Rachel Grant Dissertation

How Does Consistent Branding for Festivals Affect Brand Equity?

Rachel Grant

ID: 20117832

Critical Practice (VIS6037)

Tutor: Colette Jeffrey

Word Count: 6578

Abstract

This essay explores how a consistent festival brand identity affects brand equity, including visual consistency, consistent brand associations and consistency within a brand’s core values. Accordingly, this research was conducted through interviews with industry professionals, an online survey and a virtual industry talk. Further secondary research has been acquired through journals, books, websites and documentary films. The analysis of this research indicates that a successful festival with a high level of brand equity is supported by a cohesive brand identity, where the visuals emulate the event experience and represent the brand’s purpose and core values. Additionally, festival brands should anticipate trends and adapt elements of the brand design to maintain a current and refreshing identity.

Introduction

Designing for festivals can be challenging due to the fact that you are marketing an experience, a feeling, an array of emotions, rather than a tangible product. The festival brand needs to be able to emulate this sentiment, and visually describe their event through illustrations, images and typefaces to create an all-encompassing identity. Additionally, a festival brand needs to appeal to a rather wide target audience of unique people with a range of interests, who would all enjoy the event. People often attend a festival when the messaging resonates with them, therefore it is important for a festival’s brand identity to clearly communicate their values and brand purpose throughout the brand identity as well as remaining consistent with these values as a company to build trust with their customer base.

This essay explores whether consistent branding is fundamental for festivals and how it affects brand equity. This will be investigated through various points across four chapters. These points include visual consistency, whether or not brand values are consistent with the identity and how companies can use brand associations to their advantage. This essay looks at the most effective ways to communicate a festival’s message through their identity and explores which branding techniques improve brand equity, all of this information can be applied when building a new brand identity for a festival. This research has informed the thinking on an ongoing design project to create a cohesive brand identity for the Birmingham Fringe Festival. The first chapter explains the origins of brand identity and how visual differentiation is crucial in an oversaturated market and goes on to give an overview of the definition of brand equity. It also covers what brand associations are and the way in which an Afrikaans art festival utilises the associations people have with the festival brand and how this affects its brand equity. In Chapter Two, this essay investigates the relationship between a brand’s core values and their brand identity and how an honest brand can build a high level of loyalty. The third chapter goes on to examine the consequences when a brand does not fulfil all of their public promises and finally, Chapter Four explores some examples of successful festival brand identities, such as Latitude Festival and Green Man Festival, who are visually consistent, consistent with their core values and messaging and with their brand promises.

Chapter One: The Origins of Brand Identity

Early humans developed clothing, markings, dances and other visual symbols to classify themselves into tribes. As communities grew and evolved, the identifying marks that were once just for categorisation, became a symbol of ownership within trade for example, the branding of cattle, a practice of the ancient Egyptians to visually signify their possession (Airey, 2019). There is even evidence of wall markings in the city of Pompeii that seem to have been used for branding purposes as well as electoral campaigns. These wall markings allowed tradesmen to visually present their company to the public (see Fig.1), and with the invention of paper and block printing in China, visual communication boomed (O’Neill, 2015). The use of visual symbols meant that tradesmen could promote their stock to the common people, who were primarily illiterate. Throughout the centuries more and more branding techniques developed as a way for businesses to distinguish themselves and build a loyal customer base. In the modern era that we live in, ‘most companies have carved out their own niche in an increasingly overcrowded market’ (O’Neill, 2015) and visual brands now range from the event branding that this research will focus on, to the branding of political parties, small hand-crafted businesses and personal brands of reality TV stars. To succeed, all of these companies need to appear unique within their industry. Airey (2019) explains that ‘when the difference between two functionally similar products is minimal, there’s a need to create an emotional differentiation’ (p. 07), a quality product is not enough in an extremely saturated market, a brand needs to connect with the consumer on a personal level to give them a motive to purchase their product over any other similar brand. What effect does this visual variation actually have on the market performance of these companies? This response is known as brand equity and is defined as ‘the differential effect of brand knowledge on customer response’ as referenced in Kohli and Leuthesser (2001). They break this definition down into three parts, the differentiation, the brand knowledge and the customer response. The consumers ought to be able to recognise the distinction between brands and acknowledge that this variation means something to them, and consequently respond positively to it by aspiring to be loyal to the brand and prepared to pay more for their preference.

A brand’s image has a significant effect on their market performance, so it is crucial to ensure that all elements of the brand persona resonate with the target audience (Kohli and Leuthesser, 2001). The brand name is a colossal part of the company identity, and it holds a lot of importance when it comes to creating brand awareness in the mind of the consumer. Positive connotations, easy to recall and related to the

Fig1AncientGraffitiinPompeii,intheStyleTypicalforaPolitical Campaign(Schäfer,2010)

product are all factors that produce an effective brand name. Unlike other components of the brand identity, the name is something that is much more difficult to change without losing a large part of the loyal customer base because a lot of the brand knowledge revolves around it and customers are likely to not recognise the product, therefore selecting a strong name before building the brand is highly important.

