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brand vs
commodity

brand vs
commodity

b2b brand strategy and design

the challenge    For over half a century, family-owned Atlas Containers had manufactured boxes of every conceivable description. But the rising tide of commoditization and online competition was steadily eroding their client base. Atlas’s president had invented machinery to produce a revolutionary new type of box. But as he excitedly told me about this impressive innovation, his shoulders suddenly slumped, his face fell, and he said, “But this is just a commodity business. All that matters are prices and schedules.”  That, I told him, need never be the whole story.

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the solution    In the B2B world, as elsewhere, branding founded upon carefully formulated brand strategy can give a company an instantly recognized and sometimes even cherished face in a crowd of faceless, commoditized competitors. And, as elsewhere, strategic branding also operates at the level of cognitive heuristics and biases. I designed a reinvigorated Atlas, proudly holding a box aloft, rather than sagging under the weight of the Celestial Sphere, and articulated spaces using a distinctive corrugated divider.

Expertise required
.
Brand research & analysis
Brand strategy
Brand identity design
Concept development
Graphic design

b2b brand strategy and design

the challenge    For over half a century, family-owned Atlas Containers had manufactured boxes of every conceivable description. But the rising tide of commoditization and online competition was steadily eroding their client base. Atlas’s president had invented machinery to produce a revolutionary new type of box. But as he excitedly told me about this impressive innovation, his shoulders suddenly slumped, his face fell, and he said, “But this is just a commodity business. All that matters are prices and schedules.”  That, I told him, need never be the whole story.

.
the solution    In the B2B world, as elsewhere, branding founded upon carefully formulated brand strategy can give a company an instantly recognized and sometimes even cherished face in a crowd of faceless, commoditized competitors. And, as elsewhere, strategic branding also operates at the level of cognitive heuristics and biases. I designed a reinvigorated Atlas, proudly holding a box aloft, rather than sagging under the weight of the Celestial Sphere, and articulated spaces using a distinctive corrugated divider.

Expertise required

Brand research & analysis
Brand strategy
Brand identity design
Concept development
Graphic design