Robert Payne

On Thursday, November 13th our CEO, David LaPlante will be speaking with Stanley Hainsworth and Mike Bonifer at BrandEvolution, a quarter-day symposium focused on how to translate and transform brands online. The event is being held in downtown Salt Lake City at The Depot. You can register here. 

Stanley was recently interviewed by UtahPulse.com about his experience working with brands like Starbucks, Nike and Lego, as well as his new direction running his own company, Tether Inc. Here is the text interview (below) in its entirety, and you can listen to the podcast interview here at UtahPulse.com.

Also, if you are interested in following the speakers on Twitter or joining up with them on LinkedIn, you may do so here.

He’s overseen all of the creative aspects of Starbucks Coffee. He helped make Nike a global brand. Stanley Hainsworth, who now is the Chief Creative Officer of his own agency, Tether, says he likes to use branding to tell the story of a product. “What I love to do is be a storyteller. Looking at the brand and figuring out what the story is and figuring out from there what’s the best medium for telling that story, whether it’s a new product, a retail experience or a digital experience online, and not being constricted by any preconceptions or mediums.”

Hainsworth will bring that know-how to Brand Evolution 2008. The seminar, sponsored by Twelve Horses, aims to help businesses transform their brands to connect with customers both on and offline.

When working to tell a brand’s story, Hainsworth likes to think of the brand as a person. “The way that you wear your hair, the way that you talk, the way you act, that all defines the way that people think about you. A brand is no different. A brand is perceived in the way it communicates, and the way it looks and the way customers respond to it.”

Taking those human qualities, and using them to create a memorable experience is what it’s all about for Hainsworth. “One of my favorite projects at Nike was a shoe called Presto. It came in 17 different color combinations, it was very iconic and a beautiful shoe. We decided to do something non traditional and rented an art gallery in New York City and put the shoes on the wall and called them art. There was no branding anywhere, we put posters up around town for the “art opening,” invited art critics to the opening. We got huge press and when they shoes went on sale the next month, they sold out everywhere.”

Hainsworth says the way that designers work with products has changed radically with the increasing relevance of online marketing. “No longer are there strictly these graphic designers, or web designers or environmental designers. It’s getting mixed up and it’s really exciting. These designers are able to work in these multiple mediums.”

With millions of blogs, and websites and other online destinations, it’s hard to break through the clutter to tell a story. Hainsworth says it’s a challenge, but not impossible. “I look at everything with the arc of a story and I look at it with the viewers eyes. Whether it’s a play that you’re watching or a piece of music that you’re listening to or a piece of design that you’re looking, it all has a story. It affects is a lot, and I tend to juxtapose a lot of unexpected things together and see what will happen, where it will take me to keep it fresh and not rehash things that have been done before.”