An effective way to increase brand equity is with an iconic logo. To be able to stand out amongst a large amount of visual chaos, brands require a strong logo because ‘consumers are more adept at processing visual information’ (Kohli and Leuthesser, 2001). Logos are one of the most valuable components within a brand’s image for creating differentiation, especially on the shelf where all of the product’s competition is adjacent to it. A bold, meaningful and compelling logo can be hugely important to build brand awareness because when a logo is recognisable to customers, it becomes familiar to them and the brand is no longer a ‘stranger’, thus increasing their confidence in the product and making them more likely to make a purchase. Brand awareness is the customer’s adeptness to connect the brand to its product category. Brand awareness can be developed through the simple repetition of advertising, but frequent exposure through promotions and contests is another way to make people aware of the brand (Kohli and Leuthesser, 2001) and is an advertising technique often used in festival and general event advertising. These event promotions are particularly successful because there is a clear audience that is being appealed to, so choosing sponsors that align with the values of the event demographic, leads to high sales for that company. Furthermore, customers may create a mental link between a brand sponsoring an event and the actual event brand, this is known as a brand association. Essentially, brands have the ability to ‘be linked to other entities that have their own knowledge structures in the minds of consumers’ (Keller, 2008).

Consumers may infer that any values or characteristics of one entity is true to the brand they have mentally linked it to. Keller (2008) describes this as the brand borrowing a certain amount of brand knowledge of the entity it’s associated with because of the connection made by the customer, and even suggests that the brand gains a small amount of their brand equity. These links may be to the country an item is produced within, the store in which the product is sold, another product or an emotion. Brands can and often do use these associations to their advantage. For instance, brands may carry out a charity campaign to capitalise on the emotions associated with the cause and establish their brand personality as one that embodies trust, care and social activism and evoke positive feelings of self-respect, generosity and altruism in the consumer (Keller, 2008). A combination of these brand associations come together to construct a brand image for the company and represent the general, wider impression of the brand (Kohli and Leuthesser, 2001). It is necessary that brand associations are consistent with each other and don’t send the customer mixed messages or contradict the values of the brand. The brand equity can be harmed if the associations that correspond to the brand image are inconsistent.

Once brands understand the associations consumers have with their company and other entities, they can utilise this knowledge for future changes to their branding, and upcoming companies can also use this information when developing their initial

branding. A study of an Afrikaans art and culture festival in South Africa by Dreyer and Slabbert (2012) delves into the associations made with the brand and the factors that influence them as well as the impact of demographic characteristics on the festival associations. Their research focuses on the Klein Karoo National Arts Festival (KKNK) which is a festival in the town of Oudtshoorn and focuses on visual and performing arts. Having a powerful brand that appeals to everyone within the target audience is what a festival requires to build a large base of customers that return to the event year after year, it is with ‘the creation of a distinctive brand image, a tourism product such as Klein Karoo National Arts Festival (KKNK) can position its product effectively leading to a competitive advantage’ (Dreyer and Slabbert, 2012). In order to investigate the brand associations held by the KKNK festival goers, Dreyer and Slabbert (2012) carried out a survey over five days at the event and focused on two main points, the demographic profile of those answering the questionnaire and their associations with the main brand building blocks. Within the results, it was found that the associations were positive which adds value to the branding in place at the time of the survey. A high percentage of festival goers stated that the branding was fun, interesting, creative and can be associated with high levels of service as well as high quality productions. These responses reinforce the importance of taking brand associations into consideration when designing for a festival because the consumers of KKNK associate its visuals with a high-quality experience. This is important to focus on in event branding because the product is intangible and when customers can picture the experience they will have at the festival from the visual identity, a quality brand image has been created. Ensuring that aspects of the consumer’s positive associations are consistent with the visual branding and brand values of the festival will increase the amount of return visitors.

The branding includes bright and playful illustrations depicting acts at the festival (see Fig. 2). The brand associations the customers have with the festival have clearly been taken into consideration in the designs. A large number of customers stated that they associated the KKNK brand with high quality productions and the way the performers are illustrated in a visually exciting and colourful way supports this. The KKNK festival appeals to a wide target audience and is open to a range of ages and interests so it is important that the branding can reach a broad pool of people but also stay relevant to the event. The example of the festival identity shown in Fig. 2 achieves this with an illustrative style that is attractive to both adults and children as well as being creative and representing the artistic nature of the event.

Fig.2KKNKfestivalbanner(KKNK,2022)

Although this festival’s brand associations are consistent and are reflected in the branding, this has not necessarily increased the brand equity of the festival. Dreyer and Slabbert (2012) state that ‘the profile of visitors to this festival has stayed very much the same over the last five years’ and suggest that due to the fact that the current brand appeals so effectively to their audience and their associations, the festival is not attracting new visitors. The KKNK festival identity has developed a high level of brand awareness and loyalty with their customer base but to be able to attract a new market they may need to adjust the brand identity or develop a subbrand to support the main festival brand ‘where the basic format of the brand stays the same, but an image or wording is added when developing marketing material for new markets’ (Dreyer and Slabbert, 2012). Acknowledging the returning customers is a way to for the festival maintain its brand loyalty, in an interview with Luke Tonge, director of Birmingham Design, he stated that brands can reward their loyal customers ‘with appealing and relevant branding… including the dates or themespecific brand elements, so they can easily tell each year’s collateral apart’ (see Appendix 4).

Chapter Two: Brand Values and Visuals used for Festivals

Consistency is an essential part of a visual identity; however, it doesn’t only include designs that flow together to produce an interconnected graphic personality but the brand values too. In a virtual talk by Creative Review, brand purpose was defined as values that go beyond profit for a company and what they want to contribute to the world other than their product (see Appendix 1). It was also mentioned that people seek out brands with a strong sense of purpose and will use their buying power to indicate their opinions of brands. Staying consistent with the brand’s values throughout the identity is highly important to create a trustworthy brand personality. In an interview, creative designer Jane Anderson stated that it is incredibly important for brands to display their values because “you know you’re in safe hands. You know that you're spending money on an experience” (see Appendix 2). When brands carry out a visual identity ‘makeover’ that does not align with their values or suggests that they have moved towards something more socially conscious but don’t adjust the way in which their company operates, it creates dissonance between them and their customer base. Customer response is rarely positive to rebrands that appear futile, when it seems like ‘nothing much is changing, but they…are pretending it has’ (Olins, 2008). A large number of consumers support certain brands because they align with their personal values and when a brand’s image is dishonest in displaying what the company stands for, they will lose a great portion of their loyal customers because ‘consistency of purpose derives from the vision, or the core idea, and is almost always the base from which a successful branding programme can be developed’ (Olins, 2008). When brands outwardly display their inward values, it makes them far more compelling than the traditional visual identities that ‘focus on the creation of an external image primarily through advertising based on a one-way, often manipulative communication paradigm’ (Fisher-Buttinger and Vallaster, 2010).

