Brand challenge
Kuvare is on a mission to save and protect the retirement of middle-market consumers. It’s a compelling value proposition targeting an underserved market segment. It needed a brand as compelling as the value it delivers, and that reinforces its financial strength, stability and safety.
Brand solution
Brand Zoo helped Kuvare define and articulate a unique position at the intersection of insurance and investments: the company reinventing insurance for the middle market, employing a unified hub that protects customers' retirement while helping the distributors, insurers and investors that serve them.
Brand Zoo’s solution connected Kuvare subsidiaries United Life, Guaranty Income Life, Lincoln Benefit, Kuvare Asset Management and Kuvare Life Re with a shared visual identity that communicates value, forward motion and technical acumen.
Brand deliverables included:
- Brand positioning strategy
- Messaging platform and brand narrative
- Brand identity
- Brand visual system and vocabulary
- Brand architecture model
- Brand guidelines and style book
Results
“Brand Zoo helped us define our position and value proposition for consumers, distributors, asset managers and investors. Our story is now more crisp and succinct. Our visual identity is more modern and distinctive. And the new branding will help unify our organization around a new and better way to communicate our impact and value.”
Brian Weber, AVP, Marketing & Communications
The brand challenge
Kito Crosby helps move the world. The combination of the formerly separate Kito and Crosby companies, it provides the expertise, lifting and securement solutions essential to heavy manufacturing, offshore oil exploration and many other industries. Yet its brand fell short of communicating the power of the combination, its value to customers and the shared legacy of service, support and responsiveness.
The brand solution
Brand Zoo’s simplified strategy organizes many legacy brands into a cohesive whole, and provides a framework for future acquisitions and expansion. We created a unifying story about quality and values that distinguish the company, its people and products from competitors, and that is meaningful to team members across geographies and cultures.
The design language and visual system amplify these themes, with typography, graphics and color palette that bring together legacy Kito and Crosby elements to create a new yet familiar visual vocabulary. The new Kito Crosby site showcases the new story and identity, while reinforcing the values and leadership customers have come to expect.
The results
"Brand Zoo helped us to define our position and ways of expressing our mission, vision and values. They worked collaboratively to bring our global team together, carefully listening to understand the perspectives by function, brand and country. Their process also helped us identify how we could simplify our product brands in the future to improve our marketing efficiencies and ability to make an impact."
Melissa Ruths, CMO, Kito Crosby
Brand Zoo’s work included:
Customer/distributor/employee research
Positioning
Messaging/brand narrative
Mission, vision, values support
Brand architecture recommendations
New identity
New visual system
New collateral
New website design and technology implementation
Brand launch support
Design and execution of online brand center to define brand usage and house brand assets
Brand challenge
Bishop Lifting is the largest manufacturer and distributor of products and services for North American rigging and crane companies. Over the past ten years, it has acquired many related companies, operating them as discrete, separate brands. As a result, marketing was inefficient and fragmented, and its position as the leader in its field was unclear.
Bishop Lifting needed a unifying brand story and a migration solution for its many subsidiary brands.
Brand Solution
Brand Zoo helped Bishop Lifting define a unique position in the minds of prospective customers: that there’s just one choice when getting the lift right, and getting it when you need it, matter.
We worked with leaders of the subsidiary brands to work through the risks and opportunities to roll into the master brand.
The result is a significantly streamlined brand architecture with a core master brand and a few select product brands.
The new Bishop Lifting messages and visual identity communicate differentiators, including the breadth of specialized expertise, services and products, complemented by a culture of exceptional customer service.
The visual system is a modern interpretation of their recognizable "B" mark with the hook, leveraging their core black and red colors.
Brand deliverables included:
- Brand positioning strategy
- Brand architecture model development
- Key messages
- Brand identity
- Brand visual system
- Website templates
- Marketing collateral and templates
- Brand guidelines and style book
"Brand Zoo helped us craft a story for Bishop Lifting that leverages our expertise, services and unique service culture. They also helped simplify our brand architecture and worked with us to align the team to support it."
David Moseley, Vice President of Marketing, Bishop Lifting
The brand challenge
101 is key part of American agriculture, sustainably converting food waste and byproducts into high quality feed for livestock. It counts some of the biggest and best-known food brands in the world as its customers. Yet its former brand under-communicated its deep expertise, its track record of innovation and service or its central role in the food lifecycle.
The brand solution
Brand Zoo created a story about how 101 is essential to the food lifecycle, providing data and sustainable solutions for corporate ESG managers, reliable waste management services for food plant managers and nutrition-dense feed for farmers. We provided language that captured the ethos, culture and personality of a firm that is both of and for agriculture. And we created a design language and color palette that amplifies sustainability and food lifecycle themes, distinguishing 101 from competitors. The language and design themes extend to the new 101 site, and help bring the brand to life.
The results
“Brand Zoo helped us redefine the way customers and other audiences understand the scope of what we do, its impact and the value we deliver. Their process also helped us align our team and entire organization on the story and expression of the 101 brand."
