Rebranding Savannah Resources: a Q&A with our brand team!

This month, we sit down with our Creative Director, Helen Plant, and our Director of Consultancy, William Morgan-Harrold, to delve deeper into the ins and outs of our most recent client rebrand for Savannah Resources. 

Will: This is going to sound like a cliche and what every agency says but it is getting key insights into what has or is going to change for the business. By working as a collective we look to learn how this change is going to affect the business vision, strategy and activities, who it will affect and how and ultimately what is the desired position and perceptions the leaders want to achieve in the future? To answer these searching questions and to support the brand projects progress, we have a tried and tested process where we capture all this information through a framework document. This document acts as the project's north star allowing everyone, both client and our-side, to keep a strategic and objective perspective as we progress through the branding project and beyond.

Will: We are an agency focused purely on corporate communications, stakeholder engagement and corporate brand initiatives. Brand development projects at an enterprise level have a different set of criteria to consider in comparison to customer and consumer brand projects. Savannah came to us as we demonstrated past success with other organisational rebrands and we demonstrated a robust process that could objectively provide a rationale to all creative and communication strategies and initiatives now and for their future. 

Will: The brand strategy provided a strong brief and direction for the creative team. The key shift was ensuring that the identity represented a responsible mining company that was going to be a key part to Europe's energy transition. It needed to be bold, dynamic and great a sense that this organisation was connected to the energy transition challenge and it was going to be a key player that over time would also play an important part in changing perceptions of the mining industry as they continually improve their practices. 

Helen: It was thought that Savannah Resources’ identity needed more impact and futureproofing. With the change in strategy for the business, it made sense that the new visuals needed to adopt this more professional, driven and progressive feel. Jones and Palmer completed a ‘Brand Spectrum’ assessment of Savannah Resources and discovered that their future positioning was ambitious, innovative and has a lilt of friendliness to reflect the Company’s commitment towards engagement with its local Portuguese communities.

With this in mind, the logo lettering is robust, softened at the corners and follows an all-caps approach so it makes a trusted, solid wordmark. There are some clever and subtle elements of the logo where the ‘V’ is highlighted to represent the V of voltage, also an arrow pointing toward the ground where the lithium is mined as well as a balanced design feature between the A-V-A.

Will: Savannah resources want to become the first lithium producer in Europe. The brand story had to elevate perceptions of the mining industry within key communities. We had to create a new and differentiated brand position and identity that supports this new and exciting opportunity that didn’t associate with Savannah's previous strategic asset.

Helen: The brand system Jones and Palmer created for Savannah Resources is quite a step from their original brand package. The logo is professional and polished, the colour palette has reverted from warm sandy colours to vibrant blues and teals, and the supporting assets of photography and iconography are all pulled together to tell the story of a forward-thinking business rather than the previous style which focussed on purely lithium mines where the resources are found.

Savannah Resources pivoted their focus to the end-use of lithium and the positives surrounding the ‘greener’ approach to enabling Europe’s energy transition.

Jones and Palmer wanted to encapsulate the shift in focus into the brand visuals, even down to the glowing gradients named ‘Charge’ and ‘Ocean’. They represent the transmission of energy and vibrancy and excitement of the Savannah business direction and are used as a decorative element across all comms to create the link to the energy transmission you cannot visibly see.

We also realised that with the business being split between the English and Portuguese language, iconography would be important in effectively breaking down language barriers. Jones and Palmer created an extensive suite of detailed icons that can be used at both top-level communications, through to intricate infographics that show operations, benefits, and outputs.

Will: This was a complete rethink of the brand offering and its positioning to ensure future desired perceptions would be achieved. The only aspect that was maintained was the name. However, there was a phase of this project where renaming the organisation was being explored. It was key that it resonated with the local Portuguese communities, we worked closely with Savannah's PR representatives who tested multiple name options and Savannah was still the strongest name as it had links to Portuguese colonial history.

Will: The team at Savannah did a wonderful job on their social media channels as well as the leadership leveraged their own platforms to bring attention to the pre-launch and the launch of the new brand, its vision and sending their audiences to the new website.

The launch did a fantastic job in driving lots of users directly to the key touchpoint - the website. 

You can take a look at Savannah Resources' website by following the link here. If you would like to understand more about our branding services, and see how we might be able to support you, get in touch!