Ford, Carolyn Today's episode is a little different. We're not diving into ransomware, nation state actors, or the latest zero day. Instead, we're talking about something arguably maybe even scarier and more dangerous, and that is bad storytelling, because here's the truth. You can build the most elegant cybersecurity solution on the planet, but if you can't explain it in a way that makes someone care, it doesn't matter. Dharma Pachner, Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Contrast and Co., joins me to talk about how we take the abstract, the technical, the wildly complex, and make it comprehensible. Not water down, not buzzword heavy, actually understandable. We get into foundational brand ideas, why metaphors work, how visuals do half the storytelling before you say a word, and how these simple, same principles apply whether you are rebranding a tech company or just trying to get your budget approved. And yes, we talk about why every cybersecurity website seems legally required to feature the same blue binary code and a glowing lock. So if you've ever had to pitch, persuade, propose, or present, this episode's for you, well, let's get started. All right, so today, we're gonna do something a little bit different. Dharma is going to share his screen throughout this episode. So this one's especially visual. So if you're listening to us right now, great, and you might want to pop over to the YouTube channel so you can follow along and see everything that we're talking about in real time. So, Dharma, what are the biggest challenges? And communicating the value proposition of technology, platforms and tools to a non-technical audience. Pachner, Dharma Well, First off, thank you so much for having me. It's a tremendous honor to be here today and I'm really excited to have this opportunity and conversation with you. So to answer your question, what are the biggest challenges in communicating the value proposition of technology platforms? Let's start with the premise that any form of. Communication is difficult, like anytime you have to explain your value proposition or your product to somebody. It's not an easy undertaking. And you have brands like Nike and Gatorade that are fairly sort of self-explanatory in nature. But when you're dealing with technology platforms, that becomes a lot more different. A lot more difficult to do, making things more complicated. A lot of times you're speaking directly to AB2B audience. But even that B2B audience has varying degrees of technical fluency and proficiency. So you have a wide range of audiences. You have a complex value proposition. And if that's not challenging enough in most contexts you only have a few seconds to capture somebody's interest and tell them tell your story in a way that's intuitive. That's clear, that's memorable and motivating. So all of these challenges, I think make branding in this space especially difficult. And I find that of all the industries we work in and we work in quite a few technologies, cyber remains the most difficult. To brand. But I also think that that creates a lot of opportunities. Because it is so difficult to differentiate or to capture your story and differentiate yourself in this space, the organizations that can do that effectively have a really powerful opportunity to stand out in a crowded category and truly become memorable. Ford, Carolyn I love what you said at the very beginning. Communication is hard. Words are hard. Honestly, maybe on a daily basis I think if I could just do a Vulcan mind meld to help you understand what I'm trying to say. Technology aside, anytime you're trying to communicate what's in your head and what you're feeling to somebody else, it's hard. And then? You go to this incredibly complex landscape of cybersecurity that is not one thing, right? So there's not one technology that is cyber, a cybersecurity technology. There are thousands and there are thousands of different angles and attack vectors, and so cybersecurity is just such. A huge ocean. So I love that. So how do you go about simplifying abstract concepts like cybersecurity for broader understanding. Pachner, Dharma Sure. Well, I think cybersecurity is its own special case just because I mean anything. Technology, I think, is inherently difficult to capture. I think cybersecurity is uniquely difficult to capture because it's just hard. It's like what it would be like if you had to capture ransomware in an image. Like what is that image supposed to be? Or phishing or application security development? Like, how do you capture that idea in a way that's interesting, but how do you also capture that in a way that adds clarity and that helps break down the complexity of an idea? So, do people understand it? And I think one of the key things to remember with that is you don't have to be. You don't have to be literal. You don't have to show a photo of actual ransomware. You don't have to show a photo of hackers or binary code to get the point across of what you're trying to communicate. And the goal when you're telling these types of stories when you're capturing these NAR. Is not to be as literal as possible. The bullets try to distill down the story in a way that people can easily understand and remember. So I'll show you an example of that. So this is a law firm that has since been acquired. But they were building their own technology platform and ediscovery platform that was designed to automate use AI to automate and create efficiencies in the discovery process. And as we were trying to learn what that, what ediscovery was, we just wanted to get a sense of what it does. Pachner, Dharma It look like if you search for it and this is what you see. You see these like Photoshop compositions of iconography and magnifying glasses and vectors, and all of these attempts to sort of try and capture this idea of being of, of ediscovery. And this is where, you know, you see binary code everywhere. You see these cliches. Ford, Carolyn Well, and also these images that you're showing get used for other ideas too, right? Like they're not unique to this platform. Pachner, Dharma They're not unique to the platform, so they make you look so you fall into the sea of similarity, but you're not adding any clarity to the conversation you're attempting to try to capture these ideas that resist sort of traditional expressions of how they can be, how they. Can be communicated. So one of the things we try to think about is like, what's a different way to approach it? So for this particular challenge, they had talked, we started with a quote that they said, but they were talking about the E