Vision on for TV brands

Can channels gain viewers through a good continuity image? The impact made by a designer suggests they can;

THE X-FILES was a cult success when shown on BBC2, with an audience of more than 7 million. When transferred to BBC1, its audience swelled to nearly 10 million. Why?

If the series was the same it must be something about the channels, which foster loyalties separate from the programmes. They can, in other words, be regarded as brands.

Martin Lambie-Nairn, a television graphic designer and creator of the Channel Four "4" and the BBC "2"s, realised this one day in 1987 while giving a presentation to Anglia Television, whose "ident" he also went on to design. He put down a sheaf of sketches but had little to say. The advertising agency in the same meeting "talked common sense about the need for creative work to respond to a strategy and a brief. I knew he was right and we were wrong." Today, Lambie-Nairn & Company works more like an advertising agency than most design firms.

The television industry has historically resisted the logic of the brand. Brands are something used to create spurious distinctions. Television channels have their distinctive programmes, and, so goes the folklore, people watch programmes not channels.

Yet the sheer diversity of programmes makes it hard to characterise any channel based on content alone. "Carlton and BBC1 and Sky are incredibly close," says Mr Lambie-Nairn. "Channel 4 and BBC2 will always be close. Meanwhile, satellite and cable offer more, more, more. That's when the supermarket parallel comes in."

In the United States people select their viewing from a handful of channels despite dozens being available. In other words they are behaving like consumers, using trusted brands to speed the process of choosing acceptable products. What goes for America now, of course, will increasingly be true for Europe.

The 1982 Channel Four ident remains Britain's pioneer television brand. The BBC had in mind the renewal of its charter, which runs for 10 years from next Wednesday, when it decided that a branded approach could build viewer loyalty. The result was the now familiar "1" and the mischievous family of performing "2"s.

The brief for BBC2 was to make a channel perceived as "worthy but dull" into something more like Channel 4. Mr Lambie-Nairn's "2"s were instantly popular. BBC2 is now seen as stylish and original and "a brand leader in its market".

But despite the marketing speak there are signs that the brand idea is not fully understood. The BBC "1" may already be losing its potency thanks to the inventiveness with which the BBC's in-house presentation staff dream up variations upon it. Consumers would be outraged to see a can of beans subjected to such treatment.

The "2" has suffered less, perhaps because the designers try harder to emulate the quirky spirit of the originals. But there have been transgressions. The "2" as a Slinky coming down stairs had the right idea but the stairs were carpeted - more homely BBC1 than cutting-edge BBC2. A true brand manager would have detected the error instantly. Six months ago Carlton dropped the Londoners who intone "This is Carlton, television for London" direct to camera, the most distinctive feature of its branding.

Mr Lambie-Nairn is undeterred: "The advertising agencies know how valuable the gaps between the programmes are. It's free to the television companies, and yet there's been no craft of marketing." He calculates there is an average of pounds 200m of unexploited air time per channel in Britain. "Promotional air time is a hugely expensive commodity, not a creative playground."

As clients come to realise this so Mr Lambie-Nairn's work is moving beyond simple design to providing strategic advice of all kinds that affects brand values: "We have found ourselves advising on presentation, department structures and programme buying."

By taking a strategic approach the jobs almost design themselves. A family of identities for the Disney Channel - in which paint splots, fireworks, bubbles, and blaring trumpets variously overlap to form a three-circle Mickey silhouette - had to work equally well across all cultures. The dream job to modernise the infamous Pearl & Dean cinema graphics had to acknowledge that the essence of it is in the dubious lettering and the well known music (which made an appearance in the pop charts). "If this was about originality, we'd get rid of the music and the typography. But to market the brand we must keep it."

Whether or not clients buy the theory, they clearly like what they see. With Channel 4, BBC1 and 2 and Carlton as well as Anglia, Scottish Television and S4C under its belt, Lambie-Nairn & Company can claim a national viewing share of 60 per cent, according to 1995 Independent Television Commission figures.

This near monopoly has never been more apparent. Having brought BBC2 into line Lambie-Nairn is now back with its arch-rival, advising Channel 4 on how to develop its brand over the next five years. The monopoly is a double-edged sword admits Mr Lambie-Nairn. "It gives us tremendous experience working with all these people. On the other hand, we now have a slide in our presentation that says: 'Oh no, not Lambie-Nairn again'."

Having saturated the home market, Lambie-Nairn & Company has set off on a European grand tour. It has designed identities for at least one channel in most European countries as well as for international channels such as the European Business Network and EuroSport. In 1995 it won a Queen's Award for Export Achievement.

Much of this work focuses on national stereotypes. For Televisao Independente 4, a Portuguese channel, Lambie-Nairn employed an explorer's ship, its billowing sail emblazoned with a "4" in the style of crusader's cross. It seems like an outsider's caricature of Portugueseness. In fact "the Magellan business" suited the "militant Catholic" channel down to the ground.

Mr Lambie-Nairn is now working for Russian television but most of all he would like to break into the American market. It is here, where there is an abundance of channels and no history of government broadcasting, that his cherished idea of branding should be most appreciated. Yet, with the exception of MTV, it seems not to be. "It's missionary work," he concedes. "The United States is the dark continent of TV idents."