2018: The year in pictures

Up to my usual tricks in rebranding and advertising the past year.

2018 was the busiest year yet at Brand Intervention: 7 rebrands, 4 new business brands, countless ads. Here are some of the highlights:

I worked with Leap on the Story rebrand. Their site went live early in the year.

First ad for Triple Bar Construction fresh out of a rebrand

Robbins VIP Parking ad for Victoria Royals hockey games

Ad for The Raptors’ big 2018 initiative

Fort Street Cycle’s lamp post ad on a lamp post

Brand Interventionist assisting on McEwen Financial photoshoot. Photo credit Katie Nelson

The Soap Exchange rebrand included a dramatic logo transformation

One of the EAT magazine campaign ads for the Blue Heron Advisory Group

Ad for Gold Hill Winery, living up to their name throughout the year’s wine awards shows.

New name, tagline and logo for an international corporate turnaround specialist - Michael Tension designing

Ad for the cuddliest birds at The Raptors Visitor Centre

Rebrand of Aqua Pacific includes killer website design by Megan Munro

Facebook campaign for The Athlete Centre using customer insight!

Method acting from the Brand Interventionist. Photo by Derek Ford

My sincere thanks to my collaborators this year! They include:

Megan Munro- graphic design, website design/development

Michael Tension – graphic design

Caroline and Jessica at Design Coast  - graphic design

Mike Kirk – website design and development

Kathleen Sato - graphic design

Lori Koch at Bravo Advertising – graphic design

Leap XD – website design and development

Derek Ford - photography

Katie Nelson – photography

Marika Beise at Rock Paper Square – interior design

Jazz Chodak – social media management

MiniMax Media – graphics

Garside - graphics

Houston Sign – signage

WISHING ALL A BRILLIANT 2019!

The refreshing of Aqua Pacific

Rebranding a 50-year old pool and hot tub store.

Aqua Pacific has been selling and servicing pools and hot tubs in Victoria for 50 years. There have been a few ownership changes along the way but the store has carried on, business as usual. The newest owner, Ma Lin, decided it was time to shake things up a bit and get more competitive.

She brought Brand Intervention into the process at the outset to orchestrate a rebranding and a renovation of the store.

Strategically we wanted to own the “affordable pools and hot tubs” position in the market, with an increased emphasis on the hot tubs.

A new tagline was created to support this:

HELPING VICTORIANS AFFORD THE GOOD LIFE

This re-enforced the aspirational nature of the products, whilst bringing them within reach to more people.

I worked with Megan Munro to nail the visual siding of the branding, which needed a stronger colour palette and an updating of the current logo, rather than something with completely new reference points. The dolphin, a long-time icon, carried forward the history of the business.

OLD LOGO

NEW LOGO

EXTERIOR SIGNAGE BEFORE

EXTERIOR SIGNAGE AFTER

The store was not able to get a permit for an outdoor electronic pylon sign because only one is granted per building, and the building already had one. So we created some sidewalk noise via 11 foot high flags and an over-sized sandwich board.

STREET BRANDING BEFORE AND AFTER

NEW BUSINESS CARDS

INTERIOR

For the interior, we had a small budget to work with and had to be smart and economical with our moves. There was no room for flash and with such a big space, just painting and re-flooring was going to suck up most of the budget.

The goal was to focus on the hot tubs. Hard to do when your store showroom can only accommodate 2 tubs! So we tore down the dry wall that separated the front and back of the store and opened up the space to handle 8 tubs. Immediately the store felt like a showroom.

We used the new brand colours to direct the interior palette, with pale green and vibrant blue replacing the yellow of the old store. The floor needed to be less distracting so the attention could go to the hot tubs, so a neutral colour was chosen for the re-tiling.

Water treatment products were moved away from the tubs to reduce the visual clutter, and were given their own space; potted tropical palms were brought in to warm up the atmosphere. All these moves brightened up the feel of the interior.

INTERIOR BEFORE

INTERIOR AFTER

Ok fine, yes, that is me in some of the pics but a little star power doesn’t hurt, come on!

WEBSITE

We wanted to avoid the homepage design ghetto where most hot tub/pool homepages lived - a big photo of people in a tub. Every decent site looked the same. Instead we wanted something unique that felt authentic to Aqua Pacific, a style they could really own. Designer/developer Megan Munro knocked it out of the park with an inspired and whimsical design that flowed from the logo she had refreshed.

