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Corporate Innovations secure MBO finance following re-brand
“Pepper Marketing has given us the ability to market ourselves on a regular basis without the need to employ a dedicated marketing head. We now have everything we need to manage our marketing in-house, with the security of knowing we can call for help when we need it. They are flexible, trustworthy and very cost effective”. David Watt, Managing Director, Corporate Innovations.
CASE STUDY About Corporate Innovations Corporate Innovations are an established event management solutions company offering hospitality, incentives, conferencing, cultural development and customer surveys to their client base. Corporate Innovations employ 30 specialist sales and event managers who work with a range of businesses including large corporate clients such as Microsoft, T-Mobile, Walkers Crisps, Orange, Network Associates and The Royal Bank of Scotland. Requirement During the last 5 years Corporate Innovations’ business has evolved from providing company incentive days and hospitality to now offering a full business communication solution incorporating; cultural development, customer surveys and conferencing as well as incentives and hospitality. The Corporate Innovations identity had become dated and did not reflect the breadth or the quality of the service that they now provide. The managing director of Corporate Innovations was also leading an MBO for the organisation at the same time and felt that in order to attract investors, they needed a more professional image. Solution Pepper Marketing worked with Corporate Innovations to conduct focus group research with their customers, suppliers and staff to find out their opinions on the existing logo, identity and the brand culture, we also identified people’s perceptions of the meaning of Corporate Innovations. The same research was then also carried out with the management team and a summary of all the results fed back to the management team for consideration. It's a known fact that staff reject change mostly because they do not understand it or that they do not feel part of it, therefore by involving staff in this change process we managed to get the employees buy in to the change at the early stages of the project. This made implementing the changes a lot easier, a lot faster and we had the buy in and support from the whole team. The next stage of the project was to research identity options, colour schemes and sub branding opportunities. We then provided a range of creative options and execution and implementation guidelines along with an implementation plan with full costs and timescales. Pepper Marketing worked as part of the Corporate Innovations team for nearly 4 months ensuring that all aspects of the implementation for the new brand had been taken into consideration. The identity change was communicated to the staff however, the actual finished design was kept a secret to the launch day, so we had to ensure that we were discreet and tactful whilst obtaining as much information from them as we could. Pepper Marketing implemented the new identity across the whole organisation including: company stationary, document folders and itinerary wallets and we wrote to all their customers and suppliers explaining the change and the reasons behind it. We developed a complete range of document templates in Word, Excel and PowerPoint which ensured that the new identity was carried across all internal and external forms and documentation. We handled press releases to local and regional press and organised the launch day activities. The company’s website went through a complete overhaul and Pepper Marketing worked with their own web specialists and the CI team to design and structure the new site, this included the addition of the “Sporting Hospitality Calendar” with downloadable sample itineraries. Customers can now find what they are looking for much quicker and easier than before. The Corporate Innovations sales teams needed help with their presentations; the production was taking up too much of their time, they ended up being too big to mail and the messages were not always accurate. Pepper marketing helped them overcome these issues in a number of ways. Firstly we developed a fully electronic company presentation enabling the sales team to sell the services easier without having to re-write the corporate messages each time. This presentation included movies and sound tracks so that the salesperson could demonstrate examples of some of the events they had produced. Secondly we developed a simple PowerPoint presentation template so that each sales person could easily create a customer presentation. With all the formatting and styling in place, all they had to do was type the words. Lastly, to ensure that all employees could make the most of these items we ran a day’s training “Basic PowerPoint and Presenting”, this basic course enabled both the sales and event managers to confidently create and present their own presentations, it also provided the company with staff training and development opportunities for other staff members of the organisation. Because Corporate Innovations work with such a large selection of 3rd party suppliers it was of vital importance that they reproduced the new identity accurately, Pepper Marketing produced a comprehensive set of brand guidelines which was distributed to all staff and suppliers. This meant that briefing new suppliers was a lot easier and that the risk of inaccuracies in the production was reduced. The final stage of the project was to develop a marketing strategy and communications plan which they are working to today, this includes: a series of HTML email bulletins, advertising and direct mail campaigns. Pepper Marketing worked with their specialist suppliers to deliver this project and we also worked very closely with the clients. This meant we could deliver the right solution and at a competitive price. Results The new identity was received very positively by all staff, customers and suppliers, the staff in particular now feel that they belong to a company a brand and a culture that they all believe in (happy staff). The sales team is now using much more professional sales tools which is making the customers more confident to try them and they are receiving an increase in incoming leads from the marketing and the website (happy customers). The Managing Director successfully acquired Corporate Innovations in a recent MBO and explains that the new identity played a very large part in this success (happy boss).
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