Having your own company is like having a kid – you pour your heart and soul into it, you spend all your money on it, you occasionally wonder if you should have named it that… To be fair, we don’t have kids but we assume that’s how it goes. Anyway, with a company, often we’ve found that when you start to consider redoing surface-level things like the logo or the business name, it’s a sign that you should dig a little deeper into your ‘why’.
Don’t get us wrong. A simple brand refresh on its own can be fun, and is one of our favorite things to do! We love good design, and helping our clients figure out their look and feel. But in many cases, wanting a new look can be a symptom of something bigger needing to shift. We found this to be the case with client Tom Van Lente’s TVL Culinary: a Chicago-based culinary team specializing in restaurant-quality catered events for families, friends, and professional groups. TVL Culinary had practically everything they needed: the talent, the drive, and the team were all in place. But they were having a little trouble locating their ideal client, and thought a brand refresh might help.
This isn’t a bad instinct. A lot of our clients come to us with similar requests: whether it’s a new logo, a new website, a new look for social… But what we uncovered from our conversations with Tom was that he wanted more clients, better clients, operational efficiencies and more exciting events to keep his work inspiring, fun and engaging. By applying our design thinking methods, we were able to identify an opportunity to shift TVL’s business model beyond ‘catering’ to something more dynamic. Using qualitative research and trends beyond the food & beverage space, we designed the “AirBnB Experiences” of a night in – making it easier to dream up each event, and far easier to make it come to life.
Once we made this important shift in the business model in phase one, we executed the updated brand identity, along with a website refresh and the new logo, in phase two. Through the combined strength of the new model and new look, within 48 hours of the launch bookings were up 4x what they had been the previous 3 months combined. Those results do a pretty good job of speaking for themselves, we think.
Are you trying to figure out how to get your company to the next level? Let us help! It’s hard to know exactly what you need until you really dive into the research, and that’s one of our favorite things to do. No company is too big or too small for us to get excited about, so reach out and say hello. We’ll be standing by at ping@pinpointcollective.com.
