Growing value and reducing risk in natural capital

The Challenge

We were tasked with defining a strategic brand platform for Newt Natural Capital, helping them to focus their market positioning and communicate their services through a clear proposition and set of marketing messages.

Natural capital is defined as the world’s stocks of soil, water, the atmosphere, and all living organisms. Many companies look to meet their environmental commitments though natural capital offset projects. The problem for many organisations, however, is identifying which projects they should be investing in to avoid reputational damage and material loss.

That’s where Newt Natural Capital come in. They’re a consultancy that helps organisations find the high-quality projects that align with their objectives.

The team came to this brand project with a lot of great work already in place. Our job was to work closely with them to help organise the existing strategy, push their messaging to work harder and build on their visual identity to deliver a future-proof foundation for growth.

Our Approach

We wanted to stay true to their existing identity in the market. With clients and projects already in motion, a complete reimagining of their brand may have undermined their hard work. Instead, we concentrated on optimising their brand assets to better communicate them as a knowledgeable, experienced and professional collaborator.

To kick things off, we held a ‘What, Why, How?’ workshop session to build insight and understanding into three core areas:

• their business and the world they’re working in
• their customers
• their competitors.

Understanding these three different areas helps us to identify exactly what the strategic opportunities are.

One thing to emerge from the initial workshop session was the need for a clear brand architecture as, alongside the consultancy offer, the business also provided a specific product (which we designated a sub brand given the slightly different use case) and an educational offer.

Creating customer personas helped us to determine how each part of the business should be branded to reach the target segment. Using unique behaviours for each, we determined four different core personas for Newt Natural Capital to target. These personas helped inform the key messages and benefits that the brand needed to communicate.

Through the competitor audit, we were also able to find a clear market positioning for Newt Natural Capital. One that put them between the larger consultancies (lacking the on-the-ground experience and expertise) and the smaller consultancies (lacking the professionalism to give clients confidence and the flexibility to meet demand). Within the market there is also a tension between corporate professionalism and environmental grounding. It’s corporate reality versus sustainable idealism. Occupying the middle ground between these two gives Newt Natural Capital a unique positioning in market, neatly summed up with the core idea of: Growing value. Reducing Risk.

With a clear brand strategy in place, consisting of a distinctive market position, clear proposition to customers and a set of key marketing messages, we were then able to focus on the visual identity through brand design.

Stunning aerial photography of diverse landscapes grounds Newt Natural Capital in its roots and speaks to their understanding of the bigger picture in the natural world. Alongside this, clean and precise shapes and icons show a logical design hierarchy, giving visual clarity. This helps to cut through the noise and showcase a vast and sophisticated suite of services. It means the brand can build trust with clients through a slick and professional design, rooted in hands-on, practical experience.

For the colour palette, we developed a strong, corporate dark blue, balanced with softer and muted, earthy tones that speak to the natural world. A punchy and direct, bright green is then used as an accent that brings attention to key information and CTAs.

Newt Natural Capital is responsive and professional, and backed up by robust credibility and proven experience. We have given them a visual identity that effectively communicates their ability to balance commercial reality with environmental benefits and helps them to stand out in the market.

This project was a great example of just why brand is such an important business tool. Not only could brand bring new levels of clarity and consistency to the business, but it also help set a clear direction of where to focus future developments.

Jon Kerswell – Strategy Director, FutureKings