Brand design by ARAN
Carve out space for HighCohesion in the crowded ecommerce integration category, communicating their expertise in complexity to establish them as a premium brand.
The Background
Barcelona-based HighCohesion exists in the highly technical ecommerce integration space. With a reputation built mostly on referrals within the fashion industry, they’d developed deep expertise in solving crucial and complex business problems.
But their current brand and website communicated none of that.
The company understood that they needed a new brand that would differentiate their offering in a crowded category, and communicate their deep technical expertise.
This strategy would need to reflect the value of the service they delivered, positioning them as a premium brand.
The Process
My process began with a deep immersion into the company. My aim was to understand the challenges and ambitions felt internally that are showing up in how they represent themselves externally. I ran a series of qualitative interviews with the founders, employees, partner organisations, and key customers.
I paid the internal research with market research, analysing the potential opportunities and challenges facing the brand through five lenses:
- Competitors
- Category
- Consumer
- Brand
- Product
Combining the internal insights with the external market realities allowed me to connect the challenges felt internally with opportunities and white space in the market.
Within this space sits the unlock for the brand positioning – a space that’s true to the internal culture and ambition, and unaddressed by the market.
From this positioning, I identified three strategic territories, expressed through a brand manifesto. This emotional storytelling allowed HighCohesion to quickly identify which territory felt most the authentic and resonant.
For HighCohesion, it was key to communicate the complexity and expertise of their work, while positioning their team as the confident, capable partner to overcome the impossible.
The Execution
Building on the strategic territory, the brand was then expressed through the articulation of the cornerstone brand positioning, followed by the brand principles, and brand personality.
These frameworks help anyone working with the brand to understand how to communicate the promise of the positioning. Finally, a tone of voice was developed to give writers concrete examples of how to bring the brand to life through their words.
Working with brand design studio ARAN, the visual brand identity built from the strategy to reflect the premium offering, bold personality, human-touch, and expertise in the fashion industry.
The result is an identity that defies category norms, cutting through the blandness of B2B tech tropes to present as a highly-polished, considerate, forward-thinking brand.
HighCohesion's rebrand has received overwhelmingly positive feedback from our customers, partners and our own team. Since we launched the rebrand, we've seen an uplift in HighCohesion being referred to as the default experts in our space and there's been a resulting uplift in the business' performance. On a personal level, I am now confident that we have a brand that matches our performance and ambitions. - Aran Kapila, CEO and founder, HighCohesion
