Its value is often expressed as percentage of its bottle sale price. The consensus is that its brand accounts for around 75% of the cost of a bottle of a Coke.

Now, I know there is much more to brand value than simply what you can mark a product up by. And, yes, a brand is much more than just a label, but for the purposes of this blog (stick with me - it's fun) we are going to focus on that metric.

So, with Coca-Cola in mind, it occurred to me that perhaps the fine wine market might just have a higher value added via brand reputation.

If only I thought there was some way of knowing how much it really costs to make a very good bottle of wine. Bordeaux's top wine producers are notoriously secretive about their operations. They have been recognised brands since in 1855 French Government officials attempted to classify French wine for the Grand Exposition of the same year. So like Coca-Cola (Founded in 1886), they are some of the oldest and most recognised brands around.

Chateau Petrus has been around since 1837, and its status as the most famous and most expensive wine on the planet is legendary. To be fair, it produces only 30,000 bottles a year compared with the equally renowned Chateau Margaux, which produces around 300,000 bottles a year. So its status as a rare wine is well deserved. The 2005 vintage (the greatest post war vintage apparently) at today's prices can be found at a startling 4,500 Euros a bottle at wine retailers.

So, what then is the real cost of a bottle of Petrus? The Revue du Vin de France, Frances most respected wine magazine, analyses the cost of Petrus's wine production and has the answer. The magazine has looked at the various elements of the cost of a bottle and the final cost turns in at around 30 Euros. This breaks down to 10 Euros only for the bottle and a special anti-fraud technology and the rest for growing the grapes, harvesting and bottling.

Working with 4,500 Euros, Chateau Petrus's brand accounts for a startling 99.3% of its bottle price.

Bear in mind also, that so famous is Petrus in the wine world that is has virtually no marketing costs: it has no website, and no advertising of any kind. Now that is a very cost effective and valuable drinks brand.

So stand aside Coca-Cola for another dark coloured drink with a red and white label.

1. Hierarchy: guide the journey and narrative
Hierarchy is central to successful interfaces and writing. Imagine newspaper articles without headlines, stand-firsts or subheads. The reader would be lost; having no idea of relative importance or the natural flow of the copy. 

Likewise on an interface, hierarchy creates a visual flow to information; whether through positioning, colours, weighting or use of imagery. Without hierarchy, each piece of content would be shouting for attention; overwhelming the user with choices and making them less likely to act.

2. Progressive disclosure: power to the people
The parallels made between newspaper journalism and online copywriting are long-standing (think 'inverted pyramid'). But the publishing / digital analogue can be taken further through progressive disclosure. In magazines, contents pages give a taster of the articles, allowing readers to decide what they want to read. 

The same applies online, with landing pages showing summary content and users 'choosing' to go into more detail (not being dumped into it). Reveal content as needed, set the pace, like the plot of a good book.

3. Consistency: professional and predictable 
Nothing looks more unprofessional than a word spelt differently throughout an article: 'why not visit the web site for more; the website address is web-site.com'. A company name spelt wrong undermines the brand, while the absence of a house style breeds inconsistency.

It's the same story for an interface, where consistency gives the user something to hold on to as they learn how to use the site. Consistent colours and active states for links; page titles that match navigation labels and interactions functioning in a predictable way, all help the user avoid the unexpected.  

4. Find the hook: be memorable
Online copywriting is about creating 'sticky content' that users engage with, revisit, link to and share via social media. This means finding a memorable hook for your story - whether humorous, controversial or informative. The same is true of user experiences, which should be memorable, potentially viral and based on one core idea. Stickiness in interfaces doesn't necessarily mean whizzy, sometimes it can be as simple as a barrier-free checkout process.

5. Brutal editing: kill the clutter
Reading online is up to 25 per cent slower than reading offline - so each word has to count. On an interface the same applies, always ask do we need that button, could we lose a promotion to reduce the clutter? Every aspect of a web page must serve a purpose; taking users on intuitive journeys to their end goals. Keep it task focused, cut the waffle, remove visual noise and make it worth the effort. 

Final thought…

For me, writing and designing are two sides of the same coin. When both are given equal respect and time, really great user experiences come alive.

Here's the data. Nearly half of the companies failed to identify anything that makes them different. And practically none of those that did started plainly that it's this or that that makes them so. So, leaning over backwards to give businesses the benefit of the doubt, we included companies using superlatives, as in 'the only…' or 'the largest…'. So, this meant that even 'the largest copper producer in Kazakhstan' got credit for being distinctive.

Of course, the problem here is that this becomes a bit of a mantra itself, with nearly half using either 'the leading' or 'the largest' as their one and only claim for distinction, rending them more ubiquitous than unique.

