Doing it doggy style

As part of our BrandPrint process we often ask clients to align themselves with other brands. It’s a great way to establish their brand personality and where their ‘territory’ lies. 

It’s not always an easy task and it certainly prompts much discussion and healthy debate!

So to further our understanding; on some level anyway, what it is we are asking them to do, we turned the tables on ourselves.

If you were a dog, what breed would you be?

We looked at all of the Idealogy team in turn and made our carefully considered selection. Then we ducked and ran!!

Can you guess who’s who?

Customer Experience Engineering

It’s a fairly simple proposition, customer experience engineering; rather than developing something you think (or know) is incredible, and then putting effort (and money) into trying to explain why your customers need and want it, you start with what your customers need and want and reverse engineer your products, services, communications and even your behaviour, to suit.

Sounds like a pain in the proverbial? Well, I won’t use the old ‘easy as 1, 2, 3’ cop-out slogan, and if anything it’s closer to ‘STOP, LOOK and LISTEN’ but… read on.

Idealogy’s BrandPrint™ reputation spreads across 2 continents

It’s been a busy 9 months for Idealogy consultants. So far, 2011 has seen us roll-out our BrandPrint™ process in a number of glamorous locations around the USA and Europe – Frankfurt, Treviso, Tampa, Zurich, Chicago, Northampton, even Manchester – for several of our key B2B and B2C accounts looking to refresh, reposition or redefine their brand for internal and external business development.

Don’t mention the ‘B’ word! - BrandPrint™

BRAND. How can a 5-letter word trigger so much positive and negative emotion – all at once?

Business people understand the importance of how their products and services are perceived, but often dread the process of fixing something or aligning themselves to make the most of their opportunities.

Why?

A Walk in the (National) Park!

Scribble a logo, bung out a website and ta-daah. You have a brand. And no customers – because, quite frankly, you've missed the point. You need a brand that reflects the product or service and appeals to the customer. You need to do a bit of research and have a discussion or three. You need to develop a brand. Not churn one out. Idealogy developed a brand recently with New Forest Hotels (NFH), a group consisting of four hotels in, you've guessed it, the New Forest. It was their 21st birthday and they wanted to update their image to reflect their new found maturity, their coming of age, as well as their ongoing investment in their hotels.

We kicked off with a BrandPrint™ workshop, where Idealogy's consultants met with key management from New Forest Hotels, including the hotels' managers. We discussed the existing brand, commercial goals, brand objectives, customers expectations, new and existing markets and how to target them, as well as additional routes to market, then followed this up with a chat about the individual hotels' personalities and physical attributes, and their competitors. In short, we established exactly who the hotel group is, where they fit, and where they want to be. It's also how we came up with the key phrase that sums up New Forest Hotels: True quality, naturally delivered.

Donning cunning disguises, account managers Anna Ecuyer and Nick Hart went undercover as a couple who were planning their wedding. They turned up at the group's main competitors and took notes that formed the basis of the competitor audit boards. These colourful boards allowed NFH to analyse what areas could be improved upon.

The next stage was to implement all the findings and create the logo. This forms the basis of the corporate identity so the debates over this were long and involved. Leaves from local trees were considered elements, as were silhouettes of forest animals, but in the end the butterfly with its four colours to reflect the changing seasons and the four hotels in the group was chosen. It provided the continuity that existing customers would ‘hang on to’ (the old logo included a butterfly) while showing a contemporary, forest-inspired face to new customers.

The completed identity document was then presented to a broad spectrum of the staff and the customer touchpoints were discussed, noting where improvements could be made and how staff could help bring the brand to life for their customers. We wrapped all this up with a guidelines document for current and future staff to refer to, ensuring consistency of style.

So there you have it, that's how a brand is developed. It takes a little longer than five minutes, but then we expect it to last longer than that too. A bit like the New Forest, in fact.

To find out how we used this information to develop a website that reflects the brand perfectly, as well as to discover what customers and staff think about it, then check back in a few weeks for the next update.

Posted by Anna Ecuyer

“Move on up!” – Idealogy’s own musical chairs

When the music stops…make sure you know where your seat is!

When you spend many months on internal analysis and refocusing the business, it’s funny to see it all come to an almost inevitable, yet frantic, conclusion on Friday 29th January. The relocation of key teams and workstreams within Idealogy at 11 Portland Street, Southampton is a major step in the business change process.

But this is no random piece of natural selection! It’s the logical next evolutionary phase after another challenging Appraisal round, the business undertaking it’s own BrandPrint, an escalation in the emphasis on digital and new media routes to market, and some key appointments at the close of 2009 - it’s safe to say that the clues were there for us all to see.

So. what is the actual outcome?

A new working structure with strong linkage to building complimentary skilled teams, aligned with a much stronger client-facing contribution in each team. What that all means to many of the Idealogy team is relocation to new, more prolific, more relevant seats, almost inevitably on a new floor in the building.

So, from 29th, Digital – that’s web, e-mail, moving pictures – are all together in one place. For Creative, Business Development and Client Services, it’s the same principal. Putting designers, visualisers, programmers, planners and strategic all in one place to strengthen the client-facing product and manage the work flows more efficiently. Despite some of the sad faces!

When the music starts early on that Friday, everyone will know where they’re going. Not everyone will know if there will be a chair in place when they try to sit down.

Let the games begin……….

Posted by Idealogy

The experience of a Lifetime – and don’t it feel good!

It’s great when you re-kindle a long-standing and successful client relationship from within the Idealogy network, carry out an innovative and fruitful BrandPrint™ analysis, then develop an evolved logo, proposition and new brand guidelines that demand a major leap of faith for all involved.

So, experience tells us that it’s all pointing to a fresh and innovative new web experience for Lifetime and it’s customers. As the UK’s No.1 training provider in the active leisure sector, Lifetime trains and qualifies more people than any other provider. And the new site had to reflect just that – layers of experience delivered through the offer, the environment and the information.

Working alongside technical partners and full service digital agency Solid State Group, Idealogy have designed a web experience that clearly represents Lifetime and it’s values, the new branding, the new visual language and the unique benefits delivered to their diverse targets. Audiences ranging from learner level 16 - 18 year olds looking for funded training, self-funded individuals from 16 – 60, Managing and Operations Directors to General Managers running active leisure establishments.

The very latest CMS technology allows easy and topical management of the restructured site and provides logical information delivery, with illustrated training/results journeys. The new site is an altogether more comprehensive, informative and rewarding user experience, while still retaining it’s user simplicity. And for good measure, the site also incorporates data capture with information and analysis feeding directly into Lifetime.

The site will have a phased roll out - Phase 1 structures information into 3 logical and distinct audience areas - FOR YOU (Learners), FOR BUSINESS (Potential Partners), ABOUT US (Lifetime Corporate). Next steps in the initial phase include new venue information, newsletter templates and a Press Centre.

Then onto Phase 2, which will see the site move into the world of E-commerce and the capability to book and pay for courses on-line.

It’s a major step for Lifetime as the active leisure sector gears up for serious growth in the next decade. The site has been designed and developed with the future of the industry clearly in mind – and doesn’t it look good!

Posted by Simon Johnson & Anna Ecuyer