Third Bridge uncover the intelligence that makes or breaks investments. They provide private equity firms, hedge funds and strategy consultants with the information that they need to understand the value of their investment opportunities.
Third Bridge uncover the intelligence that makes or breaks investments. They provide private equity firms, hedge funds and strategy consultants with the information that they need to understand the value of their investment opportunities.
We have completed a strategic, creative, digital and communications rebrand of Third Bridge, working collaboratively with the Board and Senior Management – to help them better define who they were as a company and how to better communicate this externally. Formerly named Cognolink, the company offers consultations and intelligence to businesses worldwide. Third Bridge, part of Cognolink, was a separate company producing market reports to help drive key decisions for investors. The same organisation covered three types of services – but under two names. Together we assessed the branding and marketing risks and opportunities for renaming, rebranding and reorganising.
At a brand architecture level we defined three sub-brands, under a monolithic approach – to avoid diluting the masterbrand. Each of the divisions corresponding to the three core services were renamed under the one naming convention, making it easier and more understandable to customers and clients. A brand strategy – carried out via a series of workshops was translated into the narrative ‘Revealing true value’ and launched as part of the new brand– from marketing collateral to a full website redesign.
The creative concept, based around the strategy of revealing the real value was represented creatively around Third Bridges ability to see things differently, going one step further and sharing the fundamental knowledge that makes the difference to investors. For this reason the identity uses illustration as a way of revealing the hidden truth. Enabling us to describe often abstract ideas in interesting and compelling ways – and allowing us to describe different sectors and areas of expertise.
We teamed up with Spanish illustrator Borja Bonaque who illustrated the various sectors Third Bridge work in, delivering a range of highly detailed landscape illustrations, as well as a set of generic patterns, people and object silhouettes and a map. These illustrations are then combined to form the basis of the identity. Within this, relevant sector-specific imagery highlights their commitment to understanding specific investments and opportunities.
The creative expression of their expertise is also able to appear within text, imagery and photography – designed as a visual translation of their ability to see deep within opportunities, and to highlight the true value they are able to reveal.
Senior and lead creative at SomeOne, Helen Altoungarian says of the identity “When you look at the sector as a whole it feels very similar, very corporate. We wanted to focus on Third Bridge’s competitive edge and dramatise the story of discovery and insight in a more human way. Illustration seemed like just the vehicle to zig whilst others were zagging”.
By creating rich, densely populated illustrations depicting a range of business sectors, we gave Third Bridge the tools to tailor their communication depending on the subject area they want to discuss.
The new Third Bridge website had a lot of sector specific as well as market information to cover – whilst always needing to feel light, accessible and more focused. The main task was to present and cross-present the newly refreshed branded offering in a much clearer way. Making the website leaner by intelligently stripping out a lot of less focussed content and made room for the new branded graphics. The desire was for visitors to feel that the website was more informative, useful and always current.
Analytics play an important part in better understanding Third Bridge’s audience and how they use their digital services. Also, because of Third Bridge’s international and multilingual reach, the site needs to flex and translate into various languages – on mobile and desktop. All from the outset.
What we did
Brand Consultants, Brand strategy and architecture, Naming, Brand Identity & Brand world, Brand Application, Website redesign and build, Internal Engagement, External launch.