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BLUE YONDER: A NEW BRAND STRATEGY TO CREATE A BRAND FIT FOR RETAIL
RETAIL CAMPAIGN EXCEEDED KPI'S BY:
400%
Blue Yonder takes a myriad of data sources and using AI, predicts with an extraordinary degree of accuracy the level of demand its clients can expect for their products. At the time the brand was transitioning from serving a multitude of sectors to focussing on just one – retail. It’s a sector that can be characterised as insular, with retailers preferring to deal with brands already serving sector. This meant a wholesale change in the way the brand behaved to talk the language of the sector, to be seen as part of the fabric of retail. Amongst the changes instigated were to stop leading with messaging about the data science and start focussing on the solutions that data science could deliver. In effect, Blue Yonder can reduce operating costs and increase margins -and it can do this using data science and AI - so it’s relevant to retail and differentiated from competitors. So, the resulting strategy helped the brand to stop focusing on the science and start to focus on the problems the science could solve. The brand and marketing materials (web site, brochures etc) were completely redeveloped to reflect the retail world to feel like it was part fabric of retail through its choice of language, imagery, and identity. And it worked. The first integrated demand generation campaign exceeded its KPIs by 400%. Since then, the brand has been bought by JDI, a global supply chain software firm that liked the brand so much they re-branded to Blue Yonder! "Bruce worked with the management team to develop a brand strategy that enabled Blue Yonder to better focus on the retail sector as a target market. He then managed the implementation of that brand strategy across our marketing communications programme". Uwe Weiss, CEO, Blue Yonder
CODE RED:
IMPLEMENTING THE BRAND'S BIGGEST CHANGE IN 20 YEARS
ORGANIC SEARCH TRAFFIC UP BY:
130%
Brand Arrow worked with the leadership team at Code Red to develop a brand strategy for the global cyber security PR agency and then implement it. This involved supporting the agency in finding the right partners – in this case a brilliant web agency called Illicit based in Exeter and long-time partner to Brand Arrow, design director Suzie Magni. It can be a challenge to implement a strategy, as finding the right expertise and then managing the creative and build process is not always straightforward. The key is to make sure the brand strategy drives the development of a crystal clear creative brief that specifies what is needed, by when, and for what budget. This delivers three things very well: oIt helps find the right partners, oHelps them know exactly what is needed and oEnsures when you see their work you can be objective about how well it reflects the strategy. A win, win, win! We did this with Code Red as it went through its most significant change in 20 years with a new CEO, a name change, an overhaul of its proposition, and a complete rebrand. The results have been nothing short of transformational! oFrom ranking 100+ on Google for its major brand keyword 'Cybersecurity PR', Code Red is now ranking second on the first page of Google. oThree of its most recent blogs have ranked on the first page of Google for their respective keyword. oCode Red’s organic search traffic has increased over 130% month on month. oThe average user engagement time on the website has gone up by 32% (between November ’22 and April’ 23) Getting the attention of decision makers in the fast growing and fiercely competitive cyber security sector is tough, and this demonstrates that brand strategy can have an immediate and powerful impact on how your brand is seen.
WORLD EXTREME MEDICINE: MAKING THE BRILLIANT & COMPLEX JUST BRILLIANT
INCREASE IN MEMBERSHIP:
68%
Extreme medicine, a term first coined by World Extreme Medicine founder Mark Hannaford describes the practice of medicine in remote, inhospitable and challenging environments. It’s a unique organisation that offers an incredibly broad range of services including the world’s first MSc in Extreme Medicine, a wide range of courses that draw on at least 200 leading medical experts, and the world’s only extreme medicine global conference. It is, without doubt, Brand Arrow’s most exciting and dangerous client! However, there was so much to say, across so many sectors and topics that the brand had become muddled in its messaging, with a hard to navigate website, and a team at HQ not sure exactly how to rise above the minutiae of the brand. The resulting brand strategy, especially the brand positioning of ‘pushing boundaries’ delivered clarity on how best to harness all their diverse services into a more coherent whole – allowing the World Extreme Medicine to express the core benefits of all its varied services. This gave the web agency clear direction in building the new site and the team at HQ a practical framework to communicate the brand. The results have significant across the organisation - memberships have risen by 68%, website users have increased by 40% and take up courses is up by 7%. “Brand Arrow’s work with us has been very influential in shaping how we now market the disparate elements of our brand - and if he can do that for us, he can do it for anyone!” Prof. Mark Hannaford FEWM, CEO World Extreme Medicine
BUILD PR: A NEW NAME THAT DOES EXACTLY WHAT IT SAYS ON THE TIN!