And you gotta wonder whether some of them aren't breaking branding's biggest taboo: as in saying something that just ain't so. Yes, FTSE100 companies are, by definition, enormous businesses, but is it likely that nearly a quarter are really 'the leading' or 'the largest', particularly those sitting cheek by jowl in the same sectors. Of course, many get away with saying they're 'the leading' by conveniently failing to give any idea of how they define this rather vague accolade.

Is this all simply an enormous failure of imagination? Businesses who think of themselves - and define and describe themselves - as no more than a list of facts: products offered, turnover achieved and territories occupied. Or companies that, perhaps because they are so large and complex, fail to find the singular, compelling idea that inspires staff, engages customers and drives their business.

We are currently working on this year's 'What's the story?' report, analysing how FTSE100 businesses describe themselves. It will be launched in London on 22 May and in Amsterdam on 15 June.

Apple did not develop the iconic iPhone having eagerly set out to find somewhere to put a touch-screen. Dyson didn't create their ubiquitous vacuum cleaner having tried to think of a use for cyclone technology. A market was identified; audiences defined; business objectives identified; interactions designed; models prototyped; users tested; designs modified; prototyped again; improved upon; until the team were satisfied that the functionality they implemented ensured, strategically, the experience of the end-product was just right.

Recently, I was asked whether I knew of any examples of websites that featured the 'parallax' effect (a type of visual trickery that can give the appearance of depth by moving multiple layers of images at different speeds). Of course, I obliged and started to reel off a few that I had seen and thought were beautiful and appropriate examples of its use (for the examples I gave, see the footnote of this post). When I asked what it was for, the response was, in earnest, "because it's cool and I want to use it somewhere in my next web project".

Functionality, in web terms, is not mere digital ornamentation. We shouldn't be thinking about it in terms of "where we can put it to make the website nicer". Moreover, we shouldn't focus on these individual interactions before we've thought about business objectives for the site, or the content or messages we are trying to communicate.

Whether it's displaying your global office locations, promoting a new company strategy or, even, unveiling an entirely new brand, consider your audiences' needs and behaviours first. Who takes precedent when designing your site? How will an investor react to what's on the page compared with a graduate looking to work for you? This may seem obvious, but too often "the users" are treated as a monolithic entity that will fall in love with a 'cutting edge' brand for giving them 'cool' things to play with on their website.   

The point is not to prevent project stakeholders thinking about the design of their website upfront, or to dissuade them from making functional suggestions. This is part of collaboration. More, it is to wheel out the old clichés; don't put the cart before the horse. Form follows function.

If the parallax effect provides a richer enhancement to a video case study, use it. If an interactive map provides a useful method of displaying your global office locations, great, suggest it. If 'accordions' help you contain lengthy portions of text, use them. These things are solutions to pre-existing design concerns, not frivolous or gratuitous digital embellishments.

So next time your project stakeholders are enthusing, "hey, I want one of those PDF baskets on my website!", or "I love those zippy carousel slider thingies - let's do it!", or "I want my website to revolve 360-degrees, because we can." …

Stop.

Breathe.

Consider one question: how will it improve the overall experience of your website for your target users?

Footnotes:

Website examples using the parallax effect beautifully:

http://www.nikebetterworld.com/

http://benthebodyguard.com/index.php#utmxpreview=0

http://www.smartusa.com/

http://www.newzealand.com/uk/

It took me a while to register what made this place feel so different but I can best explain it by describing what I saw in happening in Tiffany's. A teenager leant on the counter, pulled off his baseball cap, set down his bag of McDonalds and open bottle of Coke on the glass counter top. Then with the help of a friendly member of staff selected some diamond stud earrings. Now lets be honest, if this person had walked up to Tiffany's flagship Old Bond Street store he would probably not have got very far past the ear-mic'd security guard. And if he had made it inside I can only imagine how he might have been treated or more importantly how he might have been made to feel.

We all know how Luxury brand shopping works. Or at least we do when we are not one of the super rich who can really afford it: we dress a bit smarter before we leave to go shopping because we know we have to feel confident enough to get past the guy on the door. The smarter you look the faster the door seems to open and this very act somehow signals to those inside that we are worthy of being there. Then emboldened by this happy arrangement, we buy what we want, get treated very nicely and exit feeling better than we did before we went in. We have bought the product, bought the fleeting feeling it gives us, and invariably in my case bought a pair of shoes I feel guilty spending so much money on.

