THE CHALLENGE
POSITIONING A
ONCE R&D CENTER
AS AN INNOVATIVE,
HIGH-END BRAND
Innova is a company that develops, produces and distributes products for residential temperature control (such as heat pumps and fan coils). A former R&D center, Innova had recently begun its transition to a product brand when the team came to us.
Due to its origins, Innova knew how to build innovative new products which set themselves apart from anything else in its industry. What it needed, was a strong brand which positioned itself at the high end of the market, and a clearly defined strategy.
This is where we came in.
THE LANDSCAPE
HOW DO YOU
BUILD A B2B2C
DESIGN BRAND?
Speaking to the middleman
Innova sits in a somewhat unique landscape as it does not market its product to the product’s end user. Instead, the end user will usually be guided by a professional, who may be an architect, designer or technician.
This posed some interesting questions for branding as whilst it was a design product, the company needed to primarily speak to these types of intermediaries.
The medium-term objective of the company is to convey the concept of an ecosystem of products capable of covering the needs of a new building, and must therefore meet both technical and aesthetic requirements.
The three top-level questions we needed answers for were:
> What is the added value of the design for a technician?
> How do we make the technological aspect a USP for the architect?
> How do both of these aspects relate to the end user?
STRATEGY
RESEARCH:
ENGAGING
THE TEAM
During three workshop sessions with management staff, we established:
> The values, mission and objectives of the brand
> Each potential audience, through developing customer journeys
We then mapped out the landscape in which the company operates today, enabling us to create a strategic plan which increased the brand’s perceived value and built dedicated narratives for the various stakeholders.
Planning: strategy first, design after
To build an effective strategy, we needed to efficiently match essential business needs against the realistic time required to develop each project.
We defined a modular and agile path, allowing us to focus on the harmonization of branding and design through all the brand touchpoints.
BRAND
DESIGN SYSTEM:
CREATING A TOOL
TO ENSURE BRAND
CONSISTENCY
In order to achieve consistency across all current and future projects, we created the Innova Design System. This is a set of rules and guidelines which clearly sets out the brand's ecosystem of touchpoints.
Achieving consistency
The Design System will help in promoting the brand culture and ensures the brand’s consistency of treatment by international partners and distributors.
The Design System will help in promoting the brand culture and ensures the brand’s consistency of treatment by international partners and distributors.
Visual Storytelling
We felt that the best way to present Innova’s brand and products would be to use visual storytelling, capturing the key characteristics of each product whilst communicating core aspects of the brand: comfort, warmth, trust.
Through ‘real-life scenario’ photography, we were able to contextualise items in a narrative of how they would actually be used.
BRAND RESTYLING:
EVOLUTION,
NOT REVOLUTION
The logo was designed several years prior to our partnership. Given the substantial investments in marketing that were made in the proceeding 18 months, changing the logo would have been a poor strategic choice.
However, we were able to align it with the values and design guidelines we had established by restyling it - harmonizing the proportions and redefining lettering and typography.
We used a creative process that we call ‘Basic Instinct’, in which each team member works on the project individually for a defined time each day. We then share our work, receive feedback, iterate and develop. This approach helps individuality flourish whilst keeping us focused on moving forward.
Catalogue and brochure: consistency across channels
One of the main touchpoints of a B2B2C company is the product presentation material that is sent from the sales team to the distributors. We were aware that distributors cannot not be relied upon to effectively represent the brand or its positioning, so we wanted to ensure that this came through as clearly as possible for the end customer in our catalogue and brochure.
We initiated a process of reviewing all the offline and online presentation materials in order to harmonize the brand's touchpoints with the Design System.
Packaging:
Every product
deserves a
nice suit
The existing packaging for all products was anonymous and uninformative - it did not reflect the new brand.
We designed a new packaging line that could be implemented throughout the range, representing the innovative and clever elements of the client’s identity. This included useful installation information and links to online resources which could be consulted quickly and intuitively.
EXPERIENCE
Web:
Communicating
a philosophy
One of the main touchpoints of the brand that needed to communicate the new positioning of Innova was the website.
We wanted the brand's philosophy - top level design and strong technological research - to flow through the site’s navigation. To translate these ideas and the Design System’s language into digital, we decided to work with our friends from Basilico.
Welcoming new visitors and old friends
The site needed to present each product in its context of use for those who were viewing Innova for the first time, whilst making all technical information easily accessible to returning visitors.
All information within a few clicks
We wanted to make browsing the extensive catalog as user friendly as possible. Our priority became creating an architecture that would allow the visitor to consult the highest level of technical detail, of each product variant, in 3 simple steps.
