Archive for the 'Brand and identity' Category

Brand-building or response?

Published on June 7, 2011 in Brand and identity, Direct and Marketing. 0 Comments Tags: brand building, brand management, direct response.

Short term needs and long term requirements – how do you fit both together in a coherent marketing strategy?

Today, brand management is more complex than ever, and for business-to-business brands, where decision horizons tend to be more distant, there’s a continued conflict between gaining response and pursuing the longer term goal of brand engagement.

WildWest has experience at both ends of the spectrum – producing enquiries for business-to-business products and services, and in helping companies begin the process of building brand value for the long term. But balancing those two very different priorities is never easy, especially in a market where quarterly numbers are as important as establishing a reputation for quality and service, and the desirability that goes with that reputation.

So on the one hand, our most successful piece of direct marketing, ever http://www.designwildwest.com/blog/2010/06/our-most-successful-piece-of-direct-marketing-ever/ and on the other, producing brand collateral that has helped organisations like Mahindra Racing (India’s first MotoGP team) and Citroen Sport attract sponsorship – produced for our clients and friends at Sports Media International – http://www.sports-media-intl.com/

We’re currently working on a project for a credit and travel management organisation, where we have to fit both into a framework that will work in both the short and medium-term.

If that’s the kind of issue that your company is facing, then maybe you’d like to talk to us. We would love to hear from you.

Altassets says Stock Spirits for sale – at £1bn

Published on January 19, 2011 in Brand and identity, International and Web. 0 Comments Tags: Altassets, Czysta de Luxe vodka, Oaktree Capital, Orzel vodka, Stock Spirits.

Orzel vodka – becoming popular in the USA

According to a report in Altassets magazine, our client Stock Spirits is up for sale, with an asking price of around £1bn. Stock manufactures branded spirits from sites in central Europe, including its best-selling Czysta de Luxe and Orzel vodkas.

Stock is owned by investment company Oaktree Capital, who are apparently keen to cash in on the progress that Stock has been able to make over the past few years.

Stock was just beginning its remarkable transformation when we helped the company revitalise and define its logo and logo useage. We also designed and built ten websites for the various operating companies around Europe, all with a common look and feel, but allowing for regional differences, one of the most important of which was language. Several of the sites allow viewing in two languages, some in three, but everything has that consistent and high-quality look that Stock were aiming for.

We’d like to think that at least some of that £1billion is down to the classy websites we provided for each of the group companies.

Go to www.stockspirits.com for more.

Rumours of a celebration?

Published on October 29, 2010 in Brand and identity, Corporate and International. 0 Comments Tags: branded drinks, eastern Europe, international sales, Stock Spirits.

Stock's international sales are growing fast, thanks in part to our website

According to press reports, our clients at Stock Spirits are planning to launch an IPO sometime next year. Of course, we can’t comment on rumours, but if you do feel like a celebration, you will find some excellent cocktails on the Stock Spirits website!

We’ve designed and built websites for Stock in its corporate guise, as well as dual- and sometimes tri-language sites for the Stock operating companies around Europe (Italy, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia) and in the US, as well as a site dedicated to their growing international sales portfolio.

Stock came to us via their corporate PR agency, and we’re looking forward to providing great value and great presentation as they extend their global reach still further into new countries.

The Stock Appletini. Find the recipe on the website

And of course, if you feel like a celebration, you could hardly do better than the Stock Appletini. You’ll find the recipe (with some others that use the great Stock range of branded drinks) on the Stock Spirits website.

Stock Spirits continues to win major international awards for its spirits brands, which combine traditional methods and high-technology in terms of production and quality control to achieve remarkable results. No wonder that Stock is rapidly becoming central Europe’s leading producer of branded spirits.

Barclays – Using the Power of Football

Published on October 21, 2010 in Advertising, Brand and identity and Sport. 0 Comments Tags: Activation, Advertising, Barclays, branding, Soccer, sponsorship, Sport.

Barclays’ commitment to the Premier League in England is reinforced by the Bank’s determination to use the power of the most viewed club football league to extend its brand and reputation into countries and territories where it is now gaining significant market traction.

WildWest Design has produced a number of creative treatments (like the one shown here) promoting the Barclays Premier League, and Barclays products, in African countries. The overall goal is of course to reinforce and extend Barclays’ brand reach and its customer base across Africa, where the Premier League is already attracting big TV audiences and has a large established fan base, thanks in part to the many world stars from Africa who are now playing in the Premier League in England.

Source Foods

Published on August 19, 2010 in Brand and identity, Corporate, Design and Display. 0 Comments Tags: Chiswick Park, lunch, lunchtime, Richmond, Source foods.

Counter graphics for Source Foods

Source has the gift of getting food into people’s hands quickly, as regular lunchtime customers of its Richmond and Chiswick Park outlets will tell you. And not just the standard sandwich and chocolate bar either. Source provides good food at reasonable prices and its curries, sushi, salads, soup and their famous daily hot lunchbox are always great value and always served fast, when time is at a premium.

