the planned economy.

Gallo (2011) also asserted that SOEs are late in coming to the table in terms of encouraging innovativeness. Comparing to private enterprises, SOEs are much less willing to take risks, and the managers are often fearful that doing something new may result in serious mistakes for which they would be punished even if the risks were justifiable.

With these preconceived notions, I was granted an opportunity to conduct an experiment of the proposed approach and frameworks of quality in the brand design process, by applying the theoretical method in a state-owned enterprise (SOE), Corporation B, at their request in Shanghai in 2014 for a total period of seven months as a real-world in-depth case study on their brand design process.

By the time I encountered Corporation B, it was in need of designing its first self-owned hotel brand. Before I got involved, Corporation B

Sample outcomes showcased in this chapter are for academic research use only, and were 53

developed case specific for a real-world brand design project, therefore, without authorization, the content of the designs are prohibited for other uses.


had consulted several local branches of internationally well established professional hospitality industry consulting and management companies. However, due to their internal issues, none of them were willing to provide support for innovation but to suggest solutions for Corporation B to cooperate with other hotel brands instead of exploring the possibility of creating its own. The two parties were caught in a deadlock at the time I presented the quality frameworks as an alternative solution for Corporation B. The proposal I made to Corporation B based on the approach proposed in this study allowed Corporation B to discover different possible options, addressed its demands for innovation in this brand design exploration. Simultaneously, based on a preliminary audit, the essential conditions of Corporation B and this particular brand design assignment are in line with the requirements for testing my approach.

Since my proposed approach was consistent with the needs of Corporation B comparing to the others, I was granted the assignment. In addition, Corporation B empowered me to lead the brand design team, report to the CEO and the steering committee directly during the process, which this allowed me to examine the method thoroughly through participant observation and real-world practices. The specific context, process, and test results are reported in detail in the following sections.

6.1.1 Background of Corporation B

Corporation B is considered a typical and well-established SOE with substantial experience in commercial real estate development for over 20 years. It has played critical roles in planning, developing, and operating tremendous amounts of state-owned property development projects, especially CBDs and assigned entities in Shanghai. Corporation B has a track record in developing high-profile projects, and it is recognized as relatively successful and has maintained a leading position among other similar SOEs nationally. It also obtains extensive international exposure, by successfully cooperating and


forming enduring collaborations with several well-known international companies, schools, and organizations.

Corporation B’s current success is commonly perceived by the public as being partially credited to advantages of the abundant resources granted by the government, as well as having an outstanding leader for the past ten years.

However, as a typical SOE, Corporation B still suffers the common issues caused by the governmental system left over from the planned economy. Meanwhile, as Shanghai is becoming an international metropolis, the increasing awareness, as well as expectations of brand quality and brand experiences by the customer in this market, has made Corporation B realizes that its previous success was more towards functional infrastructure rather than on emotional brand experience. The situation requires Corporation B to transform itself to cope with the demand, of creating high-quality brands for the market, not only commercial real-estate mother brand but also sub-entity brands of its equities within the Central Business Districts (CBDs).

Lack of expertise and know-how of brand design, however, Corporation B, being willing to explore, has granted me an opportunity to participate in a critical role when a new brand design demand emerged, which I consider a valid experimental exercise for testing the proposed approach and frameworks of quality.

6.1.2 Description of the Case Study

Corporation B was in the development of a new commercial area assigned by the government in Shanghai, in the Central Activities Zone (CAZ). Compared to a traditional CBD, which is a commercial center of a city focusing on the development of commercial office buildings and functions for trades, a CAZ is planned to be customer-oriented, integrating business and lifestyle, emphasizing on quality and content of life, arts and culture, tourism and leisure, dining and entertainment, and other features that make the area vibrant and


attractive to fulfill the diversity of customers’ functional and emotional demands.

The emerged project was to design a new hotel brand as the first highlight sub-brand that represents the essence of this CAZ concept as a mother brand, which is also the first self-owned entity brand on an operational level in a new industry for Corporation B as it was solely practicing in real-estate development in the past. Along with the development of the entire CAZ, the hotel is expected to be launched in five years from 2014. The deliverables expected for a pre-defined six-month period for a high-level preliminary brand design phase includes: a feasibility report, a comprehensive brand design guide book, and visual identity of the brand.

6.2 Input Phase of the Brand Design Process

The theoretical approach is designed to be applied from the very beginning of a brand design process and implemented throughout the practice for continuous improvements. I first made an assessment of Corporation B, optimizing the project specific prerequisites, defining the goals and strategies during the input phase of implementing the approach.

6.2.1 Organizational Culture Assessment of Corporation B

A preliminary step of implementing the TQM method is to assess an organization's current reality (Hashmi, 2000); the same applies to the proposed approach of this study. Through mainly open-ended and in-depth interviews with the relevant departments’ supervisors and working teams, as well as participant observations, I first made initial audits of the following subjects that have direct impacts on the implementation of the theoretical approach.

Leadership The current leadership of Corporation B has made a reputation for being an outstanding leader through its achievements over the past ten years. This particular leader is described as extraordinarily wise,


forward-thinking, fully committed, and inspiring personnel for the employees. This new hotel brand design was initiated by the leader himself in the first place, which through this project, the leader wished to realize a full understanding of the hospitality industry based on decades of empirical experience gained in the commercial real estate development industry. The motion came directly from the leadership, meeting one essential prerequisite for implementing the theoretical approach through the project: direct involvement and decision-making.

Steering CommitteeOne senior level manager was assigned to the hotel brand design project as a member of the steering committee for overseeing the day-to-day progress. However, through discussions and observations, I found that the senior manager tended to speak out freely when not in front of the leadership and showed a relatively high level of passion for the project; yet in the presence of the leadership, he would become abnormally quiet in the meeting but did not participate. This senior manager was audited as eligible to become a member of the steering committee, but due to limits of authority in his role, additional committee members were required to optimize this prerequisite.

Institutional IssuesCorporation B suffers from the institutional issues same as the other SOEs. The overall quality of the existing employees is not satisfactory. Brand architecture-wise, audited by the 7S criteria, Corporation B is a hierarchical structure. It appears to be in transition towards customer-focused strategy but is still fulfilling heavy financial tasks given by the government. For the remaining parameters, Corporation B is still considered a piece-meal system with top-down organizing style that has staff organized by functions; the internal skills are narrow, and it is considered reactive on shared values.

Level of Awareness of QualityThe average level of awareness of quality in Corporation B's


organizational culture is low, other than the CEO himself, who is highly quality-oriented. Most staff are aiming to complete the tasks assigned without being concerned with the overall quality, which is a commonly seen mindset in SOEs mainly due to the institutional issues.

Customer-focusedThe CEO himself is customer-focused. Again, often due to institutional issues, being customer-centric is a luxury to SOEs. Therefore, it is difficult for Corporation B to maintain such a culture throughout the organization. However, for this hotel brand design assignment, it is explicitly positioned as customer-focused to point the project to the right direction from the beginning.

Brand Design TeamCorporation B had no internal brand design team nor brand department in the entire enterprise. Only one staff member was titled as the brand designer and placed in the investment unit, who was on leave due to personal reasons throughout this seven-month project. I was given a temporary position as the corporate’s brand design consultant to efficiently promote the project's progress on an operational level. This satisfied the necessary conditions for me to test the approach.

Brand Design ExpertiseEven though Corporation B has ample experience regarding brand design expertise, the average level is still low. The leadership had made a lot of appropriate decisions in the former brand design practices based on mainly experience and intuition. However, its successful experience has not been summarized as principles to guide the brand design work for other staff.

Relevant Internal TrainingCorporation B had no relevant internal training nor internal branding programs during the time of the case study.


6.2.2 Framework Implementation Prerequisites Specified for Corporation B

With the initial auditing results, I was overall pleased with most of the key prerequisites, as they more or less existed in Corporation B. The next step was to optimize the incomplete requirements to enhance the theoretical approach so that it could better play its role in this brand design assignment.

ConsultationGiven that Corporation B itself specializes in commercial real estate development but neither has a dedicated team nor the required expertise of the hospitality industry, external consultations were recommended.

It was still the first choice to contact professional hospitality industry consulting and management teams, who were the local branches of well-known international companies. With the…

However, after initial consulting with the teams, I discovered that these local branches themselves were also suffering severe quality issues. Consequently, they coincidentally showed unwillingness (or incapacity) to assist Corporation B to create a new hotel brand but insisted that the only strategy for Corporation B is to operate jointly as the property owner with another established hotel chain brand.

Project TeamAs the proposals from the hospitality consulting teams did not comply with the brand purpose of Corporation B, I then decided to form temporarily an expert system (Figure 6.1) as the brand design team for this particular assignment to meet Corporation B’s needs.

All the experts were acquired externally except for the steering committee. The solution for forming a dedicated hospitality industry consulting team involved four experts—three senior managers of international hotel chain brands—and one well-established boutique


hotel brand founder, with over 30 years on an average of experience in the hospitality industry; they were invited to consult as specialists.

Figure 6.1: Expert system for the hotel brand design project by Corporation B.

Steering CommitteeThe steering committee was audited as “limits of authority”, and was thus deemed unable to lead this hotel brand design project. Other than the leadership, I specially asked for the deputy chief of Corporation B to join the steering committee and guide the brand design team closely with the top leadership.

6.2.3 CEO Interview and Input of Initial Goals and Strategies

As the prerequisites were optimized to a relatively mature condition for implementing the proposed implementation frameworks of quality for both basic and creative brand design processes, the next critical step conducted was to prepare the initial goals and strategies for the input phase of the first round. To obtain these data, I carried out a series of in-depth interviews with the leadership (CEO), and a first-round of decisions were made by him with the steering committee.

Brand Choice

Corporation B has a portfolio of enormous brands from the projects conducted over the past 20 years. How to position the hotel brand in the overall brand portfolio became the first question. Different from any brands that Corporation B had either developed, acquired, or


collaborated, this hotel brand was the first brand that Corporation B wished to engage fully on an operational level, in a new industry to its previous experience. On the other hand, the planned hotel is going to be one of the entities of the CAZ as the overall commercial real estate brand that Corporation B is developing. Where should this new hotel brand stand regarding how much manpower and resources should be allocated to design and develop this brand, depending on its position in Corporation B’s brand portfolio? Therefore, I adopted the “decision map for brand choices” tool (Mootee, 2013) from the proposed toolkit and aided the leadership to made the first explicit decision of developing the hotel brand into a new leadership brand (Figure 6.2).

