This successful privately-owned manufacturer of vital industrial process cooling equipment made a challenging commitment to a threefold increase in sales. Management recognized the need to signal this new effort with more contemporary branding, more powerful marketing communications, and more focused internal communications.
This successful privately-owned manufacturer of vital industrial process cooling equipment made a challenging commitment to a threefold increase in sales. Management recognized the need to signal this new effort with more contemporary branding, more powerful marketing communications, and more focused internal communications. They asked New Design Group to provide upbranding with a freshened image, stronger messaging, and a full range of upgraded market communications.
Implementation went smoothly, on time, on budget with great cooperation from our client. NDG’s work met or exceeded client expectations and continues to be the basis for the work of client’s internal marketing department. Berg achieved their stated goal and continues to progress.
Berg Chilling Systems Inc. was founded in 1972 to design and build chillers and industrial cooling systems primarily for the plastics industry. Throughout its history, expansion through natural growth and acquisitions positioned the company and its service division well in the global economy.
Berg built an international reputation by designing, manufacturing, installing, and servicing thousands of custom systems focused on individual clients’ requirements for industrial thermal process control and refrigeration systems. The company now serves customers located in more than 50 countries. Globally, Berg serves a diverse range of industries: transportation, chemical & petrochemical, manufacturing, building & construction, food & beverage, national defense, natural resources, recreational sports and more.
Often, a company’s need to upgrade its corporate image and update its marketing materials stems from one of these problems:
None of these problems applied to Berg. In fact, Berg was in the exact opposite situation. Throughout the company’s history, its revenues and global reputation grew steadily and incrementally. Berg is a successful company by any standard and management saw an opportunity to build on that solid foundation by embarking on an effort to triple their sales.
They proceeded confidently because they knew their business, knew they had the right people with deep long-term fully applicable experience, plus the track record and the technology to confidently aim high.
They also knew what they didn’t have to support that effort – a stronger brand image and a more powerful voice to signal to all audiences that Berg was on the move.
Management wanted the company to look more contemporary and communicate to their audiences in more focused, more aggressive ways. They called New Design Group.
Early in the process, we saw that producing a completely new brand would throw away decades of brand equity and recognition, and could confuse their audiences. As well, it would take time and resources away from their focus on reaching their primary objective. Management agreed the company did not require a new brand, so we upbranded the company.
Upbrand is how we refer to a full image make-over directly related to supporting a company’s current plans and goals. To us, an upbrand is a purpose-driven, high quality renovation rather than a construction project. Our upbranding process is as comprehensive, proven, and delivery-focused as our methods of producing a brand new brand.
Whether we are providing our client with a completely new brand or we are upbranding, the difference is the extent of change. In a full branding project the final result is often all-new. When we upbrand, the existing brand is still recognizable but changes to graphics, communications, and messages speak of a new era of action while keeping the brand recognizable to target audiences and comfortable for company staff. A New Design Group UpBrand focuses on supporting changes in the company, its business objectives and strategies.
We expect tangible business results to come from providing clients with powerful design, clear communication and, in cases such as Berg’s, insight into their marketing strategies.
The Berg name is known and respected throughout the company’s target industries as well as its own industry. No change to the name was even considered.
The Berg logo was always a wordmark of the name and, so, equally as well-known as the name. However, Berg management and NDG staff agreed that this was the perfect time to bring this venerable but vital wordmark into the 21st century. We suggested a more modern colour and a simple typographic modification.
Berg Chilling Systems engaged New Design Group to design and produce new and updated branding and market messaging to suit the establishment of a major business goal based on their established leadership in the thermal process energy management field. They provided us with a clear vision of the many ways in which the company’s products and services not only support industry but also touch people’s lives.
As with every NDG project, the Berg project began with research. We strive to fully understand the company, its stakeholders, and its competitive situation not only within its own industry but also within the industries it serves. The challenge of expressing Berg’s new and exciting corporate objective underpinned and gave direction to our research.
We wanted to understand many aspects of our client’s business better, in order to create a meaningful upbrand that supports those objectives and the needed marketing.
The deep dive we were about to take on involved these areas:
• Management’s responses to our briefing questionnaire
• What, why, and how Berg does what it does
• Internal factors
• Views, concerns, and hopes of Berg stakeholders
• Cooling systems industry situation and trends
• Competitive environment
• The health of Berg’s client and supplier relationships
• Benefits, features, and industrial importance of Berg’s products
• The planned future of Berg’s technology and products
• Specific marketing challenges Berg has experienced
Management’s responses to our briefing questionnaire were clear and concise. They wear pride in their accomplishments and their commitment to service like a badge. They were open about all aspects of their operations, and were ready to ensure we received the help we would need in our investigations. Interestingly, we found the engineers and manufacturing staff enthusiastic about showing us their work and accomplishments. We asked about the Berg corporate culture and whether all employees subscribed. It didn’t surprise us to learn that teamwork and mutual support are highly rated, performance is recognized, and quality is expected in all areas.