Cory Peter, CEO, 101
American Equipment brand strategy, messaging, visual identity and tagline
The brand challenge
American Equipment is the first choice of companies needing to move, weigh and rig equipment, materials and supplies. Yet its marketing was inefficient and fragmented, hamstrung by the acquisition of more than 16 companies in just five years. It needed a story and visual identity to unify their acquisitions under a single, cohesive brand, and a migration strategy to simplify their expression.
The brand solution
Brand Zoo helped American Equipment define and articulate a unique position in the minds of its customers: the company you can trust to help you safely move, weigh and rig mission critical items, and that you can rely on for the service and expertise essential to maximizing operational uptime.
The simplified brand architecture organizes many legacy brands into a new system organized around a core master brand and a few select service brands. It provides a framework for future acquisitions and planned expansion, and a visual identity that amplifies themes of trust, service, expertise and uptime.
The visual system is a stronger, modern interpretation of their recognizable “American eagle” mark, leveraging their cultural heritage and emphasis supporting American manufacturing and job creation.
Brand deliverables included:
- Brand positioning strategy
- Brand architecture model development
- Key messages a narrative
- Brand identity
- Brand visual system
- Tagline (The Uptime Solutions Company)
- Website templates
- Marketing collateral and templates
- Brand guidelines and style book
The results
"Brand Zoo helped us craft a story for American Equipment that leverages our American heritage, manufacturing, lifting, weighing and rigging expertise and service-oriented culture. The new branding is helping unify the company around the common purpose of increasing our customers operational uptime."
David Kertes, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, American Equipment
The brand challenge
Music Story is integral to the immersive, lean in experiences digital music services rely on to differentiate from their competitors, engage subscribers and reduce churn. It counts some of the top brands in the streaming music space and on the planet, including Apple and Deezer, as its clients. Yet its legacy brand and digital presence communicated little of the expertise, capabilities and value it provides these clients.
The brand solution
Brand Zoo created language that celebrates both the place music occupies in our hearts and the engineering expertise required to deliver the rich experiences digital music services need. It created a design vocabulary and color palate that emphasizes these same qualities, and that distinguishes Music Story from an array of less imaginative and less qualified competitors. Music Story’s new website showcases this thinking and its new brand brought to life.
The results
“Brand Zoo quickly grasped the complexity of our business while simplifying the way we communicate what we do and the benefits we provide. Our new site is a testament to both their strategic insight and artistry."
“Brand Zoo’s work will help redefine the way current and prospective clients understand the value we deliver, and will be a cornerstone of our marketing and communications program.”
Jean-Luc Biaulet, Founder and CEO, Music Story
Hazelcast brand strategy, messaging, identity and visual system
Brand Challenge
Hazelcast is a fast-growing streaming event platform that helps its customers increase revenue, build deeper relationships and generate customer loyalty.
Brand Solution
Brand Zoo developed an aspirational story around the real-time intelligent applications platform. The visual identity was designed to present a visually striking, modern and memorable look. The stylized design and illuminated data star “H" communicates speed and engineering precision with each star representing value moments the software captures.
Brand deliverables included:
- Brand positioning idea
- Messages and brand narrative
- Brand identity
- Brand visual system
- Website template development
- PowerPoint template
- Collateral templates
- Brand guidelines
"The Brand Zoo team helped us align around the idea of instantaneous value capture and brought together benefit-oriented messaging with a very modern visual design for the company."
Gregg Holzrichter, Chief Marketing Officer, Hazelcast
Brand Challenge
Fleming Insurance is a reinsurance company helping midmarket insurers reduce risk and generate the capital they need to fuel growth. They needed a brand as innovative as their service model and capital solutions.
Brand Solution
Brand Zoo helped Fleming define a unique position in the minds of prospective clients, separating it from conventional, lumbering reinsurance competitors. Messages, content and visual identity work in concert to amplify differentiators including technology, speed and agility. The visual system, built around a modern, stylized bird, brings these themes to life.
Brand deliverables included:
- Brand positioning idea
- Messaging
- Brand identity
- Brand visual system
- Brand Architecture
- Website redesign and development
- Marketing collateral and templates
- Brand guidelines and stylebook
"Brand Zoo helped us simplify our messaging to the core elements that matter and are important to our customers. The visual system brought it to life. They really went the extra mile to understand our business and worked in a very collaborative way with our team.” Eric Haller, CEO, Fleming Holdings
Brand Challenge
Home Services Holding Group owns several HVAC, Plumbing and Electrical providers across the Puget Sound area. Widely recognized as individual brands throughout the region, they wanted to increase brand recognition and awareness through a unifying story and brand identity to demonstrate their expansive reach and breadth of offerings so as to better serve their customers and support new acquisitions.
Brand Solution
Extensive interviews with customers and company employees were conducted, which revealed shared values and a common theme of comfort among the companies. Brand Zoo recommended unifying the companies through a new brand name that would be memorable, differentiated and communicate the value they offer consumers: greater comfort for their homes and a consistently comfortable experience. The new name, Home Comfort Alliance, captures this value proposition and the unique alliance of professionals with common values delivering on this promise of comfort.
The brand strategy perpetuates the strong reputations of the individual companies, but unifies them under a common visual identity combining a home icon integrated with the initials HCA and a distinctive red-on-black color scheme. The new visual identity is integral to marketing and to the customer experience, and has been extended to a new website, social media, truck signage and team uniforms.
