February 12, 2025 • 28 mins
Uncover the strategic motivations behind the transformative power of rebranding as we explore the journey of WHD alongside James Walker and Brian Hastings. Listen in to learn how rebranding is much more than a new logo—it's about aligning business objectives, market positioning, and customer values to support growth and enhance market perception. With insights from their collaboration, Walker and Hastings share the importance of ensuring a new brand identity stands on its own while maintaining ties to its origins. They dive into how WHD transitioned from Walker Hill's marketing division to a prominent digital marketing agency, highlighting the pivotal role of strategic business needs in guiding this evolution.
Gain insights into the complexities of crafting a brand identity that truly resonates with customers through engaging workshops. Discover the challenges WHD faced in selecting a visual identity amidst diverse opinions and how they ensured internal buy-in. The duo offers a candid look at the logistical challenges of rolling out a cohesive brand presence, from initial concepts to full implementation. By sharing their experiences, Walker and Hastings reveal the meticulous work involved in updating every branded aspect of a business, ensuring consistency and reinforcing the brand's strengths. From navigating stakeholder expectations to capturing growth opportunities, this episode is packed with valuable lessons on achieving a powerful and well-respected brand.
The Digital Horizons Podcast is hosted by:
James Walker - Managing Director WHD
Brian Hastings - Managing Director Nous
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome back to Digital Horizons.
We're the channel for businessowners, e-com entrepreneurs and
marketers.
We trial and test differenttactics and strategies that are
working in digital and digitalmarketing right now.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
We bring to you the latest on what we are also
finding is working within ourown digital marketing agencies.
I'm James Walker, the ManagingDirector of WHD, and I'm joined
with Brian Hastings, managingDirector of Nowse.
Welcome to the show.
Today we are going to be goingthrough our process and anyone
who's been watching or followingus for a while as I just
mentioned, I'm the ManagingDirector of WHD, which
previously was called WalkerHill, and today we are talking
(00:36):
about the experience that I'vegone through in terms of
rebranding our digital agency,and what I guess is cool about
this is we actually partneredwith Brian's branding agency to
make this happen.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Yeah yeah.
It's a cool case study thatwe're both intimately connected
to, so I think what would begreat to get out of today is a
run through of every step of theprocess and your feedback and
experience of what worked well,what was challenging, and
demystify the rebranding processfor anyone watching on.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah, and I mean we didn't know what we were getting
into when we did it right.
We came into it thinking, allright, we're just going to get a
new logo, that's it.
We need a new logo and we'llget into the reason why it's
behind it all.
But that was basically the ideabehind it and in the past, when
we were quite a bit smallerbusiness, we would have just
paid someone on Upwork to getthis done.
We would have just gone on to99designs gone.
Hey, give me some logo designsand we would have rolled with
(01:31):
that, because that would havebeen what the budget would have
allowed for and probably justthe stage in our business.
But coming to where we are nowand also where we're going, it
was something that we're likeall right, we want to be serious
, we want to get our big boylogo, and so now we wanted to
start talking to a brandingagency that was going to help us
facilitate that.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah, I remember getting the call from you and I
know you work with designers andhave worked with logo designers
, and when you called me andsaid, oh, I would like to get a
new logo, I would like to changethe name, I was a little bit
nervous because I'm like, ifwe're going to do it, we're
going to do it the proper way.
We're a branding agency and youwere certain, you knew you
(02:08):
wanted to do this the right wayand you told me from the start
this is I want to do this, weneed to do this.
What's it look like?
And I think that sort of kicksus off on.
The first step of this processis a brand evolution or a brand
change should be driven by abusiness strategy or a business
need, not just a feeling of-.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
You've got some negative feedback on your logo,
on a social media comment orsomething.
You're like, hey, we've got tochange it up.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Yeah, yeah.
There needs to be somethingdriving this.
So when you go to a brandingagency or say you're trying to
tackle it internally, god forbidyou actually have a driving
reason to do this.
There is either a need forgrowth or capturing market share
, or you're wanting to increaseyour margin.
(02:56):
What you can charge, there'sall the benefits that come with
a powerful, well-respected,memorable brand generally starts
with thinking well, what doesour business need to achieve and
how are we going to get there?
That business strategy, in yourcase, led you down to well,
what are the marketing andbranding initiatives?
What are the things we're goingto need to do Maybe your
(03:16):
strengths, weaknesses,opportunities, threats to SWOT
analysis to identify what havewe got and how are we perceived?
You rightly landed on the brandbeing one of the elements that
could evolve to help you get toyour business objectives.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
That's right, and so I guess the way that we have
come out of this is being partof Walker Hill.
It's a company that doesaccounting, it does digital
marketing, mortgage broking andfinance solutions.
So what we were finding is thatwe were possibly being seen
within the market as themarketing division of an
accounting firm, because theaccounting firm of the business
(03:50):
is much larger and moreestablished than what the
marketing side was.
But over the years, themarketing, our team and the
clients we're working with, andjust the quality and everything
that we're doing, I felt wasprobably not being recognized
without our industry as adigital marketing or as a
leading digital marketing withinthe space.
And this is why I was like well, I think we need to have a
(04:12):
separate stamp or look, feel,brand for ourselves to make sure
we can position ourselves as astandalone, but still keeping
that connection with our rootsand within the Walk Hill group
of businesses, that where wehave come from, which is what
we've come to you with thechallenge of yeah absolutely,
and I think our job as abranding agency is to make sure
(04:32):
those questions have beenconsidered or asked and you're
coming for the right reasons.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Otherwise, you can end up in a brand evolution or a
rebrand project that thebusiness doesn't really want.
They just started it but didn'tactually need it.
But in this case the logic wassound.
We generally ask these types ofquestions of what are you
looking to achieve from arebrand?
Do you find your current orexisting brand isn't matching
(05:01):
your reputation or the qualityof what you do?
Is your current brand notaligning to the values of your
ideal customer, or is itdifficult for them to find
alignment in their values withyours?
One of the main reasons for anevolution or a big brand shift
is the lack of capability of thecurrent brand to deliver on
(05:24):
what the business is looking toachieve, so that just might be
not memorable enough.
There's not enough to tie or pinyour content or communications
to so that people know it'scoming from this particular
brand.
When focusing on the visuals,maybe there's not enough
personality built into the brandso that different people in the
business can consistentlycommunicate the same personality
(05:47):
in everything they do goingforward, not just visually but
in how it speaks and how itcommunicates.
So generally there's a bit of.
