Transforming an older brand into a bolder brand.
A complete rebrand to help customers fall in love with a local telco.
PROJECT SCOPE
What They Were Up Against:
Founded in 1908, Whidbey Telecom was one of the first phone companies west of the Mississippi, and more recently an early builder of a fiber broadband network. While they had always been ahead of the curve with their communications services, the company's brand was behind the times. A '90s look and feel along with cold, impersonal language gave business and residential customers a poor first impression. This was beginning to take a toll on revenue as much larger competitors chipped away at marketshare.
What We Did:
Speak's first step for Whidbey Telecom was to clearly define the brand’s position and make it stand for something distinctive and meaningful. Working through a rigorous methodology of stakeholder interviews, research, focus groups and foundational writing, we defined a space that Whidbey Telecom could own: worry-free communications services. We brought this key differentiator to life through a refreshed visual identity and consistent brand narrative. And then we relaunched the brand with a sparkly new website.
Brand Strategy
Our discovery process revealed unclaimed gaps in the market — both from a positioning and visual perspective. We came to learn that people who live on Whidbey Island do so to escape the big-city hustle. They want to enjoy everything the island has to offer — art, culture, outdoors, beaches — without worrying about technology. While competitors were busy bashing audiences over the head with messages about megabytes-per-second, we opted for a people-centric narrative focused on how Whidbey Telecom lets customers "Live the Life" without technology getting in the way.
Visual Identity Development
Once we had identified the unique and authentic position that Whidbey Telecom could own, we began to express it visually through color, typography and photography. Additionally, to reflect the artistic nature of the Whidbey Island culture we chose to incorporate custom illustration as a primary design element.
Brand Book
To canonize each component of the reinvigorated Whidbey Telecom brand we created a comprehensive brand book.
Website
The culmination of our brand work was ultimately expressed on the new Whidbey Telecom website. Backed by thorough research, extensive prototyping and focus group testing, the new website serves as the leading advocate and spokesperson for the Whidbey Telecom brand.