Brand deliverables included:
- Development of new name
- Brand positioning idea
- Messages and brand narrative
- Brand identity
- Brand visual system
- Website templates
- PowerPoint template
- Uniform templates
- Signage templates
- Social media templates
- Livery system for trucks
- Stationary system
- Brand guidelines
“By interviewing our employees and customers, Brand Zoo identified insights into the value we provide in helping our customers feel comfortable in their homes, businesses and through their entire experience with our team. That insight led to the new name and visual design which communicates our promise of comfort.” – Ryan Rastetter, President
Brand Challenge
Accelerant is a fast-growing insurance carrier built to support insurance professionals with predictable capacity, quick decision making, financial transparency and mutually beneficial partnership.
Brand Solution
Brand Zoo developed the “Non-Carrier, Carrier” positioning rational and messages to help differentiate Accelerant from traditional carriers. Visual identity amplified and reinforced differentiation, using a hummingbird to signify behaviors typically not associated with insurance companies including speed, agility and efficiency.
Brand deliverables included:
- Brand positioning idea
- Messaging
- Brand identity
- Brand visual system
- Website redesign and development
- PowerPoint template
- Sales collateral
- Virtual Backgrounds
- Customer case studies
- Brand guidelines
"The Brand Zoo team quickly got the unique and differentiating approach we are taking at Accelerant. They were able to capture our story and personality. I can already see our people thinking and speaking about our company in new and unified ways.”
Jeff Radke, CEO Accelerant
Brand Challenge
Heliene is a fast-growing North American manufacturer of high quality solar panels.
Brand Solution
Brand Zoo developed an aspirational positioning, “Remarkably Responsive,” designed to communicate its customer-first philosophy that guides their culture, operations and commitment to customer partnerships. The new Heliene “H spark" monogram logo communicates the power Heliene solar panels deliver and the company's responsive and flexible approach to customer needs. The dramatic, red on black visual system is designed to stand out against competitors in the solar industry.
Brand deliverables included:
- Brand positioning idea
- Messages and brand narrative
- Brand identity
- Brand visual system
- Website redesign and development
- PowerPoint template
- Company brochure
- Brand guidelines
"The Brand Zoo team helped us to define our differentiating customer-first philosophy and mission to deliver renewable energy to help the world on a path to a sustainable future.”
Martin Pochtaruk, CEO, Heliene
Brand Challenge
Embark is the next generation of MGAs with uncommon responsiveness, talent, and technology-powered plug-and-play insurance solutions. The challenge for Embark was that their brand did not reflect their position, messaging, and story for where the new management team is taking the company.
Brand Solution
Brand Zoo developed a positioning around defining the next generation of MGAs. Agents know them as their “go-to” partner - the responsive, no-hassle MGA they can count on and Carriers see Embark as a partner protecting their interests and elevating their success. We captured this idea in the new tagline, Your Insurance Wingman.
At the heart of the Embark logo is the Wing Symbol. It represents the next generation MGA through the visual attributes of innovation, responsiveness, precision, and forward movement. The modern, all-caps letterforms represent stature, reliability, and precision.
Brand deliverables included:
- Brand positioning idea
- Messages and brand narrative
- Brand identity
- Brand Architecture
- Brand visual system
- Brand tagline
- Website templates
- PowerPoint template
- Company brochure templates
- Digital ads
- Brand guidelines
"The Brand Zoo team worked to crystalize the unique benefits we bring to our agents, partners and customers and how Embark is defining the next generation MGA."
Erin Clark, Chief Marketing Officer, Embark
Brand Challenge
Founded in 1978 with the publication of National Law Journal, the company, previously known as ALM Media, has grown from one publication serving attorneys to a global enterprise spanning multiple industries and offering more than 30 media brands, 65+ annual events and 250+ resources.
Its customers had deep and often longstanding relationships with select media titles, events and research, yet many lacked an understanding of the company behind those properties or how they were integrated. Enterprise value, cross selling and recruiting suffered as a result.
Brand Solution
Brand Zoo’s positioning rationale reframed ALM Media’s value proposition from publisher of mostly legal titles, to an integrated provider of trusted information services, data and media. And it assured its audiences that customers should rely on it to help them with both the business of and practice of their professions.
Reflecting the evolution of the company, we recommended changing the name to simply, ALM. The new visual identity captures the spirit of the new brand as well. It projects ALM's global presence and customer base, and the essential role it plays in the legal, financial services, insurance and commercial real estate industries.
Brand deliverables included:
- Brand positioning idea
- Messaging
- Brand identity
- Brand visual system
- Website copy and redesign
- PowerPoint template
- Brand architecture
- Sales collateral
- Building signage
- Brand guidelines
"Customers rely on ALM to provide the information, insight, data and access to audiences they need to grow their businesses, to better understand news and trends in their industries. Our rebranding updates our look and feel to align with what our company has become, the role we play and the trust our customers place in us.”
