Transforming a specialist recruitment and consultancy services brand
From talent attraction, retention, and development to turnaround strategies, wholesale restructures, and change & transformation, Seymour John delivers integrated people and performance solutions that help organisations do more with less.
The company had grown rapidly since its inception in 2011, even though they did little by the way of marketing. Seymour John had never been through a professional branding process before, and the existing identity did little to reflect the expert solutions their consultants were delivering.
To take the next step, the business needed a more focused, strategic approach to its brand development. Key to this, was the creation of a new visual identity that placed the business squarely in the expert consultancy arena.
Objectives
The new B2B branding needed to integrate its expanding consultancy solutions offering with its established recruitment business, combining each team’s individual specialisms within a coherent, national brand. As a progressive, values-led company, Seymour John wanted the brand to reflect the way it does business as much as what it does. Any solution needed to allow headroom for further expansion of the solutions portfolio.
The Challenge
The business has a complex internal group structure, with a number of different, regional expert consultancy practices. Some teams specialise in the private sector, others in the public sector. Brewd was challenged with bringing these disparate niches together into a coherent whole, placing Seymour John in the Big Four space while standing out from the copycat crowd.
Our Approach
We took time to understand the business, its structure, and what Seymour John wanted the new branding to achieve. This included working with its Head of Brand and Content to develop an overarching brand strategy that established a hierarchy of messaging.
Our Stylescape refining process, helped us get a feel for the aesthetic sensibilities of the key stakeholders, whilst bringing an objective clarity to the visual direction. Underpinning our approach was the metaphor of Seymour John as Sherpa Guides, supporting candidates and clients, step-by-step towards the summit.
Outcomes
A three-tiered messaging approach was developed. Individual team service messages now sit under either recruitment or consultancy brand messages – everything umbrellaed under a global ‘for the next step’ group brand message, with supporting visual approaches.
The result is a more professional, aspirational, grown-up identity that positions Seymour John squarely in the consultancy services space. Extreme, to-the-ends-of-the-earth brand imagery illustrates the lengths their consultants will go to in supporting their candidates’ and clients’ ambitions; carefully curated people images underpinning their tailored, relational service messaging. A vibrant colour palette reflects the group’s culture, while differentiating the verticals.
Everything now flows seamlessly across everything they do – from the website, to factsheets, to slide decks, to reports and proposals – offering a systematic visual and messaging template for whatever they need.
Lovable. Viable. Believable.
Brands and websites for B2B startups.