Figure 6.2: Decision map for the hotel brand choice.


Market-driven / Market-drivingOnce the leadership determined to develop the hotel brand into a new leadership brand, the next question was, would a market-driven strategy or a market-driving strategy be adopt? Since the hotel project was initiated by the leader himself, intending to realize his understandings of the hospitality industry and set a role model for the Chinese market, a market-driving strategy appeared to be more suitable to meet the requirements.

However, as learned from the previous study, often for an established enterprise, especially an SOE, it is hard to generate and launch radical market driving innovations. Two major challenges that Corporation B had to be prepared for were (Kumar et al., 2000) 1) it must have the vision and environment to generate breakthrough ideas, and 2) it must have the capital, fortitude, and risk tolerance to persevere and allow the radical idea to have a fair chance to succeed. Although the leadership had a wish to drive the market, and Corporation B did have the advantages financially, it was still an SOE troubled with institutional issues.

To answer the question of choosing market-driven or market-driving, there was one more essential question: was it able to create its high-quality professional hotel management team as an SOE, as even though Corporation B was not lack of funds, SOEs are in normal circumstances not allowed to compete for talent at market-standard remuneration levels due to government rules.

With the invited hospitality industry experts, I made a comparison analysis between the possible strategies, listed the pros and cons of each option (Figure 6.3), prepared workflow scenarios (Figure 6.4) and requirements for future branding and operation teams (Figure 6.5), to aid the leadership in making this decision.


Figure 6.3: Fundamental strategies comparison for the hotel brand.

S1: Joint Operating with an Established Brand

S2: Self Operating an

Acquired Brand

S3: Self Innovated Brand

Pros A common method for non-hotel experienced enterprises to enter the hospitality industry; market maturity level is high; a relatively safe option.

High input investment but would own fully the brand equity; same time would acquire a relatively experienced team and its resources.

Lead the market; high degree of freedom for innovation; no restrictions from incumbent thinking and practices of other hotels; suitable for enterprise to enter the hospitality industry to take a new leading role.

Cons High input financially for collaborating with a well-known brand; new hotel brand value gained will be added to the brand provider, not Corporation B; not a long-term strategy.

Challenge to integrate the incumbent hotel brand culture to the Corporation B culture; challenge to eliminate the influence of the former brand image to turn into a new hotel brand (experience); requires long-term strategic guidance from Corporation B.

Difficult process, especially for SOEs; high level of uncertainty, requires fortitude to persevere; requires high level of awareness of quality in all aspects; need to build a team consisting of high-quality staff with integrated talent.


Project Workflow Scenario: Market-Driven

Project Workflow Scenario: Market-Driving

Figure 6.4: Project workflow scenarios for Market-Driven or Market-Driving

Strategies.

Figure 6.5: Future Branding and operation team suggestion for the hotel brand.

Input Initial Goals and Strategies

The final decision was to treat this project as an experimental market-driving attempt because Corporation B is an SOE. In practice, it would be for the project-based brand design team to conduct preliminary market-driving feasibility research and setup a high-level brand design guideline including a series of creative concepts as


customer experience features specially designed for this hotel brand. When the initial goals and strategies were clarified, I input them into the project-specific implementation frameworks as demonstrated in Figure 6.6 to finish the preliminary round of input of the brand design process.

6.3 Process Phase of the Brand Design Process

Moving forward to the process phase, the brand design team, divided into functional groups by expertise, were assigned to carry out different tasks. A few main steps are documented in this section to explain the process with partial outcomes as demonstrations; however, as this was a real-world case study, a certain level of detailed contents were under the agreement of confidentiality; therefore, only the methods are disclosed and discussed here with the sensitive contents withhold.

Figure 6.6: Project-specific implementation framework for the hotel brand design.


6.3.1 Discovering Customer Demands

Field Research Field research was conducted based on a comprehensive round of desk research in a global context, as the field research was multi-purposed for the following:

1) participant observation of benchmarked customer experiences; 2) first-hand benchmark data collection; 3) in-depth interviews with hotel practitioners;4) open-ended interviews with hotel customers and staff of selected hotel samples.

Thus, the field research team was comprised of researchers, creative designers, hospitality industry experts as well as one member of the steering committee, all based in Hong Kong and Macau, as they share certain similarities with Shanghai in terms of hospitality culture and have variety of successful cases for close benchmark studies. Documented here is the overall research plan, including two stages of immersion and exploration (Figure 6.7).

Figure 6.7: Overall research plan for designing the hotel brand.

Cluster AnalysisIn this case study, cluster analysis was mainly adopted based on the findings from intensive desk research and field research to help segment potential/target customers into the following clusters.


Figure 6.8: Target customer clusters for the hotel brand.

Figure 6.9: Hypothetical target customer demands’ differentiation based on

clusters.


According to the groupings, particular characteristics and hypotheses of potential demands of each cluster were given in the formats demonstrated above (Figure 6.8 and Figure 6.9).

Focus Group Given the potential customer segments, two focus groups conducted with each focused on Group A and Group B were carried out by a professional research agency. The FGI sessions were executed strictly following the proper procedure. For each session, 6 participants were carefully selected through the screening questionnaire designed by the hotel brand design team, and the average two hour-interviews were guided by a professionally trained and experienced moderator with the brand design team behind a one-way glass to monitor the processes. The screening questionnaire and discussion outline designed specially for this hotel brand design case study, are included in Appendices.

Customer Demand CategorizingThe comprehensive research conducted formed an understanding of the key customer demands for the brand design team. The collected data and information were analyzed by the research team and categorized into Maslow’s pyramid model (Figure 6.10) as the first step, then interpreted and recategorized into the following descriptive clusters to prepare for the creative process with requirements for integrating both functional and emotional considerations:

1) General; 2) environmental; 3) technological; 4) user friendly; and 5) extended services.

Figure 6.10: Initial customer demands clusters based on Maslow’s Pyramid.


6.3.2 Benchmark Analysis

Based on results and analyzes of both the desktop survey and field research, an inclusive and exhaustive benchmark analysis was conducted as support to calibrate the goals and strategies of this market-driving brand design experiment.

Adopting the strategic brand mapping tool, seven critical indicators were extracted from the benchmark analysis:

1) Emotional satisfaction; 2) functional satisfaction; 3) brand Image; 4) innovation level; 5) technology level; 6) extended service; and 7) Price.

The hotel brand was mapped for these seven indicators accordingly between the comparative parameters of the collective impressions of the following (Figure 6.11):

1) benchmarks: International boutique hotels specialized in creating and providing unique customer experiences; 2) possible competitors: local 3-4 star equivalent hotel chain brands with a price advantage.

Figure 6.11: Strategic brand mapping based on benchmark analysis

for the hotel brand.


6.3.3 Refinement of Brand Design Goals and Strategies

With the strategic brand mapping based on benchmark analysis, the initial brand goals and strategies were embodied in-depth specifically by the critical indicators and provided an intuitive visual guide for the following steps. The refinement of the hotel brand design objectives and strategies were reviewed by the steering committee for feedbacks and confirmations as an initial cycle, then re-input into the proposed implementation framework to proceed with the next steps accordingly.

6.3.4 Creative Process

Once the goals and strategies are more specified and updated, with the data and analyses from the research, the initial ideas pool was in an exploration phase, and the theoretical implementation framework of quality for the creative brand design processes was applied to guide through this step.

Figure 6.12: Justified steps implemented by the implementation framework of

quality for the creative brand design process.

One point to make here is that this particular assignment of the hotel brand design was predefined as an initial phase of a five-year plan. The typical output stage (actual design execution to be tested in the


market by consumers) of the creative design process is scheduled beyond the timeframe of this research, therefore, not included in this case study. Instead, the output of the creative design process was presented in a form of an optimized ideas pool. Ideas that were meeting the design criteria established based on the design research were selected to go through design verification (focus group interviews with potential consumers and supplier consulting), financial audit (internal financial department), finalized into visual design prototypes, and organized into a menu of innovative features for the hotel brand. Results of some major aspects of the creative brand design process are demonstrated in the following examples.

Figure 6.13: Analysis of target customers' trends.

Figure 6.14: Design principles based on potential client interviews and model hotel

case studies.


Based on the cluster analysis of the customer segmentations, specific interpretations of the design principles were developed for Group A and Group B and prioritized for designing the visual prototypes (Figure 6.15). The supplemental tools prepared for the creative process were employed in principles but did not use the exact charts. The “stages and steps” method suggested by Watkinson (2013), was also adopted when defining critical touchpoints and guiding the designs during the creative process.

Figure 6.15: Customer segmentation analysis and design principle interpretation.

Figure 6.16 demonstrated the visual references guide considering the aspects of function, emotion, and technology prepared for designing the key features for the Group A customer. Based on the reference guides, a set of thirty detailed features were developed considering both the customer groups, with a ranking system evaluated the technology, easiness, cost, overall practicability, and


hotel level (customer group) recommended for the particular design (Figure 6.17).

Figure 6.16: Visual reference guide for feature design.

Figure 6.17: Sample feature design and the ranking system.

Other than the focus group interviews, the creative brand design process was self-circulated for audit and feedback through several rounds of internal evaluation by the expert system for managing the quality of the process as well as the creative design output. The results of the creative brand design process are to be substituted


back into the overall brand design process to complete the testing of the holistic approach.

6.4 Quality of the Brand Design Process Performance

Ideally, the key performance results of the holistic theoretical approach should be examined in an environment as the market for consumers’ audit and feedback. Additional cycles should be allowed for brand design process revision, and optimization based on the level of the customer satisfaction and different reviews obtained through survey methods, such as monitoring the social media, to follow the principle of continuous improvement. Through the cycling process, the total quality of the brand design process can be assessed to find out whether the method contributed to enhancing customer satisfaction noticeably as predicted, thereupon, to validate the integrated performance of the proposed approach.

