Product image is the projection of the core value proposition of the product and the user experience it entails. This projection is in the eyes and minds of the target users. Products that have an image which aligns well with the core expectations of the users, enjoy deep product relationship with the users. Product image, in turn, is governed by the product identity, which is built and managed by the core product development and management teams. Holistically thinking about how the product is perceived in terms of physical, functional and emotional aspects is what helps build the product identity.
One of the tools or frameworks which can help with product identity creation and management is called Brand Identity Prism [1]. A marketing framework, it helps brand managers holistically understand a brand’s identity across different aspects of user interaction, and thus create promotion strategy for brand positioning. We can draw a parallel by using this brand identity prism framework to understand a product’s identity so that the product manager can better empathize with end users’ intent and expectations. Let’s have a quick look at what is a brand identity prism and relate it with consumer Internet products.
Brand Identity Prism
A brand identity prism is a framework that helps understand a brand’s identity by defining it in 6 core aspects. These aspects cover the physical, functional and emotional attributes of the brand, as perceived by target users. Represented in a prism form, it conveys the holistic nature of creating and understanding the brand identity, as shown below:
Let’s have a quick look at these aspects and their meaning.
- Physique: The physical aspect of the product, how it looks and appears. For digital products, it is the logo, colour scheme, iconography. It is the visual representation of the core value of the brand. Gmail encapsulates this beautifully, right from the envelope looking logo, to the discussion thread layout in to-and-fro communication emails.
- Personality: Extending from the physical aspect of the brand, personality aspect maps the character of the brand. It also touches the functional aspect of the brand. Hike, for example, has a much more casual and young personality owing to the predominantly younger target users, than the personality of other messaging products.
- Relationship: The emotional aspect of the brand, this covers the relationship the user feels with the brand. Google Maps for instance feels like a virtual assistant you can blindly rely on for your navigation needs.
- Culture: This aspect covers the ethos of the company and the broader context behind the creation of the brand. Talking about Google again, the sheer tech powerhouse behind the vision of making Internet useful and integral part of the lives of its users, via the entire product portfolio they have, defines the culture for the brand “Google”.
- Reflection: This is the brand’s understanding of its target user. This is the image of the target user as per the brand creators. Casual personality of Hike is built keeping in mind the image of a young Internet savvy user.
- Self Image: This is how the target users visualize themselves while associating themselves with the brand. This is the mirror in which the target users look. There was a trend a few days ago when social media users were displaying their profile pics for the popular social media platforms of Facebook, Instagram, Tinder and LinkedIn. That is exactly what those users were seeing as the self image for these products, echoing the core value provided by these platforms.
Once the brand (or product) manager has defined the attributes in these 6 aspects, the prism helps understand if there is any gap in the brand’s projection by the company, and the brand’s image in the eyes of the target users. Two dimensions help understand this gap, if any:
- Sender vs Receiver: How the brand is constructed by the company or sender in physical and personality form, and how it is received by the target users in reflection and self image form.
- Externalisation vs Internalisation: How the brand is portrayed externally in physical, user relationships and reflection form, and how it portrays the intrinsic values in personality, culture and self image form.
Sample Product Identity Prism
Extrapolating on the understanding of a brand identity prism, let’s try to use it to develop an identity prism for a consumer Internet product, say, in finTech. Let’s say the product offers investment services in mutual funds, and the target user segment is young, tier I and II cities’ urban users in the 25-35 years age group, primarily first time salary earners. The product identity prism, thus, can be made like this:
The image above tries to cover the various attributes for our sample finTech product as per the 6 aspects of identity prism. Let’s see what learning can be drawn from this.
- Physique: Winning the trust of the users is imperative for any finTech product, owing to the fact that it handles and manages users’ finances. Users would be able to go past the mental block of online payments only when there is enough trust on the product. So the physical aspect of our sample product must cover this. Certain colours like Blue, are known to infuse trust. Similarly sharp edges for input boxes are perceived to attract more focus than rounded edges. This might work in making the user pay more attention to fund amounts. Having round numbers for amount to be invested can have similar effect on the users. In addition, showing the user that the product is always up with the latest market news and updates will also help build this trust.
- Personality: As an extension to the physical aspect, users will associate the traits of trustworthiness with the character of this product. As the product concerns investment related analysis keeping market trends and predictions in mind, the character must be associated with wise and analytical attributes too. Thus the content presented to the user in the product can enrich this perception of the user. Graphical representation of the analysis, comparison of available mutual funds, past reports and news about the fund houses, all can help enrich this perception.
- Relationship: For users who would start investing on our product, the product will eventually become the go to guide to give advice on secure investment options. In addition, the product will also become the utility app or assistant who helps the user manage the investments. The UX of our product must answer to these expectations of the user. The feedback on current investments, and also the recommendation on new investments must be personalized for the users to increase retention. There should be utmost ease in enabling the user to manage his or her funds and investments on the product, be it health check, new transactions or redemption.
- Culture: The product manager must understand the ethos on which the product is being built. For our sample product, this can be as simple as building a product that makes investing in mutual funds very easy. Or, it can be as profound as inculcating the habit of investing for their future among the youth, so that they can reach financial independence early. Whatever the core value behind making the product is, it should reflect in the UX of the product, both on or off it.
- Reflection: For our sample product, typical target user would be the one interested in knowing more about finance management, and would be ready to try out investments. The product would become the true assistant for such a user and that will lay the foundation of a deep relationship between the product and the user.
- Self Image: Once the target user is defined and the product’s reflection for such a user is also thought through, knowing what the majority of the target users think about themselves is the real eye opener for any product. For our sample product, for instance, majority of the young first time salary earners will be a lot more carefree about finances as the product would like them to be. This is where empathizing with your end users, or lack of it, would really make or break the product. Product manager for our sample product will acknowledge this gap between the expected user image and the user’s actual self image, and build the UX in such a way that the low intent majority users progressively understand the value of the product, and proceed to become high intent users.
Understanding the product’s identity across various physical, functional and emotional aspects of user touch points, can go a long way in enabling the product manager craft an effective user experience. Brand identity prism can come in handy to get this learning. As the product evolves and reaches more user segments and offers more functionality, its identity also evolves. So revisiting this framework with each product enhancement will help a lot.
[1] “Brand Identity Prism” is a branding and marketing framework created in 1986 by Jean Noel Kapferer, a world reputed scholar and expert on brands and branding.