discovery process and it's like you have all of this, all these documents across devices and touch points and platforms and mediums and they describe it as. It's this puzzle. You just have these pieces that come together and so we took that idea of a puzzle. And if you think about a puzzle, like when it's holistic and whole, it's this, this complete thing. But underneath that, it's made-up of all of these bits of information and data and knowledge. And we thought if we took that idea, could we break that idea apart and use it as a way to tell the story of the platform? Pachner, Dharma So they talk about the discovery process as just being this highly convoluted process, very similar to a hurricane. So we can use this construct to not only tell the story, speak to the story of the challenge, but we can also then reconfigure that shape and element to talk specifically about the need and the reason that they created the platform in the 1st place from a design. Perspective taking this less literal approach lets us communicate things like if we want to communicate the fragmented nature of ediscovery. And bits of information everywhere. If we want to communicate and reinforce ideas that their platform can create a smaller funnel for attorneys to review or their platform can be scalable to different size matters. So we've got these building blocks that we can use in different ways because we haven't leaned on trying to come up with literal photography to tell their story. So it can scale out in any number of ways. By using this approach to it, we can talk spec. About abstract concepts like cloud, we've got this design element that can just be peppered in a small cosmetic way and brand communications can start to translate into an overall cohesive look and feel for the brand. It can translate into more technical components and process architectures, but what? It just gives us building blocks. It gives us different types of building blocks to tell the story and it gives us a different way to to approach the narrative that makes the concept a bit more. Understandable and relatable. So that's the opportunity in thinking about how you can explore things from a visual perspective in a different way. Ford, Carolyn Well, and I love a good metaphor, an analogy. And here where they've used the puzzle. This is something that everyone knows. What a puzzle it is. So you've immediately got this. This grounding. Of something that we all shared common knowledge, right? And so we have an idea of, OK. So if it's like a puzzle and they're bringing all the pieces together, you're already communicating this really complex idea. Through an analogy that we were all familiar with. Pachner, Dharma Well, I'm glad you brought up the metaphors, and we'll cover that a little bit later in this presentation as well. But metaphors are, to your point, incredibly effective ways at laddering your idea to a concept that people already understand, so they can be very powerful tools to help reinforce a value proposition. Ford, Carolyn All right. Well, let's talk about. Foundational brand ideas. So what is a foundational brand? Oh, a foundational brand idea. And why is it critical, especially in tech? Pachner, Dharma For sure. So, such a great question and it's critical in any industry. But I think technology is specifically just given the challenges we talked about. But the reality is like before, any conversation around logos and color palettes or even messaging, I think every great brand has to be built. Or predicated on a powerful idea. So think like Nike. Just do it like an idea that transcends the way people think about the value proposition. Pachner, Dharma It's not about sneakers anymore. It's about being a winner and the sneakers of the vehicle to get you there, but I think it's an example of a way to elevate the narrative. It helps people change how they think about the value proposition, but I think just as importantly, like a really powerful brand idea gives an organization a foundation to communicate and especially in techn. Where we see a lot of times brands rely on talking about their features or this functionality versus the outcomes and objectives that their platform or their technology creates and orienting a brand around a foundational idea helps keep the narrative more oriented around business objectives. But it can also serve as a tool to help align internal teams with external messaging. Ultimately, it can help an organization stand out in their categories. Ford, Carolyn A lot of our listeners are practitioners. They are civil servants. Everybody has to communicate their ideas at some point, even if it's at home or, you know, to your boss. When you talk about a foundational brand idea. I'm listening to you talk and I think about these big brands like Nike. But it seems like it's something that you can apply. If you get a foundational brand idea, if you have a proposal like if you can get a foundational brand. Idea for that proposal. It will help communicate even down more at the micro level. Would you recommend that or am I getting too low level? Pachner, Dharma No, absolutely not. No, I think in a perfect world, a foundational brand idea sets a tradition. Such a trajectory, but it needs to be tactical and in the weeds as well. And I think if a foundational brand idea can be expressed in not just high level brand communications, but down to the nuts and bolts of how an organization is communicating on a daily basis with their clients and prospects, it can be a very effective tool for. Just orienting, messaging and consistently. Positioning the brand in a way that's effective for an organization. Ford, Carolyn Right. And for your personal proposal, what I want my team to do this quarter. So write down even to that level. Can you share an example of a brand that successfully communicates its foundation? Pachner, Dharma Yeah, absolutely. And I'll go ahead and just pop it in cheer mode again. So when I talk about a brand idea, let's say different organizations can think about these and communicate them in different ways. But let's say this is your brand. This is your technology company. Like at the apex of it, at the peak of it has to be a framing idea. And then that idea gets embodied in the name of your organization, your brand positioning, your messaging. Your look and feel. Your visual direction and then ultimately it cascades down to everything from your website to training, marketing BD materials. But the idea of starting a brand or building a brand around a core idea is not a small obligatory step in the process for us. It's the foundation of how a brand, how an