This particular case study of the real-world hotel brand design did not have the ideal conditions for such validations, either from the perspective of the given project time nor the nature of it as the first phase of a five-year plan. However, from another standpoint, if the proposed approach itself is considered a design outcome to meet the quality (a brand design method that optimizes the process, improves quality management, allows innovation, and adaptable by Chinese enterprises) Corporation B was looking for in a brand design solution, it is justifiable that Corporation B is, in this scenario, the customer. Therefore, the performance quality of the proposed approach for this case study was evaluated through both the output phase and the internal audit phase to obtain the satisfaction result of the customer for verification.

6.4.1 Output Phase of the Brand Design Process: The Deliverables

For the output phase, the key performance results of this hotel brand case study were defined as the deliverables, given the nature of the


assignment as described. The three primary outcomes delivered as expected of this seven month span were as follows:

1) A feasibility study report on the hotel brand design for examinations between Corporation B’s status and the set goals; 2) A comprehensive brand book with defined objectives and strategies, as well as a brand feature menu designed under the spirit of market-driving for guiding the detail designs in the next phases of this project; 3) brand identity, including name and key visual identity for registration.

Showcased here, is the outcome of the refined goals and strategies included in the brand book (Figure 6.18), prepared for future cycles of the brand design process and relevant practices as the inputs.

Figure 6.18: Inputs for future cycles of brand design process for the hotel brand.

The main content of the feasibility report, contributed by corresponding experts, includes the following, and organized in a structure as suggested in Figure 6.19:

1) Hotel budget and pricing logic;2) In-depth benchmark analysis;


3) Technology development forecasts report for the next five years;4) Hospitality industry primary service statistics and data analysis, trends analysis;5) Hotel site selection suggestions.

Figure 6.19: The brand book user's guide.

6.4.2 Audit Phase of the Brand Design Process: Verification for the Frameworks of Quality

Immediate evaluations were given internally from several aspects, with indirect feedback collected through open-ended potential customer interviews, which formed a relatively integrated structure for the verification of the proposed approach. The results from each aspect were as follows:

Leadership The leadership (CEO) announced in the final plenary meeting that he considered the performance of this brand design process a success. Especially with the expert system designed for this brand design team, the leadership was able to discuss and resolve questions and hesitations directly with the specialized


professionals during presentations at the four major checkpoints and many other opportunities when interacting with the brand design team. This aided the leadership substantially in forming clear thinking and making efficient fact-based decisions throughout the project.

As the expected outcomes of the project, the three deliverables in a set with both theoretical basis and factual support were evaluated as high quality in Corporation B’s standards and were ready to be reported to the government for further project approval.

Steering CommitteeThe steering committee noticed the overall quality increase of the working progress in comparison to their previous brand design practices, and the unexpected efficiency of a temporarily formed multi-discipline/background working team. As the leadership was making decisions also with higher efficiency, they found the progress on this particular project was much faster compared to the other projects that were going on within Corporation B. The proposed frameworks of quality were considered highly interesting by the steering committee members to apply and test in other brand design projects for further practices and examination.

Involved Staff from Corporation BThe involved staff from Corporation B, before joining the project, did not show much interest in contributing to the overall quality of the process. However, as the project progressed, with the steering committee members closely involved and influenced gradually by the external professionals, the involved staff began to show concerns, sense of responsibility, and an urge to learn; some of them participated proactively in the process. The signs of a quality-oriented organizational culture were forming gradually. However, due to a lack of expertise in both brand design or the hospitality industry, a certain level of frustration among the


involved staff when they found it difficult to keep up with the progress was also observed.

Involved Experts of the Temporary Brand Design TeamThe involved experts also found the structure of the designed team to be helpful to ease the interplay between different discipline-oriented groups and tasks. Moreover, the quality of the three deliverables as the outcomes of the project exceeded their expectations. Compared to the practice of hiring one specialized consulting firm for each relevant discipline, the proposed method of designing an expert system for particular tasks or projects is considered more efficient regarding the performance results and also the cost.

Potential CustomerRandom potential customers who were in line with the profiling of the targeted customer clusters were asked for feedbacks about the key features designed for the hotel brand without disclosure of any confidential contents, through the method of open-ended interviews in natural conversation settings. The overall result was satisfactory, as most of the key features were aligned with the interviewed customers’ expectations and potential demands for an innovative hotel that could be seen in the market in five years.

Self-assessmentRegardless of the limitation caused by the nature of Corporation B and the project itself, I considered the SOE case study to be overall successful in examining and validating the proposed generic approach and implementing frameworks of quality in both basic and creative brand design processes. Most importantly, the total quality of the brand design process, including the performance of all members of the special brand design team that was lean in number yet integrated, and the practicability of the outcomes, were all evidently recognized by the leadership, steering committee, as well as the experts. Under the guidance of the frameworks and supplementary toolkit proposed in the


approach, the progress of the brand design process was considerably smooth, with seldom reworks or invalid inputs. Although the audit and feedback were mainly given by internally involved personnel rather than mass consumers, and the fact that it was only an initial phase of a holistic project, there were still many aspects and factors had not been taken into account. Many steps had not been conducted before the brand could be put to test by the customers in the real market; thus, no final conclusions could be made yet. However, by the review of the examinable portion described above, I believe the proposed approach could be considered valid through this case study.

6.5 Suggestions for Sustainable Optimization of the Frameworks of Quality

After I had wrapped up the case study, the project itself was proceeded to a phase of obtaining government approval for launching the scheme officially, and for Corporation B to build its hotel operating team internally. These phases would not allow me to follow up for further progress within the time limit of this research period.

Based on the lessons from this case study, a few suggestions for a sustainable optimization for future implementations of the approach to similar cases are given below:

1) The institutional issues of the SOEs or the transitionary economic status in China will not be fundamentally improved in a short period; so the negative impacts on total quality, brand design and branding caused by these issues will persist. However, from the practices of the case study, I verified that on a case by case basis, these problems are able to be circumvented, or the situations could be consciously optimized with suitable methods. Given the example of the case study of Corporation B, the approach taken in this research study was deemed appropriate;


2) When circumstances allow, it is beneficial to set a position of a Chief Brand Officer (CBO) among the top management and a fixed internal brand team also in the top range of a brand architecture that report directly to the CEO or the steering committee;3) Shifting from a functional organization to a team-based organization (Shonk, 1992) is necessary for Chinese enterprises. The 7S parameters of structure, strategy, system, style, staff, skills, and shared values should be used to evaluate and ensure the essential changes;4) Before an enterprise can be fully functional and operating in a total quality organizational culture, external consultations are recommended, particularly for cases that require certain expertise that the enterprise is lacking; 5) High-quality internal branding, internal training, and leadership coaching are important and should not be overlooked. High-level staff training should be the norm in an enterprise. For executive coaching, as discussed earlier, a company might need to consider which format could be more appropriate depending on the leadership’s personal status. Recommended in general is the executive workshop as explained in the earlier chapter. However, in the Corporation B case, a think-tank as the expert system was considered a more suitable approach for this particular leadership.

Summary

Chapter Six documented the real-world case study I conducted with Corporation B (an SOE) for its hotel brand design project (phase one). The purpose of the study was to validate the proposed approach and implementation frameworks of quality for both basic and creative brand design processes.

Corporation B was in need of creating its first self-owned hotel brand. However, the several local branches of internationally well established professional hospitality industry consulting and


management companies they’ve consulted were not able or willing to provide a desired brand design solution. I presented the quality frameworks as an alternative solution for Corporation B at such circumstance. The proposal is believed to be able to address Corporation B’s demands for innovation in this brand design exploration: a brand design method that optimizes the process, improves quality management, allows innovation, and adaptable by Chinese enterprises. At the same time, Corporation B’s condition and this particular brand design assignment were considered in line with the requirements for examining my approach.

Therefore, I conducted this seven-month case study in a process illustrated in Figure 6.20. Each of the main steps following the proposed implementation frameworks is slightly modified for each case and was documented as well as discussed sequentially in this chapter. Corporation B is justified to be the customer of the proposed approach for satisfaction evaluation. An assessment and validation of results summary of the method and suggestions for continuous optimizations were reported.


Figure 6.20: A brief view of the case study progress for the hotel brand design.

CONCLUSIONS | �216

Chapter Seven | Conclusions

Contents 7.1 The Organizational Culture Foci in Brand Design Process ………………. 218

7.2 The Quality Approach and Conclusions of the Research ………………… 7.2.1 Results of the Study …………………………………………………….. 7.2.2 The Quality Approach…………………………………………………… 7.2.3 Conclusions of the Research …………………………………………..

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7.3 Contributions ………………………………………………………………….. 7.3.1 Implications and Suggestions for the Pilot Study Cases …………….. 7.3.2 Other Ongoing Attempts in Optimizing the Frameworks of Quality …. 7.3.3 Significance for Chinese Enterprises’ Brand Design Process ………..

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7.4 Limitations …………………………………………………………………….. 237

7.5 Recommendations for Future Research …………………………………… 238


“Design is so important because chaos is so hard.” - Jules Feiffer

The study was set out to quest the underlying elements of organizational culture that are the real core of brand design and the key to success. It has also sought to understand the brand design dilemmas Chinese enterprises are facing, to propose a generic solution to improve the chaotic circumstances of today’s Chinese brand market.

In this dissertation, I have identified and highlighted two core elements of organizational culture: 1) awareness of quality, and 2) the role of leadership; mapped out three levels of quality frameworks (one principle framework and two implementation frameworks) to clarify the main stages of a brand design process; selected and modified eight tools as supplementary aids, to form the overall approach of quality management in brand design process for Chinese enterprises. The two underlying elements were recognized based on pilot case studies (see Chapter Two), then demonstrated to be the core of the quality frameworks and the supplementary tools derived from the relevant theories in the literature and empirical knowledge learned from best practices in the field (see Chapter Three to Five). The performance of the overall approach was tested and verified by an in-depth, real-world case study with Corporation B (see Chapter Six).

In this chapter, I highlight the organizational culture foci in brand design process, summarize the results of the study, the proposed quality approach, and integrate the empirical findings to answer the four research questions that were guiding this study. I then summarize implications of this approach for the pilot study cases, other ongoing attempts in optimizing the method, and the


significance of the study for the generalized brand design dilemmas of Chinese enterprises, clarify the limitations, and make suggestions for future research.

