CHALLENGE
Rebuild a national marketing campaign to increase adoption of low-carbon building materials.
In 2020, the Softwood Lumber Board (SLB) sought a new vision and identity for Think Wood, an under-performing commodity marketing campaign under their management. Do It Better worked with the VP of marketing to rebuild the campaign’s brand identity and content development processes and systems. Over the course of two and a half years, we managed in-house staff, multiple agencies and contractors to turn Think Wood around, achieving the campaign’s all-time highest performance metrics.
RESEARCH
Building from the recent strategy work of a leading communications firm, we began by reviewing reports about the campaign’s target audiences: architects and developers. We studied existing personas and customer journeys, and gathered contextual knowledge of the industry through primary research.
STRATEGY
A deep understanding of our target audiences and campaign objectives informed a strategic approach that appealed to the high aesthetic sensibilities of architecture and design professionals. We formulated hypotheses and identified criteria to measure efficacy of the rebrand and content strategy over time.
BRANDING
Do It Better partnered with Grin to redesign the brand from its foundation, keeping only the historic logo. This included a comprehensive identity system that overhauled the brand voice, typography, palette, and more. We developed architectural renderings, product mock-ups, and illustration styling to increase the brand’s complexity and visual interest. Exhaustive brand guidelines were created to support contractor onboarding, with speculative use cases documented for future reference.
DESIGN
Using the new brand identity, we redesigned and migrated the outdated, 300-page Think Wood website. Do It Better owned content strategy, site architecture, SEO-optimization, and wireframe design while Grin’s tech team custom-coded a sophisticated and engaging user experience.
Grin designed multimedia templates for a variety of content, including social media posts, LinkedIn/Facebook ads, print advertising, digital downloads, and event swag. After the rebrand launched, templates were utilized by Think Wood’s team of agencies and contractors to ensure consistency between production design partners.
COMMUNICATIONS
Over two and a half years, Do It Better spearheaded creative and editorial direction for all campaign collateral, including organic and paid social media, fact sheets, white papers, SME interviews, long-form publications, videos, and more.
Our efforts resulted in best-in-class creative and the campaign’s highest performing content of all time, which caught the attention of the world’s most prominent architecture firms, establishing proof of concept for the initial rebrand strategy.
Ready for a rebrand? We’re here to help!