Informa, a FTSE 100 company specialising in business intelligence, publishing, networking and events, wanted to bring together thousands of conference events under one concise and transferable brand identity for their Knowledge and Networking (K&N) division.
Knowledge and Networking (K&N) is a £200m division of Informa, which runs 2,000+ conferences, e-learning and training events a year in over 70 countries. They span many industries, focussing on life sciences, finance, telecoms, media and technology. When we met with them, they needed to re-imagine their presence across all customer touchpoints to keep ahead of new disruptors entering the market. Only 1% of their 2,000 events had brand guidelines and design was outsourced without any restrictions or structure in place. This led to disjointed brands and disparate platforms, preventing cross-sell opportunities due to the lack of alignment.
We delivered a branding system that creates consistency across the business yet allows for enough flexibility to communicate to different audiences, in different countries and industries. A uniform wordmark style, a wide yet complementary colour palette, a family of typefaces, business-wide iconography and rules for photography created visual cohesion across the business. To create differentiation between events we developed a wide bank of graphic symbols that form the recognisable visual language for each individual brand. They represent connections, insights, collaboration and the chemistry of combining the right people, knowledge and expertise. Every event’s visual identity is made up of a combination of five symbols. The application of these symbols into marketing and sales collateral is controlled but allows for greater freedom and ownership.
Nalla provided the business with a flexible system that empowered our marketers to get involved and harness the power in their own brands.
GRAHAM JEROME-BALL
Global Branding Director, Informa
To ensure a truly future-proofed global roll-out we developed CORE – a way for people to create their own brands within a custom online content management system. Through an algorithm coded in the back-end of the website platform, marketers can generate graphic symbols and colour palettes for their brands, which automatically populated the styling of the event’s website. 300+ symbols for more than 11 business specialisms and a colour picker with 3,500+ combinations to choose from allowed for millions of possible identity combinations. Our solution streamlined the design process, reducing operating costs and time to produce brand assets and branded websites.
The Brand Generator was an absolute milestone. Our marketers loved it, and it has given amazing freedom to the teams. It’s the perfect combination of brand curation and empowerment, the brand rollout strategy of the future – a triumph!
ISOBEL PECK
Chief Audience Officer, KNect365