Understanding the values of the target audience is vital to connect with them through design and exhibit the purpose of the brand in a clear and sincere way. The Festival of Thrift is a small event in Kirkleatham, England that hosts ‘ethical enterprises such as local makers, food producers and skills-sharing workshops’ (BBC, 2022). The artists are regarded as motivators of change and use their skills to provide the festival goers with simple ways to decrease their carbon footprint and environmental impact. The event has a clear mission of sharing creativity and ingenuity, while inspiring attendees to make subtle adjustments to their everyday lives to be more environmentally conscious. One way they do this is using taglines such as ‘shift to thrift’, which is short, memorable and a hugely effective way to get people to think about their over-consumption. In addition to this, it assists in attracting a crowd with a similar ethos. The Festival of Thrift has been successful in building a strong brand community of those who share an important mission which means that the company holds an emotional value in those customers’ minds. Their visual identity supports the honourable mission and visually displays the intangible experience of the event, drawing artistic, climate conscious and innovative

individuals in. Visible in Fig. 3, the festival logo encapsulates the creative essence of the event, including pairs of scissors and screw drivers repeated to build a central star and produce a circular symbol to represent the brand. The limited colour palette allows the logo to feel rustic and hand-crafted while at the same time maintaining the vivid and enthusing personality of the festival. The concept of the creative tools being carefully placed together to execute this new pattern cleverly represents the entire mission of the Festival of Thrift, whereby the logo built with the tools mirrors the idea of upcycling dated items and constructing something original. Often, the logo is split in half for smaller events and stalls within the larger festival, as can be seen in Fig. 3 where a portion of the festival, called the ‘Thrive Hive’, is advertised with this secondary symbol, which is an effective way to keep the visuals flowing around the environment. Furthermore, the idea of a small circular symbol really lends itself to other elements of the visual brand, for instance the icons on the Festival of Thrift website (see Fig. 4). These small circular icons are a useful way to illustrate the various sections of the festival and improve the user experience by

making the options clearer, therefore increasing the speed and ease of browsing. Additionally, it improves the cohesion of the whole website ensuring ‘the site projects a uniformed image’ (Brainbox Studios, 2021). Using tools throughout the branding to generate the illustrative symbols ensures the brand mission is consistently communicated and displays to the consumers that the festival is true to their message while representing the event experience of crafting, thrifting and interacting with the Festival of Thrift community. The Festival of Thrift worked alongside Fuze Research to discover some insights about the demographics of the event and analyse the statistics to understand the efficacy of their brand. In 2019, the festival had 50,000 visitors in attendance, an increase of 30% contrasted to the previous year (Smith and Williams, 2022, p.454–464), indicating that the community-based brand that had been established had cultivated a loyal customer base. Also signifying the high level of brand loyalty, is the fact that in 2019 the most widespread reason for attending the event was ‘having been before and wanting to go again’ (59.7%) (Smith and Williams, 2022, p.454–464). This level of customer retention is imperative to grow a festival year on year, having loyal customers that can share the experience with their contacts allows the festival to expand and reach a new audience that perhaps was not already invested in the mission of the brand.

Fig.3ThriveHive-FestivalofThrift(Kidd,2022)

Fig.4FestivalofThriftwebsiteshowsiconsfordifferenteventsandwebpages(BrainboxStudios,2021)

With the combination of the creative, rustic branding and the communication of their brand values, the Festival of Thrift have established high brand equity over several years, they have consistently produced high customer satisfaction, returning visitors and an intimate brand community.

Chapter 3: What Happens When Festivals Don’t Fulfil Their Brand Promises?

The epitome of false brand promises is Fyre Festival, a luxury music festival held on a private island, promoted by the elite supermodels of the time and renowned as a complete disaster. The event was advertised as a picture perfect, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with idyllic beaches but ended up as a disgrace where attendees were held hostage with no suitable accommodation or food. The branding for Fyre Festival was created by Jerry Media, a New York social media agency. Oren Aks was a co-founder of the agency and in charge of the visual identity for Fyre. When discussing the initial contact with the client he comments that “the brief wasn’t really a brief. It was just: This is our audience, this is what we’re trying to sell them,” (Schwab, 2019). The brand had an extremely clear image of who they were marketing this event to, rich and young New Yorkers who fall into the category of aspiring influencers. One of the most notable aspects of the Fyre campaign was the paid promotion of models and Instagram influencers, all of the brand’s social media was completely focused on the attendance of these high-profile public figures. The branding consists of stock content of models on a promotional brand trip that took place before the event in order to paint a picture of an unspoiled paradise with promises of late-night beach parties and luxury villas. Working alongside these images was an extremely simple colour palette of blue and orange which went on to take over Instagram and cause the ticket sales to skyrocket. The identity began to be defined by this fully orange square that was posted by all of the paid influencers to create mystery and anticipation around the event. This promotional technique was highly effective at starting a conversation and buzz around the festival. Luke Tonge acknowledged in an interview that ‘there's lots of tactics you can use to try and draw in new audiences… the basic building blocks of a brand are a given (visuals, copy, imagery, movement, sound etc) but more unusual and surprising methods can be highly effective’ (see Appendix 4). Black and white videos and photos of celebrities running across white beaches overlayed with a transparent orange square became the iconic image of Fyre Festival (see Fig. 5), that anyone who spends time on social media could recognise. In an online survey that was conducted (see Appendix 3), 72.7% of participants stated that they discovered a festival they attended through social media, suggesting that it is one of the best places to introduce a new event and Fyre Festival’s campaign clearly supports this.