7.1 The Organizational Culture Foci in Brand Design Process

The Chinese brand market is experiencing a chaotic phenomenon from the way brand design processes are being conducted to the outcomes of the brands being designed and produced into the market. The internal process suffers from a lack of brand expertise and quality management in all aspects, causing the brand's external performance not satisfactory (see Section 1.1.1); the design outcomes of the tangible and intangible artifacts reflect the failure of the internal brand design process (see Section 1.1.2). The reasons behind the phenomenon are complex, this study briefly discussed the economic history of China (see Section 1.2.1) as one of the direct root causes and focused on the respect of organizational culture.

As Mootee (2013) asserted, in today’s environment, brand strategies can no longer be created and managed solely by the marketing or brand managers. The whole organization must collaborate from strategy development to execution, and the most important role is the leadership. Enterprises must take a fundamentally new approach to brand design for the transition phases, an integrated cross-functional approach to brand design strategy development that fuses deep customer insights and segmentation, evolving business economics, and customer experience design capability. Enterprises must direct their resources to these efforts to win these hyper-competitive markets, and all these efforts are affected by the invisible organizational culture.

Even though there was a detour in the early stage of my study in discovering the organizational culture foci in the brand design process, through the pilot case study findings, literature reviews, and in-depth, real-world brand design practices, I argued in this thesis that the two underlying elements in brand design are “awareness of


quality” and “the role of leadership”. Quality is the top priority goal for all aspects in every detail of a brand design process, and leadership is the key to achieving it. Among all stakeholders, the most important role is the leadership, as he/she determines the organizational culture from the top-down. The awareness of quality of a brand leader determines his/her branding consciousness during the leadership process of the brand design, and his/her resolve will guide the implementation process of every brand strategy.

In the context of Chinese enterprises, brand awareness and brand design expertise are considerably elementary compared to the practices in the West. However, with the increasing requirements and pressures from globalization, Chinese enterprises are trying to catch up. In order to aid the progress, in this research, organizational culture-oriented approach with frameworks of quality for both the basic and creative brand design processes were proposed. To assist Chinese enterprises in optimizing their brand design processes, they need to increase the overall awareness of total quality from an organizational culture perspective and their performance regarding customer satisfaction.

7.2 The Quality Approach and Conclusions of the Research

7.2.1 Results of the Study

With the organizational culture foci in the brand design process identified through the research and pilot case studies; the review and analysis of corporate level branding and quality management during the project led to insights regarding how “awareness of quality” and “the role of leadership” were integrated into the brand design process of the Chinese enterprise’ cases. By examining the proposed frameworks of quality for both the basic and creative brand design processes through the real-world practice with Corporation B, the study revealed that a CEO needs to be involved closely in directing the brand design process from the top-down in all core brand design activities in order to carry out a smoother workflow, and obtain


relatively satisfactory results in the aspect of quality management. The human-based expert system specifically designed on a case by case basis is a necessary and favored complement to Chinese enterprises that are lacking brand design expertise. There are four key findings were noted relating to the organizational culture foci and the brand design process in the context of Chinese enterprises.

Firstly, when a brand design project is initiated by the CEO, the project receives attention and supports from all sectors automatically. Unlike projects proposed by individual departments based on their particular concerns, when a CEO is directly managing the brand design process, he/she excludes the bias towards specific goals of the departments, but the primary considerations are given to the brand fundamentally and strategically.

Secondly, when the CEO has a clear vision of the mission and thinks long-term for a brand, quality as one of the most important features can be embedded into the brand as one of the key DNAs, and inherited into every stakeholder, detail, and touchpoint of the brand. During the case study of Corporation B, the concept of quality was still vague among the steering committee and the related working teams, as internal branding and training were not carried out to expressly help the team members to be able to express the importance and meaning of quality explicitly for each of their own work. However, the awareness of quality was expressed through their conducts spontaneously as the CEO’s command was clear thus the concept was embedded into the process successfully.

Thirdly, before the human-based expert system was designed and set up for the case study, due to lack of expertise in brand design, the execution of the CEO’s request was in a state of confusion, as the internal working team had no adequate knowledge to plan and manage a proper brand design process. Once the experts were in place, they were able to strategically design a recommended workflow, assist with the fact-based decision-making, make ease to


both the CEO and the working teams, and optimize for continuous improvement during the brand design process.

Last but not least, when the proposed frameworks of quality for both the basic and creative brand design processes were applied to the real-world case study of Corporation B, the results achieved by the particular assignment were considered satisfactory and met the expectation raised but could not be fulfilled by the professional hospitality industry consulting and management companies Corporation B consulted previously.

As Mozota (2006) points out, when design process is integrated in management decision processes, design management is now for the quality of staff, and shifts the conventional management as command and control to managing changes. Results from the study indicate that the proposed approach and the frameworks are valid to the key issues the Chinese enterprises are facing during brand design processes. The role of leadership is crucial and need to be consistent, explicit, and accessible to the brand design team during the process. The awareness of quality must be established from the top-down and embedded into the details and every conduct of organizational culture in order to live a brand. The quality approach as a solution is proposed for the Chinese enterprises to assist the brand design processes during the transition to their organizational culture improvement.

7.2.2 The Quality Approach

The organizational culture-oriented approach is proposed in this study in purpose to increase the total quality of brand design processes for Chinese enterprises. The assumption is that by integrating the principles of the TQM philosophy, the approach can improve significantly the overall quality of decision-making in selecting the appropriate brand design strategy and action plans, and meet the total quality objective of the corresponding brand design process. The quality approach highlighted eight principles shared by


the TQM philosophy and brand design; the frameworks clarified and clearly demonstrated the generic stages and steps in both the basic and creative brand design processes; to further bridge the gaps caused by the lack of brand expertise, a preliminary toolkit is supplemented to increase the sufficiency of the quality approach.

Key Principles

Many benefits come from implementing principles in general to originally unguided activities (Watkinson, 2013), as a solution to aid the total quality management in brand design for Chinese enterprises, the quality approach is designed with eight core principles extracted from and shared with the TQM philosophy and brand design, which are requested by Chinese brand practices in general:

1) Leadership / Management Commitment2) Teamwork / Employee Empowerment3) Customer Focus / Customer Satisfaction4) Strategic Planning5) Process Management6) Fact-Based Decision-Making7) Continuous Improvement8) Key Performance Results / Business Excellence

The TQM philosophy is a generic term for representing the concept of collective organization-wide efforts to install and make permanent a climate in which an organization continuously improves its ability to deliver high-quality products and services to consumers rather than one particular method (Fragassa et al., 2014). The study examined three representative TQM models: MBNQA, EFQM, and Kanji’s Model (see Section 4.2), to summarize the key principles that are relevant to the features of brand design and integrated them into the frameworks of quality. Among the eight principles, with their common goal being the total quality, another prime factor as the cornerstone


of applying and directing the approach in brand design practices, is leadership.

Frameworks of Quality

There are three levels of the quality framework proposed in this study, including 1) the principle framework; 2) implementation framework of quality for the basic brand design process; and 3) implementation framework of quality for the creative brand design process. The frameworks of quality are developed for ameliorating the status quo of Chinese enterprises’ brand design practices, to improve the critical dilemmas (see Section 1.2.3). They are expected to aid the enterprises to meet their brand design objectives and contribute in assisting the brands obtaining the desired results.

With each of the framework serves different emphases, three shared prime elements are emphasized: quality, leadership, and customer. Argued in this study, awareness of quality and the role of leadership are the two most vital elements for the performance level of a brand design from an organizational culture perspective. Customer satisfaction, on the other hand, although not part of the organizational culture itself, reflects the organizational culture and determines the success or failure of the brand.

The principle framework as an underlying structure indicates the relationships between the three prime critical factors and their roles in the continuous improvement of a brand design process (see Section 5.1). Top quality is the center of the framework being the goal for all aspects of a holistic brand design process. Leadership, as the key role to drive the process, delivers the total quality through designed experiences to the customer, to achieve a level of expected customer satisfaction. Customers provide feedbacks based on the brand experiences, which the comments become the basis for the leadership to audit and plan to improve the total quality through refined and upgraded experiences for the process to be continued as a virtuous cycle. Based on the principle framework, the approach is


extended into two detailed implementation frameworks for both the basic and creative brand design processes.

The first extended framework is designed based on the generic procedure of brand design process and forms the underlying structure of the approach, to clarify the main stages and steps, in providing Chinese enterprises a method for tracing clear thinking and logical design sequence. The implementation framework of quality for the basic brand design process integrated the eight extracted principles shared by brand design and the TQM philosophy and had them embedded into their corresponding stages. In this framework, a comprehensive high-level process of brand design being a continuous improvement is demonstrated. At the top range are the three most essential elements that lead, evaluate and judge the total quality of a brand design practice. The overall process is designed based on the IPO(F) pattern, to form the process cycle (see Section 5.2).

The creative process (step five) within a holistic brand design process is highly empirical experience-based and requires the staff associated with proper training and talents for conducting innovative works. In specific, the creative designers need to possess two sets of abilities that are substantially in conflict: being coherent and rigorous regarding processing logic; and being incoherent and innovative when generating creative ideas. However, in the context of Chinese enterprises, a lack of of qualified creative brand designers is causing the creative process outcomes to show two extremes of performance of either being excessively careful with a low level of creativity or being randomly designed without careful thinking and guidance. Based on these concerns, to ease the creative situations of most Chinese enterprises, the implementation framework of quality for the creative brand design process was extended specifically to focus more in-depth on this particular step (see Section 5.3).


Preliminary Toolkit

The frameworks of quality proposed in this study are considerably generic. Specific to the practical application, the practicability might be found insufficient for Chinese enterprises lacking professional knowledge and experience in brand design practice. Generally speaking, external consultations are highly recommended for Chinese brands to apply frameworks as such, eight preliminary supporting tools are selected, modified, and matched with their corresponding steps in the frameworks of quality to further assist the implementation of the overall approach proposed in this study (see Section 5.4). This supplementary toolkit needs further optimization and modification according to the needs of each specific case.

