w/m Rebrand
Ready. Set. Plan.
Over the course of 2-3 months, we covered a number of exercises with employees and key stakeholders in an effort to fully understand 1) where the company had been, 2) where the company is now, and 3) where the company wants to be in the future. We were strictly focused on building a strong foundation for the new brand to stand on before beginning any visual execution.
Exercises performed:
• Audit • Competitive analysis • GAP analysis • Positioning wheel • Persona development • Audience analysis (E/F needs) • Stakeholder interviews • Name exploration
Key Deliverables created:
• Name • Promise• Essence • Manifesto • Values • Key Messages
A closer look at some of the brand positioning exercises performed at the beginning.
Final brand position statements including Brand Promise (top) and Brand Essence (bottom). A full manifesto followed.
Identity
OrderWithMe (OWM) was the original company name, but the business model had evolved beyond group buying and needed to be more flexible. We unanimously agreed to drop ‘Order’ from the name and use WithMe. We knew we could always prefix the name with an action (e.g. “Shop”, “Fly”, “Buy”), but agreed it should not be baked into the ID itself as it was too limiting.
Some of the early logo concepts reached to the edges before being reeled back in.
Early refined logo explorations.
Brand Hierarchy
We followed a master-brand hierarchy schema and extended the primary mark to each division of the company with their own distinguishing color and identifier below the name. The ShopWithMe mark was given a more stylistic treatment since this would be the consumer face of the Retail division, but still rooted to the parent company to avoid confusion and help build greater brand equity over time.
The WithMe master-brand hierarchy.
ShopWithMe was given a more stylistic approach to appeal to younger consumers.
The Color of Innovation
With a working playbook, we set out on an exploration to develop a visual identity and language to match the personality and ideals of the brand.
The company was a growing startup that would now be presenting itself as a more mature, largely enterprise based service, but the team building it was young and anything but corporate. We couldn’t alienate the culture that helped build the company. To offset this, we used a wide, diverse palette of colors and patterns to give employees a voice they could associate with to promote some of the less than exciting services being offered. The rather unlimited mix of graphical arrangements also represented diversity amongst the team and across the customer base.
Final version of the “Boxcut” pattern (top) and the “Wave” texture pattern (bottom).
The “Burst” floating element and pattern work.
A full brand style guide was created to use internally for further brand extensions.
Bringing It Together
Once a majority of the identity system was defined, we began its application across the company, starting with replacing the marketing essentials, then expanding it across all touch points, including trade shows, web, mobile, and retail stores.
We created posters with a hand crafted manifesto and t-shirts showcasing the brand essence as part of a swag bag for employees.
Expanding Into Retail
WithMe was quickly shifting focus to build the next generation of retail environments. This included everything from manufacturing physical stores to building hardware & software fixtures with a focus on omni-channel shopping and automation.
As the rebrand was happening, strategy was underway to begin building a completely new and innovative “smart” retail store. This was something that had never been done before and had not yet been realized. We were not sure how the brand would hold up to the unknown, but we had no choice but to find out.
Editorial spread to promote the ShopWithMe smart store concept.
In-store digital signage detail.
Identity used on exterior and interior signage across the WithMe retail stores.
A full series of email receipts were created for omni-channel orders.
Brand Website
The website was developed in parallel with the brand redesign which added to the complexity of maintaining style continuity throughout the process. In many ways, this was another accelerated brand exploration exercise as we were seeking to define exactly what “WithMe” was.
Site objectives:
1) Show the world that we were no longer just a B2B company
2) Better explain our companies value proposition
3) Dive deeper on each of our core product offerings
4) Create a modular design system that can scale and be updated easily
5) And or course, visually communicate our new, more consumer friendly brand style
Information Architecture
The target audience was a mix of existing partners, potential investors, retailers, and curious consumers. To help each visitor quickly navigate the site, we based the nav architecture on the new corporate structure, which consisted of a single parent company, WithMe (the "master brand"), three primary subdivisions; Business, Financial, and Retail (the "Solutions"), plus a dedicated space for a new retail store concept called ShopWithMe.
