The year 2021 was very important for our company in at least one respect. The process of rebranding the corporate identity (CID) began, the first phase ended in the autumn and winter of 2022, and we have continued the subsequent steps to this day. So let's talk to our colleagues from our marketing team about what such a rebranding actually entails. Both in general and specifically within the OKIN Facility. It's going to be a bit longer, so we've divided it into three parts.
What is rebranding and why did we do it?
Rebranding, or a change in visual identity, is a process that every company, business or organisation goes through from time to time. It can be a planned step, where rebranding is directly defined in the marketing strategy and occurs regularly, for example, every five or ten years. Of course, this does not necessarily mean that the company logo is always changed. It may only be a partial change, for example, in the colour scheme or corporate strategy. Incidentally, this is a common cause for confusion, when customers and the public believe that the "colours" have changed. Yet the most fundamental change concerns the setting and approach itself. That is why, in the context of a correction of corporate strategy (product focus or change of service portfolio), a change of logo is often finally made. Because it is the most effective way of communicating to the public and business partners that something new is here. It is, in fact, a kind of visual "stamp" of change.
It's also worth mentioning that rebranding doesn't necessarily "tear down" everything the brand has been based on. To give an example, suppose a major soft drinks manufacturer decides that it wants to focus primarily on young consumers in the coming years. Its existing colour is a deep red and its logo has a rather complicated design in keeping with the 1960s era in which it was created. So the marketing team meets and decides that the new colour will be red again, but it will be a lighter, more pastel colour. Of course, the logo will also undergo a redesign, but it will retain the basic characteristic elements for which it is visually easily recognisable. However, it will be simplified and enriched, for example by adding a dynamic element. Which was kind of our case as well. That is, of course, without the focus on the teens. 🙂
OKIN Facility has constantly evolved over time. There has been a significant shift towards modern technology, the deployment of internal systems to manage the efficiency of the services delivered, and the emphasis on the professionalism of the staff has also increased significantly. At the same time, the OKIN Group, under which we fall, has also changed and evolved. The OKIN Group currently brings together a number of companies with a focus ranging from facility management and business process outsourcing, through robotics and IoT (Internet of Things) based technologies to medical software using elements of artificial intelligence. All these changes had to be taken into account within our company. Another reason was that it had been seven years since the last update of the OKIN Facility's visual identity last year, so the time itself had matured sufficiently.
How did the rebranding process work?
The very first step, and in a way the most important one, is the selection of a suitable agency or design studio to whom we could entrust such a complex job with confidence. Yes, it sometimes happens that some "adventurous" natures within marketing departments get the idea to create new CIDs on their own, or in-house. And while I've probably seen one or two cases in my career where it turned out pretty well, the saying of Jara Cimrman: "The idea was certainly good, the results were not good" usually applies. So from my point of view, the only sensible solution is to approach specialists. After all, throughout our existence we have been trying to convince our partners that it is worth to outsource facility management services to professionals and not to waste time by dealing with it on their own, with uncertain results. We were lucky enough to have UnitedUs from the UK, a real leader in its field, working on our rebranding. In fact, you could say that the UK is generally a leader in the corporate identity and communications sector. Another advantage for us was Ian Thomas, who works at OKIN Group as Chief Strategy Officer and Business Development Manager. His very close communication with UnitedUs made all the steps in the process much easier.
So the agency is chosen, what happens next?
If we talk about the duration, the first phase involved more than a year of quite intensive work. Although opinions on how the individual steps of the rebranding process should actually look like may vary, it can also be said that there is something of a generally recommended approach. And that's what we followed.
First, we had to go through the analytical part, which consisted of a series of contact interviews (workshops) with employees at different levels.
The aim was to find out their current opinion of the company, how they perceive it, where they see positives and where they see shortcomings. The same step was of course also carried out on the part of our current clients. By the way, this is where it is really beneficial to have someone from "outside" the company working on the rebranding, because they have a natural distance and their ability to assess reality is not distorted by any unnecessary sentiment. Similarly, the anonymous form has contributed to a much greater openness on the part of both employees and clients. The intention, of course, is to get undistorted data, because in a room with distorted mirrors you always get a distorted picture. Moreover, companies (or rather management) often tend to see themselves in a much better light than the reality. Subsequently, the data collected was processed and evaluated. Based on the results, a comprehensive strategy for OKIN Facility was developed. However, it would be a gross oversimplification to say that this was done solely on the basis of the data. Of course, technical parameters, ongoing innovations, segmentation of the existing client portfolio and many other parameters were also taken into account. Anyway, in the end we had in our hands a document of about 120 pages that defined in a broader context the direction in which OKIN Facility's corporate communication should take in the next few years.
Is the new claim the result of this phase?
Yes. Our current claim is actually a kind of derivative of the outputs obtained during the workshops. And it is also largely related to our long-term strategy in providing our services, which is based on the principles of the Solutions Partnership. Indeed, we were already well aware that this model is more profitable and much more efficient than simply providing individual services. Both for us and, above all, for our clients. Solutions partnership allows us not only to make maximum use of all the experience and knowledge we have gained over the thirty years of our existence, but also to optimally deploy technical and human resources.
Claim "We take care of it." describes it all exactly. Rather than focusing on the individual, we focus on a perfectly functioning whole. Of course, we can clean the air conditioning, clean virtually any space perfectly or review dedicated technical equipment. But others can do that too. Our added value is the ability to see the whole "picture" on the client's side and to meet their requirements and needs accordingly. This is the principle of a solutions partnership - perfect knowledge of the client's environment and the related ideal service setup.
(In the next installment of our miniseries on the rebranding at OKIN Facility, we will, among other things, show the new OKIN Facility logo and introduce the colour palette.)