Renoun Creative

Taking Our
Own Medicine

Renoun Creative has been in business for 18+ years, evolving inside and out from what started as a graphic design side-business into a full-service marketing agency.

Over that time the brand and presence have certainly changed as well, though not quite as quickly or thoroughly as the team and business itself. So in 2023 as we found ourselves revising and expanding on the brand strategy process we do with clients, we thought it was a good time to take a look in the mirror and follow our own advice.

So once we decided we’d be refreshing our overall brand and doing a new website, we set out to sort out what sets us apart and how to successfully tell that story.

Deliverables

Animation
Brand Refresh
Content Planning
Copywriting
Graphic Design
Photography
SEO
Social Media Marketing Management
Stationery
Strategy
Video Production
Website Design & Development

Strategy

An Unmistakably Authentic
Persona as a Unique Position

Marketing agencies are in an extremely competitive space, even in smaller markets like WNY. There are a lot of options available businesses of all sizes and budgets, from specialty shops focusing on specific channels or tactics (SEO, Paid Ads, Social, etc.) or specific verticals (insurance/advisories, pest control, B2B SaaS, etc.), to full service agencies and even consultancies.

What we found in our research of almost 30 websites is that for the most part agencies – even the ones like us that espouse creating unique and authentic brand voices – don’t actually seem to do that a lot. Or maybe they’re just full of boring people 👀 But seems more likely that restraining themselves and their true views on their websites seemed like a “better business decision”.

We decided that what makes us unique is an important factor in what makes us good – and therefore both communicating that uniqueness clearly and unapologetically and the very fact that we’re walking that walk ourselves would be more than sufficient to set us apart from our closest competitors.

And so we started with our Core Values…

established a truly authentic-to-us Brand Persona and Tone…

clarified a strong Point of View (around the confluence of thoughtful strategy, B2B branding, and dark social – and of course a disdain for business BS in all its forms)…

and created visual branding elements that illustrated and demonstrated this new vibe and position.

Website Design & Development

Illustrating Irreverence and
Showing Off Our Skills

Once we nailed down our Persona and POV, we wrote the homepage of the website. Given the structure of a homepage and its focus on high-level messaging and summarized content that’s compelling enough to elicit further (inter)action, it proved a great way to “work out” the new messages and practice copywriting in the newly-established (and somewhat risky) brand voice.

From there, the design team went to work on creating the imagery, structure, and flow that would best embody that voice and create a unique experience for a visitor. While we plan to create plenty of content, it was important to us to keep the site structure simple and easily navigable, show off some of the best client work we’ve done of late, and of course clearly communicate who we are as an agency.