A B2B brand has to be built from the inside out. No matter what you’re selling, it’s the interaction or experience with the brand that will establish it most firmly in your audiences’ minds. The challenge is even greater when you are combining two quite similar yet distinct businesses to create a new one. Establishing a single identity is the easy part, carving a market position that more than 1500 people can believe in and a promise they can live up to is a whole new challenge.
The Challenge
Kingston Communications is usually associated with the residential telephone service they provide to the Hull and North Humberside area. It is, in fact, a national business-to-business telecoms provider with its own network and offices throughout the country. In December 2004 it acquired Omnetica (previously Siemens Network Systems), itself a major player in the enterprise networks space, and the decision was taken to create a single business that at last has the depth and breadth of services and expertise to really challenge BT, Cable & Wireless and other telecoms operators and IT services companies.
It was clear that to challenge effectively the new brand had to stand out, be clear about its positioning and promise and most importantly offer something that BT et al. were failing to deliver.
About Affiniti
Research had highlighted the opportunity. Whilst BT is a respected and credible brand in the business IT/telecoms arena it was not particularly liked. The dissatisfaction was found to be a result of apparent disinterest, remoteness and poor account management. The technology is fine and in fact very similar in regards of vendor, but what companies were found to want is a partner who will take the time to get to understand their business and the issues faced, and then to design and deploy and support solutions that add real business value.
These negatives were also recognised strengths for both Kingston Communications and Omnetica and indeed can be traced back to their core common values of ‘flexible’, ‘in touch’, ‘responsible’ and ‘expert’. These were therefore the basis of the new brand.
The Approach
The new name, Affiniti and the associated strapline “Get Involved” were developed to reflect the essence of the new business and to support the core promise – getting closer to their customers’ businesses, to their problems and to them as individuals, so that they can help them make the most of technology to really benefit their business.
Making it real
The internal launch was always going to be critical to how well the brand would be received and believed in externally. All employers were invited to a secret location in the Midlands where the CEO and senior management team introduced the new brand, the future and every individual’s role in that future. A day’s events were organised for nearly 1000 people including physical, mental and emotional challenges to deliver an experience they would never forget and to bring the key messages to life. Every single employee left with a clearer understanding of Affiniti, the positioning and promise and with real belief in the new brand.
Building the brand externally
With a total marketing budget estimated at one hundredth of the size of BT’s, it was essential that the approach to building the brand externally was focused, measured and single-minded. Base One designed the campaign around the following priorities:
- Existing customers
- Existing prospects
- Analysts and press
- Senior IT decision makers in public and private enterprises.
The resultant integrated campaign used a combination of events, direct mail, account management presentation and IT on and off-line media all driving traffic to a new website that tells the Affiniti story.
The message had to be simple and emotional during this initial launch phase. Like all good challengers, we wanted to make it clear who Affiniti are and what they believed in. We judged this to be relevant and compelling enough to drive people to find out more about the services and the technologies they deploy.
The resultant creative positions Affiniti as a new kind of supplier – a communications integrator, and one who takes the time to get to understand you and your business before advising on how to use technology to really deliver value to your business. It’s an emotional message with no mention of technology and this in itself was unique with every other serious player painting their view of a technology-driven future.
The creative treatment is strong, iconographic and simple. It focuses on the people rather than technology and uses bold colouring and graphics to aid recall and recognition.
The results
There are no figures available for pre- and post-campaign results as neither business had tracked awareness levels prior to creating the new brand. Success is and always was to be measured by the quantity and quality of web traffic along with informal feedback from clients and staff alike.
Internal feedback has been really positive with comments like “at last an image that accurately represents us”, without the usual cynicism that you would expect from people who have had a number of new names over recent years. Formal assessments of understanding and acting in line with the brand have also been built into the HR processes.
Externally, web traffic has rocketed and has been created both through the online advertising (with some cells delivering more than three per cent click-throughs) and the DM activity. Customer feedback at the events was also very positive and many are taking advantage of the additional range of services available from the enhanced business.
