Working with clients to define brand purpose

Cargo’s success as a creative agency centres around our creative brand principles and the consistent approach we follow when working with our clients across different sectors.

A key aspect of that process comes at the very beginning of our relationship with clients, where we focus on collaborating through discovery sessions to extract key information about their brand and why it exists.

How do we define brand purpose?

For us at Cargo, brand purpose is the underlying belief or emotion that drives everything your brand does and everything your brand stands for. Our way of tapping into that idea of brand purpose is to define a number of brand principles that act like personality traits for everything we do. These principles are a constant reference point in any key design decisions and even design layouts. Every decision should capture at least one of these principles, but the more we connect with them, the more authentic the brand will feel.

Using principles to shape a brand

These brand principles are not just theoretical. They shape how the brand looks, communicates and behaves across campaigns and internal and external communications. They reach internal staff and external audiences. Therefore, by defining brand principles early, we give clients a compass to support them in making confident decisions which ensure every piece of work reinforces their purpose. Not only do they enhance work for external audiences, but they help to align internal teams, creating a unity that helps guide key decisions.

To develop a comprehensive framework for brands and for our team to ensure we are working collaboratively and on the same page as our clients. We often develop these brand principles alongside other aspects of a business, like visions and values, mission, tone of voice and brand toolkit, and brand narrative.

This helps us when we are connecting through brand principles with clients, ensuring that their vision for their brand is coherent so we can implement their goals into the work we produce.

Our methods for defining brand purpose

We work with our clients to ensure we are collaborating in a way that works for both of us. This means our methods for defining brand purpose – and those all important brand principles – can differ depending on the requirements of our client.

Typically, however, we hold scoping sessions and discovery workshops with our clients to gain a clear understanding of their ambition. We also conduct stakeholder interviews and carry out market research to understand what the current market looks like and what competitors may be doing to achieve their goals. These aspects all play a crucial role in developing brand principles.

We have worked with Echelon for several years, but our journey began with helping the fitness company map their position in the market by exploring their key competitors in a very competitive market and by gaining a detailed understanding of what made them different. From this, we were able to build their four key brand principles, their brand narrative and ultimately, their purpose of Intelligent Fitness.

Design isn’t enough to make something look good: brands need more than that to have true impact and be seen as authentic and trustworthy by audiences. A strong design, backed by even stronger brand principles, are how we tap into a long-term strategy and ensure a rebrand or a brand refresh delivers on all levels.

At Cargo, we’re passionate about building brands that mean something. Building brands that will resonate with audiences and develop meaningful and lasting connections.

From using illustration in branding to foster human connection to building scalable digital experiences, our approach to working with clients is bespoke but collaborative.