Business to Business
Digital Print and Data Management
Brightformat
Brand Positioning, Naming Development and Corporate Identity Design
<h1><span style="color: #808080">After eight years of growth, this digital print and data management company reinvents itself with a new brand positioning and corporate identity as their foundation for a brighter future.</span></h1>
<a href="http://www.brightformat.com"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3066" title="brightformat-lead" alt="" src="/pullinc/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/brightformat-lead.jpg" width="515" height="209" /></a><a href="/2012/08/bflogo.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3067" title="brightformat logo" alt="" src="/pullinc/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/bflogo.jpg" width="515" height="186" /></a>
<a href="http://www.brightformat.com/" target="_blank">Brightformat</a> is a leading digital print and data management services company headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The eight year old company, originally known as Diversified Data Services, had grown far beyond its original data and mailing services roots to become one of West Michigan’s premier providers of digital printing, wide format printing and direct marketing services.

<strong>The Challenge</strong>
The printing industry is a commodity business where customers have abundant choice of providers and most printing companies compete for business solely on price. The company, which had an excellent reputation for customer service, had moved the core of its original mail house services business to new technologies in on-demand printing, large format printing and direct marketing support services.

Company executives realized in order to grow to the next level, the business name was no longer relevant and expressive of the type of business the company had become. Executive leadership recognized that a name change and complete shift in the way the company marketed its services was necessary.

<a href="http://www.brightformat.com/"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3069" title="bf-apparal" alt="" src="/pullinc/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/bf-apparal.jpg" width="515" height="352" /></a>
<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3070" title="bf-web-home" alt="" src="/pullinc/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/bf-web-home.jpg" width="515" height="343" />

<strong>Brand Innovation</strong>
Working with the company’s executive management team over a six month period, we facilitated a series of brand strategy and positioning workshops designed to guide the client’s executive and business development team to refocus and recalibrate their value proposition to a discerning customer segment. This target customer segment highly valued the specialized expertise of digital on demand print services, and they represented a customer group at the premium end of the West Michigan market.

Beyond the functional benefits associated with the specialized expertise their customer’s enjoyed, we learned that this customer segment valued a distinctive level of personalized service expressed through proactive problem solving innovation. The client’s reputation for creativity, innovation and ingenuity coupled with a vibrant, stress free customer experience was the source of differentiation and “oneliness” that enabled the client to build their new brand positioning around the idea of focusing on the customer’s marketing success, rather than simply delivering a print job.

To bring this positioning to life, we guided the client’s executive team through a rigorous naming process that mandated the new trade name be highly evocative supporting the client’s innovative approach to collaborating with their customer’s to create marketing success.

Brightformat was the perfect name to embody the idea of illumination, innovation and vibrant customer experiences. We then designed the new corporate identity system that included a new logotype, symbol, color system and visual design standards for all marketing and communications. Examples of those executions are featured here.

<a href="http://vimeo.com/48003840"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-3068" title="Brightformat Video" alt="" src="/pullinc/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/pete-and-mike.jpg" width="250" height="384" /></a>

<strong>The Outcome</strong>
Check out the <a href="http://vimeo.com/48003840" target="_blank">video</a> featuring Brightformat’s executive leadership announcing the name change with humor and grace. Here’s what Pete Houlihan, CEO of Brightformat, had to say about their engagement with PULL:

<em>“From the very beginning of the workshops with PULL and through the implementation of our name and visual expression, PULL was thoughtful, collaborative, and was clearly committed to our success. Their experience, guidance, and creativity helped guide two very different shareholders toward a result that we simply could not be happier with. They didn’t tell us who we should be or where we should go–they guided us along a path that helped us discover that our direction and purpose had been there all along, we just needed the expertise to help us reveal it.”</em>

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<strong>Thank you Brightformat! We wish you great success and brighter days ahead.</strong>