ABOUT

Our objectives were simple really. Take the subjective nature out of the brand decision making. Create a lens for the wider business to make decisions through that was built on insight, the need of the individuals they were selling to, and then ultimately the beneficiaries of the business: the students. If we could do that, we’d done alright. If we could do that and create true visual distinction in the offering, well, that’s worth a cup of tea, chaps.

Our approach was that we had to talk to everyone. We felt immediately that it was potentially closed door decision making that may be enough for the business to do okay, but the real opportunity lay in building a brand built on the audience. We had that luxury as they were truly in their infancy, and the brand was trusting us with everything, even a name change. Carte blanche. So, we spoke to everyone that the brand was currently touching and a number of sources that we were hoping to get the brand in front of. We found it quite interesting that near enough everyone we spoke to assumed they knew best. Which provided its own challenges, because ultimately, everyone had to feel ‘seen’ in the delivery.

16 qualitative interviews later, we felt like we had a strong view on how best to go about developing a brand ethos. We heard the importance of ‘telling it our own way’ and that they felt IFG offered a truly bespoke service and felt that it was a partnership in agreement, not a seller and consumer agreement. We also heard that there was very little equity in the existing name, but it was important to have reference in a support title to the umbrella brand to show the scale of the business.

During the internal stakeholder interviews we started to understand that they felt the difference was in how in touch the senior leadership team were with all of the accounts. We pressed heavily to understand if that was a ‘now’ advantage or something that would be a long term plan of the business. The business has been structured so that a long term ambition for the company is that the senior leadership team would always be within touching distance. A lot of the feedback we had from some clients is that they took comfort in knowing they could contact the Managing Director, Matt Went, whenever they needed to. The value this added to the process was that we knew there would be consistency in all brand touchpoints.

Armed with enough of a USP to hang our hat on, it was clear we had to create distinction in a very traditional space that to our view lacked any true standout. The only challenge to this was that we had to consider the brand as a bit of a stage to hero the schools it worked with. In tender processes we had to be able to successfully cobrand doing Chapter One justice, but also make it feel like it was the school's story we were telling.

In the early stages of brand development we reengaged the consultants and schools we had spoken to, to understand their views on our direction. As a first to us, we had a unanimous view that it was something bold and innovative for the space, which obviously came with varying views. But, with IFG support, and their unwavering view of wanting to stand out in the space, it was the true vote of confidence we needed to proceed.

With storytelling in mind, the whole brand is built around traditional book typesetting and a simple bespoke illustration style that helps tell the brand story. Asset wise, we knew the brand had to exist digitally across LinkedIn, but unique to most other brand development at the moment - it was actually going to be quite print heavy. The deadline was set to support a printed contract tender with the renowned St Paul’s Prep School and created journals as sales tools. We commissioned bookbinders to hand finish a 166 page journal with a bespoke first chapter telling the brand's story. The books were made using authentic finishing processes from the late 19th century to add more to the delivery.

To date, we have produced postcards and business cards with the individual illustrations on as a numbered print run, a printed sales brochure, an event stand, a launch film, a website, the journals, three tenders and are currently midway through a 12 week LinkedIn launch campaign.