Ziba is a human-centered design and innovation consultancy working closely with clients across every industry and region of the world.

The trends impacting businesses today: Ziba's Quantum Clarity microsite

Quantum Clarity microsite

There’s no question that tomorrow’s new normal will be abnormal. 

COVID-19 has disrupted every aspect of life. We’re unsettled and uncertain. But there’s an upside to the crisis, too: a future full of possibilities. At Ziba, we’re asking ourselves and our clients… How might we harness today’s hardships as catalysts for new and better experiences tomorrow? What experiences will hold meaning? What will it mean to thrive?

How will travel change? Will the gate agent test us for COVID-19 before we board? Will our server bring our date night dinner out to the curb while we dine in the car? Will Zoom offer subscribers free anti-glare glasses? Will there be a Zoom at all?

Turn the Great Pause into your brand’s Great Pivot: Three Steps to Conquer COVID-19

Dominant brands will convert today’s Great Pause into the Great Pivot, recalibrating today to design breakthroughs and meaningful customer experiences for tomorrow. Under immense pressure to reopen, respond appropriately, and reboot quickly, brands are thinking beyond the immediate next steps. What might the path forward be for the post-pandemic experiences that brands deliver? What stays, what goes, what evolves, and what is reinvented?

 process frames actions you can take in the new post-pandemic normal:

As anxious consumers emerge from the COVID-19 crisis, their need to reestablish a sense of safety, security, and control will affect what they value. Robert Iger, Disney’s executive chairman, recently stated, “To return to some semblance of normal, people will have to feel comfortable that they’re safe.”

 to mitigate risk and temper anxiety will be highly valued by consumers and employees.

 To alleviate consumer fears, remain relevant, and get business back on line, brands need to:

Focus on the rapid roll-out of reassuring offerings that mitigate fear and augment a sense of safety

Embrace the possibility of prolonged social-distancing by supporting social distancing preferences including contactless delivery/pick-up and virtual/digital services

And mobilize for re-engagement with reassuring communication/packaging, adjusted staffing roles/models, new hygiene behavior protocols, and by reassessing/redesigning campaigns and calendars

Though a fear-based self-preservation mentality will persist, consumers will increasingly respond to brands that also surprise and delight them. Successful organizations will 

 to evolve their brands, products, and service experiences in anticipation of these behavior shifts — this return to the value of convenience, the insistence on competitive prices, the need to indulge, and a desire to belong.

 To leverage insights around emerging behaviors, desires, and expectations, brands need to:

Shift from ‘reacting’ to ‘understanding’

Reassess the competitive landscape to understand how things have shifted by taking a fresh read on how a brand is perceived in a post COVID-19 world

Take advantage of the post-pandemic landscape by rebuilding for the new normal and charting a path within it: identify white space, explore and test new features/offerings/experiences, adapt strategies for the mid to long term

As the new normal takes root, responsive brands will 

 in the post-pandemic consumer landscape, leaning into white space and scaling accordingly. Pre-COVID-19 behaviors and trends will re-emerge and hyper-accelerate. Be ready, start experimenting. As social-distancing disappears and our bubbles expand to their pre-COVID-19 forms, we will long for a sense of connection and belonging, and begin to aspire to higher-order desires around freedom, self-transcendence and self-actualization.

 To leverage the new normal, brands need to:

Seize white space and create demand by experimenting with emerging consumer needs, desires and behaviors

Stand up then scale new offerings and interactions identified in 

 that pivot your experiences beyond the functional

And revisit pre-pandemic visions and strategies, and embracing, incorporating, and modifying them to meet consumers’ higher order desires and expectations

 to leverage Post-COVID-19 opportunities will 

Delivering Post-Pandemic Brand Experiences: Three Steps to Conquer COVID-19’s New Normal

Understanding Gen Z is imperative for any future-looking design efforts. 

This young generation (about 5–20 years old) has remarkably different views on themselves, society, products and services than any past generation including the close-in-age Millennials. As Gen Z comes of age over the next 10 years they’ll expect their values to be well-reflected in the designed experiences that surround them. Are we ready? Let’s explore how their new notions of identity, specifically, can inspire us to design for a world where Gen Z leads the way.

