CHALLENGE

To bring the people of Armidale and Guyra together, each with their own proud sense of identity to contribute their insights and be heard was the first step in unification. The next challenge was to distil a single essence, identity and positioning that reflected both their commonality and diversity. The overarching brand would then be applied to the Council and its sub-brands, plus the region itself for destination marketing as a great place to live, work, invest, and visit. 

METHODOLOGY

A personal visit to meet with the project team and tour the region was followed by weekly teleconferencing to develop a bespoke engagement strategy. Taking on board the sensitivities of the project, three Discovery Workshops engaged over 60 stakeholders both in Armidale and Guyra, which gave us many different points of view. When collating the findings, common groupings emerged and a full report was delivered on the qualitative research; this was followed by critical analysis of brand attributes; distillation of brand essence; identity creation visual and verbal positioning; present 3 creative directions back to stakeholders; gain consensus on the approved version; develop templates, sub-brands, style guide and attend the brand launch in Armidale’s city centre. 

SOLUTIONS

Verbal

The essence distilled for the Armidale-Guyra region is ‘changing’ and the associated benefits of this change has been expressed as an enticing call to action,

“Unleash the opportunities.”
The flexibility of this positioning is that it can mobilise council, the community, and reach out to new residents, visitors and businesses alike.

Visual

The diversity and unification of the region is represented by a harmonious new mark that represents the coming together
of Armidale, Dumaresq and Guyra, plus their seven key brand attributes. It has been designed to be highly flexible for various communications and easy implementation. 

RESULTS

Over the process, we were extremely gratified to witness attitudes becoming much more positive, accepting and united, and especially by the overwhelming approval from all stakeholders for the preferred creative direction and final brand. KWCS provided a range of collateral designs, templates, solutions for a new safety initiative and co-branding, a brand manual, signage, marketing ideas and more.