WEBSITE ENQUIRIES
UP BY:
270%
A good name is an asset that needs to be used, it can be a brilliant start to introducing your brand. A bad name though is a liability; it actively pulls against the intent of the brand, taking customers away from the intended direction of the brand. In this brief case study we are looking at a business that recognised its name and brand messaging needed to be more focussed on its core business. The PR agency worked across a number of sectors, but the core business and most of the value came from delivering services to the construction sector. Its founder, having started life as a journalist for construction magazines, knew the sector backwards and was very well connected within I and so the first step was to commit to a single focus on the construction sector. Second we we identified a ‘sweet spot’ of clients that did not want to commit to, or have, the resources required for large specialist agencies but needed much more technical expertise and media connections than the small generalist agencies could provide. From this, we came to a brand proposition around delivering clients big agency specialist expertise but at the price of the smaller generalist agencies. This drove the development of a new brand strategy and new name that formalised this approach and whose focus reflected the sector and amplified the brand’s unique credentials. The new name Build PR, along with a new identity, website and sector relevant key messaging has driven a more focused approach to customer acquisition resulting in a 200% increase in enquiries from the website with a successful conversation rate of 90%. “The work with Brand Arrow was transformational for our business. It has provided a razor sharp focus for the agency - and it delivers benefits for potential clients too. Customers know exactly what we are about and that almost instant clarity more often than not delivers business results quickly." Richard Pagett, Founder, Build PR
ACIN: SOLVING THE COMMUNICATION CHALLENGE OF BEING FIRST TO MARKET
INCREASED REVENUE BY:
300%
Being first to market comes with a particular communications challenge. Namely, customers who would benefit from the new product don’t know it exists, and so are not looking for it. And if that’s not a big enough challenge, in order to communicate the new product or service, often new language needs to be introduced to the market and learned by the potential customers. This was a challenge facing Brand Arrow client Acin. For many years the corporate world has managed financial risk quantitively with data science tools whilst the less numerate operational risk side of a business had been managed qualitatively. In other words, the technology needed to automate operational risk - like the risks associated with internal systems and business ops - had not been invented. Until Acin came along with a platform to do just that. And therefore, as well as the need to create awareness of this innovation, there was the need to create the right language around it. For this, we used a Positioning and Messaging Guide – sort of the equivalent of brand guidelines but for brand strategy. This equipped the team to get the right language into the hands of those whose job it was to get the brand ‘out there’. The Guide contained everything from the value proposition and key messaging through to the benefits and features of the platform, customer profiles, objection handling, and the technology used to create the platform. And put into the team’s hands strategically sound and straightforward language to introduce this breakthrough service. And it worked! Since the Guide was implemented, Acin’s revenue has increased by 300%. “Bruce’s methodology was very effective– in short order we aligned everything from Vision to Positioning with full team buy-in along the way. Thank you from the Acin team”. Paul Ford, CEO, Acin
TELEHOUSE: USING A MESSAGE HIERARCHY TO SHIFT BRAND PERCEPTION
INCREASE IN LEADS:
97%
It is possible to use a messaging hierarchy to compensate for a perceived weakness in an organization, to “hide” a flaw by focusing on a strength. This can be done by emphasizing the strongest aspect of the brand at the expense of the perceived weaker part of the brand story. Telehouse, a pioneer in the global data centre sector, by its own admission, had slipped from being known as an innovator to one best characterized as “solid but sleepy”. With the near completion of its newest data centre on its London campus came a brand opportunity. As the newest data centre in the world it was also the most innovative. This provided the chance to start to reposition the brand as an innovator by imbuing the values of this new data center across the whole brand. We did this in two steps. We ensured that every marketing campaign either started or finished with messaging around the innovations of the new data center, regardless of the topic in hand. We then offered prospects the opportunity to experience innovation not through the fabric of the building site but through virtual reality tours that demonstrated the benefits of its innovations in a way that in itself was innovative. This way of framing the brand story through the single lens of innovation allowed Telehouse to shift the mantel of “solid but sleepy’ and compete more effectively with the newer global brands. It also delivered a 97 percent rise in leads to the sales team! "Bruce delivered a dramatically increased the market profile of our new data centre. I would thoroughly recommend working with Bruce for his breadth of experience, insight, interpersonal skills and energy." Andrew Fray, Director, Telehouse