You know, maybe the oldoutgoing brand is a bit outdated
and lacking a bit of polish andin that case maybe it's just a
slight evolution.
In your case, there was a needto carve a space, a personality
(06:08):
and a space for this brand so itcould stand on its own two feet
.
And you're about to do a wholelot of content and a whole lot
of communication efforts and youwant the memory of that
activity to be tied to amemorable brand.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yeah.
So let's talk about the process, of what we went through to get
to the outcome that we are attoday.
So first thing you told me islike, hey, you're going to have
to bring your team in to have aworkshop and I was like, what
does that?
Got to do with you designing mea logo.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah, why can't you just?
Speaker 2 (06:35):
send me over the logos yeah.
So let's go through the reasonbehind that.
And I mean we were very happywith the outcome of what came
out of that, but I guess thereasoning because I guess for a
lot of businesses that haven'tgone through this process
they're probably a little bitlike, well, does that need to
happen?
And I feel it definitely didfrom our experience.
So if you could run throughthat now, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
We call it a brand framework.
Brand agencies in general willhave a strategy or a process for
coming to grips with what's atthe core of your brand, what's
its reason for existence.
Some branding agency call itthe why why does your brand
exist, not just what does it door how does it do it.
What we find is, if you jumpstraight to look and feel or
(07:19):
personality, we'd just be makingup concepts to show you and the
prettiest one would win.
Branding is more than just thesuit that the brand wears, the
logo or the tone of voice guide.
It's an agreement between thepeople who make up the brand as
to why it exists and why theycare and why anyone else would
(07:40):
care about it.
So, to clarify that and to makeit super clear, would care
about it.
So to clarify that and to makeit super clear, we host a
workshop and in some cases, wedo customer research, we do
market research prior to thisprocess.
In this particular case, thebrand framework was what we
needed to draw out theinformation about the brand and
hold it back up to you and theteam to say is this who your
(08:02):
brand really is?
Is this what it stands for?
Is this why you do what you do.
So the brand framework processwe start with the easy stuff.
What is it that you do?
What are the features of thebusiness that could set you
apart?
Then we really delve into thecustomer, not just a list of the
types of the business thatcould set you apart.
Then we really delve into thecustomer, not just a list of the
types of people who work atbusinesses that you'd like to be
(08:23):
your customer, but what aretheir needs?
What are they looking for whenthey reach out to an agency like
you?
We then try to go a stepfurther and in this workshop,
we're drawing this informationout from you guys.
You know all of this back tofront.
So the brand framework processshouldn't be us making anything
(08:43):
up.
It's just drawing out the truthfrom the people who work in the
business every day and wereally want to find what did the
customer feel like as a resultof working with you?
What was the unmet need thatyou delivered like as a result
of working with you, what wasthe unmet need that you
delivered?
They came for more leads, butthey left feeling confident and
empowered and ready to forecastfor the next quarter, feeling
(09:05):
like their business can reachits potential, whatever it may
be.
There is a lot of outcomes yourclients receive from working
with you that they didn'toriginally know they were going
to get.
It's trying to get in themindset of the customer and find
, well, what are those goldenthings that they've experienced
that we want to latch onto andbubble to the top of our brand
(09:28):
personality?
So once we've looked at thecustomer, we'll consider the
personality of the brand.
How would we describe it If itwas a human?
If it's taking this brand leap,what are its characteristics?
And we try to shift it awayfrom corporate talk and into
human speak so we can all get analigned view of who this brand
is as a person.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
I think you referred to ours as the hot girl at the
party.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah, that's right, that was the personality of our
brand, I believe, was something.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah, we got you know it was uh appealing people
wanting to go up, um.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
But you know the hot girl at the party was confident,
engaging, smart um, and youknow everyone wanted to talk to
her that's right, that was.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
That's sort of what we drew from and you know, I
didn't make that up.
Yeah, that's what theconclusion from the research?
Yeah, from the research.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
So once we have the personality down, we then try to
determine the pillars that yourbrand wants to be famous for.
Easiest way to think of thesepillars are what are four
attributes that you would want acustomer to use in that
conversation or that referral.
When they're talking to anotherprospective customer and
they're saying you've got totalk to WHD, they gave me this,
(10:36):
this, this and this.
Without getting into too muchdetail, those deliverables need
to be provable.
You can't just come up withgreat deliverables that the
customer is going to receiveevery time they work with you.
You can't just make up thingsyou're not actually going to
deliver.
So you dig into your features.
What is it that you do that'sdifferent, that we can latch
(10:57):
onto there and prove?
Speaker 2 (10:59):
I think going through this process for us was really
good as well, because we knowwhat we do, we know what we're
good at, but we don't ever sitdown as a group and go, all
right, cool, let's just put thisdown on paper.
And this was really valuablefor us because it was able for,
I guess, for us to work out well, these are the things we do,
these are the things we'rereally good at, these are some
of the other things that we doand probably shouldn't be doing
them, and certainly becausesometimes we do like to you know
(11:19):
, please, and go above to whatwe need to do, and maybe, when
it shouldn't be doing it,because, firstly, it's not
profitable from a business pointof view, but also it's probably
not within our real expertise,but we're still trying to go
above and just saying yes tothings from client requests that
were probably outside of scope.
So this was good to get areally concise document
outlining what it is that weshould and what we offer our
(11:41):
clients.
That is of really high value.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Yeah, absolutely, and I think it's great for the
people in the room havingmultiple team members who
represent different parts of thebusiness in the room coming to
an agreement, thrashing it outgoing.
Is that really our customer?
Is that really what they getfrom us?
Or is this really what we wantto be famous for, what we want
people to remember as a resultof working with us?
(12:04):
Or is that personality doesn'tquite feel right?
That word's not quite right.
It's the process of working itout together and landing on a
brand you not only feelperfectly hits for your audience
, but you guys can all get onboard with and drive into the
(12:24):
future.
At the end of those four pillars, we wrap it up with what we
call a heart and a promise.
For other branding processesthat might be the why.
What's the non-financial reasonyou guys get out of bed in the
morning to go and do this?
What are you passionate aboutand what do we want your clients
to see in that passion?
And the promise is so if that'sthe heart, the promise is
(12:47):
what's the one thing you canexpect to get every time?
Why should that customer care?
What do they get from you?
And we find those two sides ofthe coin.
The promise and the heart helpto really clearly define not
only what your customer will get, but why you get out of bed in
the morning to do it, and ithelps rally the team together to
go.
(13:07):
This is a great business.
