Landor's global president on shaping brands as business assets

His return to Landor after 17 years felt like coming back to a house he grew up in, but which now had more rooms and redecorated spaces. While some elements of the company still remain familiar, Christian Schroeder finds that both the global brand design agency and the industry are almost unrecognisable.

As Landor’s newly appointed global president, Schroeder discusses with Campaign how the company, founded in 1941 by Walter Landor, differentiates itself by developing brand strategies and experiences that deliver measurable business outcomes. Here are edited excerpts from this exclusive interaction:

Landor & Fitch unveiled its refreshed identity as Landor with a renewed focus on brand consultancy last November, three months before you rejoined the company. How do you view the new Landor?

I joined Landor 25 years ago, and today, the agency and industry have evolved beyond recognition—whether it's the advent of technology, strategic approaches, the breadth of our offerings, geographic expansion, or mergers and acquisitions. While the shell remains consistent, the way it manifests makes it a fundamentally different organisation; but one that has changed spectacularly for the better.

When I was in Landor, it was a very analogue world, which is not the case anymore. The way consumers experience brand has evolved enormously and there is a proliferation of the media landscape. Our clients are looking for more certainty, KPIs or RoIs, because if they are going to be spending their marketing dollars in a fragmented world, they need to understand where they will get the maximum return. These things require us to constantly look at what we are doing, and how we can provide clarity in our capabilities.

Over the past few years, we had several acquisitions. These include motion design studio ManvsMachine, sonic branding agency amp, US-based creative technology experiential agency Deep Local and architectural experts BDG. We also have Coley Porter Bell and CBA as part of broader WPP group.

We need to see how we utilise all these assets from a multifaceted or multi-sensorial perspective so that we are best placed to provide all the products and services from a creative branding and design perspective that our clients want. So, the long answer to your short question is that while Landor’s core remains the same, everything else has expanded and evolved on top of it.

Have you decided how you will leverage these various components at Landor to meet your clientele’s dynamic requirements?

We position ourselves on three pillars—consulting, design, and experience. The consulting piece focuses on strategic insights and analytics that allow us to position, measure, and monetise brand value as a business asset. What differentiates us from others is our approach to brands through the lens of business and what it can achieve, both as an intangible and tangible asset.

The design aspect is about creating, optimising, codifying and governing design systems that look at effectiveness and growth. This is to understand and underpin what that brand can do from a from a business perspective. It also looks at it from the notion of efficiency and coherence in terms of what we are trying to achieve for our clients.

Ultimately, this is a systemisation of the creative product that comes to life when we activate the user experiences across various touchpoints in the consumer journey.

How is Landor helping companies assign monetary value to their brand assets, which is what the management and marketers are increasingly focused on?

It depends on how you define the brand. We’re not a communications agency focused on short-term tactics. We develop strategies, creative ideas, and activational experiences that deliver long-term growth, premium, loyalty, and desire. We need to understand which of the brand assets can drive this, whether it's looking at portfolio optimisation, demand and supply, or exploring new markets.

Increasingly, we are talking to CEOs, CFOs, and sustainability officers about long-term brand decisions and the investment required. Since this is an enormous cost and risk to the business, they want to understand whether we can measure this impact.

Our role is to ensure that the brand supports the business strategy and that the right choices are made, whether it’s naming strategies, brand architecture, or understanding how different divisions work. One reason we've invested in broadening our portfolio is that if you take something like sonic branding, motion design or creative technology, we should be able to provide those services to brands in a rapidly changing world.

After all, the way my 21 and 16-year-old children consume brands is fundamentally different to how I did at their age. There are geographies where the acceleration and proliferation of content is not controlled by the brand; it is through third parties like creators and influencers.

Hence, the greater a company’s ability to have coherence and consistency about their brand, the better they can control the messages their audience receives. Otherwise, it becomes increasingly fragmented.

We try to meet the needs of a plethora of different audiences to ultimately underpin the notion that the brand is a business asset. Also, in terms of the delivery mechanism, we ensure that it meets those strategic requirements from a creative standpoint and delivers that message across as many consumer touchpoints as possible in an uncontrolled environment.

Do you think new-age brands are struggling to achieve iconic status despite having large marketing budgets?

Yes and no. Cult status requires time, relevance to an audience, and differentiation from competition. Brands like Uber, Airbnb, and Netflix disrupted industries not through massive marketing dollars but by creating brand narratives that resonated with their audience.

Remaining differentiated is the hardest part, especially in an intensely competitive market. Brands like Coca-Cola or Apple have maintained their differentiation for a century, which is what all brands should aspire to.

Equally, a brand like a Patagonia will not necessarily disrupt an existing industry, but will be wholly differentiated in terms of its approach and go-to-market. It has a single-minded approach in ensuring that everything it does underpins its business philosophy and way of working.

That's what brands should aspire to. If you're not relevant to an audience and different from your competition, you're not going to succeed as a brand.

Landor worked with Tata Motors to create a compelling brand for Tata.ev that would embody the brand’s commitment to a greener future.

What feedback do you get from clients when you discuss the need for differentiation and relevance?

Some clients focus too much on product market fit, believing that a good product will make the brand take care of itself. However, we emphasise understanding the problem we’re trying to solve before diving into execution.

For example, recently a low-cost airline wanted a new livery, but the real issue was customer experience. We advised them to focus on the customer journey points that impact perceptions, which was more relevant than a rebrand.

I tell our teams that before answering a brief, let's really dig into understanding the problem we're trying to solve. We work in the service industry and are eager to please our clients because ultimately, they pay our salaries.

If you want to provide real value to your clients, you sometimes need to challenge them, saying that we can do what you have asked to do, but why don’t you think about this particular problem. An agency, it is beholden on us, as an agency, to sometimes ask the brief and sometimes challenge it by looking at different ways of addressing the issue.

Have there been instances where you challenged a client’s brief and they agreed with Landor’s recommendations?

It depends on the conversation; if you imply the client that's an idiot, then you're probably not going to have a very successful conversation.

We work as partners with our clients, evolving the scope of work through dialogue. We’ve built long-term relationships by solving problems and providing real value. Our reputation for problem-solving is why clients return to us.

Of its 35 offices globally, Landor has two in India. Does that mean the company is ramping up its plans for the country?

Lulu Raghavan, who has done an amazing job in London, San Francisco, and India, is now the president of APAC. We have around 150 people in India across Mumbai and Delhi, with a focus on global expertise and local understanding.

We are rapidly accelerating technical expertise in India and growing our business with both local companies and global clients. India is a hugely exciting market, and we are just beginning to tap into its potential.

Our Indian business is built on two tiers. In addition to the broader branding expertise part, we've got our global delivery services, which is more about adaptive design and implementation and working with our international offices. I want to build that expertise and rapidly accelerate the level of technical expertise that exists across India.

Also, we want to grow our business in India, whether it is with big local companies like Tata, Reliance, Godrej, Mahindra or our global clients like Nestle, Coke or P&G. India is a hugely exciting market and we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface.

While you have mentioned multinational companies, India has over 633 lakh MSMEs driving the country’s economy. How will Landor tap this segment?

I see parallels with the ‘Mittelstand’ in Germany, small businesses that are the engine of its economy, which I witnessed when I was managing Landor’s central European business two decades ago. While there are many people developing products or services-focused companies, they don't necessarily give the time and energy required to the brand. I get that, but like I mentioned before, if you want to be relevant to your audiences and different from your competition, then you need to invest in the brand.

You've just given me a very good idea of a platform that I might try to create when I come to India in October. We can provide consultative and experiential support to help these companies start investing in their brand, building long-term relationships along the way.