MUMBAI: A channel's most important asset is its relationship with its audience. That was the crux of the argument put out by Tom Connor during the session on Designing with Purpose, on the second and concluding day of the Promax India 2004 conference in Mumbai.

Founder of TAG Creative Brand Solutions, Connor has his India connection in place already - his company created the NDTV logo with the red dot in its centre last year. Is his address to the media and broadcasting community assembled at the JW Marriott on Tuesday, Connor pointed out that helping the viewer make choices was the most important goal of any branding. Using a variety of case studies of logos, channel design and on air promos, Connor pointed out that viewers' choices are chiefly based on emotional, rational, conventional reasons or arising from boredom or curiosity. The creative brief for any design should thus be to bring clarity and perspective to a project, to reduce subjectivity, impose parameters in creative and to provide accountability.

Elaborating on what a design should achieve for any product, Connor said the 'design should express the idea, not be the idea', and added that 'the best design is invisible'.

The best communication model, he said, highlighting his talk with snippets of channel IDs of CBC Kids, Nickelodeon and ABC, was one which involved the viewer with the brand and the product in a symbiotic relationship. Using snippets of channel IDs of the Life and Discovery Networks, Connor elaborated on the importance of the three Cs -

Context - which defines the 'share of mind' of viewership the campaign wishes to achieve
Contrast - which should demonstrate differentiation between the product and its rivals in the market and
Consistency - which involves methodically expressing a unique point of view to build brand equity.