Bill Carter, CEO, ALM
Goal: Broaden from casual/comfort to professional women’s shoe segment
Vionic is a fast growing shoe company that primarily designs and manufactures women’s shoes with built-in orthotics. Brand Zoo was hired to reposition the Vionic brand from its identity as a Medical/Orthotic shoe company to a company focused on Style & Technology. The new tagline, “Science of Style” was developed to communicate their unique combination of style and technology. The advertising campaign started in January 2017 and will run into the spring.
Brand Zoo Partnership:
Brand Zoo’s work for Vionic began by helping them reposition their brand identity from Medical/Orthotics to Style & Technology. It then led to a new brand expression visually and verbally across all customer touch points including website, retail, catalogs, packaging, video and advertising.
Brand Zoo helped create Vionic’s first significant ad campaign and first to run in style magazines, stretching beyond their historic presence in health and home magazines (such as Prevention or WeightWatchers). The ads are now running in O, InStyle, Southern Living, Woman’s Day, Redbook, Health Magazine, and Weight Watchers.
Brand Zoo Advertising Team for Vionic:
ECD: Courtney Reeser
AD/Design Director: MaryWhalley
AD/Design Director: Bill Chiaravalle
CW: Donata Maggipinto
Illustrator: Mike Chiaravalle
Designer: DeAnna Pierce
Web designer: Joe Stizlien
Web designer: Leslie Stizlien
Photography: Stephanie Rausser, Petaluma, Calif.
Media Agency: TK Fusion, Auburn, Calif.
Buyer: Kathryn Baird
Account Services: Phil Battat
Altamont Capital is a private equity firm based in Palo Alto with over $1B in capital focused on investing in change-intensive, middle-market businesses. From their inception over ten years ago, they have built a solid reputation as a values-driven private equity firm. They bring sector expertise, a collaborative work-style and a long-term focus on their investment partners and portfolio companies.
Our work with Altamont helped to define their brand story around their core differentiators, partnership, experience, willingness to work through complexity, flexibility, and collaborative culture.
We created a new Altamont identity and updated symbol that conveys their story in a modern way with an understated sophistication and elegance. The use of a rich forest green color is distinctive in the financial services category which generally consists of various shades of blue. To create further distinction and communicate the authenticity and collaborative culture we shot new black and white photography and incorporated it into the new brand expression.
Brand Deliverables Included:
- Brand identity
- Brand narrative
- Brand visual system
- Website redesign
- PowerPoint overview
- Collateral system
- Signage
- Brand photography
- Brand guidelines
Brand Challenge
Commio is an integrated voice and messaging platform that helps companies deliver omnichannel customer conversations at scale. With the combination of ThinQ voice and Teli messaging solutions, the new Commio needed to be brought together under a single, unified narrative and brand identity.
Brand Solution
Brand Zoo developed a positioning around Commio being the “Essential Ingredient” to help customers add reliable, scalable, cost-effective voice and text communications to their technology platforms, and to improve the experience of their end customers.
The new Commio logo and symbol leverages the root meaning of communication, and is designed to communicate how Commio's products complete customers’ offers and experiences. The vibrant blue visual system is designed to stand out against entrenched competitors as the modern and more affordable alternative.
Brand deliverables included:
- Brand positioning idea
- Messages and brand narrative
- Brand identity
- Brand visual system
- Website templates
- PowerPoint template
- Company brochure templates
- Digital ads
- Brand guidelines
"The Brand Zoo team worked to identify the functional and emotive benefits of our combined companies and helped us align around one story, one name and more focused ways to bring our brand to life.”
Tim McLain, Director of Marketing, Commio
Brand Challenge
Altamont Capital created a new network of Autism clinics focusing on specialized care for children and their families. There was a need to develop a new name, positioning, messaging platform, identity, and website and launch it 90 days later.
Brand Solution
Brand Zoo went through an extensive naming process developing over 100 name candidates. One name that stood out early as an exciting option was Gracent. Gracent comes from the Latin word Gracie, meaning goodwill, kindness and influence.
Brand Zoo developed a purpose-driven positioning for Gracent as the leading network of autism clinics offering compassionate care for children with developmental needs and their families. The new identity communicates their staff's humanity, compassion, dedication, and the collaborative way they work with children and their families.
Brand deliverables included:
- Development of new name
- Brand positioning idea
- Messages and brand narrative
- Brand identity
- Brand visual system
- Website design, content and development
- PowerPoint template
- Stationary system
- Company brochure templates
- Brand guidelines
Brand Challenge
Mission Underwriters is a fast-growing insurance platform founded to help Underwriters launch their own agency business.
Brand Solution
Brand Zoo developed an aspirational positioning, “Unleashing Possibility,” designed to communicate the significant opportunity Mission offers successful Underwriters to start and run their own businesses with manageable risk and substantial upside. The visual identity reinforced Mission’s differentiation, using a cheetah to communicate speed, agility and a hunter spirit.
