Comet Creative is proud to announce that we recently were awarded three Merit Awards from SMPS National. The annual awards were presented during SMPS Build Business on Thursday, August 1, in Washington, D.C. During the black-tie event, winners were recognized as the very best of Marketing Communications by professional services firms in the design and building industries across the U.S.
“We’re most pleased with the results of our collaboration with KNA Structural Engineers and Brummitt Energy. KNA has increased its market share and Brummitt Energy is positioned as the experts in Zero Net Energy solutions.”
Let’s Look at KNA
A while back, KNA was at a crossroads. Founded in 1996, they had steady growth, yet they knew that in order to survive the next twenty years, they had to make some changes. The firm decided to transition to younger leadership, and while their industry reputation preceded them, the staff was unclear on where the new Principals would lead them.
A number of roadblocks were holding the company back: the visual brand was very dated (the the logo was designed by its founders in 1996!), and they had no differentiation communicated in their marketing. Structural engineering is often viewed as the stepchild to architects (a result of no differentiation) and their culture was stale (white guys, no diversity). It was definitely time to take a good look at brand strategy.
Attract Great Talent and Secure New Clients
Using our Brand Quest and several mind-mapping workshops, we clearly defined the brand’s foundational elements: purpose, vision, values, positioning and other key factors that would better position the firm with clear differentiation. With al of our insight, they decided to change the name of their company and we designed the new logo (no blue), shared the strategy with their staff, held a social media workshop and designed environmental graphics for the office. The project included:
- Brand Positioning and Strategy
- Corporate Identity and Style Guide
- Stationery
- Website Design and Development
- Trade Show Graphics
- Environmental Graphics
- Recruitment Brochure
- Content Marketing/Social Media
The award for KNA was given in two categories: corporate rebranding and website design and development.
The Results
“Following the rebrand, 2017 was a record year with 2018 our biggest in our history. We hired four female engineers with diverse backgrounds, promoted two engineers to Principals, secured three contracts with new architecture firms and have a more energetic and lively culture,” commented Larry Kaprielian, Principal.
Energy Consultants Gain National Recognition
Brummitt Energy Associates are experts in whole building energy modeling. As California’s Title 24 continues to put pressure on developers regarding building efficiently, Brummitt’s message required a more consistent and direct approach. We rewrote their story in a more vibrant, easy-to-digest form, along with clean graphics to reengage current customers and ignite prospects on the benefits and ROI they would gain from engaging Brummitt early in a building project cycle.
The marketing plan and deliverables included:
- Marketing plan
- Development of two white papers and case studies for the Ocean Discovery Institute and Alpine Library
- Develop four email campaigns
- Lead capture: White papers accessible to download from the website
- Press releases
- Educational advertorials
- Speaking engagements
- Brummitt project updates
- Awards, ZNE results
These campaigns convinced the County of San Diego to hire Brummitt to do energy modeling studies on their 150+ buildings located throughout the county. Beth Brummitt, the company’s founder, was also asked to speak at conferences across the U.S. on Zero Net Energy and other topics related to energy savings for the A/E/C industry.
Acknowledgments: Side-by-Side Engagement
We owe our success to the close communication and trust we gained with KNA Structural Engineers and Brummitt Energy. At KNA we collaborated with principals Larry Kaprielian, Dave Nelson, Josh Randall, Ben Pitts and Kevin Westervelt. Beth Brummitt, Sandy Houck and Jamie Shirey, of Brummitt Energy, gave us the technical information we needed and leveraged our work to promote their firm with speaking engagements and advertorials.
Just as important are the creative and dedicated designers, staff and programmers here at Comet Creative. They are Nikki Holloway, Beibei An, Rob Rusnak, Vivian Zou and our copy editor Richard Dowdy. Thank you to everyone for your talent, commitment and the joy you bring to the work.
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Read 13 Reasons to Rebrand
SMPS Award Listings: KNA—Corporate Identity: Re-branding
SMPS Award Listings: KNA—Website-External
SMPS Award Listings: Brummitt—Promotional Campaign-Mixed Media
