VETERINARY PATHOLOGY GROUP

Diagnosing a distinctive brand

Veterinary Pathology Group (VPG) is a UK-based testing and pathology service used by veterinary practices to diagnose animals. With a long history, and a number of acquisitions and mergers over the years, alongside ambitious plans for the future, VPG wanted to bring consistency and stand-out to their brand.

WHAT WE DID

Brand strategy
Brand identity
Key messaging
Experience principles
UX design
UI design

A single purpose and vision

CHALLENGE

Our challenge was to unite the different parts of the business, prepare the brand for global growth and tackle the growing threat from international competitors.

STRATEGY

We worked closely with the VPG team to build an understanding of their business, products and services, team and culture. Competitors featured heavily in our initial discussions as two global players had recently rebranded and introduced new offers. We also explored customer personas to build an understanding of the behaviours and needs of VPG’s target audience.

Another key stage of our strategy work focused on the customer journey and establishing the key moments of interaction with the VPG brand. This was key as the online testing portal, and the interactions around this, were key elements of the user journey.

Through our strategic process we learned that what customers truly valued about VPG was the willingness of their team to speak directly to vets, helping them to reach conclusions and make accurate diagnosis based on the test results. No matter who you speak to, and whichever part of the business you engage with, in whatever location, VPG always delivered the highest quality in a personal way. It was the antithesis of the large, faceless competitors. And from this insight, we developed our brand platform of ‘Excellence. Everywhere.’

Brand clarity and distinction

With our strategic platform in place, we used our creative Step? Jump? Leap? workshop to test different visual and verbal identity approaches. This helped us to understand which brand assets resonated with the target audience, helped make VPG distinctive from the competition and complemented their long-term strategic goals.

The final creative uses a distinctive ‘ribbon’ to form shapes associated with excellence — a tick, a star, a symbol of progress… A dark navy primary palette with an accent of teal helped to stand out from the competitors, and carefully chosen photography showcased the scientific excellence and human approach running through everything VPG does.

We developed two copy styles. At the primary level we use bold, single word headlines to create intrigue which lead into longer-form storytelling to convey levels of warmth, humour and confidence that’s unique in the category. At a secondary level, we use more benefit-led copy to help customers quickly and easily navigate the products and services.

This was a fantastic project to work on. An established competitor set, a complex category and a business with amazing potential — it really kept us on our toes and brought out the best in the team.

The final brand identity uses both visual and verbal elements to create a distinctive brand that clearly communicates VPG’s unique culture and independent approach, but is firmly rooted in the category and able to effectively challenge much larger competitors.

Steven Anderson
Co-Founder & Executive Creative Director, FutureKings

Diagnosing a distinctive brand

Win today. Rule tomorrow.