organization can stand out, and we're asked all the time. Like, what does an idea look like? Like, how do you give an idea shape and structure and a lot of times you know, the people show the light bulb, But this hasn't been a new idea. For a long time I remember the first brand idea I ever saw. And it was this I remember exactly where I was standing. I was in a CompuServe store and the reason it was so powerful was because when I was growing up, personal computers had just exploded on the scene. I was very much into them and every single personal computer ad looks like this. It was like, look, how much knowledge and wisdom and intellect you can jam into this cardboard box. Ford, Carolyn Right. So this So what we're looking at is like a really old computer personal computer with stacks and stacks of books, kind of the idea that it's all coming into this computer was that the last one that you showed was that Picasso. Pachner, Dharma It was from the Apple original. Ford, Carolyn So it's just a picture of Picasso in black and white. Pachner, Dharma Think different campaign. Ford, Carolyn That's what we're saying, and this is one of the Apple. I don't, I don't remember this. Pachner, Dharma So this was the original think different campaign and it was a series of it was a series of people. But what you were able to realize in this is they were able to elevate the narrative, right? Pachner, Dharma It wasn't about the machine anymore, but it was about what the machine allowed you to achieve and then think differently became this idea. That wasn't just sort of this convenient tagline. Think differently became embodied in the hardware. This organization was producing. Thinking different became embodied in the software and the experience of it. The various products that they brought to market, the various platforms that they bought to market, even think differently in how they operate a retail store. So think differently. Is an example of a brand idea that transcends the value proposition of the actual offer and positions the organization ahead. And it's not just limited to technology. I've got up on my screen this 50 year old ad concept. For Mitchell and tires with a tire and the babysitting next to it. Michelin, because so much is riding on your tires. But what are you able to see? Ford, Carolyn Oh, we get that emotional tie. There's a baby next to a tire. And now all of a sudden I want those tires because they're gonna keep my baby safe. Pachner, Dharma Yeah. And they're not talking about their rubber. They're not talking about steel belted radios, they're talking. Ford, Carolyn Nope. Pachner, Dharma It's this subtle shift in messaging, but it's profound. At the same time. It's not about your tires, but it's about what rides on top of them. So that's what I mean by being able to take an idea and sort of elevate it beyond the value proposition. So in cybersecurity, how that could potentially translate this is this is the before. This is a cybersecurity brand we worked with years ago. That does attack surface, enterprise attack, surface management. This was their previous experience and that's what they led with. External attack surface management redefined and so as we went through the process, we're trying to think about a couple things. We're trying to think how do we distill that down to an idea? And also how do we better capture the story they're trying to tell and what? They want to communicate if they have this ability to not just understand and see the gaps in the security surface, but bring that knowledge together to help ADV an organization. So with that in mind, we were just trying to picture what does a surface looks like and. Then I'm just walking through visual examples, but a surface is the solid area and what they talked about is these gaps, these little holes. These organizations have massive vulnerabilities across. Number of different types of touch points. So they have these gaps in their security experience and as a platform, what this organization does is identifies and fills those gaps. So from a brand perspective, we have the start of a visual vocabulary for how we can communicate the narrative, but more importantly, we can now elevate it up to this broader idea of ruling your risk. It's not about being able to just have enterprise attack surface management. It's about being able to take your risk and use it in proactive ways to drive your organization forward. So this is how we think about taking a narrative and then that can come together. Then both the visual language and the vocabulary or the brand. Can be oriented around that idea. So what does it mean to define? What does it mean to rule your risk? Taking a thought leadership position on how do we bridge risk across departments? How do we prioritize the blind spots in an organization? How do we use our platform to prioritize resource allocation? How do we use our platform to better hire and maintain security teams? How do we use our platform to generate assets that we can use to report to the board? So taking the idea of risk and taking the idea of ruling your risk and then turning that not just into a visual construct, but into a framework for how you communicate moving forward, what does your sales communications look like? Like how do you talk about taking an off? Proactive approach to security management and then this is subtle and in the weeds. And if you're watching visually, but because we've established this vocabulary around the gaps, we can use that vocabulary to build out a brand experience. That just ties it together. So this is early examples of how that brand can come together and how the visuals can be oriented around a brand experience. Another quick example of one and I'll show you a before and after. This is a technology company that does a lot of integrations, does a ton of things like ServiceNow integrations with big government organizations. This was their previous experience and one of the things we were again windward was the name of the company and what they wanted to do is communicate that. By using their platform, their people, their processes, organizations can move faster and more efficiently than ever before. So taking that into account, we built a brand idea around this idea of being able to find flow like flow being a specific state that organizations can operate in, and then that gets translated into the various parts of the experience. How do they find flow? How do they help Bank of America find flow? Like, how does find flow become an actual? Contracts that can be used for marketing, case studies and other types of communications. So I'm