One thing Fyre Festival did get right was the consistency of their visual identity across all media. From their website to the Instagram page to the wristbands, the

Fig.5FyreFestivalPromotionalImage(Aks,2019)

warmth, luxuriousness and exclusivity was conveyed clearly however, ‘the festival’s existence was shaped solely by its social media feed and website’ (Schwab, 2019). The branding of the event perfectly spoke to their target audience by tapping into the zeitgeist of flawless, polished online feeds and understanding that ‘millennials are more interested in experiences than physical products’ (Design Boom, 2019). The designers discussed using the viewers emotions to attract them and tapping into the fear of missing out (FOMO) by showing these celebrities having the time of their lives. Aks comments that it was considered ‘as a selling point. It’s not something that is really branding. FOMO is again more on the emotional side. It’s its own thing’ (Schwab, 2019). It was an experience that was hard to resist for people in that world and in a position to purchase tickets.

As the festival date drew closer, details of the logistical chaos began to be picked up by the design team. Due to the planners of the event failing to secure the luxury accommodation that was promised to the ticket holders, no images of the festival site could be provided to the customers before they arrived, causing a colossal loss of trust. Ticket holders grew more frustrated with the Fyre Festival team when no updates on the status of the event was given, the customers were essentially travelling to a remote island and spending thousands of dollars, on the sole basis that they were guaranteed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. There was not a lot that the design team could do to correct this without any material from those on the festival site. When discussing the process of designing for Fyre Festival Mick Purzycki, Jerry Media CEO, comments that they were “building out this vision that was based around this kind of visual façade” (Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, 2019). This lack of communication created a rift between the brand and the customer because they’ve spent huge amounts of money on false promises that couldn’t be delivered. Fyre Festival as a brand had a huge level of brand equity leading up to the event. Partnering with the most famous influencers of the time to promote this unparalleled experience offered the brand amazing brand equity because people trust these celebrities to recommend useful products and services (O’Riordan, 2019). At the time, almost everyone was made aware of Fyre Festival due to the virality of the campaign, but the brand was just a visual façade, and the actual event was the antithesis of the online identity that was created. Due to the failure of the festival, any brand equity built from the campaign was completely lost because the brand identity held all of the value.

Chapter 4: Successful Brand Identities for Festivals

A successful festival brand is consistent throughout their visuals, tone of voice and messaging (Davies, 2021). Although a festival can update its brand each year to stay current and incorporate the latest trends, it will be most effective if it remains cohesive. Creating a strong, consistent brand identity truly gives festivals the chance to build a loyal fanbase who know the brand inside out and understand what it stands for. It is not just every element of the brand visuals that need to be consistent with the brand values, those organising the event need to guarantee that ‘every element of the festival experience — from the line up to the location, price, food options, entertainment, and overall experience — reflects their brand identity and values.’ (Wilkinson, 2022). Achieving this will give the festival brand an opportunity to build and maintain a positive reputation and a group of customers who return for the experience year after year, consequently increasing the brand equity of the festival. A high level of brand loyalty is important for a festival to be able to create a high demand for tickets. The most popular festivals, for example Glastonbury, have customers purchasing tickets before the full line up has been released because they truly trust that the festival will provide an excellent experience (Wilkinson, 2022). A unique element to branding a festival is that the product is the experience had by the customer, and not a physical object. Therefore, it is important that the brand is conveying the experience in an authentic way that relates to the audience and displays to them what makes the event special. This presents the consumer with an opportunity that is perfectly catered to their interests.

Highlighting the location of the festival is a great way to introduce the experience to the consumer and is a technique used by Latitude Festival extremely successfully. In 2014, London-based studio, Form, was tasked with rebranding Latitude, a music and literature festival in Suffolk, England. Paul West, one of the designers for the project, stated that they “wanted to celebrate the beauty of the festival” (Gosling, 2017). A goal of this rebrand was to not overcrowd the visuals and take a photographic approach in contrast to the typical festival ‘advertising with dense listings of acts and very little room devoted to the brand of the festival’ (West, 2015). Photographer Pete Beavis documented the whole event, capturing the experience from dawn till dusk, including the wide demographic and the ‘magic and eclecticism of the event’ (West, 2015). Hours of time-lapse footage was also captured to portray the overall atmosphere of the festival; these assets are what helped develop the imageled identity. The new logo features a decorative typeface which is partially framed by a diamond icon (see Fig. 6), which represents a simplified compass and is a nod to the name of the festival in a Fig.6

LatitudeFestivalRebrand(Beavis,2014)

subtle way because something more obvious ‘would have detracted from the beauty of the photographic route’ (Phaidon, 2014). This streamlined approach allows the event experience to come through in the branding and shines a light on the spectacular location where the festival takes place. Additionally, it better represents the variation of acts at the event which hosts theatre, art, literature, comedy and doesn’t present it as only a music festival. The space within the design also characterises the open location where the festival takes place. This new identity was rolled out across the brand’s social media, website, advertising and signage. Maintaining the cohesion of the brand identity with the brand messaging and purpose, creates a base of loyal customers for Latitude Festival to deliver to year on year and build a strong relationship with. The image-led, sleek design opted for in the rebrand mirrors the love of nature, art and music that the event embodies because it doesn’t overcrowd the brand material with small text listing the line-up repeatedly.