Application examples of the principles, frameworks, supplementary tools are demonstrated through the in-depth, real-world case study with Corporation B, and documented together with the verification and evaluation of the overall approach in Chapter Six.

In summary, any steps in the brand design processes, without considering its influence to the integral quality, could cause deviations from the preset objectives, inefficient strategies, and may cause the overall practice’s failure to achieve the desired results. With the key principles integrated into the frameworks of quality, along with the toolkit designed as a supplement, the holistic quality approach suggested by this research is believed to be beneficial in improving the overall awareness of quality as organizational culture is concerned and total quality management situations in the brand design process for Chinese enterprises.

7.2.3 Conclusions of the Research

The research confirmed the preliminary hypothesis made during the initial phase of the study (see Section 1.3.1): Customer satisfaction, as the only measure of the success of a brand, is determined by the quality of a brand experience as a whole; the quality of the brand performance excellence is determined by the awareness of quality


and total quality management in organizational culture, starting from the role of leadership; in the context of Chinese enterprises, brand design dilemmas are caused by improper organizational culture and the lack of brand design expertise; the proposed quality approach is valid to bridge the gaps and prepare the Chinese enterprises for brand design improvement fundamentally.

The study also sought to answer the four research questions that were guiding the research:

1) Where do brand design and organizational culture meet? What is the real core of brands and the key to success from the west?

Organizational culture exists throughout the entire brand design process: organizational culture includes an enterprise’s vision, values, norms, systems, symbols, languages, assumptions, beliefs, and habits. It represents the collective values, beliefs and principles of all organizational member (Needle 2004). A brand is the representation of the organizational culture behind it (see Section 2.6.2).

Based on the findings through this study, the research focus was shifted to the process instead of the product, an argument had been made as the “awareness of quality” and “the role of leadership” are the real core elements of an organizational culture perspective that fundamentally act on a brand design process, which play key roles in determining the success or failure of a brand (see Section 2.6.3).

2) If awareness of quality is one of the core elements of brand design, then how can a Chinese enterprise measure and manage quality?

The measurement of quality is after all essentially the measure of customer satisfaction.


However, quality in brand design has many kinds and aspects: on a philosophical level, it is an attribute or property; on practice level, it could be tangible or intangible. Both the tangible and intangible quality exists in alignment with all aspects and forms of organizational culture. Tangible quality’s carriers could be seen or touched, there are relatively unified standards for people to judge the quality of the tangible forms, usually depends on whether an item can perform satisfactorily in service and be suitable for its intended purpose. Intangible 54

quality is harder to evaluate and sometimes could be missed or ignored. In this study, quality measurement methods include NPS, secondary data collection and analysis, Toyota’s Five Why’s Analysis (Liker, 2004), and social media monitoring are selected and discussed (see Section 4.1).

Among the methodologies adopted in the research, the management philosophy of TQM is essential to this study. The TQM philosophy highlights the underlying elements of quality and leadership, and revealed the essential principles and structure of quality management in brand design (see Section 4.2).

3) What is the role of leadership? Is it one of the core elements of brand design? In China, if an enterprise is missing competent leadership, what are the alternative solutions?

As one of the core elements of brand design, the role of leadership establishes an organizational culture and directly supervises the brand design process. The awareness of quality of a brand leader determines his/her branding consciousness during the leadership process of the brand design, and his/her resolve will guide the implementation process of every brand strategy. The role of leadership is the

“What is Quality?”, The Institute of Internal Auditors, Retrieved May 19, 2015, from https://54

www.iia.org.au/quality/qualityservices.aspx

https://www.iia.org.au/quality/qualityservices.aspx


key to achieving a brand’s desired performance excellence (see Section 3.4.2).

A series of executive coaching suggestions were given in this study modified based on cultural factors for Chinese brand leaders (see Section 5.5.3), a company needs to consider which format could be more appropriate depending on the leadership’s personal status. For the case study of Corporation B, a think-tank as the expert system was considered a more suitable approach for the exceptional leadership (see Chapter Six).

4) What are the shared principles of brand design and the total quality management philosophy that can be adopted to improve the overall brand design process for Chinese enterprises?

Eight key principles were summarized and integrated into the quality frameworks (see Section 4.2 and Section 5.1). One principle framework and two implementation frameworks of quality for both the generic and creative processes were proposed in this study which demonstrated the underlying structure of total quality management in brand design (see Section 5.1-5.3).

7.3 Contributions

7.3.1 Implications and Suggestions for the Pilot Study Cases

The pilot case studies of this research provided a general view of the situation regarding branding and innovation in today’s China, through the findings and the main case study with Corporation B, I got the evolving idea to develop the proposed quality approach. I have concluded a few hypothetical suggestions for possible future practices and research for the brands and markets encountered in the pilot studies as follows, which I believe answers the original research questions posed through the pilot studies.


Ke SilkFor Ke Silk, the reality is that there is only one sizable factory with weavers’ capable of passing on craftsmanship and setting examples for the youth to show that there is potential for the industry to revive, thereby attracting more to join the field. This particular factory shoulders the responsibility of leading the industry out of the current predicament. Despite the owner of the factory is product quality-oriented rather than total brand quality-oriented, as stated in Chapter Two, he is not a replaceable leader due to his skills, experience, and dedication in this industry. To apply the proposed quality approach to this case's situation, forming an adequate expert system in assisting the business is crucial as step one. Moreover, from the perspective of protecting Ke Silk as a cultural heritage, government supports and aids in bearing the costs of experts system is necessary. Instead of suggesting leadership coaching, I believe in this case a subtle and continuous influence from the experts to the leadership would be much more efficient in increasing the leadership’s awareness of quality and know-how in brand design.

Pu-erh TeaThe fundamental problem that is causing the chaos in the Pu-erh tea market is precisely the awareness of quality—from the quality of the product to the quality of all aspects in this industry. Correcting the concept of quality is imminent not just organizationally, but in a market culture range as well. The fastest way is to create industrial brand icons to become the role models for conveying the right ideas and conduct to influence the rest of the market, as well as setting standards in quality on a product level; for products like Ph-erh Tea, quality should be the most significant and explicit criteria. Once potential brands that could become the industry role models are selected, the proposed approach of this study could be applied accordingly to each of the enterprise’s actual situation.

MouthdoleakMouthdoleak was a case with an insightful and irreplaceable CEO,


high awareness of quality in products organizational wide, and international consultancy firms as the expert teams. The major issues lie in some of the false conceptions in the brand design by the CEO. I believe in this case leadership coaching and workshops would be the best first step. If the CEO widened his awareness of quality from the product range to organizational range and enhanced his brand expertise, he would influence the overall corporate culture to the next level, which would benefit the sustainable development of the enterprise in reaching its goal substantially.

7.3.2 Other Ongoing Attempts in Optimizing the Frameworks of Quality

Within this doctoral research study, I had made a few more initial attempts to apply the proposed approach for further validations in diverse Chinese enterprises. The types of enterprises covered were: SMEs, emerging startups, and local branches of international companies.

Since the practices conducted were mainly at initial stages of either the input phase or the process phase, there was not enough documentation for evaluating the performance of the approach yet. However, there is a phenomenon I repeatedly encountered with these attempts. For every pre-project assessment and prerequisites optimization phases, I would encourage the leadership to be personally involved in the brand design process. Although explained the potential benefits of applying this proposed approach which its success is highly reliant on a personal level commitment and participation by the leadership, the common react I would receive, was for the CEOs to ask me to take over the brand responsibilities instead, by either joining the enterprises or assisting the enterprises to establish dedicated brand design teams externally. This would allow the CEOs to remove themselves from liability altogether, which was the exact opposite of what I was expecting. As I have not gathered a sufficient sample, a conclusion should not be made. An assumption made based on my overall impression was that,


especially for SMEs and emerging startups, the survival issues were significantly crucial. The backgrounds of the leadership of these types of enterprises were more specialized, skill-or-technology-oriented. Even though these leaders may already understand the importance of brand design, they may still have neither knowledge or energy to take into account this aspect of their daily works, nor enough talent within their enterprises.

For such practical problems, I initiated an attempt with a leading business school in China whose branding courses were recognized as outstanding. An initial plan for establishing a discipline/organization recognized evaluation system for total quality in brand design and branding, with corresponding short courses, training, executive coaching workshops, was designed for relevant professionals, practitioners, CEOs, and CBOs, to aid more Chinese brands on a broader scale.

7.3.3 Significance for Chinese Enterprises’ Brand Design Process

Through the case study conducted with Corporation B, the proposed quality approach, frameworks and supplementary toolkit were preliminarily validated. The proposed method is also believed to answer, to some extent, the brand design dilemmas stated in Chapter One. The significance of the quality approach and how it could potentially be contributing to improving the problems are concluded below.

1) Irrational brand architecture, leadership, and staff empowerment at corporate levelThe first research problem was to organize and recommend a proper and efficient corporate level brand architecture model adaptable for Chinese enterprises based on their current common setups.

The proposed approach contains a brand architecture optimization proposal, which emphasizes the importance and responsibilities of leadership as a decisive role in brand design, as well as benefits of


staff empowerment and delegation of the brand design teamwork. A dedicated CBO should be placed in the brand design leadership, and the necessity of forming a steering committee to oversee the total quality in performance of the brand design process is pointed out and explained in the proposal. Included in the preliminary supplementary toolkit, a paradigm shift model and the 7S parameter checklist are provided to assist Chinese enterprises’ transition from functional organizations into team-based organizations, to ease the issues caused by brand architecture chaos.

2) Lack of brand expertise and trainingThe second research problem was to address the issue of brand design relevant practitioners’ overall lack of knowledge of the discipline and the similar education situation in China.

The proposed approach addressed the necessity for Chinese enterprises to ensure internal branding, staff training, and leadership coaching programs to become successful. The study appealed to the higher educations to focus on personnel trainings in the discipline of brand design and branding in providing the talents needed by the enterprises. A preliminary supplementary tool for creating the temporary, project-specific, human-based expert system is recommended especially for Chinese enterprises to resolve their current status quo of lacking skilled specialists internally.

3) Weak teamworkThe third problem was that for Chinese enterprises, regardless if they are local or multinationals’ local branches, as long as the employees are primarily local Chinese people, cross-team teamwork is always a weakness in brand design collaborations.

