Seaward are the market leaders in designing and manufacturing electrical safety and measuring instruments in the UK, with offices in the US and the Far East. They have a proud 40-year history of innovation in portable appliance testing under their belts – but an extended period of rapid expansion saw them losing their way as a brand.
A long history of acquisition had resulted in an overly complex group structure at Seaward, with many strands of the business operating in silos and often finding themselves in competition with one another. This confusion had resulted in customers being totally unaware that they were dealing with Seaward as a parent company. In short, we had a big brand identity crisis on our hands.
We needed to clearly communicate a strong value proposition, to identify what made Seaward different, and ultimately who was part of it. We devised a simple, 3-step plan beginning with Phase 1- Immersion, deep-diving into a 360º snapshot of the entire organisation. Phase 2 put our discovered insights to work, enabling us to strip the brand architecture back, retaining only one sub-brand – Rigel Medical. Finally, phase 3 got our creative juices flowing with the development of a fresh, distinctive and consistent brand identity that could run across ALL marketing collateral and brand touchpoints.
This project has redefined Seaward as a business and with our help, the entire Seaward business model has changed radically. It has led to the streamlining and unifying of the entire organisation, the rationalisation and standardisation of the company’s product portfolio. It’s seen a major improvement in internal communications, staff retention and recruitment and above all a positive shift from a sales-led to a customer-first solutions-led approach, future proofing the brand for many years to come, whilst also enabling Rigel to have a strong, unified link with the Seaward parent brand.