Since the rebrand the capacity of the festival has gone from 35,000 in 2014 (Bray, 2014) to around 40,000 in 2022 (Aplin, 2022), indicating a level of growth as the festival brand has become more well-known. The current logo is more simplistic than the previous design which allows it to be larger on the marketing material without it appearing too chaotic. The clear but decorative typeface is simple enough to be legible from a distance but simultaneously unique enough to be easily recognisable to the consumer. The growth of the festival since the rebrand clearly displays an increased brand equity and as the festival evolves the brand identity can evolve with it to demonstrate the mystical atmosphere through photography. Latitude have managed to develop a loyal customer base whose values and beliefs reflect those of the festival and their brand identity clearly displays this because they chose to feature their attendees relishing the event experience throughout the marketing. The festival showcases a wide array of talent and the atmosphere changes during the day, which is an aspect of the event that the branding consistently captures, meaning they can attract many more customers of varying ages all craving a different experience from the festival.

Green Man Festival is an exemplar of consistently honest and visually harmonious festival branding. The Green Man Festival is held annually in the Brecon Beacons National Park and showcases the best in music, arts and science (Kiani, 2022). The Green Man brand identity was designed by the London agency, Lovers, who were asked to create every single element of the brand instead of just creating brand guidelines for an in-house team to use, which is a somewhat rare request. This is perhaps the reason the identity is so visually consistent as one team of designers were able to produce every aspect of the project, big and small. The founder of Lovers, Alex Ostrowski, described the task of designing everything as “a real challenge in consistency” but also acknowledged that “it’s a designer’s instinct to get the thrill of that continuity” (Gosling, 2017). To create a visual personality for the festivals, the designers looked to the pagan origins of the event for inspiration and produced a set of symbols to represent different areas of the festival. They even created a bespoke typeface using woodblock printing and digitised it, keeping all the slight variations and scuffs to give the brand an earthy, hand-crafted feel. Continuing with this natural, rustic visual the Green Man brand also features a number of beautiful illustrations throughout depicting parts of the festival experience (see Fig. 7) as well as the idyllic location and creatures relating to the pagan roots of the

event. It was a conscious decision within the design team not to personify the ‘Green Man’ in the branding because it is the obvious option, and they were looking to achieve something more subtle. Alternatively, they “created a sense of omnipresence through a typeface” (Gosling, 2017) which represents the message of the festival more effectively. Green Man is not about a god-like figure but the omnipresence of nature as a conscious entity. They use this new typeface when communicating the festival’s new tone of voice that was developed within the rebrand, once again to imply the ubiquity of the Green Man. For example, on the festival website, messages such as ‘come follow me to joy’ and ‘make path to my verdant heart’ (Identity Designed, 2013) intermittently flash on the screen. Additionally, the different areas of the festival are given names that create the enchanting experience found at Green Man, these names include ‘Little Folk’ which is the children’s area, ‘Fortune Falls’ which is the waterfall area, as well as ‘Babbling Tongues’ which is the spoken word area (Green Man, 2022). Every single one of these sections is represented by a ‘unique indigenous symbol’ (Identity Designed, 2013). This new tone of voice, which is supported by the typeface and the symbols for each area, is a perfect way to communicate with the audience and surround them with this folkloric brand identity.

As previously mentioned, the unique aspect of this rebrand is that one agency designed every piece of brand collateral. The entire brand identity features meticulous attention to detail and anything visual at the event is consistent with the identity which establishes a truly distinctive and immersive experience for the attendees. This level of fastidious detail is what makes Green Man the epitome of a consistent brand identity. Throughout the entire festival experience the customer is regularly seeing the visual personality, from the stage to the stalls all the way to the carpark, the brand is being reinforced and building a stronger level of brand awareness. When the designers learnt that the parking permit is the first thing attendees receive in the run up to the festival, they decided to create a beautifully illustrative hanging permit to build anticipation as the event draws closer (see Fig. 8).

Reworking the brand identity of a festival is an excellent way to draw in new audiences who will be attracted to the colourful and illustrative design. This new

Fig.7GreenManProgrammeDesign(Lovers,2015)

Fig.8GreenManParkingPermitDesign(Lovers, 2013)

identity clearly worked for Green Man, demonstrated by the fact that in 2012 they sold 13,500 tickets (Williams, 2012) and in 2013, after the new designs had been rolled out, they had 22,000 in attendance (Connick, 2013). Following the rebrand, Green Man festival saw huge increases in ticket sales, suggesting that the new look for the event drew in more people and especially those with an interest in the philosophy of the festival because the promotional material better represented this. The visuals embodying the origins of the event, as well as the brand’s purpose, clearly shows potential customers what the brand stands for and they can make a better judgment on whether it aligns with their point of view or not. Green Man does a wonderful job of keeping their messaging consistent and clear, so the consumer doesn't get confused. The festival is undoubtedly about the beauty of the world and celebrating the entity of nature, but a consumer will want to see this philosophy backed up in actions. The Green Man website features a section that states all the ways in which the company adjust their event to help protect the environment. For example, they don’t use disposable cups and require all customers to purchase a reusable one if they want to drink at the bar. This cup also doubles as a souvenir, as Jane Anderson mentioned in an interview (see Appendix 2), “you are buying into this experience…there’s so much…that just really helps with that, like having cups that are branded and taking them home as a keepsake, …those things that are kind of quite memorable”, people love to own something that reminds them of a good experience and that reminder may encourage them to purchase tickets again. Furthermore, in an online survey that was conducted (see Appendix 3), multiple participants stated that they would not purchase merchandise because it’s too expensive, but participants also mentioned that they like to have an item to remember the occasion, supporting the idea of a reusable branded cup that is not overly expensive but still serves as a memento.

