Helping a digital marketing agency reach their desired audience

The Client: Arise

Website: Arise

Details: Launched 2019

• Brand Discovery
• Market Focus
• User Research
• Competitor Benchmarking
• Brand Strategy
• Brand assets
• Visual Identity

The Challenge

Arise are a successful digital agency based in the UK who deliver social media and communications management to luxury hotel and hospitality brands developing their online profiles.

Ben Walker, the owner and director of arise approached me as they were looking to refresh their brand and bring it more inline with their target market. Their previous brand was in Ben’s words “a bit Lidl”. The colours were bright yellow and blue and had a budget brand feel to them.

The new brand needed to reflect the amazing level of customer service Ben and the team offer and to bring them more in line with their target market. The brand needed to become more high end and aspirational. This needed to flow through into all touchpoints –  photography, brand communication, and digital design.

The Solution

We started off with an indepth brand discovery phase. Ben and I worked closely to conduct market research and understand Arise’s target audience better. This focused on gaining a greater understanding of what Arise’s clients wanted to experience when working with them, and the outcomes they desired for the hotel or organisation they worked for. We looked at where Arise wanted to be positioned within the market, and how Ben wanted their clients to feel after working with them.

We conducted competitor benchmarking both geographically and within the sector. We created customer archetypes based on current clients and dream, future clients and the challenges that they may come to Arise for help with.

We identified the Arise brand values and what made them unique. These included:

• Authenticity
• Expertise
• Creativity
• Quality
• Respect
• Aspirational

Creating the Brand Assets

The findings of the discovery stage then came together to create a clear path for Arise to follow so they could move forward confidently into their next phase of growth.

This involved creating a brand system including visual identity, colour palette, brand typography, tone of voice, and digital design recommendations.

Arise have expertise, quality, and authenticity at the centre of their business, they are problem solvers for their clients and help them grow and reach new business heights. These were the main ideas when creating their visual identity.  

The logo symbol is made up of the A from Arise and stylised to represent a large mountain with a smaller mountain in front. This gives the logo dual meaning. In the first instance it represents Arise elevating their clients above the competition and in the second that Arise will look after and nurture their clients – protecting them like the big mountain protects the smaller mountain.

This logomark is for digital use particularly on smaller screen sizes and social media, and as an image overlay.

To support such a simple logomark I used a strong sans serif capitalised typeface that sits naturally and comfortably below the logomark creating a new brandmark. 

When sat above the logotype the symbol has a third meaning representing a stylised arrow pointing upwards to represent success. The logotype together with the logo symbol can be used on a desktop site, stationery and events banners.

The colour palette is muted and sophisticated with a pop of deep pinky red used sparingly on the website for calls to action.

The digital typography reflects the brand identity and brings brand cohesion to all touch points.

The Results

Arise now has a strong sense of identity that they can take forward with confidence to attract the clients they want to work with. They have a clear sense of self which enables their clients to have complete confidence in their expertise and services.

They have a brand strategy that gives them a clear path into the future and makes communication with their target audience easy and straightforward. The brand fully reflects who they are.