Brand Transition Strategy
In 2009, an Indian conglomerate expanded into the European market by acquiring several European companies in different sectors. What does it's new brand look like, how do the individual brands merge, and how does it communicate?
During my three months internship with Onio Nxt, an Innovation and Strategy Consultancy based in Pune, India, I was very lucky to join Manoj Kothari on a corporate research trip to Europe to develop a brand transition strategy. We visited companies in UK and Sweden, where we interviewed to employees across the departments and spoke to retailers and installers to understand the existing brands' essence and perception to envision the effect it would have merging all under one Indian company's brand.
I was involved in all stages of the process: from desk research to competitor analysis, trying to get a grasp on grid products and B2B relations. The two week corporate ethnographic research trip to Europe was very enjoyable and insightful highlighting the role of the designer to primarily create empathy between company staff and decision makers.
"People have an 'Installers know best' attitude or make purchases in distress"
Retailer shop staff
My Role
Being the intern on the team, I got to do the joyful tasks of transcribing interviews, and preparing presentation slides. In return I was privileged of travelling to Europe and gaining an insight into meetings and conference calls. A not too bad trade off ;) I was also solely responsible to design the research tools which acted as communication platforms for current and future brand perception. I synthesised the key findings, created all visualisation materials like transition diagrams and mocked ups of future printed ads and product looks.
Ethnographic Corporate Research Tools for which I prepared the following tools:
- Brand value board with keywords
- Smart energy grid diagram for company's positioning
- Vision cards prompting different future scenarios
- Future Tag lines
Achievements
- Understanding of the energy industry, its players and future trends
- Attending and contributing to client meetings
- Gaining brand theory background
- Design of the research tools
- Interviewing front line staff and clients
Read details to Fee's internship at Onio Nxt and a responds this triggered.
