2017 saw the 4th instalment of the bi-annual Formica Formations design competition, brought to you by Laminex New Zealand. Our continued role in developing the competition framework spanned from the creation of the design brief through to management and staging of the awards evening. The design brief was a departure from the past, in that it challenged New Zealand’s design community to think outside of the square, as it wasn’t anchored to any specific piece of furniture or known object.
“What defines a home, a design, an aesthetic or a style as modern? We live in a world of change, constantly challenging us to rethink the way we behave, how we engage and react to the people and places around us. In our homes, working environments and shared spaces we live out our relationships with the world in what can seem to be an ever-increasing degree of exposure. We’re all at once connected and separated, unified and fragmented. With that exposure comes responsibility. How can innovative thinking, using Formica laminate, enhance our modern environment and contribute to a better life, a better home and a better world for all.”
Traditionally the winning pieces, as selected by the panel of judges, made up of esteemed design industry leaders, would have been fabricated for the awards evening. In line with the “A Forward Life” theme, this year we bought the winning designs to life through a fully immersive virtual reality experience. The Formica Formations design competition represents a way for Laminex New Zealand to support the NZ design community while driving innovation allowing for its product to be showcased in inventive ways.
Fletcher Steel is New Zealand’s leading importer, distributor and processor of steel representing Fletcher Building’s Easysteel, Fletcher Reinforcing, Fletcher Wire Products, Dimond, Pacific CoilCoaters and Calder Stewart Roofing brands. At the heart of its business are its people. We were tasked with developing the visual brand identity and story for Fletcher Steel, working through discovery sessions to reveal insights into the positioning and overall creative representation of the brand for market.
“Davy & Chapman have a long-standing history of partnerships across several Fletcher Building business units including Fletcher Steel. We engaged with Davy & Chapman to work with us on our brand and marketing communications extending across all areas of the business. This included visual identity development, digital and social media planning, and management, plus specific ‘go to market’ projects. The team at Davy & Chapman bring strategic depth and skill to every project, with attention to detail and a responsive attitude, all executed with great creative. More recently, we worked together on the creation of the Fletcher Steel visual identity. It’s always a pleasure working with the team who allow creative collaboration across all projects and aren’t afraid to challenge our thinking, both strategically and creatively. The new brand has been well received across the business. We continue to discover new opportunities to work with Davy & Chapman as this ultimately influences the success of our business.”
A global powerhouse, Schneider Electric’s role is to make sure that ‘Life is On’ for everyone, everywhere, at every moment. They do this by delivering connected energy and efficiency solutions in more than 100 countries.
One of the many brands they represent in New Zealand is PDL, a product brand with rich heritage and its origins firmly in Christchurch. As a supporting promotion to the brand activity, which is celebrating 80 years this year, we created a Facebook promotion to get people excited about the upcoming renovation season and featuring 3 specific areas of importance to PDL by Schneider Electric, those of Style, Smart and Safety. It gave us an opportunity to focus on stylish solutions that are smart and high tech as well as the many safety products they have that are important to feature in your home.
The underlying objective was to generate greater engagement among the audience by getting people to sign-up to Envisage, PDL’s eDM that features trends, tips, product info and general inspiration for homeowners.
Winners received renovation packs to the value of $500, plus a Resene voucher to the value of $100 across all 3 areas of Style, Smart and Safety.
Mydreamkitchen.co.nz showcases inspirational imagery, renovation tips and tricks, international colour and design trends as well as products, recipes and more to over 12,500 Facebook followers. We were engaged to promote Formica Writeable Surfaces to their audience in a fun and engaging way, communicating the product and it’s benefits by posing the question: What would you choose? Blackboard or whiteboard ? Circle, triangle or hexagon and getting people to comment and tag. In the posts it was important to highlight the product, it’s flexibility, durability and applications with quirky copy and clever positioning. For those lucky winners they received a customised writeable wall.
The promotion reached 38,243 fans, had 492 likes, 37 shares and over 490 comments.
Creativity and craftsmanship is the soul of a kitchen and bathroom design project and our opportunity as an agency was to reinvent and reimagine the NKBA awards platform for 2016.
Excellence in Design 2016 is modern, fresh, bold and progressive and we’ve been involved across all touchpoints including marketing, sponsorship collateral, creative design and execution, as well social media and event planning to bring a truly cohesive and successful awards season result for the team at NKBA. Our role as an creative agency is to have NKBA be a recognisable expert in supporting the design and manufacturing community and articulating that in our approach was important to elevate that profile and awareness in the market.
