and everything else in between.
Fancying themselves the three musketeers,
they cleverly married their three names
and thus was ‘Kelvin.’ Though they
attended different universities, they still
kept in touch. 10 years after they left
university, they formed ‘Kelvin Clearing
and Forwarding.’ Kevin was the face of
the company. His ebullient, approachable
nature was primarily responsible for
building the client base the company had.
24 years in, Kevin was still active in the
company even though he relinquished
many tasks he initially undertook. His
rich networks and the capacity to leverage
them made his continued input highly
valued.
Lois approached Kevin. He backed the
decision to improve the company’s CRM
system in order to improve efficiencies.
Lois needed a champion and she knew
she had one in Kevin. She approached
him and after much discussion, they both
agreed that the company needed the
assistance of a marketing and branding
consultant. Through influence Kevin
managed to convince senior staff and
shareholders of the need for a marketing
and branding consultant.
After going through the process of
bidding, interviewing and shortlisting,
Kelvin C&F settled for BrandWorks
Inc. as their consultant. As a first step,
BrandWorks undertook an audit to
determine all the things that ailed Kelvin
C&F’s corporate brand. Some of the
findings could not have been anticipated
by the company’s leadership.
In its approach to audit, BrandWorks
holds interviews with key stakeholders,
i.e. the board, managerial staff, other staff,
suppliers, clients and the general public.
Additionally, it undertakes research to
understand the industry through efforts
like benchmarking.
The audit findings showed that:
• The company’s brand name and look
was perceived across audiences as out of
touch and lacking resonance with what
the company does. Additionally, its visual
identity was not memorable.
• Staff could not make certain decisions
before consulting with higher authorities.
As a result, this portrayed them as
lacking confidence and in some cases
70 MAL33/19 ISSUE
Like the tip of an iceberg, coming up
with a new name and logo with appeal-
ing designs is a small part of the re-
branding process. The company’s vision,
purpose, business model and values need
to go through a reconstruct to reflect the
needs of the current market.
incompetent. Additionally, clients felt that
staff were too timid when approaching
them for payments or additional business.
• The company was not seen as an
attractive employer. The company was not
well known outside its industry but for the
majority who knew it, they didn’t believe
that Kelvin C&F was a place to build a
career.
• Losing a major client hurt the company’s
outlook but fortunately past its close
competitors, staff and suppliers many
people were not aware of the loss.
• Building the company’s pipeline was
not given the attention it deserved. The
company relied mostly on its existing client
base for repeat and additional business as
well as word of mouth referrals.
• The solutions given by the company were
deemed not encompassing enough to meet
evolving demands. Most clients wanted to
work with a 360 degree logistics solutions
provider.
Given the weight of the findings,
BrandWorks recommended that the
company goes through a rebrand. Most
people think of a brand as a name and
logo. Brands do incorporate names and
logos but that doesn’t cover everything a
brand is.
The American Marketing Association
(AMA) defines a brand as a ‘name, term,
sign, symbol or design or a combination of
them, intended to identify the goods and
services of one seller or group of sellers
and to differentiate them from those of
the competition.’ A brand is a perceptual
entity rooted in reality. Brands help
consumers organize their knowledge about
products and services in a way that clarifies
their decision making and in the process,
provides value to the firm.
The Kelvin C&F brand construct was no
longer adding value to the firm. Though
sentimental value was attached to it as the
name Kelvin represented its co-founders,
the gain from embracing a new identity
would outweigh sticking to its original
identity.
Rebranding is done with the intention
of creating a new, relevant, differentiated
identity in the minds of stakeholders.
In this case, the effort would serve the
purposes of distancing itself from its
flawed deliveries and losing a client in the
process as well as giving the perception
that the company was modern and
fashionable, giving clarity of its purpose.
Like the tip of an iceberg, coming up
with a new name and logo with appealing
designs is a small part of the rebranding
process. The company’s vision, purpose,
business model and values went through
a reconstruct to reflect the needs of the
current market. The company chose to
continue to serve its customer type that
is, large and medium sized corporates. It
purposed to expand its solutions to include
the likes of warehousing, insurance, and
financial services. This was an audacious
goal which the company determined to
achieve in 5 years.
Its new value set included speed,
efficiency, transparency, determination
and responsiveness. A number in the
managerial team felt values like integrity,
expertise and client satisfaction should be
included but it was concluded that those
were generic, permission to play values
that didn’t serve in differentiating them
from competitors.
Then came the name and the logo. A sea
change is embarked on when a company
has: outgrown its original mission, wants
to overcome negative perceptions and
there’s lack of clarity about the company
and what it does. This is what Kevin C&F
needed. Headstrong, formerly James