PPB June 2020

Branding Creative Fayetteville, Arkansas Gold Winner OBJECTIVE: To rebrand distributor Creative Awards into something modern, aspirational, relatable and story-driven DETAILS: Driven by a passion for product with purpose and a vision to harvest a relationship-based future, the Creative Awards team set out to rebrand into an entirely new company with a bigger vision: enter Creative. To reflect the new vision, Creative underwent a full rebranding process, developing a new brand identity based on its current value proposition. The name Creative became its aspirational ideal and a reminder to clients and the team that Creative does just that—it creates meaningful products that add value to people’s lives and products that end users not only cherish, but welcome. The new look leans into modern colors, color blocking, custom iconography and visual flow mapping. The brand shows that Creative is playful and fun, but professional. Creative is cool, but not pretentious. Creative is aspirational, but relatable. Creative is experienced, but curious. RESULTS: New clients have very little to no insight about Creative Awards and are onboarding based on the new Creative brand. Creative has intentionally refrained from making its history part of its story moving forward. The company is telling a new story—and it’s working. Insights from Anna Branch, brand and marketing strategist: What was involved in this rebranding effort? “We redid our whole brand—new logo, new website, new brand identity, new colors, new brand guide and new messaging and core values. We took our brand and flipped it upside down. The company had been around for about 20 years and really didn’t have a strong brand presence. We thought about what our brand needed to be from an operating standpoint and the look, feel and everything. We said, ‘You know what, we have this opportunity, let’s just do it big.’ Branch, who joined the company, almost two years ago, says this family- owned distributor was originally an awards company, which grew into a forward-focused branding agency. Some of the collateral produced for the rebrand and pictured included a look-book for clients, business cards, apparel and pieces used at a client event to unveil the new brand." How did you promote the rebranding to clients? “We had a big launch party in our new office that’s very modern and cool with an open floor plan. We also have a showroom, so it was great way to engage our clients and bring them into the story.” Guests at the event could walk around and experience some of the projects the company has completed. On exhibit are curated displays of Creative’s work; the pieces are changed out periodically to be relevant to the clients who are visiting. 2020 PPAI Pyramid Awards | FEATURE | JUNE 2020 | 19