North East-based brand design and web agency, Canny Creative, has revealed a bold new brand identity and website.
Launched just months after the business celebrated its 10th anniversary as a limited company, the refreshed brand arrives at a pivotal moment for the agency, as it makes a strategic shift towards the B2B market.
“Canny has changed a lot over the last ten years,” said Tony Hardy, Founder and Managing Director at Canny Creative.
“Our thinking has evolved, along with our client base, and our brand identity just hadn’t kept pace. We wanted something that would reflect our evolution, without losing the fun, approachable side that people know us for.”
“We carried out a tonne of research and played around with lots of different concepts until we landed on something which felt authentic. It’s a bit outside of the box, but that’s exactly the point.
“The creative sector is saturated with agencies promising to help their clients to ‘stand out from the crowd’, but then their own visual identities don’t practice what they’re preaching. We didn’t want to do that.”
Using a pastel colour palette, hand-drawn illustrations and anchored by the strapline ‘Taming marketing monsters since 2015’, Canny’s new look comprises a refreshed logo, new website and the introduction of a new brand mascot, ‘Mark – the monster of marketing’. The finished effect offers a playful satire of the marketing industry while doubling down on the message that Blyth-based Canny is ready for further growth.
“Introducing a big, hairy purple monster into our branding was a calculated risk,” Tony added.
“Brand mascots have been around for years, but they’re almost never used in B2B. B2B branding is traditionally very safe and accessible, but instead of seeing that as a limitation, we saw an opportunity to create a character that didn’t just represent Canny, but represented marketing itself to help us really speak to our audience. Because the truth is, marketing today is a bit of a monster.
“We work with clients all over the world, from big multinational corporations to owner managed businesses, and the one thing that all of the marketing teams have in common is that they’re stretched too thin. Sometimes the ‘team’ is just one or two individuals, expected to manage the entire marketing function, from video production to social media, all the while keeping tabs on KPIs and ROI to justify their budget. It’s a lot, we understand that.
“Mark the monster is the embodiment of that spirit. He is a lot. He’s the unpredictable brilliance of the creative sector which, for all of its fun and playfulness, is absolutely vital to a businesses’ ongoing success.
“People will either love it or hate it, but we hope that they at least get it. It’s been a labour of love for our in-house team, and I’m really proud of how it’s turned out.”
Established in 2015, Canny Creative is a leading provider of brand design, website development and SEO services for clients spanning the B2B market, including IT and technology, recruitment and training and healthcare.
