TEXAS SCENIC COMPANy
Rebranding | Brand Application
project background
Texas Scenic Company (TSC) is a San Antonio-based company highly specialized in the design, manufacturing, installation and maintenance of stage, studio and theatrical equipment for the performance industry. They focus on motorized rigging, counterweights, stage curtains, custom lighting, sound solutions, expendables and other hardware. Known for their highly personalized and consultative approach to designing solutions that work for each individual client, the company now has customers across the U.S. and Canada. Following several recent acquisitions of companies in its own industry, TSC asked ROBOT for help integrating its products and product lines in a way that helped it take advantage of each line’s historic brand equity and create a model for future acquisitions.
analysis & strategy
As a first step, ROBOT recommended a process of deep audience research and competitive analysis. Which customers were aware of which brands and what drives their purchase decisions? Where was there customer or product overlap? How did the brand equity of the acquired product lines compare with that of the parent brand and competitors? We discovered three distinct audiences: construction managers, theater consultants and re-sellers. The original product lines, as well as the acouStaCorp line, we found, appealed to the general contractor audience, architects and acoustic engineers in the business because they appreciated TSC’s reputation for custom design and consulting. However, the H&H brand targeted re-sellers and was historically entirely product driven. As TSC had a very high brand equity overall, ROBOT recommended that it use a hybrid brand architecture based on the endorsed brand model. In that model, the parent company’s name and logo co-exist alongside brands associated with specific product categories such as acoustic equipment, tracks and control systems. This approach also ensures flexibility to accommodate future acquisitions without any extensive rebranding.
logo and sub brands
The existing primary logo used a custom, highly scripted font that was somewhat dated and difficult to read and reproduce. It also did not visually reflect the more modern look of a manufacturing/engineering company–which was a shift in branding that ROBOT recommended so that TSC would stand out against key competitors. The goal was to make the logo – and TSC – look like it was a trustworthy, successful and dynamic manufacturing company with a national footprint. The main changes to the group logo were to emphasize the company’s initials, TSC, over the full name to emphasize its scalability and to retain their existing dark blue as the new brand’s primary color. ROBOT also recommended an update of the sub-brand logos in order to create a more memorable look as the industry is very product line driven and therefore dependent upon strong brand recall. Crucially, ROBOT recommended rebranding all the individual product logos to modernize them and improve consistency with the new TSC branding. In the case of acouStaCorp, individual products had high brand equity, but the overall brand didn’t, and didn’t represent any actual products, so ROBOT created the new product line name acouTone to minimize confusion.
brand development
Once the logo updates were completed, ROBOT did a full rebrand. The new brand positions TSC as a company with very high standards and which can get the job done.
When researching the best way to rebrand TSC, ROBOT wanted to include a humanizing element throughout their branding to show specialists in the consulting and installation on phases. During initial research, ROBOT noticed that the manufacturing industry itself tends to only focus on the final product of the project and not the many steps that leads up to the end product. ROBOT wanted to ensure the new TSC brand communicated the human element during their consultation strategy and client recommendation processes, which otherwise would remain behind the scenes. Finally, in order to reinforce the highly individualized, consultative nature of most of TSC’s work, ROBOT also recommended that TSC complement imagery focused on products, concert halls and lighting with imagery showing TSC staff and customers interacting. The combined changes helped to position TSC as experts with high standards in the manufacturing industry.
printed product catalog
With the branding work complete, ROBOT helped TSC update its product catalog. The catalog provides technical specifications on each of TSC’s products by product line, highlighting the product line brand over the TSC umbrella brand. Everything fell neatly into place in line with the new brand architecture. The same approach was applied to the company website, which features clearly labeled sections for people looking for products, services and case studies.
product packaging
In addition, ROBOT designed two distinct packaging designs for a new product that TSC wanted to introduce. All customers are used to receiving packages in plain brown cardboard packaging. Under the new brand, most customers now receive a new, white cardboard box with an illustration, clear part information and the company’s new branding. In addition, a select subset of customers would receive another, new box-inside-a-box packaging in which customers discover an inspiring brand promise before they un-box the actual product. That helps underline TSC’s reputation as an industry leader and innovator.
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