Although the Green Man festival identity is beautifully cohesive, they also ensure that they update their designs for the event each year, so the brand doesn’t end up feeling stagnant. Each year the festival commission a new artist to create illustrations for the brand identity while still maintaining the core aspects of the visuals, such as the iconic typeface. It can be a challenge to find new and exciting illustrators every year whose styles compliment the organic visuals of the festival as well as bringing something fresh to the identity, ‘there should be a thread of continuity year-on-year without ever getting complacent or reliant on tried and tested visuals’ (Gorny, 2022). This way of incorporating a new element into the brand allows Green Man to keep their brand consistency and rustic look but simultaneously allowing them to evolve with the event. In an interview, Luke Tonge reiterated this point and mentioned having 'freedom within the framework' and utilising the established brand to stretch and evolve which ‘helps a brand stop feeling stale, especially year upon year’ (see Appendix 4). Additionally, the festival puts a spotlight on new talent and introduces their work to a wider audience who is most likely attracted to their style if they are fans of Green Man. To conclude, the advantage of having one studio design the entirety of the Green Man festival brand identity is evident in the artistic, consistent visuals. Every element of the brand fits into this organic, folksy and illustrative visual language, which creates an allencompassing brand that perfectly translates the experience had at the event. The festival’s tone of voice expertly communicates the essence of the event and the pagan origins behind it.

Conclusion

It is evident that some level of consistency within the brand identity of a festival is vital to produce a cohesive brand and build brand awareness, brand loyalty and brand equity. Furthermore, frequent exposure to the visual brand can increase awareness, and utilising customer brand associations through the means of related sponsorships allows an event to attract new customers. Partnering with companies who hold values akin to their own, exposes a festival to a new audience who are interested in similar experiences, thus increasing brand equity. Additionally, this research indicates that a brand remaining consistent with their core values and messaging is just as crucial as having a visually harmonious brand identity. In regard to the Fyre Festival downfall, it is apparent that failing to deliver on brand promises results in a huge loss of trust within the customer base and significantly decreases brand equity. In contrast, when a festival brand successfully communicates their brand purpose in their marketing, they are able to cultivate a close-knit community who all hold a similar viewpoint. All of these elements of consistency are essential for a festival to be able to deliver an immersive experience that is reflected honestly in the brand identity. Consequently, this will raise their levels of brand equity, loyalty and awareness.

This research has informed an ongoing design project to create a brand identity for the Birmingham Fringe Festival. The information discovered in this essay aids the project due to the fact that it uncovers the most effective branding techniques to design for a successful festival and increase its brand equity. The Birmingham Fringe Festival requires a cohesive but creative brand identity and the findings from this research can assist in producing this. When creating the identity, it is important that the designs are not so consistent that they appear tiresome, small distinctions and updated designs for future years will allow the festival brand to be cohesive yet still refreshing and exciting. Although this research analyses a number of festival brand identities, there is limited in-depth information available on the specific levels of brand equity that these festivals have. Future research could focus on the consequence of festival rebrands, with exact data that concentrates on the growth of the festival in relation to ticket sales and returning customers as well as carrying out qualitative research on the attendees’ opinion on the festival brand identity.

List of Images

Figure 1. Schäfer, M.T. (2010). Ancient Graffiti in Pompeii, in the Style Typical for a Political Campaign. [Online Image] Available at:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/gastev/4908139318/in/photolist-bWAjam9Gd6Pv-9yK9Za-ck8bPw-8tHuPG-7e8erH-9mdh2r-7HEn9o-amNVqk-7e7Jecdbgeys-mMouo4-bXXsSy-bCZrM-7ecb97-c2Dxm1-b6bBov-qdg5wU-9yK9k29yK9EF-6PS49P-36gK8W-LXmcUv [Accessed 6 Nov. 2022].

Figure 2. KKNK (2022). KKNK festival banner. [Online Image] Available at:

https://kknk2022.kknk.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/VDV0948.jpg

Figure 3. Kidd, T. (2022). Thrive Hive - Festival of Thrift 2022. [Online Image]. Available at: https://www.festivalofthrift.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/FOT22-Saturday-231.jpg [Accessed 21 Oct. 2022].

Figure 4. Brainbox Studios (2021). Festival of Thrift website shows icons for different events and web pages. brainboxstudios.me. Available at: https://brainboxstudios.me/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/FOT-Website.mp4 [Accessed 21 Oct. 2022].

Figure 5. Aks, O. (2019). Fyre Festival Promotional Image. [Online Image]. Available at:

https://images.fastcompany.net/image/upload/w_1250,ar_16:9,c_fill,g_auto,f_au to,q_auto,fl_lossy/wp-cms/uploads/2019/03/p-1-90324689-designing-a-scamfyre-festival-designer-doesnand8217t-think-it-was-his-fault.webp [Accessed 7 Nov. 2022].

Figure 6. Beavis, P. (2014) Latitude Festival Rebrand. [Online Image]. Available at: https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/what-does-it-really-mean-to-brand-a-festival/ [Accessed 13 Nov. 2022].

Figure 7. Lovers (2015). Green Man Programme Design. [Online Image]. Available at: https://lovers.co/work/green-man [Accessed 14 Nov. 2022].

