Congratulations to our friends at flynas for receiving further recognition as the Best Low Cost Airline in the Middle East at the International Paris Air Show.

Having earned three gold awards in 2014 for the launch of the brand, flynas has continued it’s success, taking home titles as Best Low Cost Airline in the Middle East each year since.

The Skytrax awards represent an international standard of quality and excellence, and are awarded according to votes and surveys conducted over a 10 month period across 41 key performance indicators in products and services.

“We have an unwavering commitment to improve our services and performance to achieve the maximum satisfaction from our guests. Having been awarded the Skytrax award shows the pioneering spirit of flynas, and reflects the advancement in Saudi aviation. We, in flynas, are proud of continuously achieving excellence, and always being present in the award scene despite being in a heavily-competitive environment. We are very delighted and we always strive for more success.” Mr. Bandar Almohanna, Group CEO of Nas holding

“These awards mean a great deal to us in the flynas family. It is the magnificent teamwork and care of our guests that is being recognized here today. The same teamwork that delivers great value fares and consistently high On Time Performance results”. Mr. Paul Byrne, CEO of flynas

The new flynas brand was created and developed – brand name, strategic platform and visual identity – by Aeron’s team in 2013 and along with our Saudi partners, Charisma, we have continued to support the brand since.

See the launch advert TVC as follows:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da1i3RLgTXQ

Agrivita had a successful launch of its new joint venture initiative with Anderson Hay, Agrivita Marabe, at the AgraME 2017 exposition in April.

As part of the initiative we provided strategic advice on how to balance the co-branding of the parent companies, Agthia and Anderson, as well as creative direction and design to present the new product as a proud and harmonious addition to the market-leading Agrivita range.

We are pleased to announce the Agthia-Anderson Joint Venture and introduce our new brand, Agrivita Marabe Premium Forage, from the USA. pic.twitter.com/k4LHFrurVY

— Agthia Group (@AgthiaGroup) April 10, 2017

Context

Nifor are a strategic international marketing consultancy focused on helping ambitious companies realise their growth objectives in Europe and the Middle East.

Ambition

Established at the end of 2016, Nifor needed a strong brand identity to support their launch as a consulting partner that bridges high-level marketing services with regional insight to connect investment with commercially rewarding opportunities.

Action

Working closely with the Nifor team, we ran a competitive audit to establish their intended positioning in the market. Having assessed the strategic positioning opportunities, we made sure Nifor had a clear offer and proposition, so that we could develop a compelling visual and verbal identity.

Response

We developed a striking brand identity, to reinforce Nifor’s eye for marketing detail and providing them with an iconic device and communications system that can be applied across marketing communications and brand assets.

The team at Aeron are delighted to have moved, and firmly settled in, to WeWork SouthBank.

At the heart of London’s SouthBank, an epicentre for arts and design culture, We Work is a vibrant office community of varied businesses. With locations across London and the world, it is home to media, tech, professional services and non-profit companies and organisations and we are proud to be one of them.

Nestled behind the Oxo Tower with views across the Thames and central London from our office, but best enjoyed from the communal terrace on the 8th floor. It is truly an inspirational location.

We are very proud to announce we are now members of the Arab-British Chamber of Commerce.

Since our inception, Aeron has been honoured to work closely with some of the most exciting and successful brands across the Middle East. To help demonstrate our continuing ambition for and commitment to our partners in the region, we therefore decided it was time to join the ABCC.

The ABCC is devoted to promoting trade and economic co-operation between the UK and the Middle East. We are delighted to be a member of such a forward-looking and valuable organisation and excited for future opportunities in the region with the support of the ABCC.

Context
Based on a carefully considered combination of modern, innovative approaches to learning, Wigwam offer daily opportunities for children to enjoy child initiated and teacher led activities. All set within beautiful and tranquil open fields, woodland, vegetable plots and activity playground.

Ambition
To create a fun, engaging brand identity that encapsulates the independent, free-learning and creative approach to outdoor education for young children.

Action
We conducted a competitive audit of leading independent Forest Schools and similar educational organisations and charities. Having identified the strategic positioning we worked with the school’s core values to explore a range of potential identities.

Response
We then developed the chosen design into an identity toolkit – including a logo suite, colour palette and fonts – to be applied to the school’s website, communication materials and staff uniforms.

Airlines have made the world smaller – it is now faster and easier than ever to travel vast distances around the globe thanks to massive advances in air transport technology.

However, airlines have also made huge contributions to making the world warmer. The fight is on to slow the rate the Earth’s climate is heating up, and the demand for air travel shows little sign of slowing down.

What can be done then if the demand remains?

For Alsaka Airlines, the answer is to change their fuels. If you can’t reduce carbon emissions by making fewer journeys, the only alternative is to cut your fossil fuel consumption – fortunately for Alaska Airlines they have one source that is cheap, plentiful and actually sustainable.

The Northwest Advanced Renewables Alliance (NARA), led Washington State University, has now developed a jetfuel made from forest residuals from the Pacific Northwest – the stumps, branches and unusable natural debris that is left over after a timber harvest or forest thinning of managed forests on private land.

Earlier this week, Alaska flew its first flights using a mix of traditional jetfuel and 20% biofuel. Sustainable alternative jet fuels can reduce greenhouse gas emission by 50-80 percent over the lifecycle of the fuel – from growth of the raw materials, transportation to a processing facility and production. The actual emission reduction depends on the type of raw materials used. The Air Alaska flight cut CO2 emissions by approximately 70 percent against conventional petroleum jet. Clearly there is still along way to go, but this is another big step forward for alternative fuels.