An added factor to be considered was that Berg was in the process of integrating a trusted service supplier, IRSL, into the company as a new division complementing Berg the manufacturer and Berg’s own service division. We asked whether IRSL staff were comfortable with this event. Berg’s owner and president replied that the relationship between the two companies is based on a long history of collaboration and trust in each other’s capabilities. He put it succinctly, “IRSL people already wear the Berg hat.”
IRSL people shared an important quality with the people of Berg – pride in their products and services. Recognizing this, Berg management had IRSL keep its own branding and add Berg’s logo to it. A sense of internal esprit de corps is a valuable relationship-building aspect of Berg’s everyday contact with its customers.
We began with stakeholder interviews. Management had solid reasons to believe their customers recognize and respond to the company’s values of pride, trust, integrity, inclusiveness, and innovation. They gave us the benefit of their insights, saying that custom engineering is a strong market advantage. They characterized energy efficiency as “a given” in all customer work. Recognizing the vital nature of reliable service, they told us Berg routinely services other manufacturer’s systems, often in cooperation with their cooling system competitors.
Sales staff told us customers would describe Berg with words like resourceful, leader, trusted, innovative, helpful, professional, high-end, constructive. They said their marketing needs included:
● Fully brand-unified, brand-consistent marketing materials
● An updated trade show booth
● A short, impactful elevator pitch
● A more contemporary feel in all branded material
● Market focus extended to new target industries
We included these in our to-do list.
Berg employees enthusiastically responded to a simple online survey of their thoughts and attitudes about the coming changes and growth.
Using what we learned in the Understand phase of our branding process, we focused our client, industry, and customer knowledge on bringing Berg’s qualities, expectations, personality, and messages to life and more effectively differentiate it from its competitors.
Our primary challenge, then, was to help Berg become better known in its target industries, recognizable and attractive to efficiency-conscious thermal process-based businesses.
The first topics of our internal discussions were aimed at producing the core brand elements in upbranded forms that would drive the process. What we would do with what we learned began with upbranding the basics:
Berg name: The Berg name is known and respected throughout the company’s target industries as well as its own industry. No change to the name was even considered.
Berg logo: The Berg logo was always a wordmark of the name and, so, equally as well-known as the name. However, Berg management and NDG staff agreed that this was the perfect time to bring this venerable but vital wordmark into the 21st century. We suggested a more modern colour and a simple typographic modification.
Our Berg upbranding project moved into the first production phase following that in-depth discussion and integration of client comments. Print, digital, photography, packaging, texts, signage – we prototyped all needed materials in full detail and presented the mature concept to the combined client/NDG upbranding team, looking for agreement to proceed to production.
Nothing focuses a production team like a final approval. The combined upbranding team paid close attention to ensuring their new materials and ways of communication were 100% as planned and expected. All production specifications and regulatory aspects were checked, and third-party suppliers were briefed and booked.
Using information from our initial studies we produced and presented a marketing analysis while finalization was in progress. We covered the competitive situation and market trends, and made a number of recommendations.
When everything was final and we were ready to push the start buttons, we checked everything again. Here are the contents of the final delivery:
Successful marketing and internal team building depends on clear, impactful, benefit-based messaging backed by a strong brand personality. Using the knowledge gained from our research, we wrote new vision, mission, and position statements. They talk not about engineering, manufacturing, and service, but rather about what the company strives to bring to the world. They guided further progress.
SAll Berg customers gain competitive advantages in their industries through leadership in process energy management. Berg’s vision statement focuses not on Berg the company, but on what Berg seeks to accomplish for its client companies. It is a clear statement of Berg’s ultimate goal, what it strives to attain. The Berg Vision statement drives the company forward.
Help customers worldwide meet their goals by providing unmatched thermal energy management expertise and custom engineered industrial chilling systems. Berg’s mission is what the company does day-to-day, year-by-year, stated simply and directly.
Berg is the recognized expert provider of custom designed, energy efficient industrial chilling systems. Berg’s position is how the company’s customers and the world perceive Berg.
We presented the results of our synthesis of information, ideas, and expertise in an in-person draft concept presentation. We showed three sets of draft materials concepts. It was indicative of Berg corporate culture that the meeting included representatives of all staff levels and responsibilities as well as management personnel.
Our clients saw our initial ideas of how to proceed with their upbranding and how we arrived at our recommendations. They approved in principle and were a great help in further focusing our efforts by rejecting some elements or modifying others. Subsequently, we presented further refinement of the chosen first version concept materials.
We were pleased when Berg informed us that they had reached their target of tripling their sales. Perhaps the fact that our work still forms the basis for their internal marketing and communications efforts indicates we delivered.