Too often, we use the term “POP” without considering what we mean by it. At what point does POP begin? What exactly is the point of purchase? A physical point? A decision point in the customer’s mind? And what leads up to that point?

For us, a recent assignment to revitalize the in-store graphics for Rubio’s, a Carlsbad, Calif.-based growing quick-serve restaurant (QSR) in the intensely competitive Mexican food segment, brought those questions home.

By definition, a Rubio’s customer—or any QSR customer for that matter—has already made the decision to purchase something by virtue of stepping in the door, so the primary objective of POP has already been accomplished. For that reason, we redefined POP in that situation as “point of preference.” On a certain level, you could say that while the Rubio’s menuboard seeks to sell something today, the restaurant’s overall environment is helping to sell something tomorrow. Specifically, it’s selling customers a reason to be a frequent and loyal patron—that’s “point of preference.”

The Total POP Environment: Every aspect of the store environment must work together to create that preference, because every point of contact with the customer has the potential to enhance his experience and add to the selling proposition.

To create a total POP environment, however, it’s essential to work from a solid brand foundation. You need to ensure consistent execution and clear messaging. Above all, you need to stand for one thing—and deliver that one thing at all times.

For Rubio’s, that one thing is fresh-grilled, true Baja flavor. From photography and color right down to the fresh lemons and limes that decorate the salsa bar, we viewed every component of the in-store program as an asset designed to strengthen this value proposition.

The Power of Color: What the Rubio’s brand stands for today—a fresh-grilled, intense flavor experience—represents an evolution from the brand’s earlier, seafood orientation. Previously, teals and muted sea colors contributed to a mellow, relaxed experience. Not anymore. With a clear understanding of its new positioning, Rubio’s made a dramatic color shift to support its strategy.

In addition to a palette that includes spicy reds and vibrant greens, black plays a leading role in the solution. A system of black borders, evoking the grill marks of the char-broiler, makes the colors—and the lemons, limes, and salsas on display—seem all the more intense.

Rubio’s new color statement underscores the power of color as a visual asset: It allowed the chain to make a huge change in visual perception without having to tear apart its environment. The store’s new visual program involves no new fixturing or major construction. Instead, it overlays what was already there.

Compelling Comes First: Rubio’s initially tested the new merchandising program in a limited number of locations. Then, once the tests proved successful, Rubio’s adopted the program systemwide as its retail identity.

Would we have viewed the Rubio’s environment as a total POP opportunity if the chain weren’t in such a competitive category? I like to think so. Competition certainly forces you to improve your game and obligates you to be sure that your messaging is crisp and clear. But the benefits of a well-integrated program go beyond competitive advantage. They go to the very heart of what makes a compelling experience for the customer—and ensure that your retail store offers consumers a “point of preference.”

By now, we’ve all gotten the message that really effective POP doesn’t just create product appeal and stimulate sales—it also helps to build the brand’s image. And we can appreciate the fact that POP is a front-line, brand-building tool of primary importance. We also understand how to make POP advertising “deliver” the brand image: by skillfully applying existing visual and written guidelines to ensure consistency and on-target communication.

But is this enough? For a value-oriented brand in a mass retail environment, or for a product that doesn’t ask much of a customer in terms of involvement and interaction, maybe. But for other products and in other channels—particularly specialty channels—the brand-building proposition isn’t so simple. Here, true brand-building must go deeper.

Upscale Brand-Building: Taylor Guitars is a perfect example of such a brand, and one for which our firm was given the assignment to develop an in-store brand campaign. A high-end brand, Taylor Guitars are acoustic, steel-string guitars that have raised the industry standard for design and innovation, precision manufacturing and quality materials. With these attributes, Taylor Guitars is truly a premium brand.

For the first 20 years of its existence, Taylor didn’t do much in terms of POP. But as the business continued to grow and the company ratcheted up its marketing efforts to support higher volumes, it looked to new ways to increase its presence.

From the outset, Taylor’s POP strategy was a pure brand-building exercise. While brochures and newsletters announced new product offers, POP centered on telling its story in-store and on deepening the close relationships Taylor had established with dealers, who are critical gatekeepers of customer education and brand word of mouth. Free of the constraints associated with delivering time-sensitive offers, Taylor could instead focus on long-term image-building.

