Counterfeiters' alert! – How to decode a bank note

This is most probably my third, nay fourth consecutive entry on the beauty of commerce and money. Well what is branding if not an instrument embodying value, the tree sap of commerce. (Secretly, I think its because I still don’t have nearly enough money).

My friend, Dayo, had this interesting thought the other day. He had been researching the nature of trust in business relationships and had some brilliant ideas. We played around a bit with them and observed that a bank note could serve as conceptual model for understanding trust.

Think about it for a moment.

Money has been around since we were all born yet remains unchanged as the currency of exchange for our continued survival (You could check out my previous post, What brand is your money). Yet experiments have shown that we can nearly not tell the original coins or bank notes apart from a small group of imitations with minor alterations from the original. Hard to believe right? Yeah thought so too. Donald Norman in his book, “The Design of Everyday things” describes this as the difference between “knowledge in the world” and “knowledge in your head”. I guess that’s story for another day

Well, here are some things we discovered from observing a bank note:

• - The value it represents is darn obvious (often represents this in words and figures)
• - Security features (difficult to imitate and might only reveal themselves upon closer inspection)
• - Unique design language or theme
• - Recognizable parsonage, place or even symbol
• - Features indicating a sense of heritage (take the use of old font types for example)
• - Mystical or mysterious representations (for instance inscrutable writings or mystical figures)
• - Specific colors
• - Tactile prompts for easy identification by the visually impaired
• - Bears a unique identification number
• - Endorsed by some authority figure (e.g. the Governor of the Central Bank)
• - Name of the country

With this conceptual tool, I believe any one forging a brand could generate ideas for eliciting trust in clients. But isn’t it interesting that you are carrying in your wallet, a really cool brand strategy document?