Gen Z Will Break Existing Consumer Models

First of all, Generation Z likely doesn’t have just 

 ethnic, work, gender or family identity–so demographic consumer segmentation won’t work with them. And psychographic consumer segmentation may not either, because Gen Z is embracing multiple attitudes, interests and lifestyles wholeheartedly, whether it be 90’s hip-hop 

What consumer model comes next to suit Gen Z is not a question I can answer–at least not yet. What I can say is that the mere fact that it’s up for grabs points to how much Gen Z is shifting the concept of identity. And I believe their behaviors and beliefs will likely influence mainstream culture–people beyond the 

–and soon. So we designers and businesspeople need to be prepared.

If Multiplicity Is the Norm, Fluidity Becomes Highly Valuable

Here are a few staggering facts about U.S. Generation Z and their shifting concepts of identity: Gen Z is comprised of 47% ethnic minorities, making them the most ethnically diverse generation in US history. 100–300% more Gen Zers identify as multiracial than the previous Millennial Generation. More than two-thirds believe that gender does not define a person as it once did. Over 75% negotiate multiple online identities with ease. An increasing percentage of Gen Zers are being raised in nontraditional households (same-sex parents, working moms, stay-at-home dads, etc) with nontraditional children roles (resident IT expert, fill-in-the-blank activist, family cook, etc). And, lastly, Gen Z (also known as the 

) often identifies multiple, varied interests or career intentions (artist/runner/cook, etc).

For this Generation, identity-multiplicity on several fronts–ethnic, gender, family, online and career–is the new normal. And so the ability to fluidly cross identities on a moment-to-moment, daily, weekly, or yearly basis with ease and grace becomes a highly prized value and skill. Which makes me wonder–how can we, as designers, help empower people to achieve fluidity?

Fluidity-aware Brands Will Take an Extreme Position

Branded products used to be about expressing your identity to the world. Think back on Fubu or Tommy Hilfiger… these brands were actually acting as signals to help customers solidify their own identities, which were, on average, tied to singular, curated lifestyles: urban hip-hop or country club prep, for example.

More recently, branded products have started to succeed in supporting customers to ‘self-create’ their own identities or personal brands. Products and services can be seen more as tools for differentiation in an era that values creativity and diversity. Think of Android, Instagram, NikeID, YouTube and many, many more.

In the future, I expect the focus to shift from self-creation-type identities to fluid identities. This means successful branded products and services will be found in two important new areas: 

 brands will maintain a simple, broad appeal and be valued for their stability and versatility while allowing individuals’ identities to remain fluid. For instance, as Gen Z approaches young adulthood around 2025, they won’t want their car to express one specific identity to others as they change contexts throughout the day. Instead, they’ll love a simple, unbranded car that they can drive to a rock concert as a masculine performer one night and a business meeting as a feminine panel-member the next day, still feeling like themselves all the while.

 brands will offer new ways for people to augment their diversity in a growing sea of fluid, overlapping identities. These future Gen Zers won’t see race or gender lines as clearly as we do now, so they’ll draw new, more meaningful lines to distinguish themselves, based on skills, capabilities or style perspectives. They’ll look to technology and service for instance, to help enhance inherent skills and interests, like a sharp eye for photographic composition with a smart eyepiece, or strong community values with a farm-to-table service-brand patch on their jacket sleeve.

So the questions I leave for you are: Will you meet Gen Z’s fluid-identity expectations by the time they come of age (rough majority by 2025)? Do you know who you are as a brand, where you should be positioned for fluidity and why?

Designing for the Identity-Fluid Gen Z

New models of engagement are emerging in response to the shifting nature of our world.

Consumers take advantage of learning platforms as everyday tools to live better, more connected lives with less and less effort. The next generation of multi-tiered platforms will displace stale economic models, activating the vibrant economies of the future. Brands that identify and leverage their role in these new platform ecosystems in the decade ahead will play their part in moving the world beyond a fragmented marketplace to a more interconnected and thriving future.

