August 4, 2024
DS Smith
Website Case Study
How do we unite and excite our employees post M&A under one unified brand?
Challenge
London based DS Smith, one of the world’s largest publicly traded packaging companies with revenues topping £8 Billion, headquartered in London, came to Brandigo to help define their brand’s core value proposition, purpose, and visual representation. This had particularly become a challenge as much of DS Smith’s growth had come from acquisitions around the globe so many brand silos, differing company cultures and brand value propositions existed. Brandigo was charged with creating a new purpose, essence, and positioning that could unify the company under one singularly focused brand.
Solutions
Following the format of 1) Who does the brand need to convince? 2) What do they currently think, feel and do? 3) What do we need then to think, feel, and do? 4) What moves them, what are the points of differentiation we can keep returning to and build upon? And 5) How can we get those points of difference out into real-world actions and behaviors?
We started with understanding that much of the challenge was about the internal culture and employee brand. With that in mind, we interviewed dozens of employees across the different global locations, particularly those that had more recently been acquired by DS Smith and rebranded.
From this, we were able to find the common, emotional thread that tied it all together, and that was wanting and needing to be not only the world’s top packaging company, but also the most environmentally forward brand in the space.
A new brand purpose reflecting this was created as Redefining Packaging for a Changing World and crafted to a new brand essence and tagline: The Power of Less.
Brandigo then create a new visual way to express this positioning, creating a brand icon called the D Window. The D Window is expressed as seeing the what’s possible, what’s new, what can change the world by looking through the window. We used the existing logomark to create this standard that became the focal part of the new brand.
To ensure that the new brand essence, positioning and visual representation was used consistently by dozens of marketing teams across the globe, Brandigo created extensive Brand Guidelines that addressed every possible scenario, from marketing asset design templates, fleet signage, in-airport advertising, social, video, pitch decks to all things digital, the new Guidelines covered 215 pages.
To launch the new brand strategy, Brandigo helped create a global employee event across dozens of offices and facilities in 9 countries and languages, including engagement events, contests, entertainment, training events and employee swag.
Why Client–Consultancy Synergy is Critical to a Successful Brand Research Project
Tesla's recent struggles show how controversies can damage a brand. CEO Elon Musk's recent controvercial decisions have alienated a significant portion of Tesla's eco-conscious customer base. The fallout has been severe: Stock Decline: Tesla's stock dropped 36% in Q1 2025, erasing $460B in market cap. Sales Impact: Vehicle deliveries fell 13% year-over-year in Q1 2025, with market share in Europe and Germany plummeting. Customer Trust: Favorability among Democrats dropped 23% from January to July 2024, while Tesla's brand consideration score halved since 2021. This highlights a key lesson: brands risk fallout when taking sides on divisive issues, and this is particularly true in politics. It highlights how important it for brands to remain focused on their core mission, establish authenticity, and earn trust from the market. You may be asking yourself, well hold on, how is this any different that what other brands like Ben and Jerry’s have done over the years. The key difference is that even though they may express views that some may find divisive, these views didn’t counter their core brand essence, in fact it enhanced it. Conflicts Hurting Brand Performance Brand Value Losses Tesla experienced a hit to its brand value following statements from its CEO that many perceived to be divisive or off-brand. Survey results showed that 45% of respondents viewed the impact as "negative," while 40% described it as "extremely negative" [2] . Customer Trust Breakdown Tesla's favorability ratings have sharply declined, particularly across political affiliations: