eBrands wishes all our clients, friends and associates a very warm and enjoyable holiday season!
A review of 2015… Moreover, thoughts about 2016
We ended 2014 thinking about some of the challenges that lay ahead for us all in 2015. At the time, news and business media was forecasting negativity for Australian business. Market participant margins would come under pressure in the struggle for revenue growth while dollar strength and global weakness would combine to create a challenging environment for commodities. We knew that some of our clients might be in for a tough time.
In response, we took purposeful steps to think about the services eBrands provides and how we would buck the negative trend.
The result is a renewed focus on our value proposition. We made clear to clients that working with a smaller and focused agency like us provides exceptional benefits through delivery. We are proud to say we retained every single client and grew our customer base substantially, all while managing to improve levels of service. This sounds like we are patting ourselves on the back? Well, we are! We’ve had a good year, and so have many of our clients.
2015 Highlights
International Convention Centre (ICC) – Employment Brand Creation
ICC partnered with eBrands for the creation and development of the ICC employment brand. eBrands instigated a thorough and enjoyable employment brand immersion phase, architecting an EVP that we are now in the process of creating. We are busy metabolising an ICC ethos that emphasizes teamwork and people focus.
SunRice – Cementing the Employment Brand
Our deep relationship with SunRice gave us the opportunity to add much value to their business this year, the bulk of which was further employment brand development.
Our work focused on furthering SunRice’s brand activation and its reach into the organization. eBrands had the opportunity to work with many excellent SunRice teams, and projects of note included:
- A Corporate Restructure Booklet
- Helping to create a Graduates Program
- Create a brand around an Anti-Bribery and Corruption campaign
- Production of A Zero Harm video on location in the Riverina to emphasise safety across many areas of business.
AusFilm – New Digital Presence
eBrands has been proud to work with AusFilm for over five years. We are pleased to be building a new website, designed to help encourage major film production across the huge variety of Australian locations.
We have partnered with Liversedge Weir to design the new website to fit with a refreshed identity.
Retail Council – Digital Rebrand
ANRA (Australian National Retail Association) changed their name to Retail Council. Hulsbosch, Australia’s leading brand agency created the new brand identity. Retail Council asked eBrands to design and produce the website based on the new Hulsbosch look.
Further Highlights
We were fortunate enough to work with Multapex, Avida and Moir Group on a range of design projects, include identity, website design and vehicle livery.
So in summary, a great year of work. We are looking forward to continuing to give our clients our all, and to add to our mix!
2016 is going to be an interesting year
The Australian economy is undergoing shifts that may prove to be secular; the services economy may be maturing at the expense of primary industry while there is ongoing talk about the country being at the late stage of an economic cycle. There’s also evidence of global dislocation in economic policy, with the USA entering a tightening cycle (raising their interest rate) while Europe and Asia engage in monetary stimulus. In the light of the action, Australia has exhibited some stability, and we hope it will continue to do so.
What does this mean for the business community? We are still all going to be looking for top-line revenue growth. The competition will be fierce and business strategies will become more direct, both in management, HR related disciplines and in customer acquisition – more so as the lessons from the last recession remain relatively fresh. Australia still has challenges with regards to its skill base, and competitive talent hiring remains a key issue this year.
In this context, we feel the role of focused, smart-operator design and digital agency remains more relevant than ever. We pride ourselves on our intellect and our tenacity; along with our ability to be direct with our clients’ business issues.
Our recent discussions with ADIA, Westpac, Fox Studios, RSM Bird Cameron and NewsPower – reflect the broad spectrum of businesses that are looking for intellectual and agile design solutions. Clients love our approach, and it has been great to receive validation.
Finally
We recently had a client remark to us:
“Working with eBrands is like drawing a straight line through our problems!”
We cannot think of a better compliment to receive than that. We hope you take the opportunity to chat with us in 2016.
We invite you to read our thoughts on some 2016 employer brand, design and digital trends on an organization-wide blog post that you can visit here.
Here’s to a successful New Year for everyone!
Congratulations eBrand-ers on a good year. We love your work and we’re looking forward to working with you again in 2016! Merry Christmas!