It is an issue to be addressed holistically, as the reason behind difficult cross-teamwork involves multiple aspects including but not limited to performance of the leadership and management as exemplary roles; methods of staff training on practicing collaboration; and level of understanding of empowerment/delegation and


obligation. These key aspects were covered, and suggestions were given through the proposed approach.

4) Inefficient evaluation and decision-makingA holistic brand design process usually encounters many assessments and decisions for every key point from developing strategies to implementing tactics as well as adjustments and refinements of various previously made decisions. The fourth problem was the lack of practical solutions for the difficulties encountered in evaluation and decision-making for Chinese enterprises.

The core issue of this problem is lack of expertise and talents internally in Chinese companies. The proposed approach defines one principle for evaluation and decision-making in brand design for ensuring total quality—that they should be fact-based. Therefore, as a solution specially designed to address this issue, the proposed approach modified the computer-based expert system model into a human-based tool assigning corresponding external experts in groups to provide the knowledge, explanations, and inferences required for efficient and effective evaluations and decision-making in brand design processes.

5) Invalid best Western practices in Chinese enterprisesThere were two aspects to the fifth problem, which is the advanced best Western practices, strategies, framework, and methods are not tailor-made nor localized for meeting Chinese enterprises’ situations and issues.

The proposed approach is specially developed for Chinese companies, based on substantial empirical experiences, research and reviews, and through real-world practices with Chinese enterprises. It focuses on the Chinese companies' status quo of brand design practices, and the issues they are encountering, to bridge the gap between the best Western practices and Chinese brands.


6) Failed external brand design supportThe sixth problem was that Chinese enterprises are not aware enough of the proper ways to conduct brand design practices through employing external professional help and focusing on improving their internal conditions. Therefore, there is not much room for the external brand design consulting teams to contribute real meaningful efforts.

Through the case study practice with Corporation B’s hotel brand design assignment, the proposed approach made a demonstration that adopting the modified human-based expert system tool is a practical solution—having the experts work closely and directly with the leadership and steering committee so that they could have frequent communication and collaborations. The leadership provides vision and mission, and the experts provide facts and expertise; this type of teamwork resulted a more efficient approach than keep changing out the external consulting companies.

7) Shortsighted in long-term implementationBrand building requires persistent long-term efforts from all aspects of an enterprise to continuously attempt to achieve the expected desired state as long as the brand exists. The seventh problem was that the Chinese enterprises tend to overturn the internal brand design directions frequently. This could be caused by unclear brand design objectives due to a lack of expertise and understanding of branding as a discipline or confusions created by the unguided back and forth evaluation and decision-making processes.

With the evaluation and decision-making issues addressed in the fourth problem situation, the IPOA(F) pattern designed into the proposed frameworks was aimed to resolve the other half of the seventh issue. Another principle has been defined for the proposed approach that the brand design process should be one of continuous improvement. The IPOA(F) pattern, through the four stages of input-process-output audit/feedback, creates a continuous cycle to ensure


the long-term and persistent efforts required to achieve the desired total quality in brand design.

8) Unable to cope with the discontinuous change and uncertainty of successThe eighth problem was for the study to take into account and be prepared for the era of discontinuous change, regarding what it could mean for the brand design practices of Chinese enterprises.

The answer to such situation is also an approach conceived as a circulation process for achieving continuous optimizations so that the brands are always ready to respond to the unpredictable changes, which is in agreement with the proposed one.

The proposed approach was taken into consideration, as the process is designed to create a continuous improvement, yet the constant cycling creates the brand’s unified value. In Braun’s (2004) interpretation of Plato’s philosophy, he asserted that a brand should have two levels of essence. On the surface, it shows as a continually progressing process. Otherwise, it would be left behind the trend and become mediocre. On a deeper level, its brand value should be in constancy. The constant value is concealed behind the changing surface.

Besides the contributions to the specific brand design dilemmas the Chinese enterprises are facing, the holistic quality approach is anticipated to have the following significance. The overall potential benefits and contributions are expected as follows:

Firstly, this research proposed a solution for Chinese enterprises to improve the current dilemmas in brand design practices, to meet their desired brand design objectives. The potential benefits of the tool are mainly attributed to local Chinese brand design practitioners, from the CEOs to relevant employees, as well as professional consultants.

Secondly, even though the current situation and issues of Chinese enterprises are caused by historical and cultural reasons, Chinese


brands are facing the same challenges as any brand around the world. This research, with the proposed solution, is intended to bridge the gaps, ease the dilemmas, and prepare the Chinese brands for the foreseeable challenges so that Chinese enterprises can catch up with the pace of brand design practices in the West. It also aims at forming a climate of organizational culture and philosophical foundations for sustainable development of the brand design discipline after this particular transitional period in China.

Although China is considerably significant regarding its size geographically and diverse regarding its history and culture, this research is conducted to improve the overall average level of brand design performance among Chinese enterprises, and the proposed approach is designed to be versatile for achieving desired brand design objectives for Chinese brands in general.

Through comprehensive literature reviews of the relevant subjects, real-world case studies and participation demonstrations, the efficacy of the development of the proposed solution carried out through this research is expected to enhance the overall level of brand design expertise of brand design practitioners in China.

The tools selected to be included in the preliminary supplementary toolkit as part of the outcome, are designed to assist objective evaluation and efficient decision-making processes for Chinese brands’ executives. They need to rationally manage and improve the total quality of the comprehensive brand design processes from setting goals, developing strategies, implementing tactics, and auditing and directing strategic refinements, in order to precisely respond to market demands in a timely fashion.

Last, but not least,, this study establishes a research foundation for future relevant work both in general and in the context of the Chinese market. It provides background information and stimulates in-depth discussion for relevant foreign brand practitioners and scholars who wish to learn about the real situations and obtain a better


understanding of Chinese enterprises and the current Chinese brand market.

7.4 Limitations

After highlighting the implications and potential contributions of the proposed approach to the suggested research questions and problems, there are limitations to be noted.

Firstly, this research focuses on the Chinese enterprises that are unsatisfied with their current brand design practices, in general, without further analyzing on different types, industries, or other crucial factors that might invalidate the effectiveness of the proposed generic solution on an individual level for particular cases. Thus, the proposed approach may not be necessarily applicable to any Chinese enterprises encountering brand design issues. When applying the method, the prerequisites of the enterprise should be assessed, and the process might need to be modified accordingly on a case by case basis.

On the other hand, the proposed approach was intentionally designed to aid Chinese enterprises through the transitional economic period and based on the general status quo of the brand design practices in this market. Therefore, again, the proposed method may not be necessarily applicable to other brands not in the described circumstances. For example, this approach may not be considered the most advanced framework for the best Western practices but was intended to be more applicable to Chinese enterprises.

Secondly, the implementation of the frameworks is limited to one main demonstration with a typical SOE for its new leadership brand design project. Since the project was predefined as an initial phase of a five-year plan, the case study was conducted as a preliminary, market-driving in spirit brand design assignment. Within the limit of the study period of this doctoral research, it was not allowed for an ideal fourth stage of audit and feedback of the proposed approach, to


be adequately examined in a real market environment by consumers. The validation of the performance of the implemented method was substituted with mainly internal evaluations and verifications with justification of the Corporation B being the customer in the examination of this proposed solution.

Additionally, this research was highly empirical. This study does not claim to be a complete guideline for brand design practices, nor does it cover all existing literature or best practices in both brand design and TQM disciplines. The review of the TQM philosophy was mainly focused on brand design relevant perspectives.

7.5 Recommendations for Future Research

Owing to the scope of this research and limitations of the proposed implementation frameworks of quality in both the basic and creative brand design processes, the following suggestions are made for future research into relevant study areas.

1) Given the complexity of China and its culture, mixed economic forms in this transitionary era, different business types existing in the market, and the nature of brand design as multi-disciplined, it is not possible to conduct real comprehensive research on such a broad topic as studying brand design from an organizational culture perspective. Therefore, it is recommended for future studies to conduct in-depth, company type/industry-specific research, to further validate and examine the effectiveness and efficiency of the approach proposed by this research in different circumstances among Chinese enterprises.

2) The preliminary supplementary toolkit currently included in this research should be further developed, improved, modified, and integrated, depending on different circumstances. It is recommended to conduct various case studies in real-world scenarios, to fully understand the real demands out of laboratory settings and test the tools designed for their applicability across


different Chinese enterprise types, industries, and case-sensitive situations.

3) Training contents based on the notions of the proposed approach and future studies for corresponding training programs and executive coaching/workshops could be developed in detail especially for Chinese enterprises for aiding the implementations of the frameworks and tools, as well as preparing talent for the market.

4) With the progress of the disciplines of both brand design and total quality management, it is recommended that future research adopt more advanced theories, methods, and practices. To borrow Popper’s opinion (Braun’s, 2004), when conducting research, do not think of certainty, certainty does not exist. One should always try to substitute the existing approaches in better ways. Criticism is the beginning of any signs of progress and improvements. The key to the development of brand design is to review it from a perspective to resolve its ongoing issues and seek continuous improvement of the solutions.

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Appendices

ONE: Toolkit

1) Frameworks

A. The Principles Framework of Quality

B. The Implementation Framework of Quality for the Basic Brand Design Process

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C. The Implementation Framework of Quality for the Creative Brand Design Process

D. The Preliminary Toolkit Guide

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2) Tools

1. Total Quality (All): PDCA Problem-Solving Cycle

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2. Strategy: Decision Map for Brand Choices

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3. Strategy: Strategic Brand Mapping

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4. Brand Architecture: 7S for Brand Architecture

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5. Customer Demands: Identify Needs to Demands

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6. Creative Process: Touchpoint Mapping

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7. Creative Process: Touchpoint Design

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8. Fact-based Decision-Making: Modified Expert System

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TWO: FGI Summary of the Corporation B Case

1) FGI - interviewee - potential hotel users - screening questionnaire

Project Overview:Format of Study: 2 x focus groups (2 hours per group)Time: September 27 (Sat) and 28 (Sun), 2014Location: Shanghai (Specific location to be determined)Sample size: Total of 12, six persons per group

Basic requirements for discussion grouping:• High-end group (6 individuals): often stay in business hotels (international) that are 5 stars or above OR personal monthly income at 20,000 RMB and above, including the "affluent second generation", Western lifestyle• Midrange-to-high-end group (6 individuals): often stay in business hotels (International) that are 4 stars + Two individuals who are university students that are born in the 90s, Western lifestyle

(* Per preliminary research, 25-40 years old are considered as forward-looking businesspersons, with the need to travel more frequently (at least twice monthly OR once for long haul business trips-international), they tend to check-in to hotels that are 4 -star and above, try to cover a range of different types of occupation.)