Consumers living in an interconnected and modern world expect effortless access and resent anything that makes them feel restricted or ignored. Eager to feel uplifted, they are willing to try new things that restore the sense of being special and adored.

Smart brands engage consumers in new love stories through platform ecosystems that know and connect them. Learning Platforms build loyalty and sustain engagement through easy access to an ecosystem and to a layered structure of offerings that makes it easier to get things done, find what you want, and customize the right tool for the job.

Smart brands actively step into the role that they chose to play in the platform economy, asking, “Are we an orchestrator, partner, contributor or something entirely new?” And since synergy is the power of the platform, the choice of who to stand against and who to stand with may be a brand’s most critical move.

These platform-enabled ecosystems will continue to evolve markets and transform value chains over the next decade and will blur traditional sector boundaries as they drive new levels of consumer delight.

Future of Platforms

TDK’s cassette tapes set the standard for quality and sound fidelity in the 1980s, but for modern listeners it meant almost nothing. This leading brand of the analog age was having trouble connecting with a digital generation. Ziba’s global research effort, aimed at young men in music-obsessed cities like Tokyo, Berlin, and New York, showed that analog is more beloved than ever, and so is social listening—two desires that TDK was perfectly poised to address. “Analog has a hearbeat,” explained one music lover, “Digital has a pacemaker.”

Challenge

Rebuilding a cohesive TDK identity meant staying true to heritage without getting mired in nostalgia. With this understanding, we developed TDK Life on Record: a brand strategy and a line of audio products that combined fidelity and performance with warmth, scratchy realness, and a sense of community that comes with shared discovery. Big drivers, exposed speaker cones, rich materials, and made-you-look form factors add up to a premium audio experience with a live, beating heart.

Solution

Ziba’s brand strategy and design influenced an entire decade of TDK Life on Record audio products. Immediately embraced by indie-rock and hip-hop culture, high profile musicians including The Beastie Boys and Snoop Dogg proudly featured the products from the TDK line in music videos and record releases. Donald Bell, senior editor at CNET, explained: "They had to pry this thing out of my hands. My apologies to TDK. They shouldn’t have had to see me cry like that."

Impact

Elevating a zombie brand to new heights, by building on its authentic foundations (without going retro).

A standout line of audio gear that loves music as much as listeners do.

How does a hero brand of the 80s connect with audiophiles today?

Through the design of the Ziba World Headquarters, we set out to create a place that fosters the cross pollination of ideas in a company defined by its multidisciplinary experimentation and excellence. A testament to inspiring, problem-solving design, the new headquarters create an elegant and efficient environment that supports Ziba's creative endeavors.

Ziba Design has been an anchor and a champion to Portland’s design industry for over 35 years. And the city has returned the favor, providing a welcoming home base that makes it easy to attract talent from around the globe. By the early 2000s, our offices in Portland’s Pearl District were bursting with over 100 designers, researchers, anthropologists, engineers and developers. We’d outgrown our space, both physically and organizationally.

On a brisk December afternoon in 2008, the whole team gathered to break ground on a long, narrow industrial lot a few blocks from our old office, wedged between galleries and cafes on one side, and a railyard on the other. Together with Portland-based Holst Architecture, we set out to create an office building that would serve our work and our clients, as well as the local community where we’d laid down our roots.

From the outset, we knew we had a great partner in Holst, and they helped us refine our vision of a dramatic but serene workspace, that actively encourages the chance interactions that drive creative inspiration. The project rooms, workshops, and communal spaces that make up the three-story space are full of deliberate intent and passion. But especially, it’s the details that show this is a place by and for designers: from faucets and door handles to sightlines inside and out, everything’s considered, no matter how complex or mundane.

Ziba prides itself on the concept of “co-creation” with their clients, flipping the traditional designer-client relationship inside out. In that way, the new structure is as much a new home for their clients, representatives from major brands who are working on everything from design strategy to industrial design. The project rooms are made open and accessible to clients, who are made to feel at home as well.