moving through the visual examples. If you're able to follow, but from a visual standpoint, the opportunity is to always tie the visuals into the narrative that you're trying to reinforce as well. Ford, Carolyn And I'm looking at a lot of these visuals. I mean, they're subtle, like the flow is just kind of this WAVY line that then you've applied maybe up in the corner of a piece. And so it ties you back to that anchor of the flow, which again. Let's talk about the metaphor. You know, finding your flow. That's kind of been a buzzword for a while. So. Distilling the technology down to a metaphor, how do you? How do you go about finding the right metaphor to tell the story? To tell them to communicate this complex idea? Pachner, Dharma It's a lot of trial and error. It's a lot of trial and error and there's an exercise that will be introduced at the end of this, at the end of this podcast that gives you a sense of how to start with it, but it's usually trying to continue to elevate the narrative. So if their product and their platform creates these benefits, what's the value of that? And then what's the value of that? And then what's the value of that? But we ultimately just try to keep finding. Ways. How do we ladder up from the specific technical value proposition to what the ultimate outcome is? And for this one, we had inherited this name windward and one of the things we realized by taking the mark and using the mark in this way, we could have a. Visual language that spoke to the nature of the flow that they created in their technical processes. But we had a language that could support and augment that idea. Ford, Carolyn Right, yeah. And the visual like again ties you back to the flow and the shape that you've chosen is the West. It's subtle, but that's what I'm seeing. I mean, I'm assuming that was intentional Dharma. Pachner, Dharma 100% for sure and I think monograms for logo marks usually give you a lot of flexible ways that you can use it to reinforce key concepts. Ford, Carolyn Yeah, yeah. So again, even as you're working through a proposal that you've got to convince your boss. To approve. I like how you talked about the brand you're finding. Is it a benefit? Is it the emotional tie? What is it? Help me distill it down to what? That one thing that you're trying to get to that's going to hook them. Pachner, Dharma Well, I think the first thing is you have to spark an emotional connection. I think regardless of whether B2B technology, cybersecurity, whatever, the first opportunity is, how do you strike an emotional chord? Like, how do you make somebody feel something? And then the second is how do you make them understand that as intuitively as possible? And that's why they're sort of leading back to the title of this podcast is like, how do you make the complex comprehensible? Like for this organization, WINWARD, if they're talking specifically about their technical breakdowns and their processes, they're going to lose people right away. They have to start with what's the value we're creating and then as the messaging unfolds in the brand, then they can start to balance their messaging with whatever substance, depth and detail they need. As conversations get more substantive. Ford, Carolyn That's right. I don't need to know how you make the sausage. What I need to know is that the sausage is delicious and it's good for me. And it will, you know, make my babies grow healthy and strong. So there's that emotional tie. Pachner, Dharma Agreed and all the more reason where you can get people to feel something and they've done studies on the brands. People will form an impression of an organization in milliseconds before they've even realized that they're making judgments. They've already come to some conclusions. And so from a. Brand opportunity or from a brand perspective, the opportunity is how do you make sure that that first experience instantly captures the right narrative and gets and instantly strikes an emotional chord. And captures the key. Ideas to help people move further along through the narrative. Ford, Carolyn Yeah, that's right. All right. We're gonna take a quick pause here to thank our sponsor, Owl Cyber Defense for making these conversations possible. And we are back. All right. Anything more to say about the metaphors? Pachner, Dharma Well, I've got a couple more examples in. I've got a couple more examples here. One of the things we talk about is as you're trying to stand out visually and this is where metaphors come in, like in the spaces that we're in, like you're in cybersecurity, technology is what you see. Is this like a sea of similarity where organizations are using the same convention? Sometimes the exact same images and photos to tell their story? So how do you stand out? Like, how do you create an experience that feels unique? So a couple examples of those metaphors. So this is a cybersecurity brand. This was the before ID agent. They make credentials. Monitoring software basically looks to see if people's information is in the dark web and this was how they were telling the story of the brand. And there's nothing wrong with this, right? It's sort of at a high level. It sort of hits what the platform's able to create. And key benefits for their channel partners. Ford, Carolyn It's a data sheet, yeah. Pachner, Dharma It's a data sheet, but as we were going through the process again thinking about metaphors like what? A cybersecurity look like if you actually Google it like this again, this is what you see. You see a lot of these constructs. Ford, Carolyn And zeros. And thumbprints. And yeah, we've all seen. We know we can. We can conjure these images without even going to the YouTube channel right now, because we've seen these same images for 20 years. Pachner, Dharma Which I think just reinforces the struggle of trying to capture it right. It's an idea that still needs to be expressed, but traditional approaches to imagery don't tell the story. So that's very liberating, because then you can think very differently about how you want to capture the idea. If you're not looking to capture it literally, you can it. It opens up all sorts of doors for them specifically as we were going through and like learning about. The dark web and this thing, this, this object that had no form and no structure, no integrity. Nobody. You reach out to try to get a hold of it and you can't grab it. It's not there. So we came up with this, this metaphor, this black smoke as a way to speak to this idea of this dark web, this nebulous thing that nobody truly had a handle on. We had inherited this hexagon as part of their logo mark