Seeing the wood for the trees
When Merensky wanted to re-engineer their brand, they were looking for an identity that would reflect their vision for the future, while still retaining their links to a powerful legacy.
The external perception of the company was of a business made up of ‘lumber jacks with dirty faces’, a perception totally at odds with the significant corporate entity that the company had become. Today Merensky competes in local and international markets, engineering ‘intelligent’ wood products using state-of-the-art technology.
So the new identity had to reflect this image and meet the company’s need to position itself as an employer of choice in an increasingly competitive global market. It also needed to create much-needed cohesion between the organisation’s many far-flung operations by grouping them under one unifying banner.
Together with Brand Alive, Merensky had already begun work on a brand platform to define its characteristics, identifying ‘agile’, ‘personal’, ‘dependable’ and ‘pioneering’ as important attributes. These characteristics had to be translated into an identity that would unify the company under one brand, reflect its current position as an industry leader and encapsulate its ability to pioneer new ways to create a sustainable future. In tandem with this process, they undertook an extensive re-naming process to help restructure the organisation’s disparate parts under a new brand architecture.
The solution was an iconic logo that reflected the masculinity of Merensky’s industry. The primary brand mark and the various visual identity elements make use of dynamic triangular shapes, giving expression to the relationship between nature, industry and a pioneering spirit. Visually, it serves as a device that reminds people of the three driving values in the business: experience, energy and expertise.
The colour palette is decidedly corporate and deliberately not green. The revitalised brand makes it clear that its influence and aspirations stretch far beyond the trees that supply the raw material for its business. While greens may traditionally be used to indicate conservation, agriculture or growth, the monchromatic blue palette designed for the new Merensky is intended to associate the brand with the intellectual power of expert engineering and the science of creating sustainable energy.
Most significantly, Merensky has chosen to rebrand itself at a time when economic conditions are far from favourable. This is an opportunity for the brand to stand and deliver on the promises it makes, to be pioneering, to show character and leadership. These are some of the significant steps it will continue to take as it drives an impressive organisation forward with a new sense of confidence.