This is why I do it, and now Ican really understand who it's
for and why they give a shit.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
So we landed on, for ours team was to relentlessly
pursue results, and that'ssomething that all of our team
because we knew that everyonewas so determined and so
energetic when they know they'regetting good results for their
client base or for theirportfolio.
And so when those words came upand it was documented, it was
something that our team couldjust really get behind and
everybody in the room was like,yeah, oh, that's me.
(13:35):
It was so good, because then italso gives you the ability to
weed out people who aren't theright fit for the team right.
Because you can be like hey, ifthey don't get excited by this,
well, maybe they're not theright person.
That fits within this, becausethis is what we're about.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Yeah, and I think all sharing that same mantra or
that same reason for existingreally helps.
The next step which, once thatbrand framework is documented,
agreed on, tweaked, maybe we'llchange the words here and there
it forms a brand on a page.
It's like a poster that you canput up in your office to say
this is what we do, this is whowe're for, this is our
(14:11):
personality, this is what wewant to be famous for and this
is our heart and our promise.
Having that in place before wemove on to the next step, which
is in some cases for businessesit's naming, some cases it's
logo and visual identitydevelopment.
For WHD it was the logo andconcept development.
That brand framework helpsbring everyone onto the same
(14:34):
page and remove any personalconsiderations around.
You know things like colours orhow they feel about a logo, and
instead that gives them a brieffor what the next steps should
look like and how the brandshould communicate.
So we take that brand frameworkthat's been approved.
That's a step, that's sorted.
You can keep that from thatpoint on and your brand, your
(14:57):
logo, might change over theyears, but your reason for
existence, your framework,should remain pretty consistent
over the long term.
So then we moved into step two,which was the visual identity
concept phase.
You could probably take usthrough how that went and what
you did.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
So.
This was a challenge becauseobviously you presented us with
about 10 different logo conceptsand I think I had the right
amount of people in the room,but I think we had about six,
possibly from my team, that weinvited to come and be part of
this process all from differentareas within the business, and I
guess I didn't probablyconsider prior to going into
this is everyone's going to havedifferent opinions?
(15:36):
And with that many peoplesitting in the room looking at
stuff which they all havediffering opinions because
they're all different ages andthey just like different shit, I
ended up with a few votes forevery logo concept and so then
it became more of a politicalthing, and so it was more about
all right, well, of a politicalthing, and so it was more about
all right, well, who can I makeunhappy?
Who can I keep happy?
(15:57):
How can we compromise and wherecan we land on something that
we're all excited and can getbehind?
And this process wasn't easy.
It was probably I think thiswas the slowest part of it all,
like you'd presented it to us,and it wasn't because there were
anything wrong with any of thelogos.
It was probably because we hadtoo many options and there
wasn't anything where we couldjust go all right, cool, we
(16:18):
unanimously decide, we like thisone.
I mean that would have beenbeautiful if that happened, but
I feel like that would neverhappen, or you know, if you did,
you probably got too manypeople that are exactly the same
sitting in the room.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
It can happen, but generally in one-to-two team
situations.
And you're right, we presentedmore concepts to you than
probably any other client and wewere on a bit of a stretch from
not stepping too far away fromwhere we are to wildly different
and bold, and on that path weprovided too many examples.
(16:53):
I reckon we probably could havebrought it back to five maybe,
but where your feedback camefrom that first session was very
different.
We might not have had the oneyou landed on in that 10.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
And I think that's the agency's responsibility to
do that removal process.
First, we had 30 that we sortof refined down, but there were
three or four in each differentcategory that we felt really did
the job.
So, with your capability in thespace and being marketers as
(17:28):
well, we thought, well, let'sshare them with you and take you
through a rationale for eachone.
It did work out that we didhave options there, but I think
we could have streamlined theprocess by providing less option
and more rollout of how itcould look from the get-go.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Yeah, I mean there's no complaint on the volume of
options as well, because, as yousaid, if the one that we landed
on, which we're extremely happywith that we are at now, maybe
would have been left off thatlist, because I think they were
all quality and good concepts,so if you were to cut it by half
, which half would have gone?
And that could have then led tous not having the option that
we've landed on.
So I guess that just having toalmost negotiate and compromise
(18:12):
and settle and change and tryingto keep everybody in the room
happy was difficult.
But I think, through thechanges and refinements and
everyone understanding that, hey, we're not all going to get
100% exactly what we want,because it's a company, it's not
your personal brand.
We need to take almost thepersonal feelings out of it and
see all right.
Well, from our brand guidelinesand brand book that you'd
(18:33):
provided, how does this fitwithin what we're trying to
achieve here?
Speaker 1 (18:41):
That concept stage and we find it at two stages
really is the naming stage, whenconcepts are presented, and the
visual identity concept stage,when there are a lot of
stakeholders who have a say orthe ability to make a decision
or influence the decision.
It can make the process takelonger, but it is really
important to do what you did andbring people together and have
(19:03):
them see what they did in theframework side of the brand
strategy is being deliveredvisually so that they can really
get a hold of this brand.
Where I think we landed wasreally good.
We refined them down.
Your team would providefeedback in the form of problems
that concepts were giving them,rather than direct feedback of
(19:26):
change this to this or make thiscircle bigger.
That kind of feedback makesyour agency almost second guess
or not understand what it isyou're trying to fix.
But what you guys did reallywell was provide meaningful
feedback of what some conceptswere doing, what some concepts
weren't hitting and that helpedus turn or get rid of some
(19:47):
concepts for you.
Then, once we refined them down, we would carry out a little
bit of additional brand rollout.
How would it extend, how wouldit look in different
environments?
Which then threw up some morequestions and I'm not sure how
this could work like this.
Our intent as an agency istrying to get it down to the one
(20:08):
approved concept directionbefore you do too much of that
rollout, because if there'sthree concepts you're doing
everything three or four times.
But in this case we wanted togive you those examples to help
share internally how it's goingto look when we move forward.
But it was an enjoyable processbecause the problem wasn't that
(20:29):
the team didn't like any of theconcepts, it was that some were
liked more than others, andthat's a good problem to have.
And I think where we landed,there's been a lot of internal
buy-in and people are reallycomfortable with where we landed
.
But, importantly, everyone canhold up the original brief,
which is the brand frameworkthat we developed and the visual
(20:49):
identity and the tone of voicethat we've created with you guys
, and say this is the bestrepresentation of this brand and
this brand strategy.
