Brand Development Services
Branding is the cornerstone of effective marketing.
We encourage growth by creating brands that are visually distinctive, intelligently positioned and strategically designed to strengthen relationships that your brand has with key audiences.
If you are looking to build a brand as part of your growth strategy then Mackman could be the right partner for you. We work with ambitious market leading organisations to develop premium branding and brand development solutions.
Our comprehensive brand development services are utilised by organisations of all sizes and across many sectors. Typically they are delivered by blending the skills of our insight, strategy, creative, communications and digital teams.
Brand development is a critical element of your marketing portfolio and is best delivered by specialists with the experience to deliver the right solution. With comprehensive in-house capabilities our track record speaks for itself; we’ve been trusted to deliver over 450 brands since 2003.
We get it right because we know how to avoid common pitfalls and work collaboratively to evolve engaging brands that resonate with target audiences.
How we can help
A plain speaking collaborative approach.
You may be a new business needing the right foundations to build credibility or be established in your market and looking for the next phase of growth. Perhaps it’s just the right time for a refresh to breathe new energy into a tired brand system for a group of businesses.
We support clients with varying needs and differing levels of branding expertise. Our plain speaking, collaborative, can-do approach makes us easy to work with, as together we develop bespoke solutions right for you and your organisation.
Mackman brand specialists craft project roadmaps that clearly define objectives, scope, process, timescales and responsibilities. If required we can help you to manage key stakeholders, senior leaders, and engage with cynics.
Our specialists create practical brand toolkits delivered via our own cloud based product called BrandBag. Templates are created appropriate to your own resources to ensure that you can independently create your own on-brand marketing materials.
We train our clients to make informed branding decisions about what your brand should be saying, how it should be said and where it should be said.
Contact us today to discuss your brand development needs.
Brand Development Services
We help leading brands to stand out in a crowded marketplace.
If you are facing increasing competition that’s creating a growing choice for your consumers, then you need to connect on an emotional level with customers.
We help leading brands to stand out in a crowded marketplace and create long-standing relationships with customers. Mackman will make it easier for people to believe and trust in your brand, seeing your brand as superior to your competitors.
How a brand is perceived will influence its success - whether it’s a start-up, established company, not for profit, person or product.
Market leading organisations are as strong as their brands and nothing else offers senior leaders so much potential leverage. In fact some brands now appear on balance sheets with the intangible brand value at times being greater than the tangible assets.
Contact us today so we can start the process of mapping your own brand development project roadmap.
DR GEMMA MACKMAN
Research Director
Contact Mackman today and let’s get started on your brand development project.
For an initial informal discussion with a senior member of our team either complete the contact form or call us on 01787 388 038. We would be interested to discuss your requirements in more depth and how best to move forward.
Brand Research
Highly qualified and experienced research specialists.
The quality of our brand development work is built upon the capacity of our research team to understand your brand and the competitive environment in which it operates. In this way we ensure that our solutions are linked to your business goals and strategies.
Our first priority is to understand your organisation; its mission, vision, values, target markets, culture, competitive advantage, strengths and weaknesses, marketing strategies, and challenges for the future.
This provides an insight into the intended personality of your brand which we compare with the perceived personality by undertaking customer research. Over this we layer a view of the market-place and the competition.
The Mackman research team are highly qualified and experienced research specialists. From global brands to local start-ups, we are able to meet the needs of small, medium and large organisations.
Brand research should be part of an ongoing process of pulse taking and customer engagement. Perception and satisfaction surveys, brand and awareness tracking, competitor research and employee surveys are all examples of the insight work that we regularly undertake related to branding.
Brand Development Strategy
A solid plan that underpins any brand activity.
If your organisation is serious about brand development, is seeking organisational growth, and wants to invest in marketing, then the development of a brand strategy is essential.
Brand development strategies are frequently developed at the birth of a brand by a visionary responsible for creating the organisation, product or service. They are not always documented by those individuals and therefore the strategy can be lost over time or become distorted.
Alternatively, they are created by specialists from outside of the organisation as a result of an extended dialogue that includes the senior membership team and with a strong focus on the customer. Mackman brand strategies adhere to Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) best practice and are approved by a CIM Fellow and Chartered Marketer.
Our brand team will design a brand strategy tailored for you that is driven by the principles of differentiation, aimed at sustaining customer appeal, and that will inform your creative tactical activities.
We understand the importance of developing a brand strategy that is built on your vision, aligned with your business strategy, emerges from your values and culture, and reflects a deep understanding of your customer needs and their perceptions of your brand.
If you are looking to create focus and to grow your brand, then you need a brand positioning strategy to help you achieve a competitive advantage. We are passionate about brand development and experts at growing brands across many sectors, and in collaboration with clients with varying knowledge of the process of branding.
Contact us today to start the process of our Mackman branding specialists developing a bespoke brand strategy for you, to ensure that your brand is clearly and effectively positioned in your market-place.
PAUL MACKMAN
Managing Director - FCIM Chartered Marketer
Brand Architecture
Managing multiple brands?
Do you need a new brand architecture to deal with acquisitions or because your business has grown organically in response to market demand?
Brand architecture is how you structure your brands and their relationships within your organisation. It is a brand building process as relevant to start-ups as large organisations. Your strategic decision making at Board level determines your brand architecture.
