Three brands living by creativity

There’s a very obvious difference between the companies who consciously put creativity at the very heart of their business and those who have a less structured approach.

Brands that champion creativity invariably exhibit a seamless flow – each aspect has been considered through the lens of their brand: product design, online experience, content creation, messaging and marketing work not in isolation, but as part of a larger whole. Other organisations that commit to creativity only sparingly might find that it actually jars; that one well-considered aspect of their website shows up the rest of their online presence as being sub-par. If you have spent money on brilliant advertising but your app sucks, well…

Here are three brands where creativity is core to what they do and how they do it.

Teenage Engineering

Possibly the most interesting consumer tech company in the world. Who else would launch a medieval synthesiser with a quilted carry case? Or a choir of carved wooden dolls that sing in harmony?

Taking a lead from Apple’s corporate modernism, Teenage Engineering’s website is a joy to navigate and makes their range of audiovisual products appear effortlessly seductive. What stands out is a wholesale commitment to an aesthetic that they have pretty much pioneered – think Dieter Rams’ Braun products colliding with Game & Watch LCD games in a Japanese HiFi Bar.

Commitment to creativity hasn’t just ensured legions of dedicated fans for their products, but has led to successful collaborations with the likes of phone-maker Nothing and retail giant, IKEA.

Take out: Develop your own aesthetic and own it.

Spoiled Child

First, let’s talk about the name; Spoiled Child. This is an anti-ageing brand, and taking a long-term view, ageing does indeed spoil the child in all of us. A brave name, and one with just the right hint of selfishness.

The product design is a slick mix of medtech and wellness that’s often difficult to pull off, and is supported by a great tone of voice and messaging that pulls no punches. The creative direction gives the brand gravitas and effortless cool. The brand experience is seamless and puts user-generated content front and centre. Even their proprietary AI adopts a non-conventional name – “spoiled brain”.

The only slightly jarring aspect is the rallying cry to “join millions of women…” Perhaps they are just doubling down because they completely understand their target audience, but it feels like we’ve moved beyond such a binary approach?

Take out: Know your customer and build for them.

Dropbox

Dropbox has come a long way since it launched over fifteen years ago. What was a peer-to-peer file sharing system has developed to be a real-time collaboration platform.

The latest rebrand does a fantastic job of explaining exactly how easy Dropbox makes it to edit, collaborate and store projects across multiple devices – positioning it as a ‘living workspace’, rather than simply convenient cloud storage.

Each of the product features are brought to life with elegant animations that make the entire user experience engaging and easy to understand. The scrolling homepage succinctly communicates all the different benefits of using Dropbox, making it immediately obvious why it’s a smart choice for almost any creative business.

Take out: Build your narrative around benefits, then bring it to life