Figure 8. Lovers (2013). Green Man Parking Permit Design. [Online Image]. Available at: https://lovers.co/work/green-man [Accessed 14 Nov. 2022].

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Question: What is a brand purpose?

 Values that go beyond profit

 It’s what companies want to contribute to the world other than their product

 Who a company wants to help

 Consumers expect a brand to have a purpose

 It can’t just be a story they tell; it has to have tangible actions that consumers can see

 It’s a way to run your business that’s good for people and the planet

 Brands have a responsibility to their consumers

 Companies need to think about their values but don’t need to market it necessarily

 Brands should imbed sustainable points into what they’re already making

Question: How do you choose what to support?

 ITV spoke to different departments and decided to work on ‘improving health’ and mental health as it was similar to what they were already doing

 Take what some people are talking about and use your platform to boost it

 It should be intrinsic to the brand, what does it mean to people in the business?

 Think where they can meaningfully create change

 A purpose needs to be authentic

Question: What role do brands have to tackle corruption?

 Brewdog campaign:

- Gets people talking

- Are they putting their money where their mouth is?

- People are a bit more forgiving now

- Is it ‘woke-washing’

- Drawing attention to something that needs it

- Football fans are being made aware of the problem

- ‘Woke-washing’ can end negatively and very publicly

Creative Review – Why Creativity Matters talk by Susie Braun, Sarah Anderson, Henry Hicks and Eliza Williams on workcast.com

 Some companies will struggle to be purpose driven

Question: Are audiences seeking out a sense of purpose from brands?

 In the UK, the cost-of-living crisis and the climate crisis is what the majority of ITV viewers care about the most

 Mental health adverts are more popular with viewers than new TV programme promotional adverts

 Gen Z use their buying power to show what they think about brands

 Customers are looking to brand for unconventional solutions to social problems

 Brands need to create ‘delightful solutions’

 People are looking for social purpose when looking for jobs

Appendix 2

Interview with Jane Anderson, Creative Designer and Course Director BA Graphic Design at BCU

Question: How important do you think it is for a festival’s visual brand to be consistent with their brand values?

JA: Hugely important. It helps to build brand loyalty. I'm just thinking about it from a consumer point of view, you know you’re in safe hands. You know that you're spending money on an experience and there's so much more that goes into festival branding than just purely those design tangible things. You're buying into an experience at the end of the day. So, when a visual brand works and presents the values of the festival it can be really good.

Question: What branding techniques do you think are effective to build a community of returning visitors at a festival?

JA: So many different things I think merchandise for me always seems to be one of those things that helps to build brand loyalty interestingly. I'm going to refer to the Beat-Herder Festival which I was there as a designer at one time. I think I designed all of their stuff for 4 years, but when I first approached them. They were only a small festival, I'm going to give you a little bit of background here, and it was a very small festival set up by a couple of brothers and they just drew their logo. They weren’t artists just carpenters and made this really crap little sheep logo that has speakers on the back of the sheep because it was in a field, and they borrowed a field off a farmer and this logo is really terrible and I was doing lots of festival photography for different magazines at the time and that's when I started to go to a lot of festivals. That's how I got into designing for festivals. I had the most amazing experience at this festival. It was a fantastic festival not promoting themselves very well. Just went for an opportunity here. I wondered if I could be really cheeky and see if it'll be willing to be rebranded and thought I could design a festival programme so I got in touch with them and said I've just had the best day at your festival and it was probably the most brilliant experience and far outweighed, Glastonbury and some of the other bigger festivals that I've been to but their promotional material is literally rubbish and just not doing them any favours. I got in touch with them and said could I design four pages of a spread for a program and redesign the logo? See what you think. They said that's a great idea, but we don't want you to touch our logo and part of this is the reason why I'm getting to this story. So, they had a tattoo parlour at the event which was mad, and they started to build up a bit of brand loyalty and so many of the festivalgoers who were going to the festival started to have the logo tattooed and they just didn't want to move from this existing thing that was just quite charming but quite naïve, looking pretty damn crap, but people loved it. They loved it enough to go and get it tattooed on their skin.

Other techniques that I think are effective, we started off with merchandise, so I think you are buying into this experience so there’s so much now that just really helps with that, like having cups that are branded and taking them home as a keepsake, in a way those things that are kind of quite memorable. I go to Moseley

jazz festival each year, and I love to nick a cup. You know it's a refundable cup but that's something that just reminds me I suppose of being there each year and similar things with going to different festival, so I think there's lots of things you know applying it to merchandise.

Merchandise, logos and building the community that's it. You know festivals are something that are quite special really because even if you go to a really big festival it creates a community and you're all having a vibe so anything that kind of does that but I think in terms of branding, consistency across the fact that the stage visuals look the same as the merchandise, that look on your wrist band and all of those kind of things that help build brand loyalty.

Question: Do you think visual consistency is absolutely necessary to create a successful festival or does some level of variation improve the brand?

JA: I mean I definitely think consistency does work. I think that was my issue with the Beat Herder. They had one logo that was their original drawing, they had different logos on different things and that was one of my attempts with working with them was how can I get consistency into the brand so that people actually recognise like this is a single vision here? In terms of that visual consistency, I think the brands that seem to do it really well, like Green Man and one of the things that they've done is employed an illustrator each year and that helps to evolve the brand and I absolutely love that, and the illustrator called Sarah Mazzetti, who did the original identity for them, I think it might have been back in 2015. Prior to that, they just took like a green hippie festival, and it had a very different look very different vibe and I think when they employed an illustrator it really helped to propel them to a new audience but interestingly, they adjusted the typography and improved it each year so there's been little nuances and slight changes. Since then, they continue to employ a different illustrator to evolve the brand I think that really helps, so yes, I think yes visual consistency is important, but it can always be improved on and in fact, my experience with Beat-Herder, the very first year I did the design for them. It was ok, but you know it didn't feel quite right and then the following year I did something completely different which I kind of drew on the heritage and the background of the two brothers who were carpenters and then it started to get to a place that felt so right for the audience and right to incorporate the heritage of the festival.

