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Whatever the industry or marketplace, we can help you understand and articulate the essential promise your brand is making today.
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We can help you define and express the promise that your brand could and ought to be making to future audiences.
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Then, we can help you close the gap between these two states through a variety of strategic or communications initiatives.
We work with clients in all industries and international markets,
our experience is broad and deep, strategic and practical.

 
A globally respected international TV channel asked us to investigate the extent to which it was leveraging its brand outside the broadcast sector. We studied brand perceptions and stretch potential before recommending a programme of initiatives that would enable future revenues to be earned by appropriate brand extensions.

One of London’s airports had an ambitious expansion programme, with an additional runway and a new passenger terminal being designed to meet a predicted three-fold increase in passenger volume. We worked in partnership with the architects to develop the value proposition for the airport, helping to articulate the promise it represented for the local community, the region and the UK as a whole.

London’s oldest law firm has a 300 year history of advising some of the nations most illustrious clients—from royalty and prime ministers to authors and industrialists. We reviewed its current reputation and client perceptions then helped guide the management board towards finding the best future position for the firm in a rapidly changing legal marketplace. We then worked with them on a range of communications initiatives to refine and enhance client perceptions. The firm was subsequently named London Legal Team of the Year at the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners.

The world leading creator of fine fragrances is based in Geneva. It works in partnership with luxury fashion houses, as well as supplying global FMCG brands both with the distinctive fragrances used in their cleaning products and the flavourings used in their food brands. We assessed and redefined their core values to develop a more meaningful communications strategy and visual identity, before working closely with them to respond to the health and environmental concerns affecting the fragrance and food ingredients markets.

One of the world’s most exclusive whisky companies created a new market by tracking-down elusive casks of rare, old whiskies, carefully blending and hand-bottling them before marketing them to whisky connoisseurs worldwide. We helped them by facilitating discussions around their future business strategy, their promise to future customers and potential investment opportunities, as well as on management and governance.

An oil company, a property investment firm and a family office were all, in fact, one organisation. We worked with the firm’s founder and his senior management team to help explore and capture the core values at the heart of the firm’s success. We expressed them in a short story before developing a new brand architecture and visual identities for both the group and the repositioned constituent brands within it. We have written new web content, helped create an international TV and press campaign as well as advising on retail signage.

A distinguished British preparatory school asked us to review its delivery against core values and, in the light of a rapidly-changing education environment, to explore areas for future development. We conducted interviews among staff, the heads of other schools, alumni and other stakeholders. We also facilitated focus groups with parents and held staff workshops to present and explore the findings. Our recommendations were subsequently incorporated by the governors and headmaster into the School Development Plan.

A business information publication, owned by the world’s leading business information group, needed to evolve from having been a printed directory into becoming online resource. For 200 years the publication had been the pre-eminent source for business contacts, products and services and its new identity, as a virtual search tool, had to be carefully grafted into its past heritage. We helped it become the UK’s leading B2B search engine and have since worked with the parent group to create and refocus a range of publications and data services across industries as diverse as agriculture, aviation, banking, chemicals, construction, fashion, CRM, HR management, hospitality and recruitment.

An online energy conservation service needed a more focused customer proposition and differentiated brand identity. We explored customer insights before developing a distinctive new approach with the shareholders.

A leading UK children’s charity recognised that its identity was expressed predominantly via the telephone and other aural media. We created a model to assess the extent to which the sound of the of the brand was true to the core values then recommended initiatives to bring the experience into line with the charity’s promises.

A creative award-winning advertising agency in New York wanted to expand into Europe without diluting what had made it so distinctive and successful at home. We worked with the teams in the USA and Europe to determine the essence of the brand’s unique appeal, then helped plan its European business development.

A successful firm of actuaries, which had developed industry-leading financial modelling and risk assessment software, felt that they were lacking a coherent marketing identity and had become too function-oriented and, therefore, at greater risk of being copied. Working closely with the founding partners and marketing director we reviewed, assessed and helped reinterpret their essential values and promise. We then developed a communications programme to express the revitalised brand spirit, from the creation of a new visual identity to a range of internal and external communications initiatives. The exercise so enhanced the perceived value and appeal of the firm that it was shortly acquired by a major international financial services group.

A renowned firm of chartered accountants wanted to capture and reinforce the qualities that differentiated it from its competitors. We spoke to clients and led a programme of partners’ workshops before agreeing a new brand model that was agreed across the firm. We then developed ways to ensure that the client experience would be consistent with the refocused brand promise, this included our producing a ‘tone-of-voice’ guide to help enable all written communications from the firm to sound consistent, distinctive and familiar.

A specialist consultancy focused on public services wanted to review its operating strategy and future development plans. We interviewed a broad cross-section of clients and academics to understand the firm’s perceived strengths and weaknesses before presenting the board with a promising new future strategy.

Several professional services consultancies have consulted us, particularly following a merger or acquisition where our understanding of organisation cultures often helps us find more innovative solutions for shaping and combining two or more brands. They also appreciate our experience in planning brand architecture and creating new names and identities for brands and sub-brands. One client, the product of a merger between two former rival firms, went on to be judged the UK’s Top Employer by The Guardian newspaper.
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