Brand deliverables included:
- Brand positioning idea
- Messages and brand narrative
- Brand identity
- Brand visual system
- Website redesign and development
- PowerPoint template
- Company brochure
- Brand guidelines
"The Brand Zoo team quickly learned what made us unique and different as we launch Mission Underwriters. They partnered with us to work through our positioning and bring our company to life. We have a solid and exciting brand foundation and story to help us accelerate our growth plans.”Keith Higdon, CEO, Mission Underwriters
Brand Challenge
BluePoint Controls earned the trust of many of the top engineers in Silicon Valley by doing whatever was needed, from creating specs to building finished products and everything in between. The ability to solve just about any engineering problem was great for clients but made it difficult to describe and market the firm.
Brand Solution
Brand Zoo brought to life the essence of BluePoint Controls’ value: accelerate and streamline product design, prototyping and manufacturing. It identified a category descriptor — Collaborative Engineering and Manufacturing - that captures what the firm does and also the way it works with clients. And it created a vibrant visual identity that communicates competence, energy and collaboration.
Results
BluePoint Controls now has a consistent, client-centric story to tell current and prospective new clients. Staff, partners and investors are aligned around it too. The new visual identity and design reinforce the firm’s founding values, and its value to clients. The logo is a monogram that captures the spirit of collaboration too, integrating the “B” and “P” letterforms to signal partnership, and placing a “C” at the center to communicate collaboration.
Brand Challenge
Cloudleaf is a rapidly growing supply chain software management platform led by technology industry veterans that are pioneers in developing category defining companies.
Cloudleaf’s modern, open platform provides unrivaled, continuous visibility and intelligence into supply chains. It makes it possible to know where critical materials are at every step and stage, all the time. The right data, at the right time, to make the right decisions.
The brand challenge was to identify a category defining way to help them communicate their story and meet a very tight 90 day deadline to launch the new branding.
Brand Solution
We worked to develop a compelling verbal brand narrative with the customer-oriented theme of illuminating dark spots in supply chains and giving customers the ability to “See Beyond.” To bring the ideas to life, we created a bold visual Cloudleaf identity comprised of an A symbol emanating light supported by a striking and memorable graphic system.
Brand deliverables included:
- Brand positioning idea
- Brand tagline
- Brand identity
- Brand visual system
- Website redesign
- PowerPoint template
- Collateral templage
- Exhibit design intent
- Brand guidelines
BrandZoo delivered all this in a total of 90 days.
“Brand Zoo helped us to crystalize the Cloudleaf brand idea, and messaging and visual identity. They worked quickly to understand our markets, technology and differentiating offer. The team offered great insights and creative ideas that helped align our executive team and allowed us to launch our new brand into the market in 90 days.”
Lisa Magnuson, CMO
Cloudleaf Inc.
Brand Challenge
Mednition is a fast-growing software company built to harness the power of natural language and machine learning technologies to help clinicians make better, more informed decisions at the point of care and to help them understand the impact of decisions on individuals, on populations and across organizations.
Brand Solution
We worked to develop a compelling verbal brand narrative with the aspirational theme of “The Promise of Clinical Accuracy.” We developed a visual brand identity that communicates the human connection of their software by creating a silhouetted image of Kate, the nine-year-old whose emergency room misdiagnosis was the inspiration for the founders to start the company.
Brand deliverables included:
- Brand positioning idea
- Messaging
- Brand tagline
- Brand identity
- Brand visual system
- Website redesign and development
- PowerPoint template
- Sales collateral
- Tradeshow exhibit design
- Brand guidelines
“The Brand Zoo team was able to rapidly understand our mission, market, and objectives. They helped us to define our messaging and brand story in ways that are memorable and compelling for our current and potential customers, employees, and investors. The new Mednition brand communicates our bigger brand story and the life-saving impact we are having with our healthcare customers."
Christian Reilly, President, Co-Founder
Mednition, Inc.
SE2 Brand Identity Messaging and Website Design
Brand Challenge
SE2, the leading third-party administrator for the life and annuity insurance industry. The company’s new leadership and expanding set of services was an opportunity to create a new brand story and expression that matched their insurance expertise, services and technology platform.
Through our work with the executive team, we understood the need to leverage their core differentiators, insurance industry expertise, robust technology platform and specialized services that are purpose-built for insurance industry clients. In addition, their technology platform is designed to grow and evolve as their client’s needs change helping them to “futureproof” their IT investments.
Brand Solution
We worked with SE2 to shape their brand promise to “future-proof” their customers. The help their customers accelerate speed to market, streamline operations and reduce risks and costs through purpose-built insurance services and technology expertise.
A bold visual brand was created with the core identity comprised of a brandmark and symbol that communicates a bold, future-oriented story, reinforced and supported by a visual brand system with a strong color palette of bright green and black. This was combined with verbal brand narrative with the theme "Purposebuilt and Futureproof”.
Brand deliverables included:
- Brand positioning idea
- Brand tagline
- Brand identity
- Brand visual system
- Brand narrative and messaging platform for key audiences
- Print and digital advertising
- Website redesign and development
- PowerPoint overview
- Corporate Brochure
- Recruitment Brochure
- Collateral System
- Brand Launch Presentation
- Employee Brand Book
- Exhibit design
- Signage
- Brand guidelines
Background
Cowboy Brand Charcoal comes from a family heritage that goes back 100 years founded in Albany Kentucky. When Cowboy decided that BBQ Sauce was a natural brand extension to their line of lump charcoal products, they retained Brand Zoo for the product positioning and package design.
