BUILDING A LIFESTYLE BRAND

FIRESTONE

One challenge facing international brands is local communications. The need to adapt to local contexts, changing markets, the availability (or not) of relevant assets and other factors can lead to initiatives that stray from the guidelines over time.

 Firestone came to us wanting to clarify how people identify the brand and what it can do to maintain a cohesive presence across the EMIA region. After some strategic exercises, we created the brand manifesto, lifestyle ecosystem and a word cloud – the key words that are used to describe the brand in a distinctive way.

 While working on this, we realized they needed their own image data bank. This led to us proposing a Lifestyle photoshoot – focusing on people, emotions, what the brand stands for, and the lifestyle of Firestone customers, rather than the product itself. A four-day road trip in Spain and in Belgium led to more than 160 images that can be used for the next 5 years across EMIA. We handled everything from A to Z.

 And while working on that, we realized that we were missing a consistent distinctive visual approach, so we created clear guidelines and templates for the various comms channels. And, important for Firestone’s brand, we integrated music at every level. If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing well.