So concepts get finished, weagree on the concept and then it
gets packaged up, logo filesget created and handed over, but
we concurrently start workingon the brand style guide and
(21:11):
tone of voice to form the brandguidelines.
That's probably at the sametime.
You can jump in with some ofthe rollout assets that you've
been planning and doinginternally and let us know what
you've been working on.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
I was up at 4am this morning.
Today's our rollout, today'sthe day we're launching it.
So yeah, it's been a good timeto record a podcast.
But um, it's.
It's been a massive job andit's weird.
You don't think about theamount of branded things you
have that you're just usingdaily, that you didn't even
consider.
Like we build out, we run ourbusiness through click up and we
(21:47):
build out a board of all theitems and we keep missing stuff,
even just just spreadsheets,like we have branded google
sheets.
We have branded templates forall our reports.
We've got printed everythingyou can think of.
So it's working through,because we don't want to get to
a position, because we againwant to have complete control of
the brand and how it looks andmake sure that we're not last
minute.
Hey, someone needs something,so they're just whacking
something together and it's notin line with everything else.
(22:08):
So trying to make sure from thestart we're getting it all right
and every single piece ofcommunication we're having with
our clients or to the within ourmarketing is all consistent.
And so trying to work throughthat list has been massive, even
just rebranding videos and allthe content there, rebranding
all of our ads and refilming adsnow based on the new language
and the new, the new brand book.
So making sure that's allconsistent.
(22:28):
The website, that's obviouslywe're rolling out in stages.
We've only got a landing pageto start with, but that's going
to be something that'll be anevolution because from going
through this process, we've justidentified the voice and the
tone, the way that we want totalk, the way that we want to
look now for as a business.
So it's been.
It's been a challenging partbecause also we've got a team
with a full client load yeah,absolutely it's been that whole
(22:49):
part of it and I guess obviously, you guys do this stuff and you
guys are offered to help onthat, which, looking back, I
probably should have taken youup on because it would have sent
me a lot of stress, but I thinkthat, being in a creative
agency as well, my team werejust like hey, this would be so
fun, we want to have a shot atthis, which is the only reason
we didn't.
They were just so keen, aftergoing through the process of
(23:11):
this all, to then be able totake charge and really bring it
to life, because they're theones who got down the track will
be doing that anyway, so Ithink that they wanted that
opportunity to be able to dothat.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
So a unique scenario where you've got people who
understand brand and marketing,who create ads, who you have
access to designers.
My preference would have beento have the budget spent where
it was, on the brand frameworkand the concept evolution and
the brand guidelines, so thatyou have the best foundations to
(23:40):
work with, for other businessesprobably don't have the same
resources that.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
James has access to.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
So you know we have.
The final stage is the assetrollout.
So before you go to market andrun any paid campaigns or launch
your brand, there's some basicsyou need.
You need your website, you needall of your, even just the
social assets like what's thebackground going to look like on
(24:08):
your LinkedIn?
Speaker 2 (24:10):
header Literally just designed that five months
before I just signed that off,five months before walking into
recording this.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
And there's so many things that we because we've
done it a lot we have almost ashopping list.
Here are all the assets thatyou could get us as an agency to
do, but we're a little bit moreflexible than some of our
counterparts in the brandingworld that you don't have to
pick us for all of it or any ofit.
But there may be some keystoneitems you want sorted, like the
(24:41):
website design and built.
If you don't have that,capability, video, top and tails
, signage, concepts, things likethat that you want to get done
right and once to show your teamhow to do it going forward.
In your case, we covered thatoff in the brand guidelines, so
they're empowered now to take itand drive it forward.
(25:03):
That's it, yeah.
So I think another importantpart of the process as well is
having an audit of all of theseassets before you get to this
point.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Yeah, so we were doing it on the fly, but it's
also you don't realize, becausesome teams and I guess this is
just part of being in businessfor a while now some teams have
just got stuff that they use andit's just their tools that they
use and some of it isclient-facing.
but everything, even internalusage, we want to make sure
everything is looking consistentto keep that consistency there,
and then we're buying randomshit.
Like you know, you had to get asign.
(25:34):
You had to get like a neon forthe background of content, which
is probably not necessary.
That was one of the firstthings.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
That's fun right.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Yeah, well, I mean, that's the fun one, but it's
bright.
Then there's stuff like andthis surprised me because I
recently sold well, not really,but six months ago I sold a
printing business that doesbusiness cards and you know, one
of the first requests I got washey, I need business cards and
as much as people are likethey're dead, like no one needs
that shit anymore.
It was probably this first orsecond thing that was designed
(26:05):
on the list, because the teamwere like I'm going to a
networking event next week.
I'm going to go meet people, Iwant to be able to hand out some
stuff and show off our brand.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Yeah, absolutely.
I still make them for us aswell.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
I don't have any, but I'm sure that there is a big
place for them, which issomething I feel like a lot of
businesses wouldn't consider.
They'd be like, oh, we don'tneed that shit anymore, but it
seems like it is still useful.
So I'm really excited to seehow it all rolls out today.
First of all, we're going toget I back, as we do push this
out today.
At the time of this airing, wewould have been out in the
market for a couple of weeks.
(26:34):
So everyone who has beenwatching this, please feel free
to leave us comments.
Brian's feelings won't get hurt.
Well, they might.
Be kind, but I mean from ourpoint of view, we're extremely
happy with what the process haslooked like, really happy to
roll the brand out and reallyexcited to see what's next for
us because, as you said, it's astamp, a sign, basically for who
(26:58):
you are and who you are withinthe market, and I think that
this really reflects who we areand who we're becoming as well.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Yeah, absolutely You're right.
It's a statement of intent ofwho we are and how we're going
to carry ourselves.
I think it's important forbrands to remember, to live and
breathe the framework thatyou've developed and who you
said you were in that brandframework.
So it's not just a nice logo ora pretty website or a nice
(27:26):
piece of copy.
When you communicate or spendtime with the staff at this
brand, it's reflected in themtoo.
They're all reflecting thebrand in the same way and, of
course, it looks like thisbecause you know they're
high-end performers and thebrand matches their delivery.
So it's been a really funprocess working with you on this
as well.
(27:46):
I got really close to thebusiness.
And, yeah, any final tips foranyone going through a branding
process.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Expect.
It's just going to be a lotmore work than what it is, but
it needs to be.
I feel if it was easy and itwas as simple as what we've done
in the past, where we justhired a 99 designer on 99designs
or an upwork person to knockout a logo, we wouldn't have had
the team buy-in.