Relationships and connections among our clients, our team, our industry are incredibly important to the success of our businesses and with a passion for creativity will help our businesses thrive. As a design-led and strategically driven agency, we’re proud to be working with NKBA to support the creative community, elevate the positioning and awareness of the NKBA and the Awards brand to ultimately benefit its members.
We know that with the work that designers, craftspeople, and our industry do, that the end result has an undeniable influence on our lives - the kitchen and bathroom are clearly at the heart of our homes, so they influence not only our visual environment, but how we feel, how we live and how we interact with each other and together, we’ve created a platform that is creatively distinctive, special and engaging in todays market.
With this year’s incredible results in the number of entries, greater brand awareness both through traditional and social channels, together, we’ve set a new benchmark in what NKBA can be and achieve for its members and we’re proud to be their creative agency partner. To learn more, visit NKBA.
Featured winning entries below include (from top to bottom):
- Supreme Kitchen Design Winner, proudly sponsored by Fisher & Paykel - Morgan Cronin of Cronin Kitchens
- Supreme Bathroom Design Winner, proudly sponsored by Fisher & Paykel - Detail by Davinia Sutton (Manufacturer - Fineline Joinery)
Laidlaw College is the largest interdenominational Christian College in New Zealand, offering qualifications from certificate to doctoral level, in the areas of theology and biblical studies, mission, ministry, counselling and teacher education. As a leading education provider it was important that their brand, and in particular website reflected the style, cultural diversity, values and approach of the college.
Having had a relationship for some 5 years, we were engaged to create a seamless online user experience with a clear purpose of driving engagement among prospective students. Together with Laidlaw College we established three goals: increase conversion of prospective students to the college; highlight the key services of the college and express the energy and life the college exhibits; and finally provide a portal for all other students, staff and alumni. In an effort to better inform our strategy, we conducted a comprehensive Discovery phase, drawing on key insights that set the foundation for the website and overall digital direction. We distilled the amount of information into a logical wire framing prototype to ensure the user journey was right, with clear ‘call to actions’ along the way to enhance the experience. As one of the primary marketing tools for the college, we were able to reduce the amount of written content and engage users through the use of rich video content.
In parallel to the site’s design, we were also reviewing their existing brand strategy and the college’s marketing collateral. Combining a clean design aesthetic with personal and engaging photography, rich video content and a bold colour palette that reflects cultural diversity, we were able to develop a website that has provided a significant return on investment, through increased usability, accessibility and increased enrollments.
“Service excellence and beautifully crafted creative is what we experienced working with Mike and the team at Davy & Chapman. They truly have put their heart and soul into creating a world class website, underpinned by clear and articulate strategy and blended with passion.” Shelly Neethling, Communications and Marketing Manager | Laidlaw College.
August 2015 will see an exciting new project come to life. Here are a couple of snapshots of various stages of an exciting new website, including photography and video production giving our client and their audience a fresh and powerful new user experience. Watch this space for further updates.
As Co-founder and Creative Director of Davy & Chapman, I had the privilege of being invited to speak at a client conference in Fiji last week on brand, it’s importance to the success of their business, how their customers perceive them, and understanding the next steps to fully integrate the refreshed brand across all the touchpoints of their business.
Early 2014, we started initial discussions and began working with them to transition and refresh their logo and identity which had remained the same, visually for some 20 years. Our approach in this situation is always to understand the intricacies of their business; their vision, brand promise, key objectives and business drivers. Only after we had exhausted a list of questions and tackled the ‘Discovery’ work, was it time to look at their brand strategy in closer detail. After several discussions, in-depth meetings and conversations with various stakeholders and clients alike, It was time to prepare the new strategy, capturing the essence of who they are and what they offer to their clients. As a successful company in their own right, they recognised the need to revisit their brand, engage the experts and lay the foundation, understanding how important it was to the growth and future direction of the company. It was a chance to remind and excite their audience about what remained unique about them, why they remained a credible and trusted provider in their industry, so not only did it give the opportunity for their clients to connect on another level, but it provided a great foundation for them entering new markets and for those that had yet to experience their brand, their associated services and their distinct point of difference.
Central to any brand is how your audience feels about your company, product or service - that memorable experience, the emotion, the gut feeling. This feeling they experience is your brand. A current opinion is not to consider these people as ‘consumers’ but to consider them as ‘humans’. We are such a marketing driven society that sometimes we forget that we don’t like to be spoken to as ‘consumers’ but as ‘people’ that actually make informed and educated decisions - this forms genuine connections and relationships. We always need to ask the question: how do we want to engage with a brand?, what do we want that experience to be like?. I don’t want to be sold something, I want to buy something and experience a deeper level of engagement in doing so. I can be a real sucker for a great brand and that experience is always what I’m after, making it memorable and therefore making it a ‘no brainer’ to return time and time again.
