David Worthington is a director of the London Transport Museum, chairman of the London Transport Museum Trading Board, chairman of CCSkills Patrons Group and chairman of design companies Holmes & Marchant and Lloyd Northover at MSQ Partners. He is a long-term independent design consultant to Sainsbury’s (one of the UK’s largest retailers.), the Design Council and the parliamentary advisory group, Policy Connect.
His branding and retail design clients have included: Diesel, Jaguar Cars, Shell International, McLaren, F1 and First Choice/Tui.
David is one of the key note speakers at the “Marketing Brilliance Awards”, Georgia, held in Tbilisi on 25th October 2013. Marketing Brilliance Award offers:
- One-day conference featuring world-class speakers from Microsoft, BBC, London Transport Museum, Nokia, Philips and many more
- Gala dinner and the Awards Ceremony
Q: You have achieved a lot in your career, what helped you in difficult times to carry on achieving your goals and objectives?
A: It’s quite simple really: I’ve been lucky enough to have a job which enables me to do something that I really love; to design things. Whereas, so many people have work they really don’t enjoy, I have never had that problem. As a result, I am definitely a workaholic and that’s not always healthy, no matter how much I enjoy it. So, I have a boat which is where I go to forget about work – which I do – and instead I set about designing and making things for my boat instead!
Q: What would you suggest three characteristics of successful brands are?
A: Usefulness, memorability, beauty. Think about a product like a phone or a car…. We buy something that we need; something we know will work well and we can rely on; something we like the look of which ‘feels right’ to us. Even fashion is the same – great fit, great name, great look.
Q: What should one consider when creating a new brand?
Several things, but the most important question to answer is, ‘Why would anyone need this new brand?’. Perhaps it’s a new service, or a different way of doing something that’s already available? Perhaps it’s cheaper or faster, better quality or longer lasting? The key to any new brand is to answer these questions and more, and to really establish the core customer benefits. When you’ve done this, you will have your brief – and the first step in creating a great new brand is to have a great brief. Next you need to hire a great design and branding consultants…!
Q. You are a key-Note Speaker at the Marketing Brilliance Conference, Georgia; could you tell us more about your presentation?
A. I will be talking about Design and Branding at the Marketing Brilliance Conference in Tbilisi and I’ve been thinking about how to make that useful for the audience (and I hope, memorable and beautiful too!).
I’ve been lucky enough to work in dozens of different countries and it always amazes me that people often want to copy a Western idea of branding, when their own history and culture is so rich. So, one of the subjects I will talk about is how you create a modern brand without loosing the integrity of the country it comes from. I think the origin of brands is going to become more and more important as the world increasingly becomes a single global marketplace.
The other thing I will do is to talk in a very practical way, so that the audience can take the things they hear and apply them to their own businesses.
Finally, I will probably talk a bit about the design of London Transport, because it’s such a good example of a business that grew to understand how to use design and through that created one of the most well-known global brands – which for a metro system is rather amazing. I like to think that part of that is because it’s extremely useful, often memorable (although not always in a good way) and on occasions it can be quite beautiful too!
By the way, it will be my second time in Georgia, I was first there when I was 14 years old, so I’m really looking forward to coming back! I spoke at one of the Marketing Conferences in London, by BOC-Global Events Group, earlier this year, and am confident that they will make this event a truly valuable experience.
David Worthington is one of the key note speakers at the “Marketing Brilliance Awards”, Georgia, held in Tbilisi on 25th October 2013. The ceremony is organised by British company – BOC Global Events Group, supported by most of Georgian Media:
Event Marketing Partner: Marketer.ge; General Media Partner: Palitra Media, Official Radio: Palitra Radio, Radio Imedi ; Official Online TV: Palitra TV, ITV.ge; Media Partners: BPI, Caucasus Business Week, Ambebi.ge, iMarketing.ge, Presa.ge, People.ge, Droni.ge.
Find Out More: www.Marketing-Brilliance.boc-uk.com