and we realized we could sort of integrate those two elements together and then superimpose this messaging. Pachner, Dharma So we go into the dark web to keep you out of it. We've got this contract, we've got this visual metaphor that we can use in any number of ways. We can use it as a sort of high level marketing. We can use it as we get into sales sheets and product or product sheets and overviews that give an overview of the platform. But now, because we're not trying to take a literal approach to it, we can figure out other ways to tell the story. So what you're seeing here is we were going through the process and learning just how porous the password system. It is a way to protect organizations. So we've got this visual vocabulary. Where we can start to scale out in different ways. We can capture these ideas. We can talk to the value proposition of the software using different types of metaphors to speak to its speed, to speak to, its ability to recognize threats. But we've got this brand of vocabulary that we can use. That's not a literal representation of credentials monitoring, but it gives. Use a lot of opportunities to tell the story. And the reality is, and I'll just show one more in the space, it's not just about looking different. The opportunities like how you use visuals to better describe what it is you do. So what you're seeing here is on the screen here is this audacious inquiry company that's since been acquired. But what they do is care coordination. So anytime if you fall and break. Your leg skiing. How is that information then captured by your General practitioner? To your pharmacy, to your orthopedic surgeon, How does care get coordinated as people move throughout the system? And so they had this platform. That was all about care coordination and we're trying to think how do we capture that idea and when you think about care coordination at any moment, any one of your providers has a very limited perspective into you and your health. Another provider has a different perspective and all of these. Ford, Carolyn Yeah. So I'm gonna pause you here. What I'm seeing on the screen is you're bringing in sections. What looks like is going to become a holistic picture. But you're showing me. Yeah. So you're showing me pieces of this woman. Representing this care provider's got this view over here. We've got this view with instacare or whatever, and then you bring them all together. Pachner, Dharma And then you can superimpose your message on top of it. So what if healthcare providers could see a fuller picture of their patients? So from a design perspective, this is now. Now we're using visuals to actually reinforce the narrative. What if healthcare aligned more holistically? Again, one single image broke up into five disparate strips, but they're aligned in a way that it's cohesive. So this. Ford, Carolyn Well, and it's a brilliant way to represent this because we all feel this in, in the healthcare industry. Well, with my own personal healthcare, right, I've got multiple different doctors from multiple different things. You go to them and none of them seem to be able to access the same record. It's exactly what this picture is. They've all got tiny little pieces and you just think for the love of Pete, why can't you guys, why am I writing down my medications for the 53rd time? Why isn't this in the system? Pachner, Dharma 1000% and I think this is like but this is an example you started when we started this conversation you talked about like the challenge in like words, right? The challenge is using words to describe what you do, but this is where visuals help do the part of the story. Like even if somebody doesn't stop and read the body copy. Even if somebody doesn't get into the weeds at a high level, visuals are starting to reinforce the key concepts and then those visuals can translate to what you're seeing here. Screen is just representative banner ads, but you've got the scalable construct now that can just be applied across all different types of communications, from, from Digital's to trade shows to down the road campaigns. So this is again, we're thinking about both the visuals from a metaphorical standpoint, but also the visuals from a storytelling standpoint. How can they be used to capture and reinforce key ideas? Ford, Carolyn Let's talk about Ownable identity. What does it mean? Especially in the tech space. And why does it matter? Pachner, Dharma So I'm really glad you asked that question because I think ultimately when we use the term ownable, what we want to do, what we're talking about specifically is how do we have a consistent, unique, recognizable look and feel across all touch points that helps set us apart. From competitors and a notable brand, experience gets very much in the weeds, but it's a consistent set of signals that you use from. The color you choose is typography. You choose the design shapes and elements that you use, but ideally the opportunity is to bring all of those signals together, and when you bring those signals together over and over again, it becomes a lot easier to recognize and communicate as an organization. And it adds a. Incredible amount of operational efficiencies to the creation of the marketing well to the marketing and creative processes in general. Pachner, Dharma So I have. So when I talk about these signals, I talk about. So when you're building a brand you have a lot of signals, you have the colors you choose, you have the shapes. You choose the various textures and the typography and the imagery, the composition, like all those. Pieces come together, but when those signals come together consistently, the results are very powerful, right? Like you're looking. Here on screen, all you're seeing is 3 signals. Those yellow types have an orange background and one object. But if you're seeing my screen, this is clearly Reese's. There are thousands of companies out there that make peanut butter cups and candies. Reese's has done such a masterfully consistent job of these brand signals. Same thing here. If you're looking at my screen, all you're seeing is 2 colors and some typography, but you instantly know this is Dunkin' Donuts. Same thing here. Pachner, Dharma You're seeing a red background and three French fries. You instantly know it's McDonald's. Ford, Carolyn That's right. Pachner, Dharma Because every one of these brands, there's not a single logo on this page, but every one of these brands is recognizable. So that's what I mean by ownable. It's a consistent application of these signals, and as you go through this process like as you go through and determine what are the