Screener questions:We would like to invite you to participate in a focus group discussion on the future of hotel design. Before your participation, we will first ask you some simple questions to determine if you are suitable to take part in our study.

Q1 - Sector exclusion

1. Are you or your immediate family working in the following types of enterprises or institutions?

a) Market research firms or departments → politely declineb) Movies & television, entertainment, news media companies or

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media-related institutions → (recruit at least one person in each group)

c) Architecture, interior design, brands or experiential design → politely decline

d) The hotel industry → politely declinee) None of the above

f) Do not know / no answer → politely decline

Q2 - Last Survey

2. If there is, when was the last time you participated in research on the hotel industry?

a) Within two years → politely decline

b) Two years ago or never

Q3 - Gender

3. Please record respondents' gender:a) Maleb) Female (Recruit at least 2 for each group)

Q4 - Age

4. Your age?

a) Less than 18 → politely decline

b) 19-23 (i.e., some born in the 90s) (later, simply answer to Q5)c) 24-33 (i.e., born in the 80s) (If possible, please recruited 2 "affluent 2nd-generation", and directly assign into the high-end group)d) 34-40 (i.e., some born in the 70s) (Recruit 2 for each group)

e) 40 years old and above → politely decline

Q5 - Work status

5. Which of the following best describes your current status? (Option A can be selected along with the other options)a) University student (Recruit 2 persons, born post-90, do not need to answer after Q5, assign directly to the high-end group)b) Employed full-time

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c) Employed part-timed) Run their company/entrepreneur

e) None of the above → politely decline

Q6 - Business travel

6. Do you often go on business trips?A) Yes

b) No → politely decline

Q7 - Frequency

7. How frequently do you go on business trips? (Option D can be selected along with options B / C)

a) (Domestic trips) Once every few months → politely declineb) (Domestic trips) At least 1-2 times each monthc) (Domestic trips) Almost every weekd) (International trips) At least twice every year (Try to recruit more than two persons with experiences in international hotels)

e) Others → decline politely

Q8 - Hotel stay

8. Do you usually need to stay in hotels on your business trips?a) Yes

b) No → politely decline

c) Not sure / no answer → politely decline

Q9 - Hotel type

9. What is the usual type of hotels that you usually check-in to?

a) 3 star and below → politely decline

b) 4 star (Recruit 4 persons, assign to the midrange-to-high-end group)c) 5 star and above (Recruit 6 persons, assign to the high-end group)

d) Other → politely decline

e) Not sure / no answer → politely decline

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Q10 - Incomes

10. Which of the following ranges is closest to your monthly income?

a) 5000 RMB and below → politely declineb) 5001-10000 RMB (Assign to the midrange-to-high-end group)c) 10001-20000 RMB (Assign to the midrange-to-high-end group)d) 20001-30000 RMB (Assign to the high-end group)e) 30001-50000 RMB (Assign to the high-end group)f) More than 50,001 RMB (Assign to high-end group)

g) Not sure / no answer → politely decline

Q11 - Career

11. What is your current profession? Please record _________________________. (Try to cover different types of industries)

NOTE: If possible, try to understand whether respondents have good communication skills and are equipped with a certain level of forward-looking perspectives (i.e., You can ask whether respondents are interested in the latest technology and gadgets, what is his vision for hotels of. the future, to deepen your understanding.)

We appreciate your cooperation and effort to answer our questionnaire; we would like to formally invite you to join our focus group interview activity The content of the discussion regards hotel experience of the future The interview would take approximately 2 hours...

Your comments and thoughts are very valuable to us; it is a great support of our work. In return, we will provide you with a ________ voucher as a token of thanks.

Are you willing to participate in our focus group discussion activity?a) Yesb) No

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In the next few days, we will confirm with your further on the details of the focus group discussion. Please allow me to first double-check on your personal information:

Name:E-mail:Phone (mobile):

[Note: After questionnaire, please confirm that respondents' information is correctly recorded]

As this study is very important for us, if you have another appointment that requires your attendance and will be absent from the focus group discussion, please be sure to let us know immediately.

Thank you again for your participation!

2) FGI - interview moderator - discussion outline

Warm-up to Interview (5 mins)

Introduction by the interview moderator.

Respondents to introduce themselves: name, profession, job functions/job scope.

Hotel Guests Occupancy Behavior (30mins)

- From our prior communication, we have established that most guests’ work involved some business travel. Hence, what are the purposes of your business travels typically? What are the forms of business activities that are usually conducted? What are the relations with your profession or job functions itself?

- Do you anticipate that in the coming 5-10 years, that there will be any changes to your business travel approach and content? Feel free to let your imagination roam freely, and discuss spontaneously.

- What channels do you usually engage to make your hotel reservations for your business travels? What is the specific method

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to do so? Could you share with us the typical process for making the hotel reservation? And compared to the past, have there been any changes to your hotel reservation process or method? If so, what are the differences? How did such a change come about? Are there other reservation methods that you know about? What are your comments and assessment of them?

- During the reservation process, what information of the hotel do you look up for to reference?

- If you are going on a vacation instead, would you be using another method, different from the one you have previously mentioned, to make your hotel reservation? Why?

- Do you use any rewards card or membership card scheme at the time of making your hotel reservation? If so, what does it do specifically? Why do you use it? To what extent do you think it influences and affects your decision-making?

- If you were on a business trip, what type of hotel would you typically stay in? (If respondents are not able to generalize, may request for examples) Are there any similarities between these hotels? Why? What are the criteria or requirements that you would benchmark with when selecting a hotel?

- For the above-mentioned criteria or requirements, what is the order of their importance? Why?

- Do you pay attention to or follow some business-type hotels? Why?

Do you think that compared to other types of hotels, such as resort hotels, what are the major differences of a business hotel?

- Or, what you think of the foundation of a regular hotel, are the prerequisites and basis that would constitute a business hotel?

- How would you define a hotel’s “business-capacity”?

- During your business trip, how do you usually arrange your schedule and itinerary? Could you describe a typical day of work

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during your business trip? Would there be any differences on the day you check-in and the day you check-out? Why?

- Do you make a strict distinction between the time for work and the time for play? How do you usually schedule your time? Why?

- What activities do you carry out at the hotel? (Of which, what takes place in the room? What takes place outside the room?) What is carried out outside the hotel grounds?

- When you go on a business trip, are you usually accompanied by a colleague or a family member? How many people are there usually? (Male and female ratio) Do they attend the business activities with you as well? How do you complement each other in your work? And apart from work, do you participate in other activities together as well? Why?

- Apart from resting time, what events would you rather take part in by yourself, alone? Why? What time of the day would it fall under usually? And in relation, what conducive environment do you hope that the hotel can provide?

The Hotel's Overall Evaluation and Core Functions (35mins)

- After you check in, what do you usually engage in to evaluate the overall hotel experience by? Why are these important?

- Of all hotels that you have stayed in, which is your personal favorite (if unable to recall the name, could you describe it)? Why? What aspects of the hotel attracted you? How is the pricing?

- What are some of the hotels you think are worth recommending? Why?

- Of all hotels that you have stayed in, which is your least favorite? Why? Which aspects of the hotel are less than satisfactory? How is the pricing?

- Which other hotels have you had an unpleasant experience at? What specifically happened?

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- On your business trips, which hotel do you stay in the hotel most frequently? Why? What are the factors that resulted in your stay? How is pricing?

- Of the respondents in attendance, who have experienced staying at a business hotel abroad? Can they specifically discuss their differences compared to local hotels?

- Of the hotels you have stayed in during your business trips, what are their common core functions and amenities? (You can refer to an existing core functions list) Of these, which do you think are necessities? What are “good-to-have”? What are “not so necessary”, what are those that you can “do without”?

- What are the core functions and amenities that are quite uncommon, but that you find interesting? Why?

- What requests of the core functions and amenities do you have for the room’s interior? Of these, which do you think are necessities?

- What do you hope that the room is equipped with? What are “not so necessary”, and can be simplified?

- What are the core functions and amenities that are quite uncommon, but that you find interesting? Why?

- Combining the two topics discussed earlier, what are the core public functions that you think could be adapted to be a feature in the interior of the room? And which features in the room could be moved to the public area, so that it could be used more significantly? Which features are required in both? Why?

- What is your personal understanding of star ratings for hotels? What do you think are the differences between a 4-star and a 5-star hotel? On your personal stay, would you take the ratings as an important measure to benchmark the hotel’s service standards? Why?

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- Do you think that when comparing middle-to-high-range hotels with upscale hotels, the former establishments may carry some advantages (such as price) that can attract you? What are the middle-to-high-range hotels that have given you an experience that is superior to that of upscale hotels? In what aspects? Why?

- From the experiences of your stay, which are some common inadequacies in core functions? How do you think they could be improved?

- What is your usual requirement for room sizes? Is this an important consideration when you are choosing a hotel? Any specific requirements (square meters)?

- While on a business trip, do you usually do some fitness at the hotel (or other health-related activities and)? How often? What suggestions do you have for the current hotel’s fitness equipment?

- Does everyone have the opportunity to use the banquet room/ballroom on their business trips? How often? What activities/events are they usually used for? Why do they have to be conducted at the banquet/ballroom? Do you think it is necessary?

The Hotel’s Soft Features and Services Extensions (25mins)

- While outside on a business trip, what is your usual physical and mental state of mind? Is it any different to when you are not traveling?

- Is your mood while working, any different to when you are at your company’s premises? Why?

- When you are abroad, aside from finishing your work duties, are there any matters that you deem are more important?

- Upon arrival at the hotel, what do you usually do first? Is it immediately followed by work? Or do you hope to have a moment to take a break? In what ways do you hope the hotel could assist you with?