Harmonizing at Retail: Sending an “extended play” message via permanent POP is certainly effective, but such POP runs the risk of becoming so familiar that it blends in to the background. But in Taylor’s case, we reasoned, maybe some of the POP should blend in at retail. In addition to creating visual impact, we wanted the Taylor POP program to lend musical authenticity to the shop. That meant integrating it with the dealer environment, not standing out against it.

At first glance, POP elements such as stools and guitar stands create virtually no presence for Taylor at all. Up close, however, the brand-building impact can’t be underestimated. Taylor’s POP doesn’t need to cut through the proverbial clutter; it is an essential part of—and enhancement to—the customer’s unaided interaction with the product. It reinforces Taylor’s ownership of authenticity and craft. Most importantly, it delivers on another key program goal: providing lasting value to the dealer and customer alike.

That small but potent approach to POP extends even closer to the product with “Pick me up” hangtags. With these tags, the POP program extends all the way from initial impact via neon signs to much later consumer contact via tags on the product itself. Also, it touches the customer at several points during product trial, which, for a high-end guitar, is about as high-involvement as it gets.

For a premium brand such as Taylor, POP becomes less of a promotional tool and more of a strategic, brand-building tool. As such, its influence is measured not only in terms of immediate impact but also in depth of expression. Beyond visuals and messages, materials and fabrication techniques can play a significant role in creating this depth—as can the specific forms the POP takes and the mix of POP elements used to tell the brand story. All these factors make designing POP for premium brands a more complex proposition—and, for the designer, potentially a more rewarding one.

Jabra Corp., San Diego, markets “everyday” cord headsets. But when the company wanted to introduce a wireless version to a different type of consumer, it faced this question:

How do you see the product apart from the everyday line, yet also connect the new product to the brand family?

The company found part of the answer in switching to a paperboard carton. The package retains the brand’s signature yellow color while adjusting the brand’s visual hierarchy.

The result is a brand extension with packaging that continues the JABRA “look.” The marketer and its retailers gain versatility on the shelf.

JABRA markets hands-free communication products. Its everyday line of cord headsets retails for $20 to $40. They come in clamshell packaging.

Appealing to a Different Mind-Set: But its FreeSpeak wireless mobile headset courts consumers with a different mind-set about electronics. FreeSpeak targets upscale, “early adopters” to new technology, says Ton Hansen, Director of Channel Marketing.

The wireless headset works with the latest Bluetooth phones and with many other phones through a Bluetooth adapter.

FreeSpeak’s Bluetooth-ready model retails for $99. The Bluetooth enabled model retails for $179.

JABRA wanted to evolve the FreeSpeak package design “vocabulary” and architecture from its existing packaging. It called on Mires, a San Diego brand consulting and design firm.

Research showed that consumers believe a paperboard carton is better suited to the more expensive products in the category, explains John Ball, Mires Principal. JABRA chose a corrugated container for FreeSpeak, departing from its familiar clamshell packaging, which hangs on pegs.

The carton measures 9 inches high by 5 inches wide. While it’s deeper than the clamshell package, its outer dimensions are otherwise identical. This consistency helps consumers connect FreeSpeak with JABRA’s brand “look,” Hansen notes.

That appearance, he says, holds in the store whether the entire family of products is stocked together on the shelf or whether FreeSpeak sits separately behind glass counter doors or in a display.

Intense Color: With higher price points, consumers expect stronger visual perceptions of quality. JABRA answers that challenge with graphics printed on paper that’s laminated to the carton. This adds gloss and intensifies the color on the signature “JABRA yellow” with an orange gradient, which carries over from the brand’s everyday line.

The FreeSpeak cartons help JABRA achieve another goal: “For the first time, we wanted to build some sense of product name identity,” Hansen says.

The brand logo is large on the clamshell container, but appears in reduced size at the bottom of the front panel on FreeSpeak cartons.

The front panel on cartons of the wireless headset features the FreeSpeak word mark as the primary graphic identity. The middle of the front panel carries a composite product photo, showing the product in use from three angles. The photography emulates the freedom of the wireless headset.

Tints added in post-production embellish details in the headset user’s face, to make the photo “pop.” This helps support the product’s leading edge positioning.