We'd look different, but Idon't think we'd have the same
experience and get as much outof it, even just from a business
(28:14):
point of view.
We haven't even hit the marketwith it yet, yeah, but even just
internally, I can feel thedifference within our business.
Yeah, so I think that that'sexpect the work.
There's going to be a lot moreto it, but it's worthwhile.
Yeah, thanks for doing it.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Well, this feels a bit like a case study for you.
Anyway, yeah, go to nowcecomau.
Nowce makes brands, james,didn't you?
That's right.
This was not intended as an adfor now, so it was more of a
process but happy with what wegot.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Cool.
We'll be back next week withbrand news coming up soon, yeah,
thanks.
Thanks for watching.
Welcome back to Digital Horizons.
We're the channel for businessowners, e-com entrepreneurs and
marketers.
We trial and test differenttactics and strategies that are
working in digital and digitalmarketing right now.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
We bring to you the latest on what we are also
finding is working within ourown digital marketing agencies.
I'm James Walker, the ManagingDirector of WHD, and I'm joined
with Brian Hastings, managingDirector of Nowse.
Welcome to the show.
Today we are going to be goingthrough our process and anyone
who's been watching or followingus for a while as I just
mentioned, I'm the ManagingDirector of WHD, which
previously was called WalkerHill, and today we are talking
(00:36):
about the experience that I'vegone through in terms of
rebranding our digital agency,and what I guess is cool about
this is we actually partneredwith Brian's branding agency to
make this happen.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Yeah yeah.
It's a cool case study thatwe're both intimately connected
to, so I think what would begreat to get out of today is a
run through of every step of theprocess and your feedback and
experience of what worked well,what was challenging, and
demystify the rebranding processfor anyone watching on.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah, and I mean we didn't know what we were getting
into when we did it right.
We came into it thinking, allright, we're just going to get a
new logo, that's it.
We need a new logo and we'llget into the reason why it's
behind it all.
But that was basically the ideabehind it and in the past, when
we were quite a bit smallerbusiness, we would have just
paid someone on Upwork to getthis done.
We would have just gone on to99designs gone.
Hey, give me some logo designsand we would have rolled with
(01:31):
that, because that would havebeen what the budget would have
allowed for and probably justthe stage in our business.
But coming to where we are nowand also where we're going, it
was something that we're likeall right, we want to be serious
, we want to get our big boylogo, and so now we wanted to
start talking to a brandingagency that was going to help us
facilitate that.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah, I remember getting the call from you and I
know you work with designers andhave worked with logo designers
, and when you called me andsaid, oh, I would like to get a
new logo, I would like to changethe name, I was a little bit
nervous because I'm like, ifwe're going to do it, we're
going to do it the proper way.
We're a branding agency and youwere certain, you knew you
(02:08):
wanted to do this the right wayand you told me from the start
this is I want to do this, weneed to do this.
What's it look like?
And I think that sort of kicksus off on.
The first step of this processis a brand evolution or a brand
change should be driven by abusiness strategy or a business
need, not just a feeling of-.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
You've got some negative feedback on your logo,
on a social media comment orsomething.
You're like, hey, we've got tochange it up.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Yeah, yeah.
There needs to be somethingdriving this.
So when you go to a brandingagency or say you're trying to
tackle it internally, god forbidyou actually have a driving
reason to do this.
There is either a need forgrowth or capturing market share
, or you're wanting to increaseyour margin.
(02:56):
What you can charge, there'sall the benefits that come with
a powerful, well-respected,memorable brand generally starts
with thinking well, what doesour business need to achieve and
how are we going to get there?
That business strategy, in yourcase, led you down to well,
what are the marketing andbranding initiatives?
What are the things we're goingto need to do Maybe your
(03:16):
strengths, weaknesses,opportunities, threats to SWOT
analysis to identify what havewe got and how are we perceived?
You rightly landed on the brandbeing one of the elements that
could evolve to help you get toyour business objectives.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
That's right, and so I guess the way that we have
come out of this is being partof Walker Hill.
It's a company that doesaccounting, it does digital
marketing, mortgage broking andfinance solutions.
So what we were finding is thatwe were possibly being seen
within the market as themarketing division of an
accounting firm, because theaccounting firm of the business
(03:50):
is much larger and moreestablished than what the
marketing side was.
But over the years, themarketing, our team and the
clients we're working with, andjust the quality and everything
that we're doing, I felt wasprobably not being recognized
without our industry as adigital marketing or as a
leading digital marketing withinthe space.
And this is why I was like well, I think we need to have a
(04:12):
separate stamp or look, feel,brand for ourselves to make sure
we can position ourselves as astandalone, but still keeping
that connection with our rootsand within the Walk Hill group
of businesses, that where wehave come from, which is what
we've come to you with thechallenge of yeah absolutely,
and I think our job as abranding agency is to make sure
(04:32):
those questions have beenconsidered or asked and you're
coming for the right reasons.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Otherwise, you can end up in a brand evolution or a
rebrand project that thebusiness doesn't really want.
They just started it but didn'tactually need it.
But in this case the logic wassound.
We generally ask these types ofquestions of what are you
looking to achieve from arebrand?
Do you find your current orexisting brand isn't matching
(05:01):
your reputation or the qualityof what you do?
Is your current brand notaligning to the values of your
ideal customer, or is itdifficult for them to find
alignment in their values withyours?
One of the main reasons for anevolution or a big brand shift
is the lack of capability of thecurrent brand to deliver on
(05:24):
what the business is looking toachieve, so that just might be
not memorable enough.
There's not enough to tie or pinyour content or communications
to so that people know it'scoming from this particular
brand.
When focusing on the visuals,maybe there's not enough
personality built into the brandso that different people in the
business can consistentlycommunicate the same personality
(05:47):
in everything they do goingforward, not just visually but
in how it speaks and how itcommunicates.
So generally there's a bit of.
You know, maybe the oldoutgoing brand is a bit outdated
and lacking a bit of polish andin that case maybe it's just a
slight evolution.
In your case, there was a needto carve a space, a personality
(06:08):
and a space for this brand so itcould stand on its own two feet
.
And you're about to do a wholelot of content and a whole lot
of communication efforts and youwant the memory of that
activity to be tied to amemorable brand.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yeah.
So let's talk about the process, of what we went through to get
to the outcome that we are attoday.
So first thing you told me islike, hey, you're going to have
to bring your team in to have aworkshop and I was like, what
does that?
Got to do with you designing mea logo.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah, why can't you just?