Ziba’s founder, Sohrab Vossoughi, is a big believer in local community, and the need to staying connected to it. So the building reflects local values of sustainability and efficiency, with reclaimed wood and a LEED Gold rating. And the building’s auditorium invites hundreds of participants every year to exchange ideas and solutions.

For too long the company has occupied a Pearl District storefront with reflective windows and not even a sign in front. If Portland is going to become the international design capital that its leadership is seeking, we need top local design companies like Ziba sitting out on their front porch, so to speak, instead of staying inside with all the shades drawn. Both literally and metaphorically, that has now changed, and Ziba is basking in light.

Though Covid-19 may have altered the way we worked together in 2020, after a long quarantine we’ve reopened the studio again under new health guidelines. Our building tells a story, and we’d love for you to hear it. So please 

 anytime and come over, whether to share ideas on Post-its or craft beer on tap.

The more co-mingling, the better. Welcome to Ziba World HQ.

Recent News & Updates

If you want to go to the moon, call NASA. If you want to go to the heart of your brand, call Ziba.

Best Buy is still the biggest brick-and-mortar electronics retailer in the US, but online shopping is practically made for electronics. The practice of browsing prodcuts at Best Buy then buying them on Amazon was so common it had a name: showrooming. Part of the reason was cost, but just as important was the feeling of getting exactly what you want. And that gave Best Buy, and the Ziba team who worked with them, an idea. 

After diving deep into consumer expectations and opportunities for in-store delight, the Ziba team focused on mobile accessories: cables, cases, speakers, headphones. And specifically, on the sense of freedom you get when presented with a range of choices that lets you have just what you want, like a kid in a candy shop. So we designed a candy shop. The Modal line of mobile accessories features simple shapes, straightforward functionality, a range of bright, fun colors—and it’s only available in-store.

The Modal line was a hit, handing Best Buy 11% growth in domestic revenue, and driving enough in-store shopping that online competition ceased to be an issue. By value engineering both the products and the packaging, the Ziba team was able to reduce waste, too, by 20% compared with Best Buy’s previous line.

Don’t assume—ask. Consumers may like shopping online, but they also want the custom experience that only in-person can offer.

An ecosystem of house branded accessories beats e-commerce with flexibility and customization.

What gets digital consumers excited about in-store shopping?

Even Adidas, one of the world’s most iconic brands, faced challenges standing out in overcrowded retail environments. With customers increasingly used to the detailed, interactive experience of online shopping, digital displays offered a potential solution. But in practice, they often feel detached from the physical object they’re describing. They’re also notoriously hard to update and scale up.

Ziba created the Adidas Gear Case, a durable, low-cost interactive kiosk that overlays a transparent touchscreen over a physical shoe display. Interaction is intuitive for nearly any customer, and adds an immersive brand experience—and a touch of magic—to familiar retail environments. It’s also nearly effortless to update: just swap out the product, plug in a new USB, and it’s ready to go.

The Gear Case rolled out to hundreds of retail spaces in the first year, including store-in-store environments, where competition for attention is fierce. Despite this, the displays earned over 600,000 customer views in the first three years, with an astonishing two minute average engagement time from shoppers.

Whoever said “show don’t tell” wasn’t thinking big enough. The Gear Case overlays a digital interface onto physical products, so you can do both.

A flexible interactive display platform that turns a physical product into a thrilling digital/analog experience.

How do you champion physical products in a digital-first world?

Outdoor retail outfitter REI was expert at engaging traditional, serious outdoor enthusiasts. A younger demographic was showing that they, too, wanted to get outside—but had a set of values and engagement needs all their own.

Ziba sent a team to Seattle, to work collaboratively with REI’s team in their own headquarters. Together, we discovered that this new generation was characterized by a more social, casual approach to the outdoors—something we called The Great Outside. Ziba created evrgrn™, a “gear for good times” brand, with gear designed to facilitate memorable moments wherever friends gather outside: picnics, concerts, backyard camping, or weekend journeys.