In an attempt to build on its “Beyond the box” strategy to diversify beyond PCs, Gateway this week will rebrand its Learning Division under the name “Survive & Thrive.”

The effort, via San Diego brand consultancy Mires, includes a new look and brand name for Gateway’s series of books, CDs and its classes, all of which are offered at Gateway’s 300 Country Stores and on the Web. Currently there are 15 such books and three boxed sets, which include CDs and books starting at $99.

Tom Carroll, marketing director with Mires, said Gateway is looking to build its service offerings. “They’re trying to diversify into more of a solutions business,” he said “into higher growth, higher margin areas.”

While previous titles were in various colors, the revamp includes a uniform green along with twentysomething models.

Carroll said there will be no initial advertising support. Siltanen/Keehn, the San Diego firm that handles Gateway’s ads, this week is breaking a separate effort for the company’s desktop com-puters. Like previous ads, they will feature founder/CEO Ted Waitt and the company’s talking cow mascot. Gateway reps could not be reached.

Currently on the ropes financially, the No.4 PC maker is hoping a strategy of slashing PC prices, cutting jobs, and relying more on higher margin services and networking gear will lead it back to profitability.

As America’s first nonprofit theater, Washington’s Arena Stage Theater had enjoyed decades of critical success since its founding in 1950, but by the late 90s, dwindling ticket sales and donations had put the venerable institution in a financial tailspin. Qualitative focus groups conducted in spring 1998 also showed that the theater had acquired an image of being dull and predictable.

Audiences had begun to see Arena Stage as the theater world’s equivalent of “an old gray mare,” says Neill Roan, former director of external affairs for Arena Stage and now CEO of his own marketing consulting firm, The Roan Group, based in Washington.

In response, Arena Stage’s board of trustees embarked on a long-term, multifaceted rebranding campaign that began with the 1998-99 season (running from September to June) and ultimately boosted ticket sales by 28% and pushed donations up 48% by the end of the 2000-01 season, putting the theater back on solid financial ground. Like many nonprofit businesses, Arena Stage could not afford to implement all aspects of a major rebranding effort at once, so the campaign—which cost a total of about $400,000—was conducted over a five-year period beginning in fall 1998 when a new Arena Stage logo was introduced, and culminating in February 2002 when a new e-commerce Web site was launched.

Other aspects of the rebranding campaign included introducing a biannual newsletter for season ticket buyers, a direct mail piece to solicit donations, and a new, cohesive look for seasonal brochures, print ads and posters.

Stephen Richard, executive director of Arena Stage, says the campaign was successful in altering audiences’ perception of the theater. “I can’t tell you how often it comes up this year that (audience members) will say something to me like ‘I love your new look at Arena’ or ‘You’ve positioned Arena just right,’” he says.

Plotting a strategy for the rebranding campaign was made possible by the donation of thousands of dollars’ worth of qualitative studies by Shugoll Research, based in Bethesda, Md. Shugoll’s CEO Mark Shugoll, a member of Arena Stage’s board of trustees, says his firm conducted four focus groups in spring 1998, with 10 participants in each group. Two panels comprised Arena Stage season ticket holders, and two were made up of randomly selected audience members who bought individual show tickets.

“Arena would never appear on (focus group participants’) radar when we asked, ‘What’s the hot theater in the Washington area?”’ Shugoll says. “Newness and energy were not associated with the Arena brand.”

When Shugoll’s moderators asked participants to think of an animal to compare to Arena Stage, the response was commonly “a slow, lumbering animal,” says Shugoll, such as an elephant or, of course, the proverbial old gray mare.

Shugoll says his qualitative research was unable to pinpoint exactly why the focus groups felt the way they did about Arena Stage’s productions, but that many participants said Arena’s choice of plays and style of production were just too predictable and didn’t seem to offer any surprises compared to younger, more cutting-edge theaters in the Washington area, which were pulling customers away from Arena Stage.

Based in part on the focus group results, Arena Stage hired a new artistic director, Molly Smith, for the 1998-99 season, but Roan says he knew key artistic personnel changes would not cure Arena’s marketing problems.