Speaker 2 (06:35):
send me over the logos yeah.
So let's go through the reasonbehind that.
And I mean we were very happywith the outcome of what came
out of that, but I guess thereasoning because I guess for a
lot of businesses that haven'tgone through this process
they're probably a little bitlike, well, does that need to
happen?
And I feel it definitely didfrom our experience.
So if you could run throughthat now, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
We call it a brand framework.
Brand agencies in general willhave a strategy or a process for
coming to grips with what's atthe core of your brand, what's
its reason for existence.
Some branding agency call itthe why why does your brand
exist, not just what does it door how does it do it.
What we find is, if you jumpstraight to look and feel or
(07:19):
personality, we'd just be makingup concepts to show you and the
prettiest one would win.
Branding is more than just thesuit that the brand wears, the
logo or the tone of voice guide.
It's an agreement between thepeople who make up the brand as
to why it exists and why theycare and why anyone else would
(07:40):
care about it.
So, to clarify that and to makeit super clear, would care
about it.
So to clarify that and to makeit super clear, we host a
workshop and in some cases, wedo customer research, we do
market research prior to thisprocess.
In this particular case, thebrand framework was what we
needed to draw out theinformation about the brand and
hold it back up to you and theteam to say is this who your
(08:02):
brand really is?
Is this what it stands for?
Is this why you do what you do.
So the brand framework processwe start with the easy stuff.
What is it that you do?
What are the features of thebusiness that could set you
apart?
Then we really delve into thecustomer, not just a list of the
types of the business thatcould set you apart.
Then we really delve into thecustomer, not just a list of the
types of people who work atbusinesses that you'd like to be
(08:23):
your customer, but what aretheir needs?
What are they looking for whenthey reach out to an agency like
you?
We then try to go a stepfurther and in this workshop,
we're drawing this informationout from you guys.
You know all of this back tofront.
So the brand framework processshouldn't be us making anything
(08:43):
up.
It's just drawing out the truthfrom the people who work in the
business every day and wereally want to find what did the
customer feel like as a resultof working with you?
What was the unmet need thatyou delivered like as a result
of working with you, what wasthe unmet need that you
delivered?
They came for more leads, butthey left feeling confident and
empowered and ready to forecastfor the next quarter, feeling
(09:05):
like their business can reachits potential, whatever it may
be.
There is a lot of outcomes yourclients receive from working
with you that they didn'toriginally know they were going
to get.
It's trying to get in themindset of the customer and find
, well, what are those goldenthings that they've experienced
that we want to latch onto andbubble to the top of our brand
(09:28):
personality?
So once we've looked at thecustomer, we'll consider the
personality of the brand.
How would we describe it If itwas a human?
If it's taking this brand leap,what are its characteristics?
And we try to shift it awayfrom corporate talk and into
human speak so we can all get analigned view of who this brand
is as a person.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
I think you referred to ours as the hot girl at the
party.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah, that's right, that was the personality of our
brand, I believe, was something.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah, we got you know it was uh appealing people
wanting to go up, um.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
But you know the hot girl at the party was confident,
engaging, smart um, and youknow everyone wanted to talk to
her that's right, that was.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
That's sort of what we drew from and you know, I
didn't make that up.
Yeah, that's what theconclusion from the research?
Yeah, from the research.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
So once we have the personality down, we then try to
determine the pillars that yourbrand wants to be famous for.
Easiest way to think of thesepillars are what are four
attributes that you would want acustomer to use in that
conversation or that referral.
When they're talking to anotherprospective customer and
they're saying you've got totalk to WHD, they gave me this,
(10:36):
this, this and this.
Without getting into too muchdetail, those deliverables need
to be provable.
You can't just come up withgreat deliverables that the
customer is going to receiveevery time they work with you.
You can't just make up thingsyou're not actually going to
deliver.
So you dig into your features.
What is it that you do that'sdifferent, that we can latch
(10:57):
onto there and prove?
Speaker 2 (10:59):
I think going through this process for us was really
good as well, because we knowwhat we do, we know what we're
good at, but we don't ever sitdown as a group and go, all
right, cool, let's just put thisdown on paper.
And this was really valuablefor us because it was able for,
I guess, for us to work out well, these are the things we do,
these are the things we'rereally good at, these are some
of the other things that we doand probably shouldn't be doing
them, and certainly becausesometimes we do like to you know
(11:19):
, please, and go above to whatwe need to do, and maybe, when
it shouldn't be doing it,because, firstly, it's not
profitable from a business pointof view, but also it's probably
not within our real expertise,but we're still trying to go
above and just saying yes tothings from client requests that
were probably outside of scope.
So this was good to get areally concise document
outlining what it is that weshould and what we offer our
(11:41):
clients.
That is of really high value.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Yeah, absolutely, and I think it's great for the
people in the room havingmultiple team members who
represent different parts of thebusiness in the room coming to
an agreement, thrashing it outgoing.
Is that really our customer?
Is that really what they getfrom us?
Or is this really what we wantto be famous for, what we want
people to remember as a resultof working with us?
(12:04):
Or is that personality doesn'tquite feel right?
That word's not quite right.
It's the process of working itout together and landing on a
brand you not only feelperfectly hits for your audience
, but you guys can all get onboard with and drive into the
(12:24):
future.
At the end of those four pillars, we wrap it up with what we
call a heart and a promise.
For other branding processesthat might be the why.
What's the non-financial reasonyou guys get out of bed in the
morning to go and do this?
What are you passionate aboutand what do we want your clients
to see in that passion?
And the promise is so if that'sthe heart, the promise is
(12:47):
what's the one thing you canexpect to get every time?
Why should that customer care?
What do they get from you?
And we find those two sides ofthe coin.
The promise and the heart helpto really clearly define not
only what your customer will get, but why you get out of bed in
the morning to do it, and ithelps rally the team together to
go.
(13:07):
This is a great business.
This is why I do it, and now Ican really understand who it's
for and why they give a shit.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
So we landed on, for ours team was to relentlessly
pursue results, and that'ssomething that all of our team
because we knew that everyonewas so determined and so
energetic when they know they'regetting good results for their
client base or for theirportfolio.
And so when those words came upand it was documented, it was
something that our team couldjust really get behind and
everybody in the room was like,yeah, oh, that's me.
(13:35):
It was so good, because then italso gives you the ability to
weed out people who aren't theright fit for the team right.
Because you can be like hey, ifthey don't get excited by this,
well, maybe they're not theright person.
