B2B Build Back Better with a Brand-First Approach

From the UK’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson to President Jo Biden and New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardernthe, the slogan ‘build back better’ is being used across the world right now. The phrase suggests a fairer and more prosperous future awaiting us after our recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

This phrase, however, is not only being used by politicians, businesses and corporations are also starting to adopt this phrase as a mantra in their messaging and values. The World Bank used the phrase in a report highlighting the need to “build back better” in poor communities.

What does this really mean though, well traditionally this phrase was used as a strategy in the wake of natural disasters and shocks – the idea of a long-term rebuilding and sustainable restoration of critical infrastructures i.e., housing, facilities and livelihoods of a community affected by the disaster.

In the wake of the pandemic, we can see why businesses are now looking to assume this ideology and make plans for how they can bounce back stronger than before.

But how do we in the business world build back better?

Here at Creative Clinic, we believe that:

• one of the most important steps is to adopt a brand-first approach to your business or organisation

• with many industries being put on pause, there’s an opportunity to take a step back and revaluate your brand

• it’s important to ensure marketing platforms and strategies have brand synergy

• all brands should look at whether we are communicating with our target market in the most effective way possible

What is brand?

Branding is the first channel used by businesses to demonstrate their USP and signify their identifiable mark. A brand is compiled of many different elements including, the obvious visual element as well as brand language, messaging and overall approach.

Communicating your value as a brand and business to your target market is the most important piece to building back better and the way we do this first and foremost is through a strong brand. We believe that this is true for B2C businesses as well as B2B businesses.

It’s typical in the B2B sector, to only go as far as the logo when it comes to branding but it’s so important to push your brand further than that. Your brand is critical to business success and evolving your brand into a meaningful asset that can be used across many business growth channels that need to be employed when building back better. This is essential and something Creative Clinic are experts at!

It is true that B2B brands aren’t as deeply visible in society – in comparison to businesses who target consumers but just because the target market is less general, doesn’t mean branding should be ignored. In order to build back better, B2B brands need to project their stability through all of their platforms, messaging and brand assets. It’s important in a period of uncertainty to restore and reinforce trust to your market and clients.

Assessing your brand and where it currently stands in the B2B world can also help reinvigorate a tired and long-established brand, particularly in the current circumstances, B2B brands should seek to generate excitement within the company and to clients.

A good example of this is GroupNexus, which offers an end-to-end solution for parking. Following a successful merger of Ranger Services and CP Plus, two industry leaders in the UK parking sector, GroupNexus was formed. The combined entity required a new business-to-business branding identity and visual language to communicate this merger to their partners and clients and also generate excitement and security. It was essential to bring stakeholders on the branding journey, respecting the approaches and cultures of both teams.

Creative Clinic has produced a wide range of marketing collateral and brand assets which includes a website, brochures, exhibition graphics, motion graphics, presentation templates, advertising, LinkedIn marketing campaigns and also a design for the public interfacing GroupNexus IOS and Android app. Through the perfect branding, GroupNexus were able to build this merger and create a much stronger brand-story to use in their marketing messaging.

It’s key for B2B brands to reflect on how they can strengthen their business values through the way they communicate with clients. This sector particularly needs to make the right impression on prospective clients by displaying the benefits of their product/ service with examples of how they have enhanced the productivity of previous clients through their messaging.

The perfect illustration of this is Suppeco, a B2B brand consultancy that offers software as a service platform particularly focussed around financial services, logistics, communications, defence, SI consultancy, and public-sectors. Suppeco’s platform was originally a sub-brand to a wider existing business; SK Euroca. After deciding the particular software needed to expand to a wider public, they decided to create a new brand under the name Suppeco.

Creative Clinic was appointed to create an entire refresh of the Suppeco brand. We were asked to develop a new brand identity including logo, colour pallet and assets which they could then roll out and use within their investment and document presentations. Visual graphics to match the approach and icons to reflect the product’s key benefits were an important part of building Suppeco back better in order to display the benefits of their product/ services in a clear and succinct fashion.

Our approach as a brand-first design and digital agency has always been simple, place our clients’ brand first as we recognise that maximising the value of your brand is critical to success now more than ever. As the brand-first agency, we can help you unlock the unseen value of an existing brand or set you up with a new brand and the assets you need to build back better.

Contact us to find out how we would recharge your brand and adopt a brand-first approach to help grow your business. Let’s talk.