Forming the Vahlkamp brand, a roadmap for coherence

Abstract

This graduation assignment is about Vahlkamp, a health care alarm manufacturer, which noticed that the appearance of its products doesn’t convey the right brand image: being a socially responsible and technically skilled manufacturer.
As it is a small company, which is being strategically stuck in the middle in a big market with a lot of competitors, a way to make Vahlkamp more visible and distinctive and their message more clear is another challenge.

The goal of this assignment is: Update the Vahlkamp brand identity, so it will become a more visible and distinctive brand. Show how to convey the renewed image in a coherent way.

The process of this assignment is the following: By analyzing the company and it’s context, insights on the challenges were found and translated into a roadmap to get to this updated brand identity. This is close to the original one, but differs in the conveyed look and emphasizes the reasons to believe the brand. The roadmap shows three different implementations to come to this identity: a brand guide, a portfolio update and a niche market focus strategy.
A brand guide is created first to set a standard, also for the coherence, and provides the company with an handhold for all future brand communication. An proposed homepage serves as example.
The portfolio update consists of new cases for the core products (bed alarm, multisense, Epi-Watcher, Wet-Watcher and Teleroep). Three case designs with each different aspects are shown to employees of care organisations and their opinions about characteristics are collected. Based on their feedback, a final design is made and again shown to them. This is also 3D printed. Advice about changes of the design is given.

As the current brand essence is making simple but qualitative health care alarms for smaller disease groups and the current mission is to enlighten the burden of these people, the strategy is to focus on niche markets: small disease groups.
Vahlkamp already has products for niche markets, like the Epi-Watcher and products for the blind and deaf, but also sell mass market products. These should remain in the background.
By keeping research into the emerging niche markets and new technologies going, opportunities can be found. By contracting companies for their niche products or developing new niche products, the portfolio can be expanded.
In this way, the strategy supports their caring character and makes them more visible and distinctive, especially in the smaller niche markets.
As was found in the analysis phase, most competitors design for the majority and thus not focussing on the majority, but on the niche markets, is a good strategy for more visibility and distinctiveness. Also, the threat of substitution of multiple alarms by the use of cameras is a reason to comply with this strategy.
By using a brand guide, updating the portfolio and following the niche focus strategy, Vahlkamp’s brand identity will be updated so Vahlkamp will be a more visible and distinctive brand while conveying this message in a coherent way.