Brand Name
West Midland Safari Park
Services Offered
Brand Strategy, Design and Branding
Closer to the excitement
The first stage of this project was immersing ourselves into customer perceptions and where the brand sat in the market. Customer research was conducted and strategy workshops with WMSP staff. It was important to look at where the brand sat from the perspective of both the end consumer and internal teams to identify any trends or discrepancies that needed bridging as part of the rebrand.
Customer research was conducted as well as tone of voice and brand strategy workshops to help identify a strong positioning strategy for the new brand. During the customer research a strong theme was identified across all of the WMSP customer segments, which was that they enjoyed going to WMSP because they could interact with the animals.
We identified an attractive position in the market for West Midland Safari Park to be an attraction that families will leave having enjoyed a memorable experience, which was one of the driving factors that came out of the research as to why families would choose an attraction. All of these factors helped to inform the rebrand and to steer the emotive feel the brand deserved.
The thrill of a real safari
During the consumer research WMSP spontaneous consideration was low at 8% meaning they had low unprompted brand awareness however the prompted consideration was 78% which is very strong.
These metrics insinuated that people did know about WMSP but their old brand did not stick in forefront of the target audiences’ minds. With that said if they were to completely change the name their awareness would have dropped significantly in the initial phases of the project. WMSP would have had to work a lot harder and would require more resource to regain their market awareness. With that said we suggested a tweak to the name by correcting ‘West Midland’ to ‘West Midlands’ and to design the logo in a way that is future proofed i.e. could be shortened to drop the ‘West Midlands’ in the future.
Creative concepts
Following the brand strategy piece, we developed four logo concepts to present to the client. The concepts were sympathetic to the existing brand name and hero colours to maintain a level of brand awareness.
'Create Wild Memories' was the clients favourite concept. It featured a bespoke, playful font and unique colour palette gave this concept a real sense of adventure and fun. The introduction of a simple, identifiable logomark that can carry through all assets gives this concept a unique feel and helps create a strong brand identity.
We developed full brand guidelines including logo, font and colour usage, tone of voice, photography and brand application. We assisted with the roll out of their brand by designing their new guidebook, and putting their newly established brand guidelines into action.
Careful consideration was taken during this stage of the project to ensure that the brand position of being able to be in close proximity to animals was portrayed. This helped position the brand as a memorable experience, helping validate the medium to high price point in the market.