The evrgrn™ line launched with a playful range of products that went far beyond typical camping gear: think rocking chairs, soft-sided cooler, and wearable sleeping bags. They were a huge hit, especially among 20-35 year-olds, with some items selling out online before ever appearing in stores. Many of the designs have gone on to influence REI’s current mainstream product line.

Some people love the Great Outdoors. But what about a hyper-social generation that loves the Great Outside?

A new brand of outdoor gear designed for good times. 

What does the outdoors look like to the social media generation?

Why can't you find evrgrn products in REI stores?

Because most of them already sold out online.

I’m a guy who fights to keep work in-house, because I feel the people who know the brand best are the people who work there. But the additional horsepower Ziba brought was extremely helpful. I feel like we’ve made years worth of progress on this work in just a few months. I love people running around furiously, getting fired up about the brand being brought to life.

Reebok had moved away from their roots in personal fitness and into the overcrowded category of competitive sports, and came to Ziba looking for a new retail strategy. Together, we quickly realized that the way to recapture their audience was to refocus on Reebok’s core values, and let the fitness-seekers of the world know that this was the brand for them.

Reebok’s original mission was fitness, rooted in community and lifestyle, not elite competition. That called for an accessible retail experience that exemplified their roots and modernized the brand. Accessible doesn’t mean boring though—quite the opposite, in fact. To attract attention and build excitement, the Ziba team used the idea of “retail as theater” to position Reebok’s HQ flagship store as a service- and lifestyle-oriented destination of choice. The result was an interactive, engaging, activating experience designed to leave employees and customers inspired and in awe.

Just five months after inception, Reebok’s reinvigorated flagship store launched, to plenty of press buzz and consumer interest. The exciting yet welcoming space invited customers to try apparel on and try equipment out, right there in a gym-like setting, with plenty of community-oriented fitness events on the schedule as well. Within a few months, the store had doubled its revenue, and re-established Reebok as a unique, fitness-oriented brand.

What happens when you combine a renowned holistic fitness brand with a bit of immersive retail theater? Answer: a global headquarters that’s part gallery, part workshop, part gym—and a magnet for fitness enthusiasts.

A redesigned retail space becomes a destination for fitness and wellness-seekers.

How does a retail space put your brand values in the spotlight?

The Drydock concept includes several unique branded elements:

padded, open workout space for in-store tryout of apparel and gear

prominent community calendar for local fitness events

integrated two-story gym for CrossFit, boxing, and studio classes

Organic, artisanal, small-batch, exotic, local—the market for America’s favorite condiment was getting more fragmented and more competitive. And one of the world’s most iconic brands was in danger of losing its place at the top. To rebuild brand equity, and reduce packaging costs, Heinz needed to understand what made its brand so beloved, and redesign accordingly.

Ziba’s field research revealed a simple concept that held the answer to Heinz’s competitive threats: love. Other brands were exciting, affordable, unique…but only Heinz held had a place in consumers’ hearts. So Ziba doubled down that love, by simplifying the product line and emphasizing what made the brand so special: its thickness and richness, and its unmistakable visual elements. An updated cap and bottle design captured those elements, making them instantly recognizable, and instantly lovable.

Ziba’s redesign celebrated Heinz’s heritage among loyalists, putting classic elements like the scalloped bottle shape, the keystone-shaped label, and the raised “57” front and center. The new bottle and cap design also saved over $10M per year in packaging costs.

Heinz is one of the few brands out there that evokes genuine love. Ziba leaned into the neglected qualities that made it unique, to restoke the fires among the faithful.

Bringing a beloved brand into the modern era demands a thoughtful redesign—and a deep understanding of why loyalists love it.

How do you update an icon in a field full of pretenders?

Keystone-shaped label—referencing Heinz’s roots in Pennsylvania, the Keystone State

Ziba is a human-centered design and innovation consultancy working closely with clients across every industry and region of the world.

Recent Work

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Quantum Clarity microsite

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