New Brand Identity focusing on the overwhelming nature of online service choices.
Year
2016
Services
Branding
Graphic Design
Client
OmniOnline
Theme
Don't Try to
Go it Alone.
In 2016, while working at Omni as a junior partner, we examined our branding and felt that we were too service and sales-oriented. We wanted to make a subtle switch from being “just another web design company” to “your next online services partner”. The change involved building trust in order to become a long-term partner that organizations felt comfortable partnering with and relying on for “all things digital”.
We expanded our audience to deliberately include women and multi-racial business-owners (when it wasn’t very popular) and created a series of branding pieces that focused on the ocean of digital choices available to business owners, the depth of knowledge required to navigate them and the resulting potential for paralysis that business owners faced, through uncertainty and the potential risks of making a wrong decision.
We wanted to insert ourselves in their psyche as local, trustworthy, knowledgeable professionals that they could partner with to help walk them through these difficult and often overwhelming decisions.
We were small business owners ourselves and we knew all too well the fears that can hold business owners captive. So we wanted to play on those fears that they were not doing enough, or not doing the right things, or just getting left behind when it came to technology. But we also wanted to be a supportive, helpful voice of calm, reason and encouragement. Our ultimate goal was to get Saskatchewan business owners to journey with us, to partner with us and to trust us with their digital and online services budgets.
In addition to the dark, foreboding branding pieces we put out, we balanced them with trust pieces. For instance the below ads campaigns were placed in a number of online display ad spots for several months.
Building Trust
We invested into each relationship that came along with a real focus on building trust. If it meant free services to start, that’s what we did. We wanted to establish relationships of trust, where clients could see what we could do for them and feel that security of having us by their side. One of the tools we used in this was clarifying for them (and all our customers) how they could easily complete a Google Review. This eventually led to having over 30 Google Reviews with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars. We used this tool as something we would customize and provide them with as well – to increase the number of positve reviews they were getting for their businesses as well.
Overall this branding strategy was very successful. It reinforced the importance of trust for us in the business-client cycle. Many, if not most of the clients we gained during this time continue to be clients of OmniOnline today. While their fears and uncertainties have shifted from the things they were worried about then to new worries (like AI or password security today), the calming presence, reliable service and friendly approach continues today. The branding has changed since 2026 but the values of the business remain the same.
