THE COREB2B PROFESSIONAL

Being audience centric

Extending your brand platform

Keeping your brand unique online

Making your brand come alive with print

Dual by CDType is a versatile typeface constructed with both sharp and unusual angular letterforms as well as a set of standard forms. The headings in this piece use a mix of both, whilst the captions only use the standard. The wide range of alternative characters almost makes this two typefaces in one.

Cover digitally printed in white ink on Fedrigoni Sirio dark blue.

to the first issue of The Core dedicated entirely to professional B2B brands. Each article covers strategy, branding, digital and print so there are plenty of topics covered to help you manage your brand and create communication that differentiates you in a meaningful way.

2016 will be an interesting year as we embrace the concept of seamless brand experiences. Print and offline is making a comeback to support the evolving digital channels of communication we have come to rely on.

We hope you find the information and tips herein useful and don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions.

Alex HaddonManaging Directoralex@icdesign.co.uk

Paul ThorntonHead of Design – Professional B2B paul@icdesign.co.uk

WELCOME

Understanding the mindset of your key audience groups is essential to create a successful brand strategy. It is not about what you want to say or how you feel about your product or service. You need to put your clients, prospects, staff and any other stakeholders at the centre of your strategy. What do they know? How do they feel? Focus on how your brand can help them solve a problem. This will give you a more meaningful proposition that you can articulate with visuals and words.

BEING audience centric

Instant corporate appealHill Hofstetter (above) focuses on business law so it was clear that the brand platform should reflect this. Business Law has been added as a strapline and is supported by abstract corporate architecture, duotoned in the corporate colours.

Making financial consulting feel exciting and relevant is something that CFO Metrics pulls off with the help of dynamic imagery and bold statement.

Business Law

What gets measured, gets done.

Your experience and particular expertise is also valuable when trying to differentiate yourself from your competition. On the surface, you may offer something pretty much identical but if you can deliver stories about successful projects and the difference it has made to other businesses, you will have a competitive advantage.

As you deal with a competitive marketplace and long sales cycles, anything you do to minimise the sense of risk will ensure you start each opportunity with your best foot forward. Be consistent and clear, get to the point quickly and do it with style and purpose!

Clear messagingConstruction and property consultant Peter Blincow (above)retained his own name instead of creating a corporate entity, clearly demonstrating the personal service you can expect. This is balanced with a sharp identity marque reflecting his professionalism.

The African Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (AVCA) has a clear mission to champion private investment in Africa. Whilst being a financially focused organisation, they are clear to point out that the benefits extend beyond financial returns.

Personal service

A lot can be done to strengthen a brand without touching the core brand assets like the logo. This is particularly useful if campaigns are a normal part of the communication schedule as you can inject fresh energy for increased tactical results whilst retaining the overall brand effectiveness.

EXTENDINGyour brand platform

Extending the colour palette, typefaces, graphics or photography is the most common way – creating a primary and secondary brand platform. Be sure that you don’t re-invent the wheel for every campaign though as you may well weaken your brand. It is better to strategically create the assets in advance so that you can carry on brand building every time.

Interesting (and on-brand) infographics and stylish imagery will reduce the time it takes to connect with your brand which is key in a busy corporate environment. A fully loaded brand platform provides exciting opportunities to impress your audience and show them why you, and nothing else, will do!

Standing out in the marketWe created a skyline illustration for the Swedish Chamber of Commerce that combines iconic UK and Swedish buildings. A unique and versatile tool (the skyline adapts depending where it is used), it now runs throughout their marketing. Alongside this, we created infographics and event icons, giving them a clear and easily recognisable look, aided by a strong colour palette. Since the launch of the site, they have seen a significant growth in traffic, from mobile in particular (194% increase in mobile traffic), and increased engagement from within the membership.

Creating impactWhen Credit Benchmark required printed reports, we extended their colour palette and sourced a graphic that would represent their unique proposition. The result is a flexible brand platform to use across a broad range of materials.

Tools for brand buildingWe extended Anascena's brand platform by devising a set of military inspired graphics to reference their USP. The patterns are constructed from the same grid as the logo, with changes in images and icon positioning. These create an effective toolkit, subtly reinforcing the brand message.

