Whether your brief is for a brochure, website, mailer, video or whatever, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that your brand communication is exemplary. Take a look at these case studies...
A brand narrative is a means connecting a company’s customers and prospects to its brand at every touchpoint through simple, consistent and empathetic storytelling. For maximum impact, it needs to be deliverable across the whole gamut of online and offline platforms. The cornerstone of DNAe’s brand narrative is a consistent brand promise we developed called ‘Live Diagnostics’.
DNA’s flagship product is a revolutionary diagnostic system for use in hospital environments which is branded LiDia®. The equipment can be used on-site, close to the point of patient need, 24/7, and is able to accurately analyse and identify life-threatening pathogens in the blood within 3 hours. Such quick and accurate identification of an infection can can literally mean the difference between life and death.
Our consistent brand promise of ‘Live Diagnostics’ is primarily descriptive although also benefit focused. It reflects LiDia®’s ability to deliver accurate results, in real time, conveniently close to the patient to help them live. The term ‘Live Diagnostics’ has come to represent a somewhat revolutionary approach to diagnosis. It is a term which DNAe has come to own, and one now recognised and understood by the industry in general.
There are many ways in which a company can structure its brands and many ways in which it can present its logo; the latter usually changes over time, often changing from a word to a symbol as familiarity grows.
For DNAe, the function of the logo was more important than its appearance. DNAe was not well known at the time, and US research showed that the name was not even decipherable in the original logo!
Initially, if people didn't know that DNAe existed then they certainly didn't know what they did. This is why the stap-line of ‘Live Diagnostics’ was introduced. It encapsulates what DNAe does and reminds us of the benefit. Moreover, that sense of ‘liveness’ informs and permeates the brand and everything DNAe do, it determines their tone of voice: the present tense.
Saving time can save lives
The DNAe watermark was designed as branding devise for use across all communication materials. There were a number of reasons for choosing watercolour:
Having established the form and content for the DNAe branding, Orchard produced a comprehensive set of brand guidelines to ensure that all the design elements which go to make up DNAe’s brand identity could be consistently applied across all types of communications media.
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At an exhibition to launch a prototype of its initial product offering, DNAe needed to find a way to announce its pending arrival over and above merely exhibiting it at the event. There’s a limit to how many glossy brochures attendees want to keep, yet we needed to get across the prototype’s far-reaching and notable attributes.
So we decided to print a newspaper.
Yes, a newspaper!
Apart from being extremely practical and effective, it immediately said: This is news!
Whilst everyone else was busy pumping fragments of information onto social media, we put a physical newspaper into people’s hands and it worked.
As market leader in the provision of forensic science services to the police and criminal justice sector, LGC Forensics had no strong identity of their own, having relied upon the corporate identity guidelines from their parent company, the LGC Group.
Orchard conducted focus groups and online surveys with LGC Forensics customers which showed that the LGC Group identity (based upon ‘setting standards’ and photos of laboratories) was neither relevant to their customers nor differentiated LGC Forensics from its competitors.
From a series of brand concept boards discussed in a senior management workshop with LGC Forensics, numbers became the name of the game and this was confirmed in the market research: Whilst suggesting evidence found at a crime scene, numbers also communicated accuracy of results and precise communication.
Having established the form and content for the LGC Forensics branding, Orchard produced a comprehensive set of brand guidelines that applied the numbers theme across all media and showed how they should be applied to scene and object photography.
With the visual form for the LGC Forensics brand agreed, it was time to produce an initial corporate brochure so that the content could be addressed. Whilst an internal workshop and external research identified the service attributes required from LGC Forensics, these needed to be converted into an overall benefit to the market.
Accuracy of results and precise communication were therefore brought together into the brand promise of creating understanding and this shaped the content for the brochure.
A number of strategic acquisitions significantly enhanced LGC Forensics’ offering within the arena of digital forensics science and resulted in the formation of a specialist division responsible for the recovery and investigation of material found in digital devices, such as computers, mobile phones, CCTV etc.
Orchard successfully applied the brand guidelines to the various communication channels utilised by this newly created division, including a micro-website and conference graphics.
Based on the brand guidelines and Orchard’s ongoing support, LGC Forensics had a unified and effective brand communicated across a whole range of literature, promotions, exhibition graphics, etc.
The numbers game has proved its worth as LGC Forensics grew in size, services and international markets.
LGC Forensics provide forensic science services to the police and justice sectors. The company’s ParaDNA® Intelligent Testing system was developed to amplify human DNA from an evidence item or swab. As such, ParaDNA® is able to indicate whether samples collected at a crime scene contain human DNA, and which of these are most likely to deliver investigative leads. It only takes 75 minutes to screen up to four samples and acquire this vital advance knowledge.
Alongside user training videos, a 'hero' video was also produced to communicate the speed of the process and introduce the “Advance Knowledge” positioning of the new system on the product website.
Orchard initiated two brand workshops which, in addition to looking at economic, demographic and various other statistics, also sought out the emotional reasons for wanting to live and work in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.
It became obvious how important the region’s natural assets are in contributing to an enviable life/work balance and in fostering a climate in which both individuals and companies can flourish.
These workshops resulted in the adoption of a brand philosophy that recognised the connection between the the region’s natural and business environments (in essence, the one nourishes the other) and led to a positioning line that could be applied equally to local and overseas companies:
Bring Your Business to Life.
In parallel with developing a brand for HIE’s International Trade and Investment arm, we worked on the job we were appointed to do - creating a suite of literature. Having produced a structure that identified the relationship between the various types of literature, subjects, information and target markets (some of which would only exist electronically), Orchard embarked upon the flagship brochure.
In this way, the brand was developed in real-time on an actual project rather than as an academic exercise.
By the time the flagship brochure was printed, the division’s new brand philosophy and concept were fully formed. This was then documented in a visual identity guide that allowed the montage imagery and line Bring Your Business to Life to be adopted in other media and by other agencies.