That fits within this, becausethis is what we're about.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Yeah, and I think all sharing that same mantra or
that same reason for existingreally helps.
The next step which, once thatbrand framework is documented,
agreed on, tweaked, maybe we'llchange the words here and there
it forms a brand on a page.
It's like a poster that you canput up in your office to say
this is what we do, this is whowe're for, this is our
(14:11):
personality, this is what wewant to be famous for and this
is our heart and our promise.
Having that in place before wemove on to the next step, which
is in some cases for businessesit's naming, some cases it's
logo and visual identitydevelopment.
For WHD it was the logo andconcept development.
That brand framework helpsbring everyone onto the same
(14:34):
page and remove any personalconsiderations around.
You know things like colours orhow they feel about a logo, and
instead that gives them a brieffor what the next steps should
look like and how the brandshould communicate.
So we take that brand frameworkthat's been approved.
That's a step, that's sorted.
You can keep that from thatpoint on and your brand, your
(14:57):
logo, might change over theyears, but your reason for
existence, your framework,should remain pretty consistent
over the long term.
So then we moved into step two,which was the visual identity
concept phase.
You could probably take usthrough how that went and what
you did.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
So.
This was a challenge becauseobviously you presented us with
about 10 different logo conceptsand I think I had the right
amount of people in the room,but I think we had about six,
possibly from my team, that weinvited to come and be part of
this process all from differentareas within the business, and I
guess I didn't probablyconsider prior to going into
this is everyone's going to havedifferent opinions?
(15:36):
And with that many peoplesitting in the room looking at
stuff which they all havediffering opinions because
they're all different ages andthey just like different shit, I
ended up with a few votes forevery logo concept and so then
it became more of a politicalthing, and so it was more about
all right, well, of a politicalthing, and so it was more about
all right, well, who can I makeunhappy?
Who can I keep happy?
(15:57):
How can we compromise and wherecan we land on something that
we're all excited and can getbehind?
And this process wasn't easy.
It was probably I think thiswas the slowest part of it all,
like you'd presented it to us,and it wasn't because there were
anything wrong with any of thelogos.
It was probably because we hadtoo many options and there
wasn't anything where we couldjust go all right, cool, we
(16:18):
unanimously decide, we like thisone.
I mean that would have beenbeautiful if that happened, but
I feel like that would neverhappen, or you know, if you did,
you probably got too manypeople that are exactly the same
sitting in the room.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
It can happen, but generally in one-to-two team
situations.
And you're right, we presentedmore concepts to you than
probably any other client and wewere on a bit of a stretch from
not stepping too far away fromwhere we are to wildly different
and bold, and on that path weprovided too many examples.
(16:53):
I reckon we probably could havebrought it back to five maybe,
but where your feedback camefrom that first session was very
different.
We might not have had the oneyou landed on in that 10.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
And I think that's the agency's responsibility to
do that removal process.
First, we had 30 that we sortof refined down, but there were
three or four in each differentcategory that we felt really did
the job.
So, with your capability in thespace and being marketers as
(17:28):
well, we thought, well, let'sshare them with you and take you
through a rationale for eachone.
It did work out that we didhave options there, but I think
we could have streamlined theprocess by providing less option
and more rollout of how itcould look from the get-go.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Yeah, I mean there's no complaint on the volume of
options as well, because, as yousaid, if the one that we landed
on, which we're extremely happywith that we are at now, maybe
would have been left off thatlist, because I think they were
all quality and good concepts,so if you were to cut it by half
, which half would have gone?
And that could have then led tous not having the option that
we've landed on.
So I guess that just having toalmost negotiate and compromise
(18:12):
and settle and change and tryingto keep everybody in the room
happy was difficult.
But I think, through thechanges and refinements and
everyone understanding that, hey, we're not all going to get
100% exactly what we want,because it's a company, it's not
your personal brand.
We need to take almost thepersonal feelings out of it and
see all right.
Well, from our brand guidelinesand brand book that you'd
(18:33):
provided, how does this fitwithin what we're trying to
achieve here?
Speaker 1 (18:41):
That concept stage and we find it at two stages
really is the naming stage, whenconcepts are presented, and the
visual identity concept stage,when there are a lot of
stakeholders who have a say orthe ability to make a decision
or influence the decision.
It can make the process takelonger, but it is really
important to do what you did andbring people together and have
(19:03):
them see what they did in theframework side of the brand
strategy is being deliveredvisually so that they can really
get a hold of this brand.
Where I think we landed wasreally good.
We refined them down.
Your team would providefeedback in the form of problems
that concepts were giving them,rather than direct feedback of
(19:26):
change this to this or make thiscircle bigger.
That kind of feedback makesyour agency almost second guess
or not understand what it isyou're trying to fix.
But what you guys did reallywell was provide meaningful
feedback of what some conceptswere doing, what some concepts
weren't hitting and that helpedus turn or get rid of some
(19:47):
concepts for you.
Then, once we refined them down, we would carry out a little
bit of additional brand rollout.
How would it extend, how wouldit look in different
environments?
Which then threw up some morequestions and I'm not sure how
this could work like this.
Our intent as an agency istrying to get it down to the one
(20:08):
approved concept directionbefore you do too much of that
rollout, because if there'sthree concepts you're doing
everything three or four times.
But in this case we wanted togive you those examples to help
share internally how it's goingto look when we move forward.
But it was an enjoyable processbecause the problem wasn't that
(20:29):
the team didn't like any of theconcepts, it was that some were
liked more than others, andthat's a good problem to have.
And I think where we landed,there's been a lot of internal
buy-in and people are reallycomfortable with where we landed
.
But, importantly, everyone canhold up the original brief,
which is the brand frameworkthat we developed and the visual
(20:49):
identity and the tone of voicethat we've created with you guys
, and say this is the bestrepresentation of this brand and
this brand strategy.
So concepts get finished, weagree on the concept and then it
gets packaged up, logo filesget created and handed over, but
we concurrently start workingon the brand style guide and
(21:11):
tone of voice to form the brandguidelines.
That's probably at the sametime.
You can jump in with some ofthe rollout assets that you've
been planning and doinginternally and let us know what
you've been working on.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
I was up at 4am this morning.
Today's our rollout, today'sthe day we're launching it.
So yeah, it's been a good timeto record a podcast.
But um, it's.
It's been a massive job andit's weird.
You don't think about theamount of branded things you
have that you're just usingdaily, that you didn't even
consider.
Like we build out, we run ourbusiness through click up and we
(21:47):
build out a board of all theitems and we keep missing stuff,
even just just spreadsheets,like we have branded google
sheets.