The challenge now for eco-conscious Airline brands like Alaska, is to continue this development and keep pushing for alternative fuels to become a regular, feasible and affordable alternative and make sure this isn’t just a greenwashing stunt that leaves a dirty trail in the sky.

Context

Formed by a Royal Decree in 1978 as the National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia, Bahri, has grown from a small shipping firm operating multipurpose vessels to become one of the biggest shipping conglomerates in the world.

Bahri continues to strive for continuous improvement and expansion of its services in the global logistics industry.

Ambition

As the company expanded and added new services to its offer, it became necessary to review the brand architecture, to ensure there was a system in place to accommodate all Bahri international and regional businesses, new brands, acquisitions and endorsements of existing and potentially new products and services.

Action

We were tasked with creating a compelling, enhanced Bahri Visual Identity System to fit their business and brand strategies and give fresh life to the identity developed previously for the company’s renaming from the National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia.

Result

We developed a new bi-lingual word mark, an enhanced graphic device and a brand architecture system that could be used in a variety of applications across all Bahri services.

A comprehensive bi-lingual logo suite was provided along with detailed usage guidelines for the roll-out of the brand.

After the successful roll-out of the refreshed identity, we have continued to support Bahri through international trademark advice and registration and with strategic consulting on the branding and identity of joint ventures and partnered endeavours.

Sometimes backwards is the way forwards.

When times get hard, there is often comfort to be found looking back to former glories. Certainly that seems to be story behind three of this year’s big rebrands.

The Co-op, Natwest and Kodak have launched refreshed identities that look to consolidate past heavyweight status after recent challenging periods that were in danger of turning them into deadweights.

Top Row: 2016
Bottom Row: 1968, 1968, 1971

Co-op in particular are deliberately attempting to “evoke[s] nostalgic memories of local shops and dividend stamps”. Harking back to simpler times, they are asking you to forget recent banking scandals that have tarnished the forgettable mixed-weight, navy blue marque and remember the glory days of the high street – when Co-op and it’s icy-clue clover dominated and it was Brentry, not Brexit, that was looming.

Likewise Kodak’s golden years, when it dominated the camera market, seem like ancient history. Having been all but forgotten in the era of smart phones and Instagram, reclaiming 1971’s red and yellow K looks like a smart way of reasserting a strong heritage – especially when tied with a launch of retro-inspired products that straddle the digital/analogue line.

Natwest’s call-back to 1968 is subtler in some respects – the Natwest logo has never been far removed from its original conception of three interlinking blocks representing three merging banks. An odd move, perhaps, as the three separate banks is no longer particularly relevant to its current story. Nevertheless, it does enable a far more interesting development in its broader storytelling and brand language with colourful, playful blocky illustrations trying to break the mould of the more staid traditional banking imagery.

This does, of course, rely on people having positive memories and associations with the time and its identity. And while there have been dissenting voices, it seems to be doing some good for Co-op. Earlier this week, they were rewarded for Outstanding Achievement at the Retailer Industry Awards, after a major shakeup crowned by rising sales and the successful relaunch.

Further more, simple, flat logos like Co-op’s and Kodak’s work well in the digital age, the limitations of print in the sixties and seventies giving way to the need for scalable, vector-based artwork that can sit comfortable across digital and physical platforms.

This could suggest, therefore, that nostalgia is trending once more – not that it ever really goes away.

Then again, judging from these examples it might just be more cases of “when things get hard, just stop, reset and relaunch from the last ‘save point’.”

Coca-Cola is already the world’s number 1 beverage brand but in a market under pressure to be forever healthier and contain less sugar, how can the infamously sugary soft drink stay fresh and stop sales going flat?

Previously, Coca-Cola had approached the health trend by branching out into new products. Diet Coke had traditionally been marketed to women, so Coke Zero was introduced to give men a low-calorie alternative too. Then Coke Life appeared, using natural sweeteners as a direct response to calls to reduce artificial sweeteners.

Throughout these developments, the original variant was kept separate to keep the brand from being diluted by the low/no-calorie options. However, with the market turning against sugar so sharply, it appears that the opposite is true. It is the original Coke that might benefit from the association with its ‘healthier’ offspring.

In January this year, Coca-Cola launched their “One Brand” strategy, bringing all four variants together under the same red dot label and the unified tagline “Taste The Feeling.” As Coca-Cola President and COO James Quincey explains:

“The One Brand strategy takes us from [an] ineffective way of talking about four different brands and if you grew up drinking Coke Classic and you wanted to switch to Coke Zero you almost have to change brand and change your lifestyle. Now the idea of the one brand is you can enjoy Coca-Cola the whole of your life and you can have it in different product variants as you want to mix and match whether it is caffeine or sugar or whatever.”

This also means, that rather than pushing four different brands, Coca-Cola have been able to focus their marketing efforts behind a single, clear message that is endorsed by the world’s most iconic logo.

And according to Quincey after just over six months it is already “starting to look very encouraging”, bringing in more sales and giving a further boost to the overall brand.

In a market that’s in danger of losing it’s fizz, Coca-Cola’s strategy of bringing its brands together appears to be paying off.