David Ogilvy said “Any damn fool can put on a deal, but it takes genius, faith and perseverance to create a brand” and that’s been very much in our minds as we plan the rollout of our new brand.
Why bother? The old logo worked fine and it’s difficult to prove that we ever lost a customer because they didn’t like our branding.
The trigger was probably the realisation that the logo’s structure wasn’t optimal for online use (the chevrons took too much space) and this was a constraint as we looked to improve online navigation. We considered simply tinkering but Esendex had changed: we’d grown significantly despite the recession and a number of threads were being pulled together:
- The company’s vision had been clarified and we were developing our positioning;
- We’d committed to a strategy of continued growth and were planning to launch in the US;
- The new Echo portfolio of services were well underway.
And so we decided to not just change the logo but rebrand the business and our entire online portfolio, ready for the next 5 years.
After an extensive search we decided to work with a local agency, Alight to help us through the process. The logo itself dropped out relatively easily, in part because we’d done our homework but also because we were clear on what we wanted to achieve.
This new branding reflects the maturity and ambition of Esendex. It’s modern, serious but clean and professional.
That of course was just the beginning. We’ve completely redesigned and rethought our brochure sites, our online services will need to be redesigned, there’s stationary, invoices, and of course the “online proliferation”.
The first tangible evidence will be the launch of our US website, which goes live shortly.
After that “B” or Branding Day is 1st August when we start the rollout across the rest of the organisation, with a plan to update each of our sites in the coming months and all our applications. It’s a huge task for everyone involved, particularly the marketing team who’ve worked hard on something that they’re justifiably proud of and the development team who’ll need to rework all our online tools.
I’m looking forward to seeing the new identity come to life in the months ahead.