“Nothing will revitalize a theater like new artistic leadership, but that in and of itself doesn’t do anything” in terms of marketing, Roan says. So he called on Mires Design for Brands, a design and brand consulting firm based in San Diego, to craft a fresh new look for Arena Stage’s print materials. Mires was chosen because the firm had experience helping several theaters in California with their marketing.

In addition to creating a new logo, Mires took over the design of all subsequent print marketing materials, including lobby posters, a template for a new biannual newsletter, a direct mail piece in 2000 to solicit donations, and all season brochures.

Among the firm’s other moves, Scott Mires, principal and creative director at Mires, says the firm chose “narrative illustrators” to depict each upcoming play with a well thought-out illustration, rather than using “stage shot” photographs of previous plays or dress rehearsals for the posters and brochures, as Arena Stage had done in the past.

Also, Mires says he strove to achieve more consistency in all of Arena Stage’s print materials. Before the rebranding campaign, he notes, the theater tried to market itself on a play-by-play basis, with no overall brand cohesion conveyed from production to production, season to season.

“Theaters often want to reinvent themselves every year like fashion, yet the best fashion companies have strong continuity (in their product lines) and still look fresh,” say Mires, who says that consistent use of illustrations, typography, color palettes and layouts helps provide that continuity in Arena Stage’s print materials.

“This is now a branded theater,” Mires says. Maggie Boland, director of communications for Arena Stage since January 2000, continues to follow Mires’ design template for a biannual newsletter, and says, “We are the image police; everything must be consistent. This was lacking prior to the rebranding campaign.”

With a new logo and new look for all the print marketing materials in place, the last piece of the Arena Stage rebranding effort was a new Web site. Starting in late summer 2001, Mires spent about six months building the new site (www.arenastage.org), which was launched in February with the primary goals of extending Arena’s new print look online, making navigation easier and boosting online ticket sales.

No qualitative user studies or analytic data are available regarding the old Web site—which had been created on a shoestring budget by some in-house Arena Stage employee volunteers back in 1996—but, Mires says, “They (Arena Stage) had gotten a lot of feedback from users that the site was confusing.”

The old site had been developed piecemeal, with new information added to different sections from time to time over a five-year period without a master organizational plan, Mires says. Visitors seeking specific information would hit dead ends and have to back up.

Besides reorganizing the information for easier access, another change Mires made to the site was to let visitors go straight to the ticket-purchase page from anywhere else on the site. As soon as they made up their minds to buy tickets, they could dash straight to the virtual box office—a navigation feature lacking in the old version.

Mires says the new site, which features the same design style and illustrations as the play posters and other print materials, appears to be a hit with theater fans, according to e-mails from site visitors this spring.

“People said, ‘There’s an incredible amount of information on the (new) site,’ and yet it was already mostly all there, just not well organized,” Mires says.

Boland says that in May 2002, weekly unique visitors were averaging 4,000, up from an average of only about 2,500 per week prior to the launch of the redesigned site. (However, Boland notes that the site’s traffic can often fluctuate significantly based on what’s going on onstage.) Shugoll says he plans a more detailed qualitative review of the new site’s performance later this year.

Online ticket sales for the 2000-01 season (prior to the redesign) totaled $267,000, while the 2001-02 season, which has featured the new site since February, had already racked up about $400,000 in online ticket sales by the first week of May. (Arena Stage does not have a breakdown for online ticket sales just since the new site launched.)

The overall rebranding campaign also had a positive effect on total ticket sales and donations. In the 1997-98 season—the last full season prior to rebranding—ticket sales (on- and offline) totaled about $4.7 million, and donations about $2.7 million. For the 2000-01 season—the third full season after rebranding began—ticket sales were up 28% over 1997-98, to about $6 million, and donations had increased 48% to about $4 million, according to Boland. (Mires also sent out a special direct mail piece in spring 2000 to more than 5,000 prior and prospective finan-cial contributors, as part of the rebranding effort and to help boost donations.)

But a change in audience perceptions of the theater was perhaps most gratifying to Arena Stage in terms of ROI. Follow-up focus groups conducted by Shugoll in September 1999 and 2000 again tested for the type of animals that participants would compare the theater to.

“After repositioning, Arena Stage became associated with sleeker animals like the jaguar and tiger,” Shugoll says. He says post-rebranding focus group participants frequently described Arena Stage as being “the hot place to go” among Washington area theaters and as a theater they could depend on to provide cutting-edge productions of new and old plays.