We simplified the navigation to make it easy for customers to find what they want and get to the products fast.

OLD WEBSITE

NEW WEBSITE

You can check out the site here.

A new Facebook page quickly followed the launch of the site.

There are more visual treats coming soon like a 10-foot inflatable dolphin and a 25-foot vinyl wall mural that’s going to look like this:

But for now it’s Christmas, and the store is busy selling amazing presents!

The following contributed their talents and ideas to this rebrand:

Megan Munro Graphic design, website design/development

Rock Paper Square Interior design consulting

Royal Pacific Millworks Interior build

Derek Ford Photography Interior photography

Houston Signs Exterior signage

Garside Signs Sandwich board

MiniMaxMedia Exterior flags and interior signage

Metropol Printing

Brand Intervention Project Management, brand strategy, creative direction, advertising, copywriting, media planning, interior design, social media strategy

Changing it up at the Victoria Soap Exchange

Rebranding a greener cleaner store.

Wes Koch is Victoria’s “Mr. Clean”, a pioneering evangelist in the art of sustainable cleaning.

He’s been the leading voice in the city for over 25 years, and for most of that time his store, The Soap Exchange, has been the only place where conscientious cleaners could find the products and cleaning advice they needed.

In 2018, with new competition signing in to the market, he decided it was time to consider his brand’s image and brought in Brand Intervention to make some recommendations.

First up, we created an online survey to existing customers to be sure their voice was up-front in the process. We learned some key information, including the business’s perceived strengths, the areas for improvement, how the store and website were being viewed and used.

WHAT WE LEARNED

We learned that the loyalty lay most with the customer service (specifically the quality of the advice and the welcoming attitude), and the quality of the products. They trusted the brand and what it delivered. But few used the website and half the respondents felt the store could use a facelift.

Next we analyzed the competitive environment to be clear about the gaps and opportunities. Then, the core team got together at Wes and his wife Kim’s dining table for a Brand Workshop, to tease out the key drivers of the rebrand.

Here’s what was clear: Having the trust of existing customers meant we could really change up the customer experience – visually, functionally and emotionally. As long as the welcoming attitude, solid advice and superior products didn’t change.

We quickly decided there would be no sacred cows other than the name and the presence of the globe in the logo, and we went at the rebrand with gusto. These are the results of those efforts.

It wasn’t always an easy process for Wes, who was invested in the store experience he has long provided for his customers. But to his great credit, he allowed the process to play out and the results are pretty spectacular.

LOGO: AVOID GREEN

The competitive space was awash with the colour green, and you can’t stand out in a field wearing green. So a more human palette was needed here. Wes’s talented sister Lori Koch of Bravo Advertising took on the logo task and found exactly what The Soap Exchange needed on her first round. She re-imagined the earth symbol and the exchange icon and skillfully flowed the two together, giving the store the memorable icon it needed: Our planet is in good hands.

In place of the old green and blue, a warmer colour palette; settled, mature and confident. Then we moved to roll out the new look across the brand’s channels, ensuring that the customer experience was consistent.

SIGNAGE BEFORE

SIGNAGE AFTER

But it was in the appearance of the store interior where The Soap Exchange brand found its most dramatic retelling.

INTERIOR DESIGN AND BUILD

Rock Paper Square’s Marika Beise, who collaborated with Brand Intervention on Salon Amici last year, stepped in and delivered a stunning visual transformation. Gone was the rough-hewn bear cave and the uneven lines of the rock and plaster ledges. Marika moved completely away from the sky ceiling and painted rock floor to create an environment of clean lines, natural surfaces and easy organization. With a striking table at the center as the focal point.

INTERIOR BEFORE

Marika, Wes and Gerry

Work in progress

INTERIOR AFTER

It was cleaner and brighter too – something you would want for Victoria’s greener cleaner store.

The man behind this – the solitary guy who gutted, hauled, built, laid, wired, painted and cleaned this reconstruction was Gerry Burnside. My hat is off.

WINDOW TREATMENT BEFORE AND AFTER

SANDWICH BOARD BEFORE AND AFTER

MAKING THE MOVE TO AN ONLINE STORE

There was compelling evidence for Wes to incorporate E-commerce sales into his business, owing to the physical limitations of having only one store and not much in the way of distribution beyond the city. IdeaZone are designing and developing a new site while The Soap Exchange gathers content.   

With the store transformation complete and the website coming up fast, the Victoria Soap Exchange is positioned to attract new customers and build their business.

