Project Overview
How do you create a stand out brand in a commodities market? How do you convey value and achieve differentiation when everyone sells the same product? With Primaplas we focused on a service promise: Working For You.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Pablo Ostolaza - Strategy Director
Gareth Procter - Creative Director
Charlie Whitehouse - Designer
Libby Cunniffe - Designer
Chris Phillips - Photographer
Project Brief
The plastics industry seldom relies on great branding to build preference and loyalty. It's often about volume and price, an environment where a few cents per ton can make a huge difference to the bottom line. The opportunity to do something truly revolutionary was too good to miss.
Primaplas is a leading distributor of plastics pellets, those little balls used by manufacturers to make many of the things we touch and see every day, from toothpaste tubes to water bottles. The creative challenge was as simple as it was daunting: To create a brand identity that would set Primaplas apart from everybody else (in a context were nobody dares to try anything different).
With limited marketing effort in what's essentially a relationship-driven, price-centred industry, the brief included a new brand identity, new website and stationary.
Project Innovation/Need
Two key insights quickly emerged from our discovery process through conversations with clients, suppliers and the Primaplas team in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.
1) Outstanding service: 'Working for you'
Primaplas is ultimately a connector in the plastics industry, that's where their value stems from. Service means linking the best suppliers from Southeast Asia with leading manufacturers in Australia and New Zealand. Eventually, service came down to three core strengths:
- Industry experience to provide quality insights about trends and pricing
- A global network of suppliers and transportation partners ready to assist at a moment's notice
- A team of experts dedicated to minimising risk for clients
The 'Working for you' tagline captured the essence of their POD yet left ample room for a number of interpretations: experience, network, team, etc.
2) A bold visual identity: 'The missing link'
Every other distributor features very corporate colour palettes so we wanted to make a statement from the onset: Primaplas is a different kind of plastics distributor and we are ready to own it.
Primaplas' new illustration style take inspiration from the pellets themselves but also from how connecting many of them can produce extraordinary objects we take for granted today. Primaplas plays a role in making all of these readily available: they keep the plastics industry working.
Design Challenge
Two major hurdles shaped the creative process along the way. One was internal: Primaplas' lack of experience in rebranding exercises and need for a certain amount of pedagogy to senior management.
The second was industry-specific: plastic pellets are not a sexy product to show and they all look pretty much the same. We couldn't show the end product (bottles, tubes, containers) and available photography was limited: warehouses, 25-ton sacks, trucks, etc.
These two eventually led the process to experiment with illustrations and shapes, mirroring the connecting role Primplas plays in the industry: bringing together those who make the pellets (petrochemical companies) and those who shape them into products we all use every day.
Effectiveness
The new brand has been a hit with clients and suppliers alike, providing a much needed breath of fresh air to an industry in dire need of some. It's given Primaplas' sales team an excuse to set up meetings with all key stakeholders as well as an opportunity to rekindle relationships with former clients.
Primapplas' HQ in Sydney are also enjoying a complete renovation inspired by the new brand identity, where the colours and shapes of the rebrand are proudly features in walls and stationary.
Graphic Design - Identity and Branding
This award celebrates creative and innovative design in the traditional or digital visual representation of ideas and messages. Consideration given to clarity of communication and the matching information style to audience.
More Details