Solution
Our insights revealed that other barbecue sauces featured celebrities, pit masters and BBQ joints as their anchors for differentiation in the market. Cowboy owned the notion of the cattle drive and cowboy cuisine. In other words, they were the real deal.
Using an original photo of a 1900’s cattle drive, period typography, and product/flavor descriptors, we created packaging that conjures up the taste of open range cooking and the romance of cowboys enjoying a hearty meal after a long day riding on the range, further driving the authenticity positioning.
The Company
Reputation Institute pioneered the study and measurement of corporate reputation and has for 20 years measured how well companies perform across the critical factors proven to shape and influence stakeholder perception. Yet its corporate identity looked its age and its go-to-market approach emphasized the details about the science of reputation.
The Challenge
Reputation Institute’s ability to grow faster hinges in large part on two key things: First, establishing the fact that reputation is not an amorphous, nice-to-have thing but rather a key determinant of business performance. And second, the success of modernizing its offering, which shifts the RI model from resource-intensive service to a high-throughput, big data analytics program.
The Solution
Brand Zoo helped Reputation Institute define a new, crisp and modern message around the simple but powerful idea that reputation drives performance. And we helped them refresh their brand identity to better align with a modern, technology-driven company in step with its large enterprise customers.
The result is a new brand narrative, identity and tagline “Powering the world’s most reputable companies.” The result is also a new website, marketing and sales presentation materials articulating the company’s unique reputational expertise and research offer. And the result is an enhanced reputation to help power the next phase of Reputation Institute’s growth.
“The Brand Zoo team helped us to crisply define our brand story, messaging, and visual expression around how reputation drives business performance. They really know how to effectively engage with senior executive teams to define brand strategies and to accelerate the business.”
Tyler Newton, Chairman, Reputation Institute
Brand Challenge
ServiceChannel is a fast growing B2B innovator who is revolutionizing how facilities managers and commercial contractors do business together. From their inception, ServiceChannel brought new levels of efficiency and enhanced communication between multi-location enterprises and their external service providers, leading to unprecedented quality, efficiency, and visibility.
The challenge for Brand Zoo to redefine the brand in a mission-based way and to help them communicate their story of enabling service delivery with unparalleled transparency, increased compliance, faster issue resolution and transaction management, and insightful analytics.
Brand Solution
Our work helped them to redefine their brand narrative around how "Transparency Drives Performance" - specifically how the ServiceChannel solutions provide transparency for customers and contractors, allowing them both to increase their business performance.
Brand Zoo created a bold visual brand with the core identity comprised of a brand mark and symbol that represents the idea of 'Transparency Drives Performance'. The two intersecting planes symbolize an unbreakable connection between multi-location facilities and service providers. The third shape at the center represents a window, or lens of increased visibility, focus, and effective communication.
Brand deliverables included:
- Brand positioning idea
- Brand tagline
- Brand identity
- Brand visual system
- Brand narrative and messaging platform
- Print and digital advertising
- Website redesign templates
- PowerPoint templates
- Collateral System
- Exhibit design
- Signage
- Brand guidelines
"The Brand Zoo work was fantastic, and we have huge buy-in on the direction and strategy. It goes without saying, but please put me at the top of the reference list."
- Tom Buiocchi, CEO, ServiceChannel
ZutaCore Brand Strategy, Identity and Website Design
ZutaCore is a rapidly growing company that is fundamentally transforming the economics and performance of high density Data Centers. Its solution uses 50 percent of the energy and half the space of conventional systems, at a time when conventional approaches to cooling are more expensive and less effective by the day.
The brand challenge was to communicate value and differentiation as elegantly as ZutaCore engineered its solution. And to do it in a tight, 75-day window.
Brand Solution
Brand Zoo developed a compelling brand narrative built on the idea of an imminent tipping point in data center operations, distinguishing ZutaCore as the optimum cooling solution for the next generation of high performance and edge data centers. And relegating other cooling technologies to lower density, lower performance applications. To bring the ideas to life, we created a bold visual ZutaCore identity comprised of a stylized Z symbol that communicates their unique two-stage liquid to vapor cooling technology.
Brand deliverables included:
- Brand positioning idea
- Brand identity
- Brand visual system
- New website content and redesign
- Sales presentation and PowerPoint template
- Datasheet and template
- Exhibit design intent
- Brand guidelines
Brand Zoo delivered all this in a total of 75 days. And at a moment when social distancing is becoming the norm, we did it with just one in person meeting. All other work was done efficiently, effectively and virtually.
“Brand Zoo helped us to redefine the ZutaCore brand story, messaging and visual identity. They worked quickly to understand our markets, technology and differentiating offer. The team offered great insights and creative ideas that helped align our executive team in Israel and the US and helped launch our new brand in 75 days.”
Udi Paret, President, ZutaCore Inc.
Brand Challenge
Atlantis Computing, a young storage virtualization company was looking to align its big vision of bringing storage freedom to a market controlled by large, expensive and slow moving hardware companies.