“Doug provided me with the guidance, clarity and direction I was in such desperate need of,” Wes summarized.  “He also assisted greatly in convincing me to let go of some of my perceptions as well as my tunnel vision.”

THE REBRAND TEAM

Lori Koch, Bravo Advertising – logo re-design

Idea Zone – website design and development

Marika Beise, Rock Paper Square – interior design

Gerry Burnside - construction

Megan Munro – graphic design

Triad Sign – backlit exterior signage

Mini Max Media – window decals

Garside – Sandwich board

Brand Intervention – project lead, brand strategy, creative direction

Special thanks to The Soap Exchange support team: Sharon Tiffin & Kim Ott, and Brittany Gamble from the Good Planet Company.

Restyling a Victoria hair salon

Buying a business is daunting enough. Doing it in a new country where you don’t yet speak the language is a Netflix series.

You have to take a lot of people you don’t know – and can’t really understand – at their word.

Fortunately Liu Ping, the new owner of Royal Oak’s Salon Amici, got lucky. Helping her navigate the ownership transition – plus a significant rebrand and renovation – were the two former owners, now the Salon’s senior stylists.

The chemistry and camaraderie between these 3 ladies lies at the heart of this rebrand.

THE SPIRIT OF AMICI

Maggie Mackay and Praveena Charan opened the Salon’s doors in 1998. They named it Amici (friend in Italian) as a tribute to their own friendship. But twenty years owning a business can be a grind and they were only too happy when Liu Ping bought their company. In the spirit of friendship, they have been with Ping every step of the way as the Salon has undergone a comprehensive refresh.

Brand Intervention was engaged to provide a clear strategic direction and a fresh face (the Salon’s face, not mine!), and line up the team that would transform the interior.

A Brand Workshop with the Salon staff kicked off the process and pointed us in the right direction: We needed to more fully embrace Amici, and warm up the environment.

Doing online surveys gave us a clear sense of visitor expectations, and told us how far people would travel to see their stylist, which helped us nail down our marketing territory as well.

A FRESH NEW STYLE

Graphic designer Megan Munro provided a stellar refreshing of the logo and brought a signature colour palette into play.

OLD LOOK

NEW LOOK

We soon had our physical brand ready to roll with a new website, business cards, brochures and social media pages.

Enter interior designer Marika Beise of Rock Paper Square. She took in the brand essence and responded with a design upgrade that brought a visually warm welcome to complement the human one. Strong Construction provided the building savvy.

OLD INTERIOR

NEW INTERIOR

Urban Sign transformed the exterior of the Salon with overhead signage and sandwich boards.

EXTERIOR SIGNAGE BEFORE/AFTER

The final touch was bringing in Derek Ford to capture the newly branded salon – and it’s re-emphasized spirit – in photos, many of which you see in this post.

I’ve worked on a lot of rebrands, but never before one where the spirit of the team was ultimately the brand strategy. Talk about living your brand. Thank you ladies of Salon Amici!

Rebranding Fort Street Cycle

It has been a rough first year for the new owners of Fort Street Cycle.

Bad energy left over from an unpopular ownership transition was sucking the life – and at one point, nearly every staff member – out of the shop. The new owners, from Beijing, were in crisis management from the get-go and wondering how they could survive. They decided they needed to start fresh. Well, fresher.

This is where the Brand Intervention happens. (This is the icon that says that’s happening.)

I started with some online surveys to existing customers and non-customers to determine attitudes towards the store, and its perceived strengths and weaknesses. This was the key starting point for the rebrand because it told us that there was indeed some bad juju out there about the store – but no respondents had a clear sense why they felt that way.

It also told us that the brand really wasn’t on anyone’s radar and was considered past its day.

So there was no damage here.  But there was a lack of clarity about the store. The lack of clarity came from a lack of a vision, and a lack of  noise in the market. But we could fix those.

ROLLING UP SLEEVES, FINDING A VISION

An analysis of the business, its core service and product offerings, and the opportunities in the market, indicated that we could chase the negative spirit away with a big, positive step forward. The store itself was in excellent shape: a good service reputation, a well-known location on Fort, and fantastic bikes: Cannondale, Cervelo and Giant, all high-end machines.

It just needed a focused brand strategy, and a look to pull it off.

The shop’s focus on placing service and proper fitting before bike sales pointed in the right direction, but we needed something bigger.

