Robot Creative credited for generating Beldon’s strong
brand structure, designed to adapt to diverse, changing product lines.
SAN ANTONIO (January 22, 2019) — When award-winning commercial and residential services company Beldon reached a distribution deal in Texas with window maker Pella®, it marked another milestone for the family owned and operated business founded in San Antonio more than seven decades ago.
Beldon now offers its customers an array of stunning, high-end window products from a leading name brand in the industry, Iowa-based Pella®, a leader in technology and product innovation.
Yet the deal also came with a potential pitfall. Beldon, wants to make good use of the Pella® name while also keeping its own brand top-of-mind for customers.
Fortunately, the company had a solution from award-winning design firm Robot Creative – a brand structure that gave Beldon the ability to simply introduce new product lines like Pella in a way that clients could easily identify with Beldon and its other lines of high-quality services and products. Windows will be offered under the name Pella® by Beldon, in keeping with the company’s LeafGuard® by Beldon, Hardie® Siding by Beldon and alongside other now-branded subsidiary companies, including Beldon Roofing and Beldon Doors.
“Our concern was that the public thought of Beldon as just a roofing company, and that too many potential customers were not as aware of the full spectrum of services and products we offer,” said Mike Beldon, Chairman of The Beldon Group of Companies.
“We knew we needed to figure out a way to get our commercial and residential products known under one brand,” added Mike’s son, Beldon CEO Brad Beldon. “We struggled with that.”
So Beldon called on Robot Creative owner Lara August and her team. Beldon has been a Robot client for more than 15 years, creating logos, marketing materials, a trade show booth, and more.
In order to tackle this pivotal challenge, the Robot team interviewed key stakeholders including sales and customer service representatives to better understand customer experiences with the Beldon brand. Robot developed a robust customer journey map to identify natural cross-sell and brand reinforcement opportunities across different product and service lines. Robot also researched national and regional competitors to give Beldon better insight into critical trends.
What they arrived at was a name change from “Beldon Roofing Company” to simply “beldon” which provided flexibility to create sub-brands and co-branded opportunities, while maintaining the company’s brand awareness. The typography was set in an orange sans serif font with a lower-case b to both simplify and contrast with the logo mark. The new logo mark harkens back to the Beldon “B” logo that has been in use since the mid-1960s. The re-imagined “B” is constructed from sturdy, angular lines in black and orange which are meant to abstractly suggest rooflines, construction and gutter systems without focusing too specifically on certain services. To highlight the company’s longevity, the name is presented with the tag line “Since 1946.”
“The Robot team was able to modernize the logo without compromising the integrity of the brand we’ve been using for more than 50 years,” Mike Beldon said.
“We wanted a logo where colors were interchangeable, where we could match the logo with the products we were selling,” Brad Beldon said. “Robot gave us tremendous flexibility and a brand structure which could easily be adapted as product lines change.”
Robot’s approach allows Beldon the flexibility to co-brand easily with notable companies like Pella®, Hardie® and LeafGuard®, while keeping the Beldon name at the forefront.
Robot Creative marketing director Lana Harris and Andrew Watson, design director, led the Beldon project, which ultimately touched the entire Robot staff.
“Working with the Beldons brings out the best in our team. Beldon has a sophisticated business model which required a strategic solution that would hold up as the business continues to evolve and grow,” Harris said. “It’s was an invigorating and highly collaborative process and we can’t wait for the next challenge they bring to us.”
“The comments we get about our updated logo are pretty amazing,” Brad Beldon said. “We recently went to a golf outing with our Beldon golf hats and I can’t tell you how many people came up and told me, ‘That’s a cool logo.’ That makes you feel good.”
For Mike Beldon, the process achieved a major goal: “We want our company to look current and modern. This is a less-than-sexy business, but you can still have a sexy look. Robot Creative helped us achieve that.”