Marketing makeover for legacy brand: MCBCreative, Inc. brings local firms’ marketing into the modern era.
Introduction
Building Concepts, Inc. (BCI) and it’s sister brand Treehouse Design Group are professional firms in Minden, Nevada. They have a long history and stellar reputation for providing high-end custom residential design and successfully executing projects that require complex technical engineering.
Both BCI and Treehouse Design Group were creating new websites and the process prompted larger conversations about the overall branding and marketing for both firms.
MCBCreative, Inc. provides boutique creative services for busy companies that have either small team or no marketing staff. As such, MCBCreative was a perfect fit and tailored a custom approach to the projects BCI and Treehouse Design Group had in mind.
Background
With nearly 30 years of experience in consulting, engineering, and custom home design, BCI is an industry leader in providing exceptional quality, innovative ideas, and commitment to client satisfaction. In 2018, the architectural design arm of BCI was spun off to form the Treehouse Design Group.
Together, BCI and Treehouse Design Group provide comprehensive services for all manner of residential housing projects - from stunning custom homes to thoughtfully crafted remodels and additions. All of their projects are professionally engineered to complex and exacting specifications unique to the mountain west.
The ownership recognized that the BCI brand had not been particularly well managed from its inception and had experienced brand creep over its three decades in business. Additionally, Treehouse Design Group was in need of a brand audit and updated collateral pieces.
The Principal of MCBCreative, M.C. Bouchér, conducted several meetings with the owners to understand their overall vision and need. From those meetings the priorities were identified and the project took shape.
Challenge
When the logos for both BCI and Treehouse Design Group were created, they were not accompanied by well-defined brand guidelines. Naturally, the materials became inconsistent, watering down the power of the original logo.
BCI and Treehouse Design Group do not have an internal marketing team. Like many thriving small businesses, it is challenging for owners to find the time to regularly audit their brand and manage their marketing.
Over time their marketing had be handled by a variety of administrative staff that did not have professional marketing or corporate brand experience. While each iteration was well-intended, the materials lacked cohesion.
Lastly, the firms have delivered countless projects in Northern Nevada, the Lake Tahoe Basin, and the Eastern Sierra, but had been inconsistent in following up once the projects were built - sometimes years later. They did not have documentation of many of their recent projects to share with prospective clients or to include on their website.
Solution
MCBCreative specializes in providing thoughtful brand-based solutions for businesses that need bench depth to execute on their marketing strategy. As such, MCBCreative was well positioned to help BCI and Treehouse Design Group with the refresh and updates they needed.
BCI has a recognizable logo element that is a prominent script capital “B”. Because of their longevity and sterling reputation, they did not want to change the primary elements of the logo, but were open to a refresh.
The MCBCreative team worked with BCI ownership to determine preferences for color palette, font selection, and design elements to create a logo that is still very familiar to its client base, but is a more modern iteration. Each of those elements was used to create a comprehensive brand style guide that will promote consistent application of the brand in future. C
The Treehouse Design Group logo was newer and did not need a refresh, however, MCBCreative documented appropriate logos usage and gathered the font selection and color palette into a full style guide.
The elements from the style guides were used to create full business suites including business cards, e-mail signature templates, digital stationary, and title blocks for plan documents.
MCBCreative then completed a comprehensive read-through of both BCI and Treehouse Design Group websites so that they could be brought into compliance with the now-established brand guidelines.
To answer the request for a portfolio to highlight built projects, MCBCreative developed three templates each for BCI and Treehouse Design Group. These templates allow for the firms to include pertinent information about each project and share one, three, or five images.
The templates were delivered in a format that is easily editable by internal staff. The portfolio pages are designed to work well in either digital or print format to accommodate the desired presentation style. These can be used as historical documentation or as pitch books to share with prospective clients.
To finalize the initial portfolio pages, MCBCreative captured architectural photos of three built projects; 119 Five Creek Road in Gardnerville, NV; 513 Leonard in June Lake, CA; and 1592 Sixth Street in Minden, NV.
Results
MCBCreative is well-suited to provide this type of outsourced marketing help. This is their wheelhouse and it shows. They were pleased to provide BCI and Treehouse Design Group with updated, efficient tools with which to manage their brand.
Shortly after this work concluded, BCI hired new administrative staff and they are confident that the brand can be effectively managed by this new employee and future hires that may touch their marketing.
BCI has continued to engage MCBCreative for architectural photography of their completed projects to document the exceptional work they do in Northern Nevada, Lake Tahoe, and the Eastern Sierra.
MCBCreative remains on contract with BCI to create future marketing materials, provide brand updates, and manage edits to their WordPress websites.
“MCB is a delight to work with; extremely professional, creative, and engaging. I really appreciated all of her ideas for giving our brand a fresh, modern look while retaining it's essence. She also did some photography for us, and we were very happy with the final result. Highly recommend!”
Brand Strategy
Visual Identity Design
Brand Application
Architectural Photography