At Westfield something very different goes on. Here you can let your hair down in a completely manufactured and artificial bubble where the barriers of status and belonging are lowered - it's fun because the luxury brands have let their hair down too. Westfield is a lot like an airport but without the duty free savings. At airports the overlay of duty free is the key to making luxury more accessible - it's cheaper but not cheapened. You may be on you way to Majorca in a t-shirt and shorts but you are shopping in Prada. Westfield creates a similarly relaxed world where you  can buy a £700 pound bottle of vintage champagne and drink it sitting in a cold and drafty bar 4 feet from the front door of a shop whilst being gawped at by people on their way to the Disney Store. Luxury that I imagine would somehow feel far from luxurious.

But, to be clear I think this place is very, very clever. Westfield's master brand allows luxury brands to retain their luxury status whilst becoming accessible to many more customers. The product, price, packaging and service are all the same but the way it's accessed has changed. The Westfield mantra seems to be if you can pay for it you belong here. Westfield cunningly creates a kind of real celebrity and me-too arena where premiership footballers can pop in and buy a £60,000 diamond encrusted Rolex and an early 20s guy living at home with his parents can spend his considerable disposable income at Tiffany's on a quarter carat diamond in considerable comfort.   

Brilliantly, there is no real reputational damage for the brands because this is another world operating in a completely separate orbit.  Actually, it almost feels like a parallel universe and I can't imagine for one minute that a regular shopper in Gucci Old Bond Street would ever want to make the trek to Shepherds Bush for their loafers, or that our baseball hat wearing Westfield shopper would want to work his way down Bond Street window shopping.

So if you haven't been already - make a trip to this crazy, brilliant world of luxury. The luxury brands are easy to find in an exclusive enclave called - you guessed it - The Village. 

This is certainly nothing new. Organisations have been distilling out the essence of what they're about for a very long time. Mottos have existed since heraldry was invented to distinguish one knight from the next, and slogans since commodities turned into brands. 

But how useful is this sort of snappy shorthand for businesses wishing to influence increasingly unimpressionable consumers, to sell to other hard-nosed businesses or to impress relentlessly rational investors?

Well, I think they have a place. A great strapline - whomever it's intended to influence - captures perfectly concisely what makes that business different and compelling - a hook that draws people into the bigger story. Over time this can become a virtuous circle, with the shorthand proposition triggering the richer narrative and helping make it stick in the mind.

So, why is it then that, according to our research into how FTSE100 companies tell their stories, less than a quarter of them use anything you could describe as a strapline?

Could it be that they just don't believe that straplines work? That, by definition, they lack gravitas? That they see them as too glib, too tricksy or just plain false? That they've tried - and failed - to find the one that everybody agrees on?

Or, perhaps more likely, it's because they haven't yet decided what their business stands for: they haven't identified anything that is remotely focused enough to be transformed into a few memorable words.

We are currently working on this year's 'What's the story?' report, analysing how FTSE100 businesses describe themselves. It will be launched in London on 22 May and in Amsterdam on 15 June.

I've been thinking about my colleague Ben Richards' last blog post advising our clients to let go of the word sustainability in 2012. In the post, he argues that as terms, both 'sustainability' and 'corporate responsibility' are ineffective at engaging mainstream audiences.

Whether too inclusive or just plain unappealing, it's clear that businesses are still undecided on how to best package the range of issues that sit underneath these umbrella terms in one, catch-all phrase. And is it any wonder? Given the ever expanding list of sustainability issues faced by companies, coupled with the need to target multiple audiences- it's almost neigh-on impossible to capture everything in a way that appeals to all. Or is it?

This month marks the year anniversary of Michael Porter's HBR article on 'Creating shared value' (CSV), the latest piece of terminology to emerge from the corporate sustainability space. A year on, the concept has been embraced by business leaders and sustainability practitioners alike and continues to grow in popularity. So, what's the appeal and, more importantly, is it the solution we've been looking for?

What is creating shared value?

'Creating shared value' (CSV) attempts to re-balance value creation by highlighting the linkages between economic and social progress. In short, the concept proposes that businesses and the communities in which they operate are mutually dependant and that therefore what's good for society is also good for business. A novel concept, but does it work?

Well, as far as messaging goes, creating shared value certainly ticks all the right boxes. Despite not being drastically different from its counterpart terms 'sustainability' and 'corporate responsibility, CSV does a far better job at presenting the win-win benefits of sustainability to mainstream audiences.

For senior management, the term presents a clear business case, whilst removing the 'do right or else' mentality of responsibility. For non-specialists, CSV moves beyond the discipline led-nature of sustainability, making actual outcomes more relevant and meaningful. And for mainstream audiences (such as consumers and communities), the notion of 'shared value' encourages engagement and collaboration.