right signals for my organization, my platform, these signals have meanings, right? Like if colors take for example this guy or this woman, you're looking at a woman. Yellow you realize, like she has to be yellow. It's optimistic. It's positive. It's whimsical and what we see a lot of times with technology brands is they say one thing and their visual signals say something completely different and it's not hard to mess up a brand like what you're seeing on screen is the Whole Foods brand, a Whole Foods, lo. One of my favorite logos of all time. So many cool things are happening in this logo. All you have to do is change a couple signals, change a couple color backgrounds, and all of a sudden you start to create dissonance. Ford, Carolyn You went from that healthy, luscious garden green. On a white background to a black background with hot pink, not the same message. Pachner, Dharma Not to say and just enough to cause dissonance, right? Just enough to cause confusion and everyone of these signals, like they may stop. There they make stop signs, read for a reason. 'Cause it's an arresting color and it gets people's attention and you start to mix up the signals. Ford, Carolyn You make a green stop sign. That's confusing. Pachner, Dharma It's confusing and the reality? Ford, Carolyn You're gonna cross people's wires in their brains. Pachner, Dharma It's not only that too, and it's not just colors, right, it's typography. There's all of these subtle details, and the reality is your audiences and your technical buyers do not care. But that doesn't. They don't care that you use this font or this color for your brand, but that doesn't mean that they didn't respond to the experience that you created. So the opportunity is like, how do you uniquely combine those signals in a way that tells your story so? An ownable identity is recognizable. Like you look at Alzheimer's and like from up starting from the beginning, starting from the photography selection. How do we feel different in the space? Like what are the signals we're using? Our colors, our shapes, our patterns, and then how are we using them to sort of tell the story? An ownable brand identity is deliberate. And what I mean by deliberate is as you start to think about your signals and shapes, like where do they come from? And I'm looking at an owl cover of a couple reports, but you can take your logo mark. By slicing it up in different ways and applying it in different ways, you can create masks and other types of elements that are subtle and tactical in the weeds tools, but they help ensure brain consistency. And it can be the subtlest of details. Even things like the shapes of your, the shape of your photography can be inspired by the negative space in your logo mark. Ford, Carolyn Right. Well, and just looking at these colors and shapes, they're very strong, powerful colors and shapes. And you could send a very different message just by adapting the shapes a little bit. By I guess for lack of a better term, applying a little gaudy. One of my favorite architects is applying. Gaudy with the colors and the shapes. All of a sudden it becomes whimsical. It's no longer powerful, ironclad cybersecurity. Now it's Alice in Wonderland, just by changing a few subtle things. So you say the audience doesn't care. But because we have these signals from. Forever the typography. The colors we've associated them with are certain emotions. Certain meanings. Long before our cyber defense, right? Like the red, white and blue, those are power colors. And so by associating those colors. With the brand or your proposal? You're immediately communicating what you're trying. The message you're trying to communicate begins before you even speak a word. Pachner, Dharma Agreed and color is an incredibly powerful signal. Color is incredible and color has associations. Colors mean things and I think like thinking about the goal is always thinking about what's our unique value proposition and what are the signals that best capture and reflect those ideas. So again, and if you're seeing my screen, you're seeing examples of this, but it gets like in the weeds, like the goal is like if you're an ownerable brand identity like you're consistent, whether you have different types of communications or when you have different types of communications. How? What's the underlying visual language of the brand and how does it translate? And I'm just moving through representative examples of digital ads with different types of content, different types of sizes. But we've got this visual language that we can play around with and use in a number of different ways. So it can be scalable from sort of high level ideas down to things like technical product sheets. And this is where things really do get in the weeds like it's great to have a big broad brand idea. It's great to have a set of visuals, but it's just as important to make sure as messages get more nuanced, more technical, more specific, more detailed that the brand can continue to support or the brand has enough range and flexibility to continue to support that. And then last. I think an honourable brand just continues to evolve and adapt like a brand is not a static entity. It's this living, breathing organism that can continue to use the building blocks that they have using the key ideas. It has. It can continue to scale out and and frame in any number of different ways. Ford, Carolyn Right. So you've shown several different. I appreciate the the plug here for Owl Cyber Defense and obviously Full disclosure. The reason I'm connected to you is because you are our brand agency. You are our creative agency and you moved through several different things. Assets of Owl Cyber Defence assets, some of them didn't even have the logo on them, but they were immediately recognizable as Owl Cyber Defence because of the color treatment. The shape treatment. Just the imagery that's been established for a while now. Pachner, Dharma For pointing that out, and I think it's really important for organizations to look at their brand is like they are these elements, right? You have logos and you have type, but it really it's your brand. Is a system and when it's applied well that system is recognizable regardless of which signals are applied. There's a lot of underlying like and we didn't cover this in this presentation. There's a lot of technical things you have to solve to get that system in place, but once it's solved, I think the value's exponential because you can continue. You have that. You have that instant recognition, you have consistency and it makes it easier to continue to produce. Communications