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Sports retail chain “Olimp”

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Here we are talking about our approach to branding, taking into account the value for clients and employees

Sports retail chain “Olimp”

The Olymp company has existed for more than 20 years and has 8 sports stores in 5 cities of Russia. The client decided that it was high time for a visual update, but we had a feeling that we first needed to understand why the brand should change and how exactly they should do it, before developing a new logo and a brand book.

(About the project)

Branding
Corporate identity
Research

Expertise

Our tasks were to look at the business from the outside and understand how customers make purchasing decisions, what they pay attention to, what things they doubt about, and how we can overcome these objections.

Tasks

Good positioning should answer the following questions:

Who are we?

Who do we work for?

What do we give them?

What do they expect from us?

This is the basis for the development of any company. We checked the current brand positioning against its real state and identified the values that are important for customers. Now the design reflects the mission and advantages of the brand, which benefits the company, employees and customers.

How did we work?

The customer wanted to see the whole picture. We conducted several in-depth interviews with the company’s management. We discussed what they consider to be the company’s advantages. We tried to find out why exactly they call this an advantage — and what the real value of this is to the buyer. We did the same with competitors' weaknesses.

Branding

We came up with a number of hypotheses that we decided to test using employee surveys. We conducted it using the EST model to evaluate the customer’s brand and compare it with competitors’ brands in each of the 6 areas.

EST is an assessment scheme of competitive advantages marked from 1 to 10. The model suggests that the seller should be the best for the target audience in one area, rather than trying to be the best in all of them.

To determine positioning, we use the RDB (resonance, differentiation, belief) model, which helps to formulate which product (brand) parameters are most important and valuable to the buyer when making a decision.

During the analysis of employee responses, we began to doubt 3 main advantages that were stated as the main reasons for customers to come to this particular store. We began to suspect that in reality they may not necessarily be of value to customers:

1

Universality of the store
The universality of the store is one of its main advantages according to most employees. Being able to buy everything in one place instead of going to different stores around the town is certainly convenient for many clients.

2

Depth of choice
By depth we mean that, in comparison with some stores specialising in one good, here you can find a very wide range of brands within each type of sport. That is, there are a lot of snowboard brands, a lot of ski brands and a lot of brands in all sports that are represented on the Internet.

3

The Importance of a super expert shop assistant
The store employs qualified personnel who can give qualified advice, many of them are candidates and masters of sports.

The main task of marketing is to determine the value for which customers will be ready to pay extra. If this does not solve the problem and they do not see the value in it, then positioning should be based on some other criteria.

Why did we question this?

Not all customers need the universality of a store. Most customers purchase goods only within one sport direction and do not take advantage of the opportunity to buy everything at once: if a person comes to buy skis for himself, then it is not a fact that he is purchasing sleds for his child and a snowboard for his wife. Although we would really like customers to do it this way.

1. Not everyone needs universality.

Despite the wide range and good representation of brands, we realised that in general people buy the same most popular brands no matter what store they go to. And then the Pareto rule came into play, where 80% of people buy 20% of the same brands.

2. Most people buy the same brands

If the seller is well (according to the buyer, who does not always understand the issue) familiar with the range of products and can competently help select the appropriate model based on the buyer’s budget and his preferences, this is already trustworthy. Conventionally, a seller will be considered an expert if in the eyes of the buyer he received 6 points out of 10 (on a subjective scale of "expertise"), and this rating is most often enough to "check" the "expertise" section in the buyer’s perception of the brand.

3. "Expertise" is overrated

We discussed our findings with the management and suggested revising the brand positioning.

We’ll have a 30 minute call to discuss your task and answer your questions. We will send you a presentation with similar cases and approximate costs

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The role of the brand is to instil love for sports and tourism, develop them in the region and provide access to new products. Each customer receives a wide range of goods in a convenient location and assistance with choice. "Olimp" conveys openness, friendliness, responsibility and expertise as key values.

We have highlighted the main assets of "Olimp" — reliability and 20 years of experience, original brands and the ability to choose a product for any purpose and budget. The concept will help provide the right advertising, reduce the chain of approvals and attract its target audience.

Logo

We have worked on 4 different concepts of corporate identity and presented them.

The idea of the first logo is the image of a running track as one of the key symbols of sports.

Option two — active recreation and sports in nature with like-minded people. The letter “O” symbolises the association of like-minded people, and the dynamic waves refer to the curves of snow-capped mountains and ocean waves.

Option three — the image of the finishing tape.

The recognizable image of a mountain formed from dots reflects the idea of a crowd of people, as well as the desire to achieve new goals and tops in sports. It is the path to the best version of yourself.

Each of the options was good in its own way, but it was decided to opt for a stylized mountain made of dots. "Olimp" is about conquering new frontiers, health, hobbies and a community of active people.

The main idea of the logo is to reach new heights in sports and at the same time be surrounded by people with similar interests. The love of sports unites many people, including our target audience. Additionally, we suggested stylizing the letter "И", which is a part of the name, which can be used in advertising banners.

Elements of identity

There are three basic colours which were used as a basis for the corporate identity.

We developed the design of all communications: entrance area, shelves, price tags, checkout area and much, much more

To create a brand book, we analysed every corner of the store and left the customer with ready-made layouts for almost all occasions. Every sign and every price tag conveys the strong qualities of the Olympus brand: when you enter the store, you immediately understand what it is about and who it is for. Even the Raleway font speaks of the company’s solidity and willingness to solve each client’s problem.

We also left our ideas and recommendations for the design of social networks in the brand book. Look how the colours are combined — energy and a sporty mood appear immediately .

Design of social networks

Now every design element reflects the company’s values, attracts attention. It is also memorable. Olimp’s corporate identity has been updated and now meets the needs of its audience. The brand book contains all kinds of ready-made solutions for designing communications, which will allow the customer’s team to maintain the company’s style for a long time without our help.

Result

The company is currently rebranding: changing signs and updating stores.

Thanks to the research, the company was able to assess its own strengths and weaknesses as well as its competitors'.

Employees were actively involved in work and contributed to the development of the company.

A brand platform was developed that formalised what the emphasis should be on and what message advertising communications should convey.

Sports retail chain “Olimp” now has a new branding that will definitely allow them to conquer new heights.

We’ll have a 30 minute call to discuss your task and answer your questions. We will send you a presentation with similar cases and approximate costs

ㅤㅤㅤGet a personal commercial offer for your task

Get a personal commercial offer for your task

Discuss the project

management and creative

Timofey Beloglazov

management and creative

Valentin Revutsky

art director

Egor Suslin

The project was developed by

design

Alexander Tikhomirov