Says Richard, of the rebranding campaign’s success, “What’s the highest superlative I can use?”

Rubio’s Baja Grill, the Carlsbad, California-based fast-casual Mexican restaurant chain, knew it needed a facelift. ”Through a lot of consumer research, we learned that people in our core markets knew us for great Mexican seafood like our fish tacos,” Rubio’s spokesperson Alison Glenn Delaney explains. ”But we have great char-grilled chicken and steak products like grilled chicken and carne asada burritos and quesadillas, too. We knew we had a wider potential market, and we wanted to transform our menu and other key items to help change customers’ perception.”

To establish a new image, Rubio’s didn’t overhaul its food or business practices. Instead, it changed its menu board, salsa bar, dinnerware and packaging to achieve “a more sophisticated look that conveys the message we’re geared more toward adults than children,” Delaney notes. And the company did it all “pretty inexpensively,” she adds.

“We didn’t want to start from scratch-it would have been too expensive,” says Delaney, explaining that Rubio’s wanted to create a consistent look in all its stores. To minimize the expense, the company kept its six-panel menu boards and salsa bar cabinetry, and worked with Mires, a design firm in San Diego, to revamp the colors on the menu board and bar.

The board now features a black border with dark red headers, a khaki-colored background and highlighted items called out in teal. The salsa bar boasts a black metal template that fits over the ice and matched the new black bowls and black ladles at the bar. Even the paper that wraps the tacos and other items ordered at the counter has changed. It is now a “rustic tan, like butcher block craft paper, like you would see at a stand in Baja,” Delaney says.

Feedback so far had been positive. ”People say the menu is a lot cleaner and simpler to read. And the black template and bowls at the salad bar set off the red and green of the salsas and limes that are around the salad bar,” she reports.

Rubio’s experience shows even small changes can reap rewards. The key is to make sure your design and presentation choices—dinnerware, flatware, menus and table tents, linens, lighting, serving and accent pieces—mesh with everything else in your eatery. ”A lot will depend on the type of atmosphere you’re looking for,” says Gary Halpern, vice president of Trimark United East, a foodservice equipment and supply dealer/distributor in Sough Attleboro, Mass. ”On every level, it’s important to pick the things that are representative of the food you’re serving.”

RS (Rattlesnake) Jones restaurant in Merrick, N.Y., for example, uses a cowhide patterned vinyl tablecloth, along with a rustic “specials” menu hung from a wooden holder from Maverick Menus, to get across its Southwestern barbeque theme. And Bazaar Del Mundo, which operates Casa de Pico, Casa Bandini, Rancho El Nopal and Casa Guadalajara in San Diego, achieves an authentic Mexican look in all four Mexican restaurants with custom-designed, handblown glassware—some tipped in green, some in blue—from Aztecas Design, the restaurants’ Jose Luis Hernandez says.

The glassware Hernandez chose is not unusual, says Halpern, who sees a trend toward colorful glassware, dinnerware and coordinating flatware, often with Southwestern and Mexican-inspired hues and/or patterns. Libby, he notes, offers swirl-patterned flatware that coordinates with the company’s Cantina dinnerware line. Mid-to upscale restaurants frequently opt for patterned and embossed products, which is what the new Agave in Avon, Colo. did when it selected a custom-designed dinnerware pattern—an off-white plate with a brown-and-blue, scroll-patterned rim—from El Anfora. And even restaurants that use plastic plates and glasses, especially for patio seating, are turning to colors like the sunburst and cantaloupe in cambro’s product lineup, he notes.

Table linens, too, are key to creating ambience, according to Halpern. ”A lot of people use vinyl tablecloths with patterns to incorporate Mexican colors,” Halpern says. Linens are a cost-effective way to add color if you’re using white, all-purpose china, Halpern adds. Joan Wallett, owner of Tijuana Taxi in Rehoboth, Del., says she just started topping tables with oilcloth tablecloths in sunflower, floral and vegetable patterns from Reign Trading to do just that.

Whatever your design and presentation choices, forethought and careful planning will ensure you achieve the right look for your restaurant. ”Sometimes things evolve in a haphazard what,” says Mires’ John Ball, who worked on the Rubio’s project. ”But it really is more about investing thought than a lot of money. Design and presentation are huge where customer perception is concerned. From sending the right visual cues to representing your strengths, you have a chance to communicate with your customers, and do it better than the competition. The opportunities are everywhere. You just have to think it through.”

Washington DC: Topping off a brand campaign that is reviving the capital’s Arena Stage, Mires has revamped the web site for this flagship of American not-for-profit theater. “Arena Stage’s success and heritage are built around a passion and a commitment to excellence,” says Scott Mires of the San Diego firm. “Our goal was to continue telling the story without changing the language. We needed to capture the emotion and surprise inherent in the Arena brand, bring it to life on the web, and deepen the connection between the brand and its audience.” Mires says that the site enhances the overall identity, also executed by his firm in the late 90s, because it “evokes action” on the part of ticket buyers, shoppers and potential donors. He adds that “the web allows you to tell a deeper and more meaningful story than any other media—it allows you to personalize the brand experience in a more compelling way... [It will] take the brand to its next stage of evolution.”

Any beleaguered parent that’s done the toy-store shuffle with their advertising-savvy progeny knows that helpless feeling, that sinking sensation that starts in the pit of your stomach the moment you glimpse those eye-catching items of doom on the store shelves: brand-new stockpiles of the latest, greatest video game.

Now, as a member of the pre-Atari 2600 generation (or maybe Atari was as advanced as it got when you were of prime game-playing age), you may be able to differentiate a joystick from a stick shift, but you’re still clueless about what a cheat code is or which console is the ultimate in gaming satisfaction. And since you’re the one with the cold hard cash that will be coughed up to purchase said digital diversion, you’re forced to rely on three factors when making the big purchase: the advice of your conniving kids, the price tag, and, suckers that we all are for appearances, the product packaging.

When video-game giant Sega decided to bundle its popular Dreamcast console with its 12 “greatest hits” games for a bargain-basement price, it needed an upgrade for its box design. Enter Mires, a full-service design firm that incorporates brand strategy, identity and interactive design into its packaging design process. Digital Imaging talked to Mires creative director and principal John Ball, marketing director Tom Carroll and art director Miguel Perez to get to the bottom of their design efforts for this special “Smashpack” concept.

The Initial Test: Concocting a Concept: The original project completed by Mires for Sega came down the pipeline in the fall of 2000, according to Ball. “Sega came to us to help them create packaging for Dream cast, which was their gaming console at the time,” he says. “We did an original series of packaging and a bunch of accessories for Dreamcast.” This package was released around Christmas of that year.

Changing economies and stepped-up competition led Sega to rethink its strategy in the industry, and it decided to transition to being a software company, getting hardware out of its system. To sell its remaining Dreamcast consoles and accompanying software, the company decided to create a series of bundled packages, which would include the console and a bunch of games. “In the case of the Smashpack, you’d get 12 games,” says Ball. “You’d get what they considered their 12 greatest games, plus the hardware, all at a great price.”

Hence the challenge for Mires in concocting its design strategy: How could they take this “mishmash” of artwork from all the various games, all in different styles, resolutions and qualities, and come up with a unified approach, while still maintaining the family-friendly look of the previous packaging? Plus, the designers didn’t want to go into overkill mode: “That kind of packet, with its immediacy, you’re trying to show it’s a great value,” says Ball. “ If you don’t do that well, it can look real busy and too cheap. That was the real challenge—to give it that action-packed, value-packed feeling, but not cheapen the brand.”

After going over research from Sega and its design options, a plan was formulated. “We came up with the idea of letting the characters from the games take over the box,” reveals Ball. “We worked through some different compositions, but we really tried to go with the concept of them taking over the whole box. You can also see the original hardware that was on the original box, which carries some of the correlation of the original box. So basically we worked on creating a composition and optimizing all the different images so they’d reproduce well and really making it seem real. That was one of the successful things about this visually.”

