Case Studies

Corporate Brand Launch: A local business entered into partnership with a successful international organisation and needed to develop a local brand that was aligned to the international brand but also customised to the local context and industry, and that would set the business up to draw on the expertise of the international brand but still allow it to be adaptable enough to turn the local start-up into a thriving business. Working with the local and international partners we defined the brand, developed the local identity, clarified and aligned the strategy of the local business, formulated a marketing strategy, sourced appropriate agencies and resources, and implemented the brand launch successfully. The business is seeing good early traction in the market.

Corporate Brand Re-Development: Working with the senior management team, we undertook a strategic re-evaluation and re-development of the Corporate ID and brand expansion for this very successful specialist foods company. We created clarity as to the ID of their corporate brand,  how it should evolve, and particularly whether they could use the same identity for their ongoing corporate brand as for a new consumer brand they wanted to develop. Starting with the Corporate value Proposition and then working through corporate expansion planning, corporate ID updating with a Design agency and implementing a full PR plan for the company and the owner/MD.

Internal Process Re-engineering for Creative Agency:  Faced with a small but highly efficient team, the agency was struggling with work flow and costings, so we mapped and reviewed the workflow process, costing model, work allocation and business structure, and then recommended an improved process for costing, work allocation and workflow control with the Owner/MD and her senior team in order to align their costing structure with their Brand Value Proposition.

New Brand Creation – “Cecilia’s Farm”: The client had developed a product and attempted to create a brand with a design agency but realised that they lacked the expertise in brand strategy and marketing. On recommendation from the head of the Marketing faculty at GIBS, we started with a strategic brand workshop with the management team and then lead the development of the brand from scratch including a new brand name, brand positioning, identity creation, formal consumer research and communications strategy and execution, as well as sourcing and managing all marketing suppliers (eg. PR agency, packaging and other design agencies, web and e-commerce developers, copywriters, photographer, and social media suppliers). The brand has been exceptionally well received and is carried successfully in niche outlets. An online store has also been developed and will allow for distribution beyond the traditional retail channels which enables better customer service and a stronger business model for the brand.

Brand Renovation and Extension – “Five Roses”: Iconic brands such as Bakers biscuits and, in this case, Five Roses tea need careful management on a fine line between relevance and entrenched consumer attachment. Brand analysis showed that the entire range needed to be re-designed in order to bring sub-ranges which had been developed and launched over time into alignment with the much-loved brand and also update the brand identity without alienating a wide range (LSM 1 to 10) of passionate consumers. The process began with clarification of the Brand VP (even on established brands this can be necessary at times) and included complex quantitative and qualitative research and a multi-tiered communication process that focused internally as much as externally in order to allay fears held by brand mavens. Once the strategy was implemented and the soft design roll-out was completed, the brand showed it’s first strong growth for 5 years in Nielsen data & continued to grow across all three key segments in double digits and ahead of tea market growth in SA. This renovation strategy along with a strongly researched and tested innovation strategy for the brand that resulted in it reaching market leadership in early 2008 after a long absence from this leadership position.

Brand Launch – “Pantene”: The launch of Pantene into the South African market in 1999 was a major milestone for P&G and the local haircare market. Although only 6 months into a career at P&G, I was the key brand person on the brand and took responsibility for co-ordinating the launch holistically from advertising development to dealing with international R&D regarding claims to liaising with Logistics and Sales teams. Launched in a record period of 6 months this brand not only ran to 5 year volume forecasts within year 1, but took over market leadership in even less time from a category leader that held over 80% of the market at the time. These ‘perfect storm’ launch conditions which included a supportive trade, an eager target market and an exceptionally strong internationally proven product range backed by a high investment advertising and sampling campaign depended on two additional critical factors for it’s success: not only did the launch have to be done in an exceptionally short period, it also involved high flexibility and responsiveness such as creating and flighting a “coming soon” TV campaign within 3 weeks in order to protect key visual and claim properties from being high-jacked by competitors.

Brand Re-launch & category overhaul – AVI Coffee Category & “Frisco”: The business had lost faith in the category and after doing a comprehensive category evaluation I developed and proposed to the AVI Board an overall business strategy for the division which included overhauls for 5 key brands, new product streams, positioning refinement, and full new support campaigns. The key brands all showed excellent turnaround growth after the implementation of the strategy, but Frisco performed exceptionally well. One of the new communication campaigns on Frisco targeted to a middle to lower income group won several local advertising awards (Creative Circle awards May and June 08, and Gold and Bronze Loeries in July 2008) and turned around the volume declines on the brand within 3 months of the start of this campaign which was part of a full brand strategy.  This campaign was also hailed by the Unilever Institute of Marketing as the best example of advertising for the “Black Diamond” target market – a phrase and research which they coined.