Creative community work with scientific engineers to create tomorrow's world
(Posted on 01/09/21)
When North Wales-based scientific engineering firm Scanwel was looking to rebrand and raise its profile, new marketing manager Katy Harrison called upon her North Wales creative network for help.
Scanwel is an expert solution provider in the vacuum, surface and nanoscience sector. It has grown from a one-man business operating from a workshop in an old schoolhouse in North Wales, to an international solutions provider to the academic, industrial and scientific community, currently operating from its new premises in Bala.
Scanwel is investing heavily in its business infrastructure, to ensure that it is positioned for future growth and acquisition. As a consequence of this, it recognised that the communications channels to its potential clients needed to reflect both its current position and its aspirations for continued expansion.
To reinforce this message, Scanwel decided it was time for a rebrand. This included redeveloping the website, updating its look and feel with a new company video and photography, and fully understanding its current position in the market.
Collaboration is key
The management team at Scanwel is lean, so Katy looked for outside design and marketing support from her network of contacts. To this end, she bought together design, videography, photography and marketing support from JC Creative, Knew Productions, Ginger Pixie Photography, and us at Zebra Marketing and Communications. All these businesses are based in North Wales, and the collective expertise of the team has enabled the project to be carried out in a short space of time.
Good relationships built on trust
Katy explains: “Having worked in North Wales for a number of years, I have developed a network of trusted suppliers, which I’ve met through networking or worked with on previous projects. In addition to this, the individual businesses were familiar with each other’s work, so we were able to establish a real sense of collaboration and familiarity across the project from the start. Working with trusted local businesses has also meant that when restrictions have allowed, we have been able to meet face-to-face and build the relationships further.”
Vision for the future
Jake Cross of JC Creative commented: “Scanwel needed to develop a strong brand, to position itself in the marketplace. The new brand I developed was fresh, with colours not usually associated with the scientific sector. The strapline was quite fun, reflecting the personality of the business, but also the quality of the products – ‘Scientific engineering for tomorrow’s world’. Once the brand was developed, the website was designed to reinforce the branding’s message and content.”
Scanwel’s team decided to share its high-level messages via a new video on the website. There were challenges in terms of timing, as the initial plan was to showcase the new video at a large industry exhibition. The exhibition was postponed due to Covid, but the video was produced within the same schedule.
Richard Knew, of Knew Productions, said: “The video we produced for Scanwel had to capture the future aspirations of the business, the technical knowledge and expertise of the team, and its approach to collaboration and problem solving. We used the brand guidelines developed by JC Creative, to ensure we remained on brand.”
Customers first
Katy added: “Melissa from Ginger Pixie Photography has visited us onsite several times throughout this project, to capture a variety of images for the new website and also the website shop, which we are currently working on. I think she has captured the team and our products in such a way that complements the new branding.
“We also engaged Zebra Marketing and Communications’ services, to develop a customer survey, to find out the challenges facing the sector and how our business is currently perceived. The information we have acquired from the survey will help shape our marketing activity going forward.”
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