Hollywood Monster Rebranding Case Study

When Midlands based Hollywood Signs and sister company Monster Digital merged to form the biggest signage and graphics company in the Midlands – Core was asked to work with them to create a new brand – Hollywood Monster.

With a client list including Westfield Shoppingtowns, Debenhams and McDonalds, the newly merged company moved to a larger 30,000 sq ft unit in Tyseley, bringing the teams under one roof for the first time to create the now 70-strong workforce in addition to the London based sales office.

The merger allowed Hollywood Monster to offer new and existing clients across the UK a wide range of services across a number of sectors, most prominently retail, whilst benefiting from the cost efficiencies and shared experience of the combined team and diversified service now on offer.

Timescales were extremely tight for this project.  From our initial briefing meeting, we provided a completed brand and suite of materials within just four weeks.

Rebranding strategy

Hollywood Signs and Monster Digital both enjoyed a strong profile within their respective sectors of property within the Midlands region and retail within the London region. By undertaking a review of how the companies were viewed in the marketplace, it soon became apparent that most clients and contacts shortened the names the two companies to Hollywood or Monster rather than using the full trading names.

It was therefore appropriate to find a way of not completely losing the identity of either of the businesses, but instead strengthening the profile by combining the two, hence the creation of Hollywood Monster.

Hollywood Monster brought the confidence and goodwill of the existing brands forward and it was agreed that the names, not the individual company icons had more impact and recall among the target audiences and sectors. Our challenge was to then create a new icon that was impactful, yet reflected the synergy of the two companies.

It was agreed that an umbrella strap line would also help to define the new company to illustrate the scale of the new business and the work it undertakes, as well as playing on the ‘Hollywood’ association. The chosen strap line was Epic Signage and Graphics.

Design Phase

An initial meeting was held where 10 different logo designs were presented all using a combination of the existing corporate colours of purple, blue and magenta.  From this process there was an immediate firm favourite across the team, where it was decided that the logo became much stronger with the use of just the two accent colours of purple and magenta.

Creating the new brand

The supporting strapline was introduced to help define the company and the chosen logo was then implemented across a range of stationery and marketing material to show how it would work and test its usability. It was clear from this stage that the chosen logo would also work across a number of platforms, most notability signage and vehicle livery, where the bubble aspects of the logo design could be extended to encompass a wider design.

Implementation

A suite of company stationery was created providing new letterheads, continuations sheets, compliment slips, business cards for 25 people together with an email signature and a template branded word document.  Signage for the new premises was produced, together with a new corporate brochure using new photography of the new premises and notable projects within the new circular design elements, htmls and a printed mailer to introduce the new brand to key clients and contact, as well as A4 writing pads for the team to use whilst with clients. The logo was provided to the website company to incorporate into the new design.

Additional Activity

In addition to the mainstream materials, we also worked together with Hollywood Monster to produce a suite of sector led materials – starting with the retail sector and a specific Christmas campaign targeted at shopping centres and large national stores. We also looked at a number of branded corporate items such as pens and mugs that could be used by staff and given to key clients during visits.

We also launched the new brand and premises through a press release to regional and trade media, as well as producing a media pack that was sent to key journalists and contacts to update them on the company merger.

Work was also undertaken to copy write the website content to ensure it remained concise and informative – clearly communicating the merger and what this meant for the company’s clients and the business as a whole.

Brand Guidelines

A pdf document was created for Hollywood Monster’s in-house design team to set out the new logo, font and how to use it to ensure that its use would remain consistent across all materials moving forward.