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- During the check-in process, do you like some level of interaction with the hotel staff? What do you think is a comfortable manner of communication? How would you recommend the staff to gauge this level of interaction that guests prefer? Why?

- Do you prefer a more active or passive form of service delivery? Or others?

- Do you wish to have some interactions with other hotel guests? Why?

- What do you think of the concept of “home” that is presented at some hotels?

- Also, when on a business trip, are you usually interested to participate in local arts and culture events and activities (for instance, in larger cities such as Shanghai and Beijing)? What kinds of specific activities appeal to you? In what ways do you hope the hotel could support you with?

- Of the hotels that you have stayed in during your business trips, what are some common types of services that are being offered? Of these, which do you think are necessities? What are “good-to-have”? What are “not so necessary”, what are those that you can “do without”?

- What are the soft features and services that are less common, but that you find it interesting? Why?

- Under what circumstances and scenarios do you usually find yourself utilizing the hotel’s services? Specifically, which services?

- Especially targeting business-related activities, what other services and utilities do you think is a necessity?

- Imagine 5-10 years down the road, what are your new anticipation on a hotel’s service offerings?

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- Do you think it is necessary for hotels in the future to provide a more personalized level of service? Why? Specifically, what services could be offered?

- Do you think it is necessary for hotels in the future to provide a more automated manner of self-service (such as using an internet platform to complete some operations and selections)? Why? And what specifically could be done?

- With the advents and proliferation of technology, how do you think service and technology could be integrated and complemented with each other more seamlessly?

- During the experience of your stay, what are the common issues and inadequacies with the soft services offered? How do you think they could be enhanced?

Discussions on The Hotel's Design and Trends (20mins)

- Suppose that in the future, we are working on creating a business hotel that targets guests like you, how do you think we should establish and comprehend the direction that the hotel should take?

(I know that this question might be more abstract to most people, so we have also prepared a short exercise, to help us better understand each other: mood cards. I hope that everyone could choose the experiences and feelings/moods/sensations that you hope to have at a business hotel of the future; or, what do you think could constitute a great hotel experience. We recommend that you select 5-8 cards.)

- Please explain briefly, what did you interpret and read from the picture. In a comprehensive business hotel experience, which service aspect are they corresponding to? Why is it necessary?

- If you could rank these pictures in order of importance, what would that be? Why?

- What are the “missing picture(s)” of the images we have provided, that you feel very important? What exactly is it?

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- Of the remaining pictures, do you think any of them are completely unnecessary or inappropriate? Why?

- Do you have any understand of boutique hotels? Have you ever had the opportunity to stay in one? What do you think are the differences between boutique hotels and other chain/brand hotels? What do you think would constitute a hotel as "boutique"? Regarding design, how should that be reflected?

- One of our concepts is to use a "room+dining room+common living room” perspective when we look at how the main guest areas are divided, what do you all think about this approach of division? Regarding “common living room” how should we interpret it? What arrangements could we make inside?

- In the hotel industry, what do you think is a trend that is worthy of attention? Or if the notion is from other industries, what are the trends and directions that the hotel industry could borrow and learn from? For instance, eco-system.

Summary (5mins)

- Specifically in hotel design for the future, where are other avenues that we could learn from?

- What other matters would you like to add on, after the discussion that we have just had?

- Supplementary questions (exchange of remarks and views of members in the observation room)

End of discussion, and thank you.

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C) FGI - outcome sample

Target Customer & Scenarios (1)

Guest: Mr. Chen (Regular traveler)Age: 42Sex: MaleType: Easy & Life Enjoying Business People Occupation: Banker

Like many times before, Mr. Chen took a business trip to Shanghai again and this time he decided to take his wife to let her enjoy the unique experience offered by the CB hotel. Mr. Chen had informed the hotel about his schedule in advance. As usual, the hotel sent a car to pick them up from the airport. Their room was well ready when they arrived around noon. A luxury VIP lift took them straight to their room.

Mrs. Chen received her first surprise right after she opened the door and it was a box of beautifully wrapped osmanthus cakes on the table. The signature dessert from the hotel restaurant had long made its name popular in Shanghai. Mr. Chen checked out the bar and picked a bottle of selected wine from Bordeaux and poured two glasses for two of them to celebrate the beautiful start of the day. Mr.

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Chen then was getting ready to his work. Mrs. Chen was to take care a T-shirt that was accidentally stained by her husband earlier on. She soon spotted the dry hanger in the bathroom and was quite impressed by the thoughtfulness.

Mr. Chen was out for meeting in the afternoon, and Mrs. Chen stayed in the room to rest. Not long after she started browsing the Cloud Mall (online shops) of the hotel on TV, she bought several pieces of jewelry that she liked. The various bath salts sitting in the bathroom was so inviting that she could not help but threw herself a nice rose-scented bath. Mrs. Chen had made a reservation in the CB’s finest Japanese restaurant before Mr. Chen came back. Later, the couple went out for dinner by taking the convenient transportation in the CB and spent a lovely night together.


Guest: Ms. Zhang (Regular traveler)Age: 35Sex: FemaleType: Stable & Highly Organized Business PeopleOccupation: Department Executive

When she woke up, Ms. Zhang felt like staying in bed a little bit longer. Although it was chilly outside in this month of December, she could not feel it. Her bed had continually adjusted its temperature, so she never felt cold nor hot. After a few minutes, she decided to head to the bathroom and take a hot shower. When she was done, the bathroom is full of steam but she could still clearly read the time in the mirror and as well as do her hair for this morning‘s meeting. She just remembered that she asked for a featured female room as she found a perfectly-sized bathrobe to wear in the bathroom instead of an over-sized bathrobe that often seen in other hotels.

At 8.30 am Ms. Zhang headed downstairs for breakfast. She was impressed by hearing the staffs greeting her with ‘good morning Ms. Zhang’ as she was walking in the hotel restaurant. She did not have

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to say a word, and she was led to her favorite table in the corner of the restaurant. It was quieter there, and the staffs knew she liked this table. She got the menu that was designed especially for business women who normally has a big day ahead and requires dishes both nutritious and tasty.It was more than half an hour away to her meeting, so she went back to her room to relax a bit. She liked to get her coffee there because the room had a high-end coffee machine that makes delicious coffee. While she was sipping her coffee, she used her tablet to browse through the hotel’s online shops. Every time she stayed here, she found brand new items from various artists. These products could always make perfect gifts for her friends back home.At 9.30 am, Ms. Zhang approached the reception where she asked for a key of one of the electric cars so she could drive to meet her clients not far from here. It was a standard service the hotel provides, and the receptionist simply handed over the key and wished her a good day.


Guest: Linda (Foreigner)Age: 26Sex: FemaleType: Energetic & Trendy Business PeopleOccupation: Fashion Designer

Linda was from the UK and she was invited to attend the 2024 Winter Fashion Week in Shanghai. She booked her room at the CB hotel as the organizer recommended through online booking system without a fuss. She finally arrived Shanghai this day. She did her check-in while she was on her way from the airport to the hotel. The hotel staffs welcomed her with fluent English and ushered her to her room. As soon as she stepped in the room, a comforting scent of lavender released her from the tiredness of long trip immediately. The

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temperature set by the air conditioner was just right, and it felt like a totally different world from the freezing outside.

She could not wait to treat herself with a nice and warm bath. The special feature of the wide bathtub ensured the water temperature was constant. The pillow designed for the bathtub was so comfortable that Linda almost felt asleep in the tub. The fast hair dryer in the bathroom made her hair dry in half minute.

Linda was going to meet her local assistant Xiaoting in the afternoon. The public lounge located on the same floor of Linda's room became a perfect meeting place for these two. They even had English tea while discussing the schedules. Linda was impressed with the high speed of the hotel internet access as well as the socket that she could plug her UK standard devices in. After working, we had an authentic Western dinner in the hotel restaurant. Just when Linda was worrying about her having difficulties to sleep at night, she was surprised to find a pair of eyeshade in her bedside cupboard to help her with the jet leg. With a night of good sleep, Linda started her next day 100%.


Guest: Mr. FeiAge: 27Sex: MaleType: Travel Expert - Creative & Savor LifeOccupation: Media Industry Entrepreneur

When he came back late in the afternoon from his meeting at the media center riding his electric bike rented from the hotel, Mr. Fei felt pretty good about himself. This venture capitalist firm seemed interested in his team‘s software. The following day he would head back to Suzhou and share the news with his team and start preparing the next steps. Tonight, though, it was a good time to chill out and enjoy the hotel’s facility.

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As he entered his room, the first thing he did was checking how much energy he had consumed through his stay. He was still way under the average guest consumption level according to his ‘green score’ displayed on the room‘s main control screen. Which would give him discount when he checked out. Not to say, he was very keen to reduce his ecological footprint as much as possible since he had seen a presentation about global warming.

First things first, he grabbed a biodegradable mug he had 3D printed earlier yesterday. He got to choose the shape and color of it among hundreds of choices, and it felt like it was printed just for him. As he prepared himself a cup of tea, he said ‘Mary (system’s name, like Siri), close curtains’ and the previously transparent windows instantly turned gray. This new material called ‘switchable glass’ had never ceased to amaze him.

While his hot tea was ready, Mr. Fei decided to go shopping at the closest art gallery. He put his virtual reality goggles on and was instantly transported to a big warehouse-like building displaying hundreds of pieces of art: big and small, sculptures, paintings, animated objects and more. Some of them were for sale and could be purchased and sent to any address in China. After finishing browsing, he switched to a virtual iMax movie theater where he had tons of the latest movies to choose from and could enjoy in his room.

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THREE: Sample Brand Design Outcomes of the Corporation B Case

* Sample outcomes showcased in this dissertation are for academic research use only, and were developed case specific for a real-world brand design project, therefore, without authorization, the content of the designs are prohibited for other uses.

A. Brand Positioning Overview

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B. Analysis of Target Customers' Trends

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C. Customer Segmentation Analysis

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D. Design Principles / Design Criteria

E. Clusters of Top Differentiation Points

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F. Top Differentiation Points Ranking System

G. Amenity Suggestions

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H. Interior Design Criteria

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I. The Brand Book User's Guide

REFERENCES | �274

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