David Lee, Squarespace CCO, shares his approach for marketing unsexy brands, emphasizing the importance of owning your online space and creating innovative storytelling. He discusses the limitations of using chat GPT for creative tasks and explores the benefits of a clarifying exercise to inspire new ideas and identity exploration.
Look beyond your industry for inspiration and draw parallels from other sectors to make unsexy brands more appealing.
Use fashion as a source of inspiration for website design, curating websites like seasonal fashion collections to reflect the owner's personal brand and provide an enriched user experience.
Deep dives
Unlocking Creativity Through Inspiration and Analogies
David Lee, the chief creative officer of Squarespace, shares his insights on how to make seemingly unsexy products like website building and hosting platforms more appealing. He explains the importance of looking outside of your industry for inspiration and drawing parallels from other sectors, such as real estate and fashion. By considering websites as a form of online real estate, Squarespace aimed to convey the concept of ownership and the American dream of having a personalized space on the worldwide web. Lee also discusses collaborations with influencers like Bjork to create innovative designs and unique storytelling. Overall, he highlights the significance of enriched experiences and diverse references in unlocking creativity.
Fashion and Website Design: Finding Inspiration in Familiar Behaviors
David Lee emphasizes the relevance of using fashion as a source of inspiration for website design. He explains that just as people curate their appearances to make a lasting first impression in real life, websites should also reflect the owner's personal brand and convey a powerful first impression online. Lee introduces the idea of updating websites like seasonal fashion collections to match the evolving trends and to keep them relevant. He showcases how Squarespace launched collaborations with renowned fashion influencers like Bjork, incorporating their distinct style and creativity into the website design process. By borrowing concepts from the fashion industry, Squarespace aims to elevate the overall website experience and provide users with customizable, modern templates.
Using Analogies to Enhance Brand Storytelling
David Lee suggests a simple yet effective exercise for enhancing brand storytelling by using analogies. He encourages companies to imagine their brand as something else, such as a car brand, a city, or even a celebrity persona. By doing so, companies can clarify their brand's characteristics, identify parallels from other industries, and find new ways of communicating their brand story. Lee emphasizes that this exercise can unlock a multitude of ideas and analogies, leading to fresh perspectives and innovative storytelling approaches. Ultimately, this exercise helps companies better understand their brand positioning and convey their uniqueness to their target audience.
Not every company has a whiz-bang product, so how can you make it pop? Squarespace Chief Creative Officer David Lee has done that, winning tons of awards and making campaigns with the likes of Adam Driver, Zendaya, Dolly Parton, Keanu Reeves and John Malkovich (which earned him an Emmy). Here, he offers a unique way for entrepreneurs to think about their brands, and some big questions to ask when you start crafting your new stories.