A new mobile experience

Kingfisher wants to make traditional device insurance obsolete. Created by some of the telco world’s big thinkers and even bigger doers, Kingfisher strives to exponentially improve device ownership by empowering carriers to give their subscribers total freedom and flexibility. They call this new model the mobile experience (MX) economy, and they deliver it through two products or sub-brands: FLIP and Nexus. FLIP aims to revolutionise the device ownership journey for telco customers, and Nexus works with procurement professionals to provide enterprises with the latest devices.

After developing an ambitious brand strategy, Kingfisher came to Liquorice with an equally ambitious brand identity and website project – one that would help Kingfisher establish itself as the next-gen mobile experience pioneer.

The initial objectives included a new brand identity with a visual toolkit, brand guidelines, and marketing website design and development. One of the benefits of working with us here at Liquorice is our ability to provide the full spectrum of services. With experts in strategy, brand and digital, Kingfisher was able to brief in one collaborative team to carry it from inception to completion.

Taking a similarly explorative approach, we generated 30+ tagline options and six visual territories, each with a unique strategy for differentiating from competitors and similar sounding and looking businesses.

Once a tagline and a visual territory were chosen, we got to work creating concepts for visual and verbal identity, including

• An overall graphic hook / concept
• Colour palettes
• Graphic devices
• Illustration and iconography
• Photography and art-direction
• Layout principles
• Key messages and brand writing

On the horizon

The chosen design consists of a wordmark crafted from the Söhne Breit typeface: a wide poster font with a futuristic and sophisticated personality, perfect for a next-gen brand like Kingfisher. The extended forms of Söhne Breit mimic the horizon graphic device, and creates a sense of expansiveness in our headlines. The subtle horizon line in the ‘GF’ ligature hints at the boundless freedom offered by the core product.

Look closer and you’ll see a plus sign, representing optimism and the value this new product brings to their customers. The FLIP and Nexus products share the Söhne Breit typeface, but each have their own unique ligature and colour palette.

As the corporate masterbrand, the Kingfisher palette uses blues and cool tones to demonstrate experience, technical expertise, and a sense of authority. The FLIP palette, by comparison, takes Kingfisher's secondary tones of royal blue and citrus green to create a more vibrant, youthful brand. Lastly, Nexus puts Forest and Sage greens at the centre of its own unique brand. Each brand is unique, but undeniably connected by a shared visual DNA.

The chosen tagline, Own Device Freedom, is a promise and a call-to-action for businesses and end consumers alike. Partner with Kingfisher and freedom is in your hands.

In space

We then designed a marketing website that captures Kingfisher’s mantra of elegant simplicity, and clearly defines the architecture of Kingfisher and its products FLIP and Nexus. The new brand identity is on show throughout the site across spacious yet visually arresting layouts.

We used a tab device as an image container (a unique twist on the standard rectangular container) creating visual interest and a sense of dynamism in the headers and 2-column modules. We also created both the written and visual content for the site, giving Kingfisher solid ground from which to grow and evolve.

Brand architecture, B2B to B2C

The strategy saw an evolution from a single, confused Kingfisher brand to a more sophisticated network of sub-brands. Through the brand architecture and the subsequent identity system, we've devised a brand that has the stretch and potential to spin off related (but distinct) sub-brands to service wildly different markets and product offerings.

The Kingfisher brand has evolved well beyond the tropes and traditions of the B2B category, but going further again was important for one of their key sub-brands, Flip. It was vital that this rich, customer-centric product offering be presented in a way that Telco's could visualise on-selling, which meant approaching the brand more like a dynamic B2C.

Speed and security

We developed the website in Wagtail CMS with a headless frontend for speed and security; this also facilitates replacing either the frontend or CMS in the future if necessary. We focused our development on building a small number of highly customisable modular templates, which allows Kingfisher staff to easily build new pages in the CMS.

One particular highlight was the development of the template for the FLIP product, which features an alternate colour palette and other styles but still shares the same flexible modules as the rest of the website.

Going live

The new Kingfisher brand and website launched in early 2022, to high praise from the team who were invigorated by the fresh look and feel. You can visit the new Kingfisher here.

Do you have a project on the horizon? 

Get in touch with us here at Liquorice.