Mackman will identify and define the right model for your organisation, be it a ‘house of brands’, ‘endorsed brands’, ‘sub brands’ or ‘branded house’.
Common strategic questions we answer about brand architecture:
- What are the benefits of leveraging the name of the parent company?
- Does the positioning of our new entity require that we distance it from the parent?
- Will co-branding confuse customers?
- Do we change the name or build on existing equity even though it was owned by a competitor?
- Should we ensure that the parent company is always visible in a secondary position?
- How do we brand this new acquisition?
Brand Identity
Creating a brand personality.
This aspect of your brand is what most people associate with the term branding and relates to the visual systems such as logo, colour, type, pattern etc that support your brand.
There are many factors that influence brand identity decisions such as brand architecture, ‘positioning’, ‘brand personality’, and your ‘brand promise’.
Our creative studio build brand identity systems that include a range of visual assets and resonate with target audiences because they unify around a central idea.
Our identity solutions are presented in real applications, next to the competition and are flexible enough to be applied to a wide range of applications such as online, uniforms, signage, interior building schemes, packaging, and campaigns.
We think about brand identity as being the tangible element of branding that appeals to the senses; you can see it, touch it, hold it, hear it, watch it move.
Brand identity fuels recognition, enhances differentiation, and communicates big ideas and meaning.
Some of the key elements of the brand identity systems we produce are:
- Typography
- Imagery
- Colour
- Tone of voice & vocabulary
- Trademark
BRUCE BURGOYNE
Creative Director
Brand Launches
Ready, steady, grow...
Brand launches can represent a huge marketing opportunity to build brand awareness and communicate brand values. There may also be practical considerations, as is the case if brand assets are changing, or even brand names.
We work with our clients to select the right approach for their brand launch. Multi-media campaigns might see visible change virtually overnight including websites, vehicles, packaging, uniforms and signage. Whilst for other brand launches with tighter budgets or smaller organisations, we can elect to leverage social media, email or existing marketing channels.
For nearly all brand launches, one of the most important audiences is the employees who become brand ambassadors. It can be an emotional opportunity to energise staff around a new sense of purpose.
Key questions we answer preparing for a brand launch campaign:
- Who needs to know?
- What does each person need to know?
- Why do they need to know?
- How does the change affect them?
- How will they find out?
- When will they find out?
Brand Governance
Protecting your brand.
Brand governance is about protecting the investment and decisions made during the architecture and identity processes. Branding starts from within an organisation and needs to be owned across internal teams.
Our solution encourages the use of brand tools by all employees recognising that they are all brand ambassadors. We have created a cloud-based brand toolbox called ‘BrandBag’ that unlocks the ability to create consistent brand material.
CHLOE KICHENBRAND
Creative Manager
BrandBag
Your online brand management centre.
Our own online brand management centre which promotes engagement with stakeholders by sharing the brand vision, strategy and assets. Being cloud-based, BrandBag provides access 24/7 to user friendly guidelines, tools and templates, promoting consistent communication and quality execution.
Assign creative partners with password protected user log-ons to access key messages, logos, image libraries, colour palettes, typefaces and other brand tools. Access is limited by user groups.
Brand Development Packages
Packages to accelerate your growth.
If you are serious about accelerating your growth, then you might want to consider our brand development packages, designed for brands recognising the need for a specialist agency as an important element of their growth strategy.
Access our most senior specialists delivering a defined series of services guaranteed to fast-track your brand development.
Contact us today to speak with a senior brand development specialist to discuss how to accelerate your growth with controlled monthly fees starting from £3K per month.
ADAM CHAMBERLIN
Head of Development
How We Work
Branding is not just about your logo or visual identity, we believe that brands are as unique as individuals, with similarly complex personalities.
Our brand development team work with you to close the gap between your brand, your customers and other target brand audiences. We also provide you with practical tools and the necessary training to fully use them in order to enable you to fully leverage your brand equity.
Mackman clients benefit from our own cloud based brand portal called BrandBag which provides everything you need to manage your brand governance.
Our tried and tested approach avoids the subjective, ensuring that we can be relied upon to consistently deliver outstanding solutions that are on time and to budget.
This includes delivering collaborative workshops and spending quality sessions with key stakeholders. We take the time to see your brand from multiple perspectives such as your intended and perceived brand personalities, and a broader market view of where you sit against your competitors.
Our insight team explore new opportunities to develop products or services to better fulfil customer needs. Creative specialists provide visually inspiring work tailored to your organisation and brand.
We break our brand projects into five distinct phases:
- Conducting research
- Clarifying strategy
- Designing identity
- Creating touch points
- Managing assets
Because we are a full service agency we understand the multifaceted needs of brands and those responsible for them. The thoroughness of our approach sets us apart from our competitors.
JESS CRAGO
Insight Junior
Why Mackman
Mackman is a full service brand development, branding and marketing agency based in the vibrant market town of Sudbury on the Essex Suffolk border. We work with ambitious organisations of all sizes, across many sectors, with our driven team of marketing specialists who are dedicated to developing growing brands. Clients tell us that they value our ability as a partner to use marketing to solve business challenges.
Our unifying strap-line is ‘together we grow’ which speaks about the relationships that we have with our clients, suppliers and colleagues. We focus our marketing across six core marketing pillars; marketing insight, brand development, marketing consultancy, communications & content marketing, website development, training and knowledge sharing.
