Brand building // Further East brand book (2019)

The Challenge: As a young event brand in its second year, Further East had a strong design aesthetic but no definitive conceptual brand. This resulted in a lack of clarity over marketing messaging and limited cohesion between the various teams working on the product, which impacted marketing effectiveness and internal productivity. The process of creating a slogan had already been attempted by various individuals and teams in isolation with minimal success. The Opportunity: We wanted to create a strong brand that would unite a community of luxury Asian travel professionals under a shared ethos and lend credence and consistency to our marketing messaging, ultimately resulting in stronger sales. The Process: In order to improve morale and encourage collaboration, I brought together all the key stakeholders in a series of regular guided workshops and devised a delegation plan that would move the project forward. Within this, I took a ground-up approach by first guiding the leadership and marketing teams in pin-pointing their target market, value propositions, USPs and positioning. Then I collaborated with the creative team and marketing teams to develop and revise a brand purpose, mission, vision, values and tone of voice. The Results: The finished brand guide is an invaluable reference point, helping to steer marketing decisions and create a common language between stakeholders. Ultimately, the process greatly improved the working relationship between teams and provided a foundation on which to develop clear, consistent messaging and the much-anticipated slogan!