Trendsetter - Barry Shepard

A few years back, SHR Perceptual Management had a perception problem. Its offices, decorated in shades of pastel yellow and tan, looked perfectly professional -- even stylish. BUT THEY also looked like just about every OTHER OFFICE in Scottsdale, Arizona. For a company that touted itself AS ANYTHING BUT conventional, a company that held the philosophy "Perception is reality," the desertlike decor sent the wrong message, recalls Barry Shepard, SHR's president and cofounder.

Not anymore. In 1998, freed from their lease, Shepard and cofounder Will Rodgers moved the company into a new 20,000-square-foot office space. It is, in a word, outrageous. Visitors cross a metal entry bridge to reach the reception desk. There's a wall-sized close-up of a man shouting, curving walls that stop short of the floor like a stage set, cavelike offices without doors, and a floating glass conference table (it's suspended by overhead cables). The soothing sunset hues have been replaced by black floors, black exposed ductwork, and white walls. Designed by a hot architectural studio, Morphosis, which is based in Santa Monica, California, SHR's new headquarters makes a visual statement radically different from that of the old location.

Which makes an awful lot of strategic sense. SHR, which helps companies develop, express, and "live" their brands, is finally living its own brand, and Shepard couldn't be happier. "When our clients visit us here, they immediately see how the space shapes perceptions," he says. "Seeing is believing."

A Brand-New Approach to Branding

Barry Shepard believes that he has found a better way to build a brand -- an approach that helps products and services stand out in an increasingly noisy marketplace and that connects emotionally with customers. SHR's approach worked for the hugely popular update of the Volkswagen Beetle. Shepard is hoping for similar success with the 2002 Ford Thunderbird; Boeing's in-flight Internet service, Connexion by Boeing (due out next summer); and the new snack food Wahoos, from General Mills (which has been available in stores since last month).

What's the method behind the brand messages? A brand is best seen as a cluster of perceptions, explains Shepard, and the key challenge is to extend those perceptions to every point of contact with customers. Words alone aren't enough, he emphasizes. Customers live in a world marked by oversupply, overcapacity, and sensory overload. "In an overcommunicated society," he says, "where consumers are inundated with messages every day -- 'We're world-class,' 'We've got the lowest price,' 'We make the best-quality product' -- visual signals shape perceptions more than words do."

Through a process known as "visual positioning," SHR helps companies define and refine the dimensions of their brand and identify the visual signals that convey those dimensions. By using the right visual vocabulary, says Shepard, companies can speed up the brand-building process significantly. "There are a lot of people who think that brand building takes years, but it doesn't have to. A highly visual brand can trigger the desired perceptions immediately."

SHR's approach to visual branding grew out of Shepard's passion for design. He handles the strategic and creative side of the business, while Rodgers, his business partner of 31 years, courts new clients. That's been their arrangement from the beginning, when the two started a graphic-design company as students at Arizona State University. At that time, they were fraternity brothers who wanted simply to work for themselves. Shepard was an advertising-design major; Rodgers was an architecture major. The third partner, Tom Harlan -- the H in SHR -- bailed out during the group's first project: its business cards. Shepard, who came up with a multicolor design, thought that the printer could do better. "Tom got so frustrated trying to print up these $30 cards that he quit," says Rodgers. "He said, 'You guys are too picky.' " Truth be told, says Rodgers with a chuckle, Shepard was the picky one. And he still is. Staffers joke about designs passing "the Barry test."

It's not surprising that Shepard sets the bar so high. Tall and lean, he's a former world-class high jumper and member of the 1970 U.S. track-and-field team. Early that year, after clearing a personal best of seven feet, two inches, he was briefly ranked number one in the world. (It lasted until the Russians started their season, he says.) Shepard had his sights set on the Olympic Games in Munich, but just three weeks before the trials, he sprained and broke his ankle while training. He competed anyway, wrapping the ankle in tape and popping aspirin to stifle the pain. Unable to jump 7' 2", however, he didn't make the team.