We have branded templates forall our reports.
We've got printed everythingyou can think of.
So it's working through,because we don't want to get to
a position, because we againwant to have complete control of
the brand and how it looks andmake sure that we're not last
minute.
Hey, someone needs something,so they're just whacking
something together and it's notin line with everything else.
(22:08):
So trying to make sure from thestart we're getting it all right
and every single piece ofcommunication we're having with
our clients or to the within ourmarketing is all consistent.
And so trying to work throughthat list has been massive, even
just rebranding videos and allthe content there, rebranding
all of our ads and refilming adsnow based on the new language
and the new, the new brand book.
So making sure that's allconsistent.
(22:28):
The website, that's obviouslywe're rolling out in stages.
We've only got a landing pageto start with, but that's going
to be something that'll be anevolution because from going
through this process, we've justidentified the voice and the
tone, the way that we want totalk, the way that we want to
look now for as a business.
So it's been.
It's been a challenging partbecause also we've got a team
with a full client load yeah,absolutely it's been that whole
(22:49):
part of it and I guess obviously, you guys do this stuff and you
guys are offered to help onthat, which, looking back, I
probably should have taken youup on because it would have sent
me a lot of stress, but I thinkthat, being in a creative
agency as well, my team werejust like hey, this would be so
fun, we want to have a shot atthis, which is the only reason
we didn't.
They were just so keen, aftergoing through the process of
(23:11):
this all, to then be able totake charge and really bring it
to life, because they're theones who got down the track will
be doing that anyway, so Ithink that they wanted that
opportunity to be able to dothat.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
So a unique scenario where you've got people who
understand brand and marketing,who create ads, who you have
access to designers.
My preference would have beento have the budget spent where
it was, on the brand frameworkand the concept evolution and
the brand guidelines, so thatyou have the best foundations to
(23:40):
work with, for other businessesprobably don't have the same
resources that.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
James has access to.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
So you know we have.
The final stage is the assetrollout.
So before you go to market andrun any paid campaigns or launch
your brand, there's some basicsyou need.
You need your website, you needall of your, even just the
social assets like what's thebackground going to look like on
(24:08):
your LinkedIn?
Speaker 2 (24:10):
header Literally just designed that five months
before I just signed that off,five months before walking into
recording this.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
And there's so many things that we because we've
done it a lot we have almost ashopping list.
Here are all the assets thatyou could get us as an agency to
do, but we're a little bit moreflexible than some of our
counterparts in the brandingworld that you don't have to
pick us for all of it or any ofit.
But there may be some keystoneitems you want sorted, like the
(24:41):
website design and built.
If you don't have that,capability, video, top and tails
, signage, concepts, things likethat that you want to get done
right and once to show your teamhow to do it going forward.
In your case, we covered thatoff in the brand guidelines, so
they're empowered now to take itand drive it forward.
(25:03):
That's it, yeah.
So I think another importantpart of the process as well is
having an audit of all of theseassets before you get to this
point.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Yeah, so we were doing it on the fly, but it's
also you don't realize, becausesome teams and I guess this is
just part of being in businessfor a while now some teams have
just got stuff that they use andit's just their tools that they
use and some of it isclient-facing.
but everything, even internalusage, we want to make sure
everything is looking consistentto keep that consistency there,
and then we're buying randomshit.
Like you know, you had to get asign.
(25:34):
You had to get like a neon forthe background of content, which
is probably not necessary.
That was one of the firstthings.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
That's fun right.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Yeah, well, I mean, that's the fun one, but it's
bright.
Then there's stuff like andthis surprised me because I
recently sold well, not really,but six months ago I sold a
printing business that doesbusiness cards and you know, one
of the first requests I got washey, I need business cards and
as much as people are likethey're dead, like no one needs
that shit anymore.
It was probably this first orsecond thing that was designed
(26:05):
on the list, because the teamwere like I'm going to a
networking event next week.
I'm going to go meet people, Iwant to be able to hand out some
stuff and show off our brand.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Yeah, absolutely.
I still make them for us aswell.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
I don't have any, but I'm sure that there is a big
place for them, which issomething I feel like a lot of
businesses wouldn't consider.
They'd be like, oh, we don'tneed that shit anymore, but it
seems like it is still useful.
So I'm really excited to seehow it all rolls out today.
First of all, we're going toget I back, as we do push this
out today.
At the time of this airing, wewould have been out in the
market for a couple of weeks.
(26:34):
So everyone who has beenwatching this, please feel free
to leave us comments.
Brian's feelings won't get hurt.
Well, they might.
Be kind, but I mean from ourpoint of view, we're extremely
happy with what the process haslooked like, really happy to
roll the brand out and reallyexcited to see what's next for
us because, as you said, it's astamp, a sign, basically for who
(26:58):
you are and who you are withinthe market, and I think that
this really reflects who we areand who we're becoming as well.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Yeah, absolutely You're right.
It's a statement of intent ofwho we are and how we're going
to carry ourselves.
I think it's important forbrands to remember, to live and
breathe the framework thatyou've developed and who you
said you were in that brandframework.
So it's not just a nice logo ora pretty website or a nice
(27:26):
piece of copy.
When you communicate or spendtime with the staff at this
brand, it's reflected in themtoo.
They're all reflecting thebrand in the same way and, of
course, it looks like thisbecause you know they're
high-end performers and thebrand matches their delivery.
So it's been a really funprocess working with you on this
as well.
(27:46):
I got really close to thebusiness.
And, yeah, any final tips foranyone going through a branding
process.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Expect.
It's just going to be a lotmore work than what it is, but
it needs to be.
I feel if it was easy and itwas as simple as what we've done
in the past, where we justhired a 99 designer on 99designs
or an upwork person to knockout a logo, we wouldn't have had
the team buy-in.
We'd look different, but Idon't think we'd have the same
experience and get as much outof it, even just from a business
(28:14):
point of view.
We haven't even hit the marketwith it yet, yeah, but even just
internally, I can feel thedifference within our business.
Yeah, so I think that that'sexpect the work.
There's going to be a lot moreto it, but it's worthwhile.
Yeah, thanks for doing it.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Well, this feels a bit like a case study for you.
Anyway, yeah, go to nowcecomau.
Nowce makes brands, james,didn't you?
That's right.
This was not intended as an adfor now, so it was more of a
process but happy with what wegot.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Cool.
We'll be back next week withbrand news coming up soon, yeah,
thanks.
Thanks for watching.
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