I was excited! An amazing opportunity to talk about a topic that not only I’m extremely passionate about, but one that is clearly what Davy & Chapman is built on. What it does is constantly challenge my thinking; ‘thinking differently’ and excites and drives me. Sometimes when a topic excites you, you tend to try and cover as many exciting points as possible, but what I needed to do was clearly articulate the main points - get the basics right, express our passion and approach and get them engaged as an audience, to think, to react, to question and to challenge. In essence, understand what my audience wanted to know and why - that good old ‘What’s in it for me’ approach, taking a considered view on any topic or subject, but especially one that is at the heart of any successful business.
Brand has a lot of mystery about it. Often questions about where to start, are we doing it right, how do we define it, could we be doing it better, so it was an opportunity to really de-mystify ‘Brand’ and in simple terms explain why I believe its one of our most powerful strategic tools as a business. Whilst I had been preparing the conference presentation I was re-reading ‘The Brand Gap’ by Marty Neumeier and this influenced my approach considerably. Such a fantastic book that should be the ‘go-to’ for any business wanting to bridge that gap between logic and creativity.
As a creative agency we’ve certainly experienced clients that ‘get it’, that recognise the value that great creative offers their business, clear examples that it improves business performance but more importantly how their customers experience them as a company. An insights led and design driven approach is consistently proving successful for businesses, locally and abroad and really gives the opportunity to express their individuality, their point of difference - which is exciting to see! no matter what industry you represent, design has a place, an important place in your success and it should never, ever be under-estimated.
What Marty articulates is how to bridge the gap between business strategy and design. This is often one of the biggest challenges we face as ‘creatives’ or ‘creative agencies’ - talking to our clients about how important it is that strategic thinking under pins not only just the creative expression of their brand but all the brand touchpoints. We’re not just about typography, colour palettes and crafting beautiful creative - we’re passionate about truly understanding business and business thinking to ensure what is developed really addresses ultimately the pain points of their audience - their clients, their customers and what their current challenges are today and what they potentially look like tomorrow. Creative must have purpose! it must serve to make things easier for business to move ahead and when you have the fundamental thinking right, each step becomes easier to driving business success as you can align every decision back to the vision for the business.
Given it was one of my first ‘official’ speaking engagements, it was critical to distill key points, providing some clear action points on ‘how to’ and ‘what to do next’, manageable steps that serve as a guide to heading in the right direction. In my mind, it’s important as an agency partner to ‘keep it real and authentic’ for our clients.
Learning, growing and challenging yourself excites me and has reinforced my passion for strategic thinking, creative design and execution and re-affirmed my passion for my company and how we help those businesses that need support, advice, and a guiding expert in their field. I’m super excited about the future, doing something I love and helping others leverage this extremely powerful strategic tool, called ‘Brand’.
Today comes with a sense of pride and excitement about launching Davy & Chapman, our new creative agency. As you can imagine it takes a lot to get to this point, questioning, evaluation and sheer time and energy to really showcase who we are and what we stand for. One of the biggest challenging questions is ‘what is your point of difference’, what sets you apart from every other creative agency out there - well, for us, it’s our very personal approach, those relationships we have developed over time, the sheer determination to make sure you experience the very best and that we exceed your expectations - a personable approach - that’s what sets us apart.
Great design offers value for our clients, industry and economy and we want to work with those clients that appreciate that - it can’t work any other way. We show up each day full of inspiration and ideas and we continually challenge what resources will keep raising the bar for our body of work, which in turn gives you the best possible result.
We feel grateful that we have done, and will continue to do amazing work, experience involvement in great projects that really showcase our craft, hone our skills and of course continue to challenge us personally, professionally and creatively. It’s with an enormous sense of responsibility and pride in knowing we’re designing material that will be seen across New Zealand and the World and has an impact for our clients and their brands.
We can attribute our success to date and the ability to launch this agency by the amazing team that we surround ourselves with and the clients that allow us, and trust us to work with them, problem solve and explore the best creative solutions, tailored for them.
As creatives who are passionate about brand and the digital space and more importantly about what a clear strategic approach can deliver - we know that improved business performance comes from a strong brand, so if there is a project you would like to consider us for, please don’t hesitate to tell us about it’s scope and scale and your vision for what you want to achieve - you will very clearly see the point of difference we offer. Today is an opportunity to reaffirm that passion, placing our names to a creative agency that is different - it’s us and it’s personal.
