Designing a brand identity for Ven & Vogel to create a brand community

Abstract

Dutch company Ven & Vogel is a shoe company which launched it first shoe in November 2012. This first model is called SuperKoeien, a hairy leather shoe, completely produced in Kenya, from cow to shoe. Because Ven & Vogel communicated many stories to its consumers, the main reason why people bought the shoes is hard to pinpoint and therefore they are worn by many different people. This report describes the process of designing a brand identity with a clear brand story for Ven & Vogel to create a brand community, carried out as a graduation project of Industrial Design Engineering, Master program Strategic Product Design, at Delft University of Technology, in cooperation with Ven & Vogel. From a company analysis, the main brand elements of Ven & Vogel are determined. These led to four brand identity elements. The consumer analysis analysed the existing consumers of Ven & Vogel and of the resulting groups, a target group is chosen. To create a strategy that fits with the defined brand identity and the new target group of Ven & Vogel, case studies are done for existing companies to find best practices. The final brand story to combine the brand, the consumers and the company is called ‘Modern Explorer’, to communicate the feeling of exploring and seeing something new every day. This story is enlarged by naming the products of Ven & Vogel after real explorers of the 19th century who went to Africa. A implementation strategy describes how this brand story can be communicated through online and offline channels to the consumers to create a brand community. With the communication through the main channels defined, the overall strategy to start the brand community will be to organise a measure meeting where Ven & Vogel tests its new products on its consumers by receiving extensive feedback on their experiences via WhatsApp. This creates a very direct communication band between the consumer and Ven & Vogel. In this communication, the consumers are asked to send photos of themselves with Ven & Vogel shoes, with a game element attached. This creates an album of photos that not only is creates a strong bond between Ven & Vogel and the consumer, but also shows the outside world the Ven & Vogel’s brand community. Together with the clearly defined brand identity, the new brand story and communication channels, this strategy is a strong fundament for Ven & Vogel to expand its consumer base by creating a large brand community.