Adding value beyond the numbers

Curtis Mclean was established in 1989. When a service offering is well established you can sometimes you can get trapped or typecast by that. They had grown significantly and their offer had changed over time. They needed to establish a credible brand presence amongst the four big players and to have a clear point of difference.

When we interrogated what they actually did, we discovered their service often went beyond just standard accounting. They were often problem solving, streamlining business process, and acting effectively as a business consultancy. Many of their clients are longstanding. They had a policy to give partners visibility to all their clients, rather than just dealing with juniors. I came up with the proposition; ‘Adding value beyond the numbers’. Based on the engagement with clients, everyone was given a function that sat broadly beneath this banner, whether they were ‘explore’, ‘pinpoint’, ‘touch’ or ‘resolve’.

Their business delivery model was brought to life with a warm illustrative expression; used to demonstrate how they went about their business; metaphorically based on some of the client business types they actually served.

A brand book was designed to further sell all this into their clients and prospective clients.

The identity has been very effective for them, not only in clearly differentiating them from the big players, but also as a recruitment tool; staff are now more engaged with their brand and feel justly proud in working for them.