From Mishmash to Maintaining the Brand: Sega sent over electronic files for Mires to work with, which presented its own lot of aesthetic problems. “They were very poor quality—the color was really bad,” Ball recalls. “If you look at the original images, a lot of the images were cut off. It was quite a challenge to figure out an arrangement that would help us in [these cases]. In the case of the guy with the sword, for example, that’s pretty much as much of the image we had. We added some sword in Photoshop because part of the sword was gone.” After all the finagling was done in Photoshop to optimize the colorful characters, the other crucial elements were added in, including the Dreamcast swirl, the limited-edition logo and the 56k modem logo.

Color’s role was also critical. “The initial coloring [of the original box] was a black and cyan kind of look, plus the Dreamcast swirl,” says Ball. “More color [was added], which gives it that vibrancy and pop, but the base color is still that strong cyan color we established for Dreamcast.”

When it came time to print the projects, Sega used the Mires design in a somewhat unusual but creative way. “In this case they did something kind of innovative,” Ball says. “They printed the box, and it was a type of wrap around the original box. [The new version] was printed on tagboard, and was boxed over the original box, which was more of a stronger, corrugated box. So you’d open this [new] box and you’d take out the original box. The fact that they’re related, and that the hardware is the same photo—you think you’re taking away the characters and seeing the original box, which was kind of cool.” The concept was a success: Ball says they heard from Sega that sales of the package were great and Mires has taken on a few more bundling assignments since then from the video-game company.

Mired In A Soup-To-Nuts Strategy: Not a Bad Place to Be: Mires, based in San Diego, was initially founded in 1985 by Scott Mires as a small design boutique. In the 18 years since, the company has evolved into more of a brand-consulting firm, offering strategic design and brand consulting to clients such as the NBA, Pepsi and Qualcomm. “It’s really much more than just designers,” says marketing director Tom Carroll. “We have designers, brand strategists, project managers and traffic associates helping manage workflow. We do a lot more than just packaging. We have brand strategy, packing collateral, corporate identities, the whole thing, with the exception of advertising.” Principals in the company include Mires, John Ball and Jose Serrano.

Client Kurt Listug, CEO of Taylor Guitars, proclaims to have a thing or two in common with design firm Mires: “We’re both real anal and very detail-oriented about what we do.” In the case of Taylor, the ‘what we do’ is craft high-end guitars for those ranging from weekend enthusiasts to seriously-famous musicians.

In the case of Mires, it’s supplying strategic thinking and design solutions for clients ranging from roof tiles and video games to coffee beans and theater. Also travel, dining out, surfing, telephones, trading cards, golf and toys. And that’s just a partial list. Jose Serrano, principal/creative director, says, “We’ve had a wide reach of different types of accounts—we haven’t been in one certain category, like medical. We can learn what the clients’ needs are and tell a story that fits that particular need. That’s where the storytelling comes into play. It gives us the freedom to attract any type of client.”

So that’s the thread that ties these disparate areas together: story. At Mires, they believe there’s a story behind every brand that has its own unique voice. That belief has catapulted the San Diego, California, firm into a realm of success they never dreamed of. And one they don’t take for granted. Serrano says, “We never want to get comfortable. We’re always looking for new things we can be doing.”

Located in a picturesque, charming enclave of antique shops, printers, car repair shops and palm trees, the firm’s beach-town locale belies a bustling enterprise with an impressive client list. As the business grew, they offered more and more services. And over time, the former moniker of Mires Design—and the sole act of design itself—didn’t fit.

Imagine their surprise when it turned out they were in need of a story of their own. Principal/creative director Scott Mires, founder, says, “We’d been wrestling with it for a few years.We were offering a lot more than just design—design was limiting for us. We had become a strategic partner to our clients. We helped to build their brands. There’s this stigma to design as just being esthetic; we wanted to position ourselves as being more strategic. A lot of times it’s your oldtime clients who are pigeonholing you and sometimes you’re not good at promoting yourself to existing clients and talking about your new capabilities. We never really had a tagline— a descriptor for what we do.”

As they grappled for a new identity, their tagline ‘design for brands’ transformed into Mires>design for brands. It’s a subtle name that came with much discernment. Principal/ creative director John Ball says, “It was a great transition thing where it kept design up there pretty high, but it also introduced the strategic part of what we do: design ‘for brands’.” Mires adds, “We didn’t want to totally walk away from the esthetic, because that’s how we’ve gotten where we are—doing really incredible work—along with this other great component. At times, it’s been intuitively strategic but now it’s become more process-oriented strategy.”

