Redesign the brand book of Blue Tulip Awards

Abstract

The Blue Tulip Awards is a year-round innovation awards aiming to find the most innovative innovations in Benelux area. It was previously named as Accenture Innovation Awards for 12 years, which was very famous and well-known among innovation communities. Even if the brand is very famous and successful among innovators, the branding style of Blue Tulip Awards is very chaotic and confusing. To establish a new brand look, a new brand book is designed with a three phase process: Explore-Orientate; Research-Define; Design-Validate. In the explore-orientate phase, the context of the project was explored and analyzed from different angles. We conducted company and brand analysis, stakeholder analysis, competitor analysis, and an literature review. As the conclusion, we identified that in order to maintain a brand with both high dynamics and consistency, the brand book should be redesigned into one that reflect the leading principle. Three research questions were raised based on the conclusion: Why do Blue Tulip Awards need a new brand book? What should be in the new brand book? What leading principle should we reflect by the brand book? In the research-define phase, a qualitative interview and a quantitative survey with internal stakeholders was performed to answer the three research question. The data were analyzed using Grounded Theory Method. The final results are shown in several infographics. Three brand personality traits and ten design requirements were identified from the research. The personality traits is the starting point of the leading principle. An collaborative and agile approach was chosen to define the leading principle. As the results, the leading principle consists of four components: brand personalities, slogan, mood board, and design examples. They were tested with the audience and designer. The leading principle and ten design requirements are used to guide the design of the new brand book. As the results, a brand book with four chapters were designed. The final design was validated with three designers in an validation session. It was proved that the new brand book is helpful in a brand experience design process, and it performs better than the previous brand book in two dimensions: creativity and brand fit. As the conclusion, an systematic reflection and future recommendations are provided in the last chapter.