and marketing. Efficiently over time. Ford, Carolyn I like that. I like that system's idea. In fact, it's kind of a cyber it not kind of. It's a cyber security idea that you think about systems rather than individual components. You need to think about it, system wide. So I mean obviously this is what contrasting code does you, you brand companies. I wanna dive us down into the weeds a little bit and talk about what we've mentioned before. That these principles can anybody apply them to a proposal they're trying to convince their boss to approve. You know, any kind of initiative they're trying to roll out in the company or if you're just trying to convince your partner to go to a dinner party that they don't want to go to, so. Let's talk about how anybody can apply these principles and that this isn't just for. Creative designers, but it's for anybody. So yeah, go ahead. Pachner, Dharma Sure, the dinner party challenge is a little tougher. I'm not sure about that one, but I'll show you a couple exercises. Yeah. First, sure. I think a lot of times people see these brands and think you have to have designers and agencies and all of that. But a lot of these things before you get to that point, a lot of these things are first just exercises in it. In thinking and problem solving, so I'll share just if you're looking at my screen, there's a couple exercises that I find super beneficial. This one on screen is called the 30 circle exercise. Actually seen 32 of them and we have the PDF available or we have a PDF of all of this available to to download. Ford, Carolyn Put it, I'll put it in the show notes. So you guys can do these exercises on your own if it's an important proposal, this would be a good I think a good exercise to start the proposal with. Pachner, Dharma 1-2 I find is just to get. This one is also good. It just sort of illustrates both the challenges and the ways to sort of approach thinking uniquely about your brand. But what it is, but if you haven't seen this exercise before, basically what you have is usually between 3:00 and 5:00 minutes and the goal is to continue. To use, try to fill out each of the circles and each of the circles with an object that feels like a circle, like an object or a circle sort of logically makes sense in there. And the reality is, and you'll find is. This is very easy to do. The 1st row, you'll probably bang out in no time. Maybe the 2nd row as you get further and further in the process it gets more and more difficult to do. But these last few circles. That's usually where the magic happens. So as you start to and I'll show you a couple other exercises or questions, but as you go through this process, you keep this in mind. It's like the immediate things that come to mind are most likely the immediate things that came to mind for other people. So the deeper you go in this exercise, the more it gets you thinking beyond the conventional thinking and predictable solutions beyond that. Two specific questions that we use to kick off any sort of branding exercise is what do you want to be known for and what makes you different. And I think as you're thinking about your brand, your technology, your product, your value proposition starting with these two questions if. You Fast forward to a hypothetical future and your product or platform has achieved what you wanted to in the market. What is that? If you can capture and articulate that and then capture what is it specifically that you're bringing to the table, that makes you different and what we find is if you have those two foundational questions, you can start the creative process for us the creat. Process everything you saw earlier was digital. Every single thing you saw started with this. And we use it. We're very specific about the pens we use and why we use them. But we're really clear. Like these are not drawing tools. These are specifically like tools, tools for thinking and I always think like the back of the napkin sketch. If you've ever seen the Southwest Airlines napkins. Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, back of the napkin sketch of what the initial brand concept was, this is a great exercise. It's a. Great litmus test as you're thinking about your product. Can you distill down your value proposition to something that people can just wrap their heads around instantly? So as you go through. Ford, Carolyn And you're suggesting you do this by hand, not on your computer. You're writing by hand. Pachner, Dharma By hand to start. At some point you want to digitize and bring things in, but the problem is when you digitize right away, you're immediately thinking templates and AI solutions when you're exploring pen and paper, there's no limit except your imagination, so you can. Pachner, Dharma Start. You can take ideas out of the hypothetical. You can get a quick sense of how things could start to function. This process is an extraordinarily quick and cost effective way to start any sort of creative explorations. Line typically represents a headline. Smaller lines represent body copy, but what we often start with is just a blank sheet of paper. And let's assume this is your website homepage hero. Your logos in the top left corner, you've got some sort of navigation. If you can take those ideas. Of what makes you what you want to be known in this world, and what makes you different. And this is where we usually start to explore. Like, how does that idea translate into a headline? What sort of visuals could we use to tell that story? What sort of metaphors would best capture that idea? But these types of exercises. Every brand you saw earlier was started with pen and paper, and regardless of your drawing abilities, your creative abilities, everybody can think with pen and paper, and this is an incredibly effective way to approach it. And the last thing I'll just say on that is as you think about your brand and what it is and what it represents, and you'll have to be able to see my slides to understand this. But if you've ever seen this photo, if you've never seen this photo. Before I've got a photo up on my screen of a man working at his computer, set back in like probably. Ford, Carolyn I've never seen this photo. The photo makes me so sad, Dharma. Pachner, Dharma Well, it is. It's a very sad photo until you pull back a little bit and you realize this was Jeff Bezos in the original operating office of Amazon with a spray painted Amazon.com banner behind his head. Ford, Carolyn Oh. No. Pachner, Dharma And whenever I see this is every time I see this photo, it just reminds me like anything is possible, like and when you're thinking