Now, Wild West is helping Source to refine its image and improve its signage too. Our first project for the company was to install a new counter graphic at the Source outlet in Richmond, which you can see in the picture.

Source also run in-office catering facilities and, as well as opening new branches in the near future, see this as another attractive opportunity.

We’re looking forward to lots more meetings with our new clients, preferably at lunch-time!

Barclays New York Challenge

Published on July 23, 2010 in Brand and identity, International and Sport. 0 Comments Tags: Activation, Barclays, branding, New York Challenge, Soccer, sponsorship.

Barclays New York Challenge is a US-based curtain-raiser to the Barclays Premier League season. Here’s a link to the launch press conference (link) video where you’ll be able to see some of our brand activation work!

Design for PR

Published on July 22, 2010 in Advertising, Brand and identity, Display and PR. 0 Comments Tags: Advertising, Barclays, Barclays spaces for sports, magazine, photoshoot, PR, props, website.

Some PR agencies like to invest in their own in-house design capabilities. Others either aren’t of a sufficient size, or they just like to choose the right designers for the right project. After all, design, like a pair of shoes, doesn’t come in one size for everyone.

Even a big agency like financial specialists FD have been known to look to WildWest for design and programming skills, and over the years, we’ve worked variously for Brands2Life, Octopus (and their Loudhouse research subsidiary), Bite, Lexis and Hill and Knowlton.

The projects have included everything from interview sets for British Lions rugby, through to client magazines, props for photoshoots, websites and advertising. Some of these companies have come to us because of our particular knowledge of sponsorship and sponsorship activation; others for more general help, or to ask whether something they have in mind is actually feasible.

JShop = easy and instant international trading!

Published on July 15, 2010 in Advertising, Brand and identity and Web. 0 Comments Tags: anti-ageing, ecommerce, jshop, Marko Lens, retail site, skin care, wild west design, Zelens.

Zelens are one of those companies who know their target market.

If you find yourself sitting in a Ferrari today, and you’re female and concerned about the look of your skin, you probably won’t want us to tell you that Zelens products occupy the higher reaches of the scientifically-based (and expensive!) end of the market for skin care products.

The Zelens website (which WildWest designed and implemented for them) uses JShop technology to make it a true eCommerce site with all the facilities a company selling to an international market would need.

Security, shipping, credit card administration, tracking orders are all handled from within the JShop system, providing a full retail system at a very affordable price.

If you would like to know more about eCommerce possibilities for your company and its products, please do get in touch.

Wild West – Helping out the Madrid bid

Published on July 9, 2010 in Brand and identity, PR and Sport. 0 Comments Tags: 2018, Activation, branding, golf, launch event, Lexis, Madrid, PR, press launch, Ryder Cup, Seve Ballesteros.

Seve backs Spain's bid to host the Ryder Cup

Madrid is one of the cities bidding to stage the 2018 Ryder Cup, the golf competition that pits the best of Europe against the best of America. Wild West was pleased to help out British PR agency, Lexis by designing and producing some impressive branded clothing and other materials for the launch – all produced in double-quick time, in order to be ready for the launch event which featured Spanish golfing legend Seve Ballesteros.

Sadly, Ballesteros will not now be able to play the four demonstration holes at next week’s British Open, to be staged at St Andrews, the scene of some of his greatest triumphs. His recovery from brain surgery and consequent therapy simply won’t allow it.

Great design – It all adds up

Published on June 17, 2010 in Brand and identity, Corporate and Design. 1 Comment Tags: branding, Corporate, design, design inspiration, Hatton Grange, identity, start-up, Stock Spirits, venture-backed, web site, website.

No matter whether you are a start-up operation just beginning to make your mark on the business world, or an established company with a brand to protect and enhance, the way you look is important.

And it’s not so good when your website (for example) looks great, but your corporate stationery looks second class. Or your product literature is great, but you’re let down by an outbound email. High quality is important and consistent quality more important still.

At WildWest Design, we’re proud to provide that consistency of approach. Because we’re not the largest of design companies, we have to be incredibly thorough about detail, (as well as providing the inspiration in terms of the big picture), because getting things right – from a business card or a powerpoint presentation to a corporate display or a product launch – really does matter. It means business for our clients, and it means business for us too.

Our bright and confident logo for Hatton Grange, a company providing specialist services to private equity and venture capital companies

Hatton Grange (see the story directly below) are the latest new company to launch with a new identity, new stationery and new website – all designed by WildWest. They join a growing list of companies working with WildWest, either for specific projects or on the basis of regular and frequent needs. You’ll find that list to the right of this story. Scroll down to the ‘Contacts’ section.

In total contrast to this project was our work for central Europe’s largest manufacturer of branded spirits. Stock Spirits neeed to document and control the use of their brand mark over different territories, and to ensure a consistency of approach in terms of corporate websites wherever their products are sold. WildWest designed and implemented a set of ten websites, many with two and three language versions.

Different companies have different requirements, but our award-winning service can be important whether you have specific design needs, or you are concerned to have a service that will reinforce your product and service quality wherever you are visible.