ifour Tunbridge Wells

ABOUT

the challenge

CACI International is the Hertfordshire-based originator and market leader of the ‘non-surgical facelift’. The company, whose name has become a byword for microcurrent beauty therapies, provides its multi-treatment devices to over 6,000 salons, health clubs and spas in the UK and a growing number of international salons.

To help protect its commanding position in the market, CACI commissioned ifour to implement a full rebrand to replace its previous logo and branding, which was eight years old at the time and was becoming dated.

Specifically, the CACI team wanted to communicate its credentials as a clinically rigorous, almost medical offering. We were also tasked with enhancing the brand’s ability to appeal to CACI’s overwhelmingly female audience on a more emotional, human level as a lifestyle brand.

Added to the list of requirements for the new brand was the need for the rebrand to appeal to new (younger and male) audiences by balancing the anti-ageing with more general beauty therapy positioning.

our approach

Our first priority was to understand the mechanics of the CACI brand, how it works and what drives the perceptions of all its stakeholders. We conducted an online questionnaire with CACI staff to get a feeling of the operational issues relating to the brand. We followed this up with a discovery workshop with the CACI leadership team to explore the company’s strategic direction and positioning.

The internal findings from the discovery phase were tested externally against the voice of the customer through in-depth interviews with salon owners and users of CACI treatments. The combined perspectives reinforced the brand positioning for CACI as results-driven and premium; aspirational but with a rigorously scientific, more data-focused vocabulary than some competing, ‘fluffier’ luxury spa brands.

Our resulting brand and design strategies can best be summarised as striking and exploiting this powerful balance between ground-breaking science and technology and premium beauty treatment.

Once the aesthetic, the tone of voice and messaging had been developed, we put together a multi-day photoshoot to select the new faces (and bodies) of the CACI brand. We provided creative direction, working alongside the client and our photographers to develop the style of imagery and iconography that captured the new CACI look. With brand strategy, look and feel, messaging and design schema in place, we set about remaking CACI’s marketing and advertising collateral.

our solution

The new branding we have developed for CACI is at once very contemporary and evokes a sense of timelessness. This fits the company’s track record of innovation and longevity – CACI is the evergreen powerhouse in the microcurrent treatments market.

We have created a colour palette that is unmistakably top-flight consumer beauty brand. Feminine peach and dusky pink tones are balanced with harder-edged steels and greys to extend the brand beyond the anti-ageing market to appeal to a younger, more diverse, beauty-conscious audience.

CACI is now a brand with intergenerational appeal. The new models and photography convey an aspirational level of confidence and natural beauty rather than being airbrushed and unattainable. Like the branding, the new messaging appeals to salon owners – business people who have a clear idea of the kind of brand they wish to be associated with. It also appeals directly to consumers, inspiring them to make enquiries about CACI treatments at their local salon.

We worked with the CACI team to simplify marketing collateral and product information booklets. These now look less like daunting manuals but still retain the authoritative technical and clinical information that defines CACI. The new brand guidelines we have developed deconstruct the brand into a set of easy-to-follow steps that help clients, distributors and suppliers get the CACI identity right every time.

the impact

The new brand has hit the mark and the branding has been well received by salon clients and consumers.

Dean Nathanson, CACI Managing Director said, “We have received really positive feedback on the new branding. Customers are telling us that the more contemporary feel appeals to a much wider audience. The more natural look of the new imagery combines our lifestyle and treatment appeal beautifully with a still-glamorous but more attainable appeal that our previous branding. The diversity of the new models also widens our treatments offering to appeal to both men and women of all ages and all ethnicities.”

“You know you have scored a hit when even the competition compliments you! At two recent international trade events, some of our closest competitors made their way over to us to grudgingly admire the new branding.”

The rebranding has been like a tonic to the CACI brand. Although it only rolled out in February 2019 it has already had an impact on the bottom line. Niki Bassil, CACI Marketing Manager said, “Since rebranding in February we have noticed a significant increase in our new business lead enquiries through our trade show exhibitions, trade advertising and new branding literature.”

We continue to provide support to the CACI marketing team to ensure that the new brand is rolled out with maximum impact.

MADEIT CREDITS

  • Caci InternationalClient

Who pooled - Branding