Brand strategy development

Take a stand for your brand. Today, the value of a brand can easily be worth more than all the factories, patents and inventory combined. But it’s not just a matter of boosting shareholder value – a strong brand can fend off competitors, allow you to charge premium prices and facilitate the recruitment of top talent.

A well-known brand looks better on the resume than an unknown company. And when buying an expensive piece of equipment or a new technical system, you want to be sure it is from a supplier you can rely on. A recent McKinsey study actually showed that strong brands outperformed weak brands by a factor of 20% in the B2B sector – up from 13% the year before.

Reputation is everything. Sometimes referred to as “corporate reputation management”, a brand strategy project can involve everything from establishing your mission, vision and values to setting the specific strategy and positioning of a single product or service. The process can be large and complex but it can also be quick and nimble – it all depends on your needs and what is already in place. But it is always grounded in the business strategy and there to support it.

Proven methodology. At the start of any job, we agree on what input and information is necessary to have in order to move forward, and how to gather that information. Many of our customers already have a solid brand platform in which case we work with that one, while others may need everything or a revision of an old brand platform.

50 branding workshops. In our 15 years in business, we’ve held more than 50 branding workshops and done strategies for companies based in Sweden, but also Hong Kong, Paris, Frankfurt, New York, London and even Lugano. Regardless of where you are in your brand development, whether you’re just beginning or have already done a lot of work, let’s talk.

Communication strategies

Your roadmap for leaving the competition behind. Engaging with the right customer, at the right time, with the right message can be challenging. You might wonder: What is the most effective way to reach them? As strange as it might sound, having a solid plan for achieving this is not as common as it should be.

“We have always done it that way” is all too often a frequent approach. “We want to be more digital” is the most common new request. The key here is to determine why? Is this really the best way to reach your target audience? Just because the competition does so doesn’t mean you should take the same approach. And if you are, you need to have a solid plan to get the most out of your efforts.

Strategic focus is key. We like to help clients sharpen their focus and strategy to reach their goals. The key here is working together. You know your business and target audiences the best. We can add experience from other similar businesses and a fresh perspective along with an outside-in viewpoint.

Creative concepts

Great ideas carry no passport. So you’ve got a solid brand platform. Great! This will help you avoid reinventing the wheel every nine months or so with a new message or look and feel. Yet even with a clear strategy, your next question is: how do we convey our message? How do we communicate and really engage with our customers instead of simply inform?

This is where the creative development work starts. And when it’s clear what to communicate and to whom, it’s much easier for our art directors, designers, digital team and writers to work their magic.

Unifying behind a strong concept. In this phase, we explore different ways of communicating the agreed messaging. Should we be more technical or human? Can we use humor? We generally present a couple of different directions that we narrow down and refine until we have one strong direction that everyone agrees upon.

Bringing down barriers. We also encourage our clients to roll up their sleeves and get involved in the creative process with us if they like. As we see it, the old barriers between “the agency” and “the client” are really dead and the best work comes from teamwork.

Design

What’s your look and feel? Creating a corporate graphic identity is like providing a company with a suit of clothes to wear. Are you Prada or Brooks Brothers? Retro or forward-looking? Is it time to update your look to reflect a new strategy or approach? More human, less technical?

We’ve noticed that every 5-7 years, to keep pace with the times and maintain a fresh look, most companies need to update their visual identities. As one Swiss company told us: “We’re a modern group of people and wanted to feel more contemporary in our visual expression.” Like other companies we’ve worked with, their guidelines were created during a different phase of development and felt dated.

Scaling the ambition level. Unless you’re doing a complete repositioning, a graphic update doesn’t have to be a major ordeal that requires many months. It could be a well-defined and targeted exercise to refine the logo, tweak layouts, add accent colors or modify the style of photography. It might even require a new image bank.

Nothing personal. The key thing is to avoid letting personal preferences (“I like orange” or “Helvetica is cool”) be the sole guide of your visual identity program. Admittedly, you’ve got to like it too, but your graphic look and feel should have strategic relevance. It should be true to your personality, feel relevant to customers and set you apart from the competition.

Brand experience activation

How did it make you feel? People may forget the details of your product or service, but they will always remember the experience. Was it effortless? Inspiring? Both online and off? Creating the right brand experience demands a 360-degree, channel-neutral approach to customer touchpoints across the entire customer journey.

Holistic and human. In other words, it’s all about identifying UX touchpoints and then activating immersive brand experiences in key phases of the buying journey. The exact channel or tactic will vary but one thing is true: it requires a more holistic, human-centered approach. Whether it’s building awareness, loyalty or converting leads, you’ll need to rethink your brand from a customer experience mindset – a small but key distinction. 

Thinking in new ways. This is critical today as the media landscape becomes more fragmented and customer attention spans grow shorter. Engaging and exciting your target audience on an emotional level means combining design, messaging and technology in new ways – always based on a strategy that holds everything together like a red thread. 

Strategically driven. At Open, we help you map out the key touchpoints, prioritize them, align them with the overall brand strategy and communications plan. Whether it’s a physical event, live-streaming venue, online platform, webinar, or digital presentation material, it all needs to create a consistent impression and a very personal and human feeling.

Production

Great execution is the ultimate differentiator. No matter how brilliant an idea may be, it won’t help you achieve your goals if it’s poorly executed. The standards today are high. Customers are visually literate and used to seeing professional, well put-together film, websites, exhibition booths and more.

Whether you’re doing a photoshoot in Hong Kong, arranging for hundreds of cakes to be baked and distributed for a client, finding a wig that looks like Einstein’s hair or preparing for a trade show in the US, we have the right people to help. Experience is the key differentiator here. Based on our international network, we know where to find the best people for all types of productions.

The right ambition level. But you also need to balance the right level of cost vs. quality and set your ambition level. You don’t have to use a Spielberg-like director for every single film. Sometimes a good one is enough. And you really don’t need a large content management system for your website if you are a new start-up with 8 employees. But when you’re airing a spot on the Superbowl, it had better be top-notch.

On time, on budget. In the end, delivering quality on time and on budget is what it is all about. Something that sounds so easy is actually one of the most difficult tasks when pretty much everything can change during a production. That is why we hired the most experienced account managers in the business.