As luck would have it, the main competitive stores (Oak Bay Bicycles, Russ Hay’s, Trek and Broad Street Cycles) all referred to themselves as “bike shops” in their positioning lines. This created the opportunity.

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE RIDE

Fort Street Cycle would no longer be just a bike shop. It would be about cycling: where the rider and the bike come together to create the magic. The store would be all about that. Not a hardware store for machines, but  a place for people who love to ride, something their focus on a better bike fit already beautifully supported.

Hence the new tagline: It’s All About The Ride

As the brand strategy and visual look were being created, the store went on a serious hiring spree. Using both online ads and networking, there were soon ten passionate cyclists on the store’s staff roster. A mix of road and mountain cyclists, elite competitors and everyday grinders, they embraced the new brand direction and shouldered the tasks involved in bringing it to life.

DON’T KILL THE OLD LOGO. JUST REMAKE IT.

Even though the store’s reputation had suffered in recent years, it was still an established brand with a history. We wanted to respect that by evolving the business, both the name and the logo. Enter long-time collaborator Michael Tension, who delivered a modern and impactful updating of the previous logo, along with an inspired palette of supporting colours to carry it. The name was shortened to Fort St Cycle, because it felt friendlier, and doing so created the space that allowed the name to be on one line in the logo, rather than stacked.

The store had been quiet in Victoria for years and was poorly connected to both the cycling community and the businesses along Fort St.

To help improve that, we gave the staff tools to build new relationships, from branded work gear to highly personalized business cards (the photo is of the staff member, and they chose their own quote and colour) – neither of which the store had ever provided. Then we crafted marketing and social media strategies to slowly build back their audience.

Service Manager, Russ Parks in his new gear

NEW BUSINESS CARDS

Michael Tension cards: folded and white on the inside for notes

Once all the branded pieces were ready, Derek Ford did his usual exceptional job capturing the team spirit in photos. And then it was on to a welcoming Open House to let the market know Fort St Cycle was alive and kicking!

Megan Munro poster

To promote the event and get rid of some pesky old branded water bottles, the staff rolled up invitations into the old bottles and left them in bikes with empty water bottle holders all over downtown.

Message in a bottle campaign

The Open House saw a good crowd, and the positive buzz energized everyone and helped to exorcise the ghosts of the old brand.

Open House July 12

A new website from Leap is on the way, jerseys are being printed and a store renovation is planned for late fall. The store also has plans to lead a cycling tour to the Great Wall in China this year. More details on that coming up soon!  Until then, drop by the store and talk cycling: these guys know their stuff.

And ask for one of those cool new business cards!

Branding a Victoria mortgage brokerage

THE BRIEF

A well-regarded young mortgage broker wants to launch his own brokerage in a crowded Victoria market. How do we make his business stand out?

THE BRAND STRATEGY

Build the business around an important and under-serviced sub-audience the brokerage can legitimately specialize in:

Victoria’s mortgage specialist for First Time Home Buyers.

THE IMPACT ON THE BUSINESS

Research showed us that First Time Buyers, generally 20 – 29, are the fastest growing segment in the real estate market and the most likely to concede they could have gotten a better mortgage. They are on the go, rate shop on their mobile phones, and often take mortgages based on the lowest rate, which rarely serves their long-term interests.

This convinced us of some major business directions:

> The brokerage should be mobile like its audience, and do without a fixed office, meeting wherever is convenient.

> It should be about more than mortgages, but should also support and educate buyers about all aspects of the first time home purchase process.

The name flowed from there, as did the logo and responsive website (both designed by Victoria graphic designer Megan Munro.)

The website offers resources and information about the first home purchase process. MobileFirst will continue to pile on the content as the business matures.

NICE FEATURE

The owner realized that most first time buyers are entering a foreign world of notaries, accountants, contractors, insurance agents, lawyers and so on. So he decided to create a network of respected and like-minded professionals in these fields so his clients wouldn’t have to venture into unknown territory to find trustworthy people.

Victoria photographer Derek Ford did some ace photography of the MobileFirst team.

To help the business get some traction among rate shoppers and site visitors, a 15 page guide for First Time Buyers was created and offered by email to site visitors.

The branding work wrapped up with business cards designed to mimic the smartphone format.

“I chose to work with Doug as he came highly recommended from colleagues, and he did not disappoint,” commented Jake after the brand launch. “I’m truly grateful for his expertise.”

Buying your first home in Victoria? You now know who to ping!