Sovereign Bond Risk Management: Added Value in Default Probability Data

Sovereign Bond Risk Management: Added Value in Default Probability DataMay 2015

Adding another dimensionIn keeping with the music brand theme for C8 Investments, we created a series of sound wave graphics for their collateral. These were then overlaid together to create a triptych of canvasses for their meeting space.

With a professional positioning, it is right to expect that your brand’s online experience should mirror the quality of your service. We may be in a transition period at the moment where you find reasonable good-will and a poorly designed or functioning site will merely induce indifference. But soon this will not be the case as expectations increase and a below par website (or other digital piece) could significantly damage your brand reputation.

KEEPING your brand unique online

Translating brand style online Web layouts might seem restrictive, but they can still be tailored to your brand. Tiles used throughout Microsoft's branding are translated on screen for their Codess initiative. The design is flexible - on the homepage, up to eight upcoming event tiles can be featured, with a past events tile that re-sizes to fit the grid accordingly when there is only one or two upcoming events. The new site saw a big increase in audience awareness and engagement, with a fantastic 270% increase in unique visits per month and 76% increase in signups per month.

The professionalism that exists in your brand should translate properly to your site. You need to have unique-looking features to create distinction and protect your brand positioning from the templated ‘me-too’ sites. Be as bespoke as your budget will allow and think of inventive ways to relay your messages online.

Think about performance as well – which is entirely dependent on the quality of your code and hosting. Your audience wants to find information fast so consider how your navigation is set up; how many clicks do they need to do? And, if you do not already have one, a fully responsive website that works on mobiles is really important as your audience wants to quickly access information when and where they need to. An added factor to be aware of is that search engines prioritise responsive sites for all mobile searches.

Delivering quality contentAbove: For AVCA, we created specially made publication thumbnails. They provide a more welcoming visual to encourage users to view the documents.

Below: Dragonfly is a business growth consultancy. To stand out online, we used large duotoned images to create a sense of space, focusing on short pieces of text to get core messages across quickly.

Below right: The Accountum team is a key strength of the firm so ensuring photos and profiles are easy to view is essential in creating a point of difference.

Nothing is as tactile, adds value and holds your attention like a quality piece of print.

Used in combination with other (digital) channels, it is also proven to make marketing significantly more effective. The weakness of print is that it can become out of date and it can stretch project budgets. It is therefore essential to plan ahead and work out exactly what you need, how it is going to be distributed and what you want people to do with it.

There are now many new printing techniques and digital (low run) printing is constantly innovating to deliver new possibilities with paper and finishes. This means you can create high quality short run print pieces and retain the flexibility to update regularly. For example, this newsletter is printed digitally, using special inks on the cover that matches the paper we use for litho printing. Whilst nothing says ‘professional’ like a beautiful litho printed piece, we should be creative about how and where we use it.

MAKING your brand come alive with print

Print instills confidence and builds trustThe examples above display a range of uses for print using a mix of techniques. B2B marketing is seeing a return to traditional marketing methods to reach clients and add value. The 'TV in a box' for the London Octopus (top) bridges the gap between traditional media and digital, delivering a wow factor for recipients. Subtle finishing on the Hill Hofstetter corporate brochure (middle) lends an air of authority to the brand. White papers for Kinapse (bottom) provide their clients with extra value in an easy to consume format.

IC Design is an integrated brand communications agency providing strategic, branding, digital and print design services. With a specific focus on professional B2B and premium consumer brands we show your audience why you, and nothing else, will do.

Copyright IC Design Limited 2016. The Core is printed using a Digital Heidelberg Press.

2016Awwwards Nominee – Truman's Beer websiteCSS Winner Nominee – Truman's Beer website

2015RAR Awards Finalist – Brand Strategy RAR Digital Awards Finalist – Client Service The Drum Design Census – Top 10 Client Service

2014The Drum Design Census – Elite Design Agency The Drum Design Census – Top 10 Client Service The Drum Independent Agency Census – Top 10 Client Service

Infused Communication®

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