Making Every Moment Count
Retail Brand-Building
Brief
ADNH Compass is one of the largest facility management companies in the United Arab Emirates. The organisation provides a range of outstanding food services and employs over 15,000 people. One of their core offerings is ‘Deli Marché,’ a high-end, boutique coffee shop, located in airports, hospitals, universities and other government buildings.
In a pivotal 18-month period for the company, ADNH Compass were looking to begin replacing the Deli Marché and rollout its successor ‘HUSK.’ They were looking for a company that could deliver a premium identity that was modern, innovative and versatile enough to be applied across multiple retail touchpoints. (Over 100 mini design-projects.)
Most importantly, with a scheduled ‘launch event’ rapidly approaching, the new brand had to be ready within 6 weeks.
Results
The results our work with ADNH Compass was both immediate and impactful, helping the organisation to…
– Maintain the leadership team’s aggressive annual commercial targets.
(Abu Dhabi National Hotels (ADNH) increased their shareholding to 100% within 18 months and the newly created ‘ADNH Catering’ IPO’d in late 2024.)
– Quickly and promptly win over existing retail partners.
– Create a significant number of opportunities with new prospective retail partners right across the UAE and beyond.
– Establish new quality standards for future brand rollouts.
Services Used
Brand Strategy | Brand Storytelling | Brand Activation | POS Solutions | Creative Services Management | Creative Direction | Branding | Graphic Design | Digital Design | Design for Print | Packaging Design
How This Was Achieved…
To deliver such a comprehensive project, to the outstanding standards required, in such a short period of time – we had to make every moment count in terms of our processes, making the most of our client’s time as well as our own. These are the highlights of this approach…
Utilising ‘Digital’
We gave decision-makers (ranging from ADNH Compass’s own leadership, brand, marketing and retail teams to individual retailers and external suppliers) every opportunity to assess design options more easily. This was achieved by developing a wide range of visual 3D mock-ups showcasing logo options in realistic settings, brand applications, etc…
Starting With ’The Retail End’ In Mind
The project gained a lot of momentum from the outset with the creation of a few intelligently designed applications that could be replicated across brand touchpoints such as packaging designs, coffee cup designs, uniforms, etc.
Prioritising Client Requirements
A successfully delivered project was guaranteed with additional focus and time spent on several client priorities. This included specialist shelf illustrations and the already mentioned handover booklet amongst other items.
Maintaining & Expanding on Key Strategic Activities
We locked-in strategically important activities such as theme-generation. This part of the process was maintained, alongside others. We actually gave extra time to these mission-critical activities.
Creating a ‘Dual-Brand Mark’
We built greater flexibility into the branding process by designing ‘a dual brand mark’ that was flexible enough to be used across each of the many retail touchpoints.
Using Hand-Drawn Sketches
Various parts of the process were accelerated with our team’s use of hand-drawn sketches, quickly showcasing creative ideas.
At the time of writing, the new HUSK brand has been rolled out in 50 sites in just over 18 months with plans to double this figure over the next 3 years.