PROJECT BACKGROUND – GROWING PAINS
SureSkills identified a need to re-focus their brand vision, their proposition and to ultimately create a new brand identity that spoke of who they are today.
Based in the centre of Dublin, SureSkills were founded 20 years ago as a provider of IT training and certification to both corporate clients and individuals. As their expertise has grown the company extended to offer global learning services to large corporates worldwide, enabling clients to outsource their training requirements. A third business unit, SureSkills also provide consultation and IT solutions to companies with a specialty in server migration. These three successful business units are operating under the SureSkills brand with offices in Dublin, Belfast, London, Texas and Ottawa. However, the directors recognised that their identity did not reflect the depth or breadth of their current activity.
BRAND STRATEGY – WE’RE ALWAYS LEARNING
Taking a bird’s eye view of the project, we wondered how we might connect a training provider, a global learning partner and an IT consultancy all under one brand.
That was the challenge and immersing ourselves with the company in a discovery process our objective was to reach in, find the fundamentals of the brand and create a brand vision that would reflect all three businesses equally. It was a tricky one and over a number of months we challenged each other to identify what was both unique to the brand and still common across the three companies so that we might understand its truth. Eventually we broke ground and uncovered the brand’s true essence – preparation for the future and priming for performance – for individuals, for a global workforce. for a corporate’s IT readiness.
TAGGING IT – BE TOMORROW READY
Be Tomorrow Ready. This simple tagline says it all to the SureSkills audience.
It’s a proposition that captures the offer perfectly and transcends all three companies. It’s an opening line and a closing statement to a broader message, realised across touchpoints and campaigns. Be tomorrow ready reminds the audience that there are new skills and technologies fast approaching and to harness that knowledge now would ensure preparedness.
BRAND IDENTITY – MAKING YOUR MARK IN THE WORLD
With a potential worldwide audience we created a brand identity that could resonate across continents and cultures.
Our brand mark is a simple clean device and motif that opens up an endless combination of uses across the identity. We suggest a vibrant colour palette with neutral complements and with a theme of athletic preparedness, imagery successfully combines with all other brand elements to deliver the Be tomorrow ready proposition.
“We felt that Principle really got what we were about. They gave us a sense of security as we committed to dig deep; helping us to identify the essence, vision, mission and brand strategy. More importantly they clearly got into the mind-set of our customers – who really know the truth about what you offer.”
BRAND EXPRESSION – PRIMING FOR PERFORMANCE
With a strong set of visual and verbal brand assets in hand, we set about interpreting and developing the brand for all three companies and across all platforms.
Each company, SureSkills Training & Certification, SureSkills Learning Services and SureSkills Consulting & Solutions had unique needs and distinct audience profiles. Therefore each company required bespoke collateral and message to meet them. Detailed presentation decks and trade show material for one unit met corporate folders, brochureware and data sheets for the others. Globally, the brand was experienced in their office environments and on their website where we worked closely with SureSkills backend development team to visualise and design the user experience.