Solution
A new brand was created to convey the aggressive and ambitious culture of Atlantis Computing through the design of a modern anarchy monogram "A" and a bold color palette of black and red. The image of rebellious bikers was also used to further signal their position as a category challenger for the brand launch at a key tradeshow event.
The Company
Software is the engine that powers the modern enterprise. Plutora is helping some of the most innovative enterprises on the planet create, test and deliver that software. Its customers rely on the company to help them deliver high quality software at speed and scale.
The Challenge
Plutora is at the forefront of a software category defined by break-the-rules innovation and agile principles. Yet its brand conveyed little of the energy and imagination of the company or its people. The company needed a brand as dynamic as its technology and the magnitude of the challenges it helps its customers solve.
The Solution
BrandZoo responded to the challenge by helping the executive team to align around a big and aspirational brand narrative, Continuously Amazing Software. We also created a new and modern look and feel for Plutora, capturing the attitude and dynamism of the company and its technology. We made subtle refinements to the logo to communicate the core principles driving continuous software development and delivery. New iconography, images and visual style put Plutora at the center of and integral to the software that touches and shapes modern life.
The result is visually stunning and compelling, amplifying the ideas that distinguish the company in a crowded technology landscape.
“Brand Zoo helped us to define our story of working with customers to help them deliver continuously amazing software. The new brand communicates the dynamic personality of the company as well as the impact we are having supporting our global customer base."
Bob Davis, Chief Marketing Officer
Plutora
Brand Challenge
CardFree is a fast growing mobile commerce platform company led by industry veterans that pioneered the development of loyalty, order ahead and mobile payments for large brands. Their experience includes the successful development and deployment of the three largest mobile wallet initiatives in the US.
Their platform makes it easy for merchants to deploy and simple for the consumer to use. The brand challenge was to identify a merchant-focused way to help them communicate their story of scalable solutions that offer merchants the tools to enhance customer engagement and loyalty while driving incremental visits and transactions.
Brand Solution
We worked to develop a compelling brand narrative with the customer-oriented theme of “Get Mobile Ready.”
Brand deliverables included:
- New identity
- Brand visual system
- Website redesign and development
- PowerPoint Sales Presentation
- Collateral template
- Trade Show Exhibit design
- User Interface Design for Mobile Screens
- User Interface Design for Pay@Table product
- User Interface Design for Merchant Take-Out Ordering System
- Brand guidelines
“Brand Zoo helped us to rapidly redefine and modernize Cardfree’s brand story and brand expression. The new Cardfree brand communicates the bigger brand story and the impact we are having with our customers."
Diane Hong
Chief Marketing Officer
CardFree Inc.
Packaging Design and Naming for Duraflame
User Experience Design
Our philosophy is to bring the tenets of strong branding and consumer experience to help our clients create engaging user interface design. Of course, the User Experience should be intuitive and straightforward and get users to the information or desired transaction in a few clicks as possible. But importantly, it should also be beautiful and communicate the personality of the organization or product offer.
We apply our streamlined approach to branding to UX design which leads to complete programs in a matter of weeks instead of months. This approach works very well for our clients that need to move fast and don’t have endless budgets.
Our recent UX work includes Reputation Institute, Hound Labs (First THC breathalyzer), Vionic (e-commerce), Trizic (Robo advisor) and CardFree.
Brand Challenge
NEXTracker is a growing clean tech company led by industry veterans that are pioneers in the development of the solar industry.
While NEXTracker products, service and collective expertise is greater than the competition, they are a young company selling into a conservative (Utility and Power Company Customers) market that values longevity, proven performance and bankability. The brand challenge was to redefine the brand in a larger mission-based way and to help them communicate their story of unparalleled expertise, design innovation, financial performance, and rock solid support and reliability.
Brand Solution
A bold visual brand was created with the core identity comprised of a brandmark and symbol that literally conveys advanced solar tracking technology, reinforced and supported by a visual brand system of dramatic photography and a striking color palette of yellow and black. This was combined with an equally aggressive verbal brand narrative with the theme "Power On. Advancing the power plant of the future".
Brand deliverables included:
- Brand positioning idea
- Brand tagline
- Brand identity
- Brand visual system
- Brand narrative and messaging platform for key audiences
- Print and digital advertising
- Website redesign and development
- PowerPoint overview
- Collateral System
- Exhibit design
- Corporate office interior design
- Signage
- Brand photography
- Brand guidelines
Brand Challenge
Solaria has developed a technology platform that unlocks the potential of solar energy allowing it to be ubiquitous and universally accessed.
The brand challenge was to redefine the brand as a proven, bankable, adaptable and tested provider of technology (using proven materials, standard crystalline silicon solar cells and advanced proprietary semiconductor manufacturing processes) to create breakthrough products that unlock the power of existing Utility, Building Glass and Greenhouse assets.
Solution
We worked together to develop a bold new brand platform defining Solaria’s approach to unlocking power. How Solaria’s technological innovations release the power potential of existing assets for tomorrow’s energy needs. The brand platform Solaria, Power Unlocked became the foundation of the new brand story.
We created a new Solaria identity and symbol that conveys their advanced silicon strip technology, reinforced and supported by a visual brand system of dramatic photography and a striking color palette of green and black. This was combined with a verbal brand narrative with the tagline, Solaria, Power Unlocked.