about your brand, always thinking about you building some targets that are only meant to be aimed at. I think this photo is just a really effective reminder that always think a little bit bigger. Ford, Carolyn I love it. I love it. All right. Well, this is gonna bring us to our TechTalk question part of the show. So this is just rapid fire questions that you got responses. This is just for fun. So my first question, if cybersecurity were a movie genre, what would it be and why? Pachner, Dharma If it were a movie genre. I think it would be a little bit of everything, right. It's a war movie, right? It's, but it's got drama. It's got superheroes. It's got villains. Sometimes there's horror, you know, there's, it's got a little bit of everything. I imagine if you dig deep enough. Ford, Carolyn I think for sure horror. Pachner, Dharma There's probably some romance and comedy embedded in there somewhere. Ford, Carolyn Oh my gosh. OK. Pachner, Dharma I think it's a multi. Multi genre genre category. Ford, Carolyn So I mean, me being a sci-fi nerd, I would have just gone straight to, well, it's sci-fi, of course, but I love that you're gonna have them all. And the horror's my favorite. Pachner, Dharma Well, the horror's real. Like when you read about ransomware and those things like that it's horrible. Ford, Carolyn It is real. No, I think you're right. I think horror might be the lead genre there. All right, if you had to explain brand strategy using a kitchen metaphor, what would it be? Pachner, Dharma ]If I had to use a kitchen metaphor, I don't think it's an appliance because I think it's too big for an appliance. I think it's too big for an utensil. If I had to think of a kitchen metaphor, I would think it's the cookbook, right? It's the thing. It's the thing that sets the vision. It shows you what's possible. It's the thing like that gets people excited and it's the thing that helps people understand and use the tools effectively. Ford, Carolyn Hmm, I love that. I don't know if I would have come up with a cookbook, so I love that. All right. AI generated. AI generated branding. Is it a creative partner or creative chaos? Pachner, Dharma It's both, I think, and there's a whole it's probably a whole nother conversation. I think for us as an agency it's a reality, right. It's here to stay, and there's no point, and there's no point in resisting it. I think from some perspective we embrace it, I think, and it allows us to do things that were never before possible like we recently did a sales kickoff with your team. That I don't think we would have been able to pull off with the technologies. Ford, Carolyn You did. Pachner, Dharma Lead to more creative consistency and more things looking and sounding the same. And as designers, I think the opportunity is like I don't ever want to start a creative career. I don't want to be a prompt engineer. I don't want to start a creative challenge with a prompt, so I think the way we're looking at it is like how do we make sure we're starting with our. We're starting with our own ideas, human ideas, human thoughts, and then we're using AI to add efficiencies wherever that makes sense. So I think it's both creative partner and chaos, but I think we're trying to continue to remember that all it is is a tool, a very powerful one, but the better we can understand that tool and the better we can use that tool, the more effective we can be as practitioners. Ford, Carolyn That's right. I mean what you guys have done for us because you embrace AI. It just it brings a lot of fun and levity to things that we're trying to do. But I agree, even when I ask you guys for something. I often start with pen and paper. Why am I doing this? Like what is my objective? What is the message that I'm trying to get across? And then I iterate on that and then sometimes I'll go to AI and ask AI, OK. Here's what I'm thinking. Help me organize my thoughts. Help me so I can communicate with you guys. This is what I'm looking for and it really helps me that way. And then like I said, because you guys are willing and I've worked with agencies recently as a matter of fact, that really resists AI and it's very frustrating to me. Because. The fact that you guys embrace it the way you do, I think it's exactly what you just said. You're able to do things faster and things that you wouldn't have been able to do even a few months ago because you're willing to embrace AI. There's no way AI can replace you guys. Not for me, I mean. But.using it has been a game changer, I think. Pachner, Dharma Yeah, well, there was that quote I want to attribute to Bill Gates. I don't know if it's him, but it's when it comes to technology, you're either the steamroller or the road and it's and it's one of the things like AI doesn't care. If I like it or hate it, right? It's like it's going to continue to move on. Ford, Carolyn That's right, it's here. Pachner, Dharma And so yeah, you have to be. It's almost if we don't embrace it as an agency, we're going to be left behind. But I think the opportunity I think to your point is how do you come up with an idea and then use AI? To like to add efficiencies through the process, but how do you come to it with a stronger base or a more foundational, more foundationally, strong idea. So it definitely is going to continue to play a role. I think for us it is that we don't know what the future brings and I think it's like for many industries there's a lot of uncertainties with it. But I think in the interim, what we want to try to do is like how do we use it in ways to advance our clients that we've never been able to do before. Ford, Carolyn Yeah. And man, you've done it for us. It's a tool. It's a really powerful tool and thank you for embracing it. So all right. Well, Dharma, thank you so much for joining Tech Transforms today. Pachner, Dharma My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. Ford, Carolyn Yeah. All right, well, last question. Ford, Carolyn Where can our listeners connect with you to learn more about your work? Pachner, Dharma Good question. So you can find us. Our website is contrastandco.com. And then you can find me on LinkedIn with my last name Pachner. Ford, Carolyn All right. And we'll put all of that in the show notes as well. So, listeners, thanks for joining us. Thanks for tuning in. If you found this episode valuable, please share it. Smash that like button and leave us a review that helps us reach more people who could benefit from these conversations. Tech transforms is produced by Show and Tell and sponsored by Owl Cyber Defense. Until next time, stay curious and keep imagining the future.