What's perhaps most interesting though, is evidence that CSV works in generating buy-in and engagement. Nestlé's 'Creating shared value' campaign has drastically boosted the firm's profile in the corporate sustainability space over a very short space of time. Evidence of engagement around the campaign has also been prominent, with Nestlé's dedicated CSV Facebook page generating almost 13,000 likes from customers.

The new sustainability?

Although CSV does a great job at bridging the language barrier that prevents mainstream audiences from engaging in sustainability, there are bigger issues when delving into the theory.

Firstly, the term isn't as encompassing as sustainability in terms of the breadth and depth of issues it covers. By focusing solely on the business case for value creation, CSV leaves potential for businesses to overlook traditional moral values if they fail to serve a specific business function. This could be a dangerous and slippery slope, particularly if fundamental issues such as diversity and human rights are overlooked.

What's more, CSV calls on business to make the distinction between which activities do or don't have the ability to add societal value. But this leaves room for misinterpretation. The aviation industry, for instance, may be seen as adding fiscal and social value by facilitating international trade and creating jobs, however the industry is also a significant contributor to global emissions and can tear apart local communities. So does the industry add societal value or take it away? CSV doesn't yet provide us with a succinct answer that allows us to distinguish between these trade-offs.

Ultimately though, creating shared value is certainly a more engaging way of talking about sustainability. By making the objectives and outcomes clear to mainstream audiences, CSV creates a clear and easy-to-understand case for sustainability that previous terminology fails to capture. For this reason it's certainly a step in the right direction, but not quite the all encompassing solution we've been looking for just yet.

Is mobile affecting engagement stats?

I have a theory I'd like to canvas opinion on to see if it's a similar story in other sectors e.g. e-comms, publishing. Tracking back, the decrease in time spent on site and pages viewed per visit seems to correlate with an increase in mobile phone visits (which started in earnest about 18 months ago).

The (very) rough pattern seems to be that mobile time on site and pages viewed per visit rates are half that of the site average e.g. average time on site is 4.42 minutes, while for mobile it's 2.11 minutes.

What's the rationale?

It's a fairly obvious connection to make, browsing the internet on a mobile phone is often done on the move; when time is short and the user's information need is very specific. Thus time spent on site is shorter than when someone is sitting in front of a desktop, in relative comfort, viewing a website in all its glory.  

The small screens on smartphones; the fact that most websites are not built with mobile in mind and longer load times - all mean that pages viewed per visit are fewer too, with users giving up much more quickly if they can't find what they want or searching straightaway to get what they need.

What are the implications?

So this poses a problem - how do you explain to clients or colleagues (if you are in-house) why people are spending less time on your site and viewing less content? It may not even be a bad thing if users are finding what they need and leaving quickly when browsing on a phone.

But to an outside observer less time on site is not good - especially if increased dwell time has always been a key performance indicator. Without concrete proof that mobile is affecting these engagement statistics it just looks like content is less interesting. It's clear the rise of mobile will continue over the next few years and it's certainly a trend I'm keeping my eye on.

What to do going forward?

Design for mobile - we can recognise the trend toward bitesize mobile browsing and build sites that are either optimised for mobile or that strip sites back to the core information. By creating mobile summary sites, with the option to go to the corporate site for full details, we give people what they need quickly with minimum fiddling and searching.

Rethink KPIs - in a changing digital world we are going to need to reassess what make a good KPI for measuring the success. Should we move more towards custom goal tracking rather than relying on the standard reports? 

Balance quantative with qualitative - most importantly we need to understand the 'why' side of the coin. We have the 'what' in the form of stats but lets get out there and observe how people browse with their phones, so we're better equipped to interpret the hard data by keeping real users in mind.

These days, it's even more important to keep the story short. Any business venturing into social media will sooner or later be faced with the task of shoehorning their rich and engaging narrative into the measly 160 characters available for their Twitter profile.

Well, it seems there aren't many businesses that get this right. Our research looking at the brand narratives of FTSE100 companies showed that less than a third of the 57 businesses on Twitter described themselves in a way that sounded remotely like the company described on their website. Just a bit Jekyll and Hyde.

However, many of those who told the same story used exactly the same words (just fewer of them) to do so. It's a bit like introducing yourself to somebody in a pub in exactly the same way you would as the keynote speaker to a roomful of conference delegates.

As is so often the case, resolving this apparent conflict may simply be about getting the right balance - this time between the desire for keeping the brand consistent and the need for tailoring the story and tone of voice to the particular situation.

We are currently working on this year's 'What's the story?' report, analysing how FTSE100 businesses describe themselves. It will be launched in London on 22 May and in Amsterdam on 15 June.