Question: What challenges are often encountered when building a consistent brand identity for a festival?

JA: I found, often, you've got a marketing team and you've got the organiser of the festival you've got so many different stakeholders and sometimes our viewpoints are not the same and a target audience, so there's so many different things that you need to consider when trying to create visual consistency and a brand that really works so the challenge is definitely different stakeholders, but I think most importantly, it's really understanding the audience and often with festivals the audience is so wide as you have to kind of go for that middle. What are the ages of our demographic and our largest cohort that attend festivals?

Some other brands that do it really well, Coachella, I would imagine just huge logistics and I think interestingly, when a festival is so huge it's all going to be designed by different design agencies. So again, brand consistency and guidelines come into play here. I suppose one of the challenges will be interpretation primarily.

Appendix 3

Online Questionnaire

How old are you? – 29 responses

Have you ever been to a festival? – 29 responses

If you have, how did you find out about the festival? – 22 responses

Do you think the way a festival is branded affects your decision in attending? – 29 responses

Would you buy festival merch, and if so, why? e.g., to remember the experience, you like the design...

No – 4 responses

To remember the experience – 2 responses

Yeah definitely, designs are massively important because I’d want to wear it but i also buy them to remember the experience. – 1 response

Remember the experience – 1 response

To have a memento of the occasion - it's unique! – 1 response

No, it’s always expensive – 1 response

To remember the event but only if I like the design – 1 response

I would buy to remember the experience – 1 response

I would, primarily as a memento but I wouldn't buy it at all if I didn't also like the design.

It would also need to be reasonably priced. – 1 response

Yes, to commemorate the experience and have souvenirs – 1 response

Remember the line-up of the festival and a cool design – 1 response

Yes, to remember the experience – 1 response

I would buy a merchandise piece of clothing if the weather changed at the festival to suddenly be cold or rainy – 1 response

Yes. To remember the experience, or if the merch was cool, just to have the item – 1 response

Yes, if it had the band names on it and I liked the design. This would help me to remember it and to represent the music I like. – 1 response

I would buy merch if there were multiple designs and if they were colourful – 1 response

Yes, as long as it is stylish, and we’ll branded. Cool logos and patterns etc – 1 response

Yes, if I enjoyed the experience and I liked the design – 1 response

Yes, to wear to show I have been there – 1 response

Design that I liked. Memories of the event. – 1 response

Yes, if the design is good and the price is fair – 1 response

As a memento and/or because I like the designs or know the artist – 1 response

Yes, if I like the design – 1 response

Primarily, if I liked the design and it was relatively inexpensive. – 1 response

Only buy if looks good, good price and to remember event or maybe for someone who wished to go but couldn't – 1 response

Would you be willing to spend over your budget if a festival brand promised a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?

Yes – 15 responses

No – 3 responses

Yes, only if I believed they would deliver it though –1 response

No. Only the bands/artists performing impact my spending decisions –1 response

I would if I felt it was worth it and I would enjoy it – 1 response

If reviews of previous years backed this up – 1 response

Probably – 1 response

I’d be tempted but often it’s the typical festival experience I’m interested in rather than something outside of that: – 1 response

Depends, sometime overpromoting something makes me dubious – 1 response

Yeah – 1 response

Yeh, I guess so! – 1 response

Yes, very much so – 1 response

Maybe, depending on how much money, where/ when it is, what the special opportunity is. – 1 response

Appendix 4

Email interview with Luke Tonge, Director (Birmingham Design) and Brand Designer

Question: How important do you think it is for a festival’s visual brand to be consistent with their brand values?

LT: I think it's important for *all* brands to be visually consistent with their brand values – it's how audiences come to trust them and tell them apart from their competitors. So, this is true of festivals too – especially when there's so many for audiences to choose from – and they're so much about culture and experience.

Question: What branding techniques do you think are effective to build a community of returning visitors at a festival?

LT: Festival visitors are often quite loyal to their favourite festivals, returning year on year, so acknowledging that and rewarding them with appealing and relevant branding is a good idea. This can mean including the dates or theme-specific brand elements, so they can easily tell each year’s collateral apart. Audiences are savvy, so playing with established brand elements is a good way of keeping them engaged and involved with a brands evolution over time.

Question: How can designers utilise the associations people have with the festival to draw in new audiences? E.g., Sponsors, taglines, celebrity endorsement.

LT: There's lots of tactics you can use to try and draw in new audiences – those you mentioned are great examples – the basic building blocks of a brand are a given (visuals, copy, imagery, movement, sound etc) but more unusual and surprising methods can be highly effective.

Question: Do you think visual consistency is absolutely necessary to create a successful festival or does some level of variation improve the brand?

LT: We often talk about 'freedom within the framework' – some consistency is important, but so is variety and flexibility. You can't have variety without first establishing a brand to play with and stretch. One you have that; you can start to have real fun! This helps a brand stop feeling stale, especially year upon year.

Question: What challenges are often encountered when building a consistent brand identity for a festival?

LT: Working with partners can sometimes be challenging as too many different styles can feel messy and confusing – so having a clear hierarchy and design system can aid control. Different audiences also respond to branding in different ways, so the broader your audience is, the harder it can be.