“So in a way,” Ball says, “it was like taking a dose of our own medicine, stepping back and saying, OK we’re different now, how are we going to be positioned in our world, with our clients and potential clients? We looked at the name and the identity, redid the portfolio and the Web site.” Serrano continues, “The one thing that we did differently from most people is that we had actually done the work we were talking about. It wasn’t: Oh, we’re going to change our name and we’re going to refocus ourselves to say we’re doing strategy now, or, now we do brand work. We actually have a body of work that shows that we do those things. So now that we do have a new name, we already have work to back it up.” Mires adds, “It’s like doing a package for a product that doesn’t exist yet. It just makes people race to it and say, hey that’s really not any good.”

One key client, Neill Archer Roan, CEO of The Roan Group, a strategic business development company, has watched the firm grow. Mires has worked on Roan’s Arena Stage and California Center for the Arts client projects for years. He says, “It’s one thing to get a really great project the first time around, and another to get it for ten years. Their differentiating point is the quality of thinking and execution. Miguel [Perez, design director] is basically the Leonardo di Vinci of execution, creating an incredibly juicy execution of the idea and making it absolutely perfect. Things fail in execution. Mires is bulletproof in terms of executing strong concepts.”

Bob Schonfisch, director of creative services, Sega America, remembers his first encounter with Mires. “I was doing research for a corporate identity project. By the time I met John Ball, I was pretty well down the road of assigning another agency.” But it turns out, that was just for one assignment. Mires kept in front of Schonfisch by sending him spiral-bound books of recent work— books he’s kept to this day. Schonfisch, whose in-house marketing group does extensive work on the front end of assigning projects, brings a lot to the table in terms of market research and strategic thinking.

He references his company’s mission words, displayed in his office: Defiant, Passionate, Fearless, Unexpected, Irreverent and Independent. “Every piece of work we put out there has to have at least several of these properties,” he says. Once he began working with Mires, he found like minds, especially because they were able to grasp and appreciate his up-front strategic planning, not just deliver creative. “By the time I did give them their first assignment,” he remembers, “it was a huge project—redesigning hardware packaging and all the peripherals.”

He continues, “The good thing is that they listen. They’re able to take direction and elaborate on it. It’s seamless in terms of communication. During the process, it doesn’t matter who I’m talking to; we’re all on the same page. You don’t get mistakes out of them.”

That’s where that attention-to-detail claim comes in. Serrano says, “When we get a project, I tell clients, you’re welcome to go to the back and go through our archives. See some of the work we’re really proud of. Whether it’s 1-color, 2-color, 4-color, or whatever, the detail that goes into it is going to be amazing. We’re not going to give you ‘choice A’ or ‘choice B’ design. When we commit to a project, whether it’s one dollar or ten dollars, you’re going to get that level of detail.”

Each principal/creative director, Mires, Ball and Serrano, handles his own accounts, working with teams of designers and outside writers, illustrators and photographers. In 2001, Tom Carroll joined the firm as marketing director. “It was a missing piece that fit perfectly,” Mires says. “We also added project managers that added a whole level of getting things done. Before, the three of us would run around doing all that and now we have people who actually keep track of every last detail.”

Scott Mires has steered the Taylor Guitars account since the mid-1990s. Listug says, “My concept of branding is not to come up with something clever or advertising-y. Sometimes when you talk to [design] people, they want to do something pretty but haven’t thought much about strategy. Scott is long on strategy and he can create a beautiful, impactful piece. He’s enthusiastic about it.”

Scott is one of those designers who still does tiny pencil\ thumbnails. Serrano and Ball encourage their teams to do marker layouts before turning on the computer. At first-round internal creative meetings, they’ll have a plentiful, rough bounty of work, much of which is shown to the client. This way, they tend to over-deliver in the number of concepts they come up with—one more component to their own corporate strategy. This idea of over-delivering seems to have propelled them to the next level.

Roan offers, “The biggest challenge with branding as it relates to design is continuing to have the butterfly evolve. If you look at Mires work over a period of time, what you see is an arc that is very subtle. There’s a process of revealing and unfolding that is really organic. There has to be an unfolding of the story.”