Brand Deliverables Included:
- Brand tagline
- Brand identity
- Brand visual system
- Product naming and signature system
- "Powered By Solaria" ingredient branding
- Website redesign and development
- PowerPoint overview
- Collateral System
- Signage
- Brand photography
- Brand guidelines
Client Quote:
“Brand Zoo brought to us a combination of senior talent with strong brand and design ideas,” said Suvi Sharma, CEO, Solaria. “The team was able to capture and creatively tell our story in a new and fresh way that will help our company elevate perception, position, and market presence.” Suvi Sharma, CEO Solaria
TRUSTe was founded in 1997 to provide companies with a way to demonstrate their commitment to privacy and build online trust. For nearly 20 years, consumers looked for its iconic certified privacy seal on web sites and companies were proud to display it.
As privacy regulations and the online ecosystem evolved, TRUSTe expanded their offerings to include a technology platform and consulting services. While the new technology based offerings are the largest portion of their business, most people continued to think of TRUSTe as a privacy certification company.
TRUSTe engaged Brand Zoo to refresh its brand to better align the company with the evolving market, and to help it capture a greater share of that market.
The result is a new brand narrative that balances the company’s legacy, its future and the unmet needs of customers. The result is also a new web site and marketing materials articulating the company’s unique values, expertise, and technology.
And the result is a new name that links the past and the future.
TRUSTe is now TrustArc.
Vionic saw market need for flip-flops that not only look great but also feel great to wear. Their strategy was to take ergonomic footbed technology of their shoes and bring it to a high-end beach flip-flop.
Brand Zoo needed to create a new brand that is highly differentiated, communicates style and appeals to a younger fashion conscious consumer.
Vionic Beach is a brand for consumers looking to claim their spirit and find their footprint. Inspired by the beauty and support of a footprint in the sand, we helped create the Vionic Beach Brand.
Branding services included:
• Brand positioning and narrative
• Target Persona development
• Tagline creation, “Find Your Footprint”
• Vionic Beach identity design
• Australia seal design
• Packaging design
• Retail displays
• Hangtags
• Advertising
• Complete website design and copy for the e-commerce site
• Design and execution of traveling “Pop-up store” in the form of a VW Microbus trailer, titled “Sole Shack”
• Brand video https://vimeo.com/226081812
Revolutionizing Healthcare Through Wireless Monitoring
Brand Challenge
HMicro developed a breakthrough technology platform that unlocks the potential of wireless monitoring for medical applications. Its complete wireless biosensor platform was purpose built for the healthcare industry, with potential applications for IoT and other markets.
The brand challenge was to effectively position HMicro’s breakthrough technology, company credentials, expertise and track record to attract manufacturing and product development partners that could effectively bring products to the healthcare market, and ultimately to other markets.
Brand Solution
Brand Zoo interviewed internal stakeholders, customers, physicians, and partners to understand the market dynamics, business drivers, the competitive landscape, and perceptions of HMicro. That ultimately led us to a brand positioning and narrative idea of “The Complete Biosensor Platform”.
We created a new HMicro identity that conveys their complete wireless monitoring platform, reinforced and supported by a visual brand system. This was combined with the tagline, HMicro, Sense More.
Brand Deliverables Included:
- Brand tagline
- Brand identity
- Brand visual system
- Product naming exploration
- Website design and development
- Collateral System
- Signage
- Product photography
- Brand guidelines
"The BrandZoo team approached HMicro’s re-branding project with a promise of top-tier creativity combined with tight execution, and they delivered. BrandZoo immersed themselves in a rapid fashion to understand our vision and business and executed on schedule to a three-month plan. The process was well-organized and provided varied and exciting options for our positioning, messaging, and visual identity. The collaborative engagement of the team & diversified expertise was outstanding. We were thrilled with the outcome of the Brand Zoo engagement."
Doug Linquist, CMO HMicro
The Company
VolunteerMatch is the web’s largest volunteer engagement network, with more than 117,000 active nonprofits, 150 network partners and 13 million visitors annually. At any given moment, it has more than 100,000 active opportunities for people to volunteer.
The Challenge
In order to grow, VolunteerMatch needs its brand to reflect the vibrancy of its network, the lives touched and the lives improved. It also needs to grow the revenue provided by subscribing nonprofits.
The Solution
Brand Zoo worked with VolunteerMatch to jumpstart the virtuous cycle of its network with an AirBnB-like approach to recruiting volunteers. Because more volunteers will attract more nonprofits, and nonprofits provide the revenue that fuels the company. We helped them tell a new and more compelling story about Remarkable Outcomes that speaks to the motivations of volunteers and the objectives of nonprofits. And we updated the look, feel and texture of the VolunteerMatch brand, with a new logo, new site design and functionality. And while you’re at it, consider volunteering for something close to your heart.
“While our initial ask from the Brand Zoo team was for a website redesign, they worked with us to help bring our core mission of creating remarkable outcomes to life in much more emotive and memorable ways. It was a very collaborative and enjoyable experience for our entire team.”
Greg Baldwin, CEO VolunteerMatch
