What is it like to work with us here at Oil Studios? How does the process work and what is important for interior design branding? This year we have been delighted to be working with established cabinet makers, Spacemaker. Mark Reed – who recently acquired the company – was looking for a full package of branding, marketing and imagery. Here’s the journey we took together…
The Spacemaker story
When Mark took over Spacemaker he knew he was taking on a well-established and respected fitted furniture business. Having been around for 40 years it was well known within its area and had a solid customer base. But, it had its problems and Mark felt the company had lost its way somewhat.
“The way Spacemaker was presenting itself was quite old fashioned. It had good bones, but the skin wasn’t great.” is how he described it to us when we first met.
He knew that it needed a re-brand. He also wanted a new website, brochure and marketing materials for the company. Understanding the importance of high-quality imagery to showcase their collection, Mark also needed a set of images. He was looking for a company that could help with all of this. That’s where we came in.
“The remit was simple. We needed more leads. But I knew in order to make this happen everything had to be looked at. Having worked with Claire before, I knew I was always going to use her company. I put everything in her hands because I have absolute faith and have seen positive results in the past.”
Mark Reed
First – Brand strategy
Our process began with developing the brand’s identity. The purpose of this was to:
- Set the foundation for how customers would perceive Spacemaker.
- Evoke emotion from customers.
- Provide a framework for consistent communication and marketing.
To start, we set about ascertaining a deep understanding of Spacemaker’s product, what makes them unique and what their customers value. From our discussions with the team at Spacemaker it became clear that price was a major competitive advantage.
What we identified was that Spacemaker were offering a high-quality product, but at a lower price than their competitors. Therefore we needed to create and position them as a “high value” brand.
Brand positioning
“It was interesting, as at first I wasn’t keen on pushing the pricing side of the business as it were. But Claire identified that, in fact, the price was a key element. She hit home that the company I had bought is in the direct sales market where price is a key element. She cleverly worked out that our customers cared about value and that where we sat in the market was as a ‘high value brand’.”
Mark Reed
Offering a quality product cheaper certainly creates a competitive advantage, the problem is customers tend to perceive cheaper products as low quality instead of “more, for less.”
We knew price could not be Spacemakers USP. Customers shy away from brands and products they see as “cheap” but will embrace them if they see them as “good value”. When a product is cheaper than expected, consumers innately ask themselves “Why?” Hence, this this was something we knew we needed to address.
Brands adopting a high value brand strategy must proactively promote both product quality and how the product is able to be offered at a lower cost.
After many conversations, we worked out that Spacemaker’s unique production process is what enables them to offer a quality product at a lower price to their competitors. This is their “how” and therefore needed be at the forefront of the brand’s communication strategy.
As experts in branding, this is what we do, figure out how your business fits in and play on your strengths. In the case of Spacemaker, it was that they could provide a high-quality product at a lower-than-expected price. We therefore developed a “high-value” brand positioning strategy.
“They turned what could have been a negative into a positive. Very clever
Mark Reed
Next – Brand identity
As marketing experts, we cannot stress how important brand identity is to a company. Get it right and you have a brand that really looks and speaks how you want it to. Your branding is a major factor for social media, website, brochures and everything else in between. To do this we go into every detail.
Consistency is the key, ensuring you present your company in a consistent way at every touchpoint. Logos, fonts, colours, and tone of voice are all key elements of your brand identity. Our expert team develop these to create a strong visual identity, that is consistent, recognisable and portrays your brand personality and values.
Brand colours
In the case of Spacemaker, the bold colour palette was created to set them apart from the competition, in line with the “we’re different” brand positioning. By combining the vivid red, with soft pastels we created a fresh and luxurious feel, which was essential to portraying the “quality” aspect of Spacemaker’s product.
Fonts were also selected to be bold and to stand-out. In this case, we went for Din Condensed for headings – a straightforward and clear font that would exude authority – and Helvetica Neue a modern and clean font for the main copy.
The brand voice is also a key ingredient – as it’s all about how the brand comes across and essentially is what portrays the brand personality. With Spacemaker we developed a straight-forward and chatty voice.
Imagery – now the fun begins
Once the brand strategy and identity were in place our CGI artists could really get to work to create some amazing images. The cost of trying to shoot the number of images needed for the brochures and website was completely prohibitive for Mark and he understood the importance of well-designed sets and stylish images that really showcased the range.
“From previous experience I knew how great Oil Studios images could look. I feel that digital imagery can almost show something in its very best form – the edges are perfect, the finishes are spot on. When you are trying to inspire a customer it is a lot easier to do with actual concepts. So, showing our range in a variety of settings and styles was necessary – but the cost involved in doing this in real time photography was phenomenal”
Mark Reed
Our in-house interior designer worked hard to create “virtual” settings that were on-trend and reflected the aspirations of Spacemaker’s target audience.
“I’m no interior designer, so Claire and her team did all of this – they gave me a mood board, colour palettes, styles, fabric options to use and presented it in such a way that it’s perfect. Even down to offering different settings such as a three-door wardrobe with two left openers and one right, or one left and two right. It’s this kind of detail that matters.” Mark Reed
Bringing it all together
With the brand assets and all the lovely images in hand we were ready to go-ahead and develop Spacemaker’s marketing materials. In this case the brief was to produce a sales brochure and new website
“I’m sorry to say the brochure we were sending out before we worked with Oil was probably something that made our customers LESS inclined to buy from us. Now, we have a stylish, elegant brochure that showcases our range perfectly. The website too is spot on. We are so proud of it and it is a fabulous reflection of the product we offer.”
Talking of websites, Mark had some very interesting stats for us which he is happy to share.
Since the launch of the new website, Spacemaker has seen their conversion rate go up by a large margin.
The proof has quite literally been in the pudding.
“We now average 40 leads per day. That equals to a spend conversion of about £27. Before that? We were getting around 10 per day and spending £100-£150!! As you can imagine, we are delighted with this.”
Final word
From start to finish we have worked with Mark and his team at Spacemaker to really create the brand they knew it could be. Our Interior design branding process is one we are proud of and one that we know works. We’ll leave Mark to have the final word…
“I am really proud of the product that the company produces and would hold it up and say there are no corners cut. I do not like cutting corners. I’m very proud of what we do and now I’m very proud of how we present ourselves too. I can’t recommend Oil Studios highly enough, I’d rather get somebody I consider to be the best and trust the results will follow. With Oil Studios, that’s exactly what I got. I wouldn’t hesitate to use them again.”
