From Data to < Variable >
Case Study

Good branding may be complex, but not complicated. Yet the brands of many technology companies rely on technical terms and reasoning to attract potential customers. Take Sereviso, a Swiss data analytics and performance management consultancy. Their marketing materials are full of features and technical terms, summarised in endless bullet lists. For laypeople, including potential clients, they are impossible to understand – yet their aim is clear: to demonstrate expertise and professionalism.

This is understandable, as young companies like Sereviso need to establish themselves in their field and show that they can compete with the big players in terms of expertise and technology. But there is a catch:

Expertise is the least we should expect from a service provider. It should be a given. The widespread use of technical terms also reduces comprehensibility: communication becomes a one-way street. The other person doesn’t understand my language. And therefore does not answer.

The factual level is only of limited use in differentiating between competitors. On the contrary, it makes products and companies comparable. That's the opposite of what branding is trying to do.

From data to knowledge

Each company has something that makes it unique. In other words: There are reasons for Sereviso’s success – apart from expertise, which, as I said, should be beyond question. As Simon Sinek explains in his most famous TED talk, customers don’t necessarily buy what a company does. Instead, they buy why and how those companies do it. Identity, our central motivation, is what defines a company and is always there in some way, consciously or unconsciously. It is reflected in our strategies, but also in the little things we do in our daily lives.

So my first task in the project is to reduce complexity in order to understand Sereviso’s world. (To be honest, I don’t really understand anything in the beginning.) To do this, I use a methodology based on the research of C.G. Jung: The Swiss psychologist introduced the term archetype to describe recurring symbols and patterns of behaviour. They are intuitively recognisable and need no explanation. For me, they serve as a shortcut between the factual and the relational level – the level of meaning.

By describing which archetypes best represent their brand, employees automatically reveal valuable features of the company and its culture – factors that characterise it, inspire enthusiasm and potentially differentiate it from the competition. At the same time, in my projects, archetypes bridge the gap between identity and storytelling. They provide a framework for brand communication.

Kreativität ist einer der stärksten Motivatoren hinter Serevisos Tätigkeit.

From data to purpose

Collecting data is one thing. Understanding it is another. In our fast-moving economy, facts and figures are meaningless if companies cannot find a way to process them or, sometimes even more challenging, access them. More often than not, manual work is required to support decisions with up-to-date business data. This takes resources – especially time – that are simply not available at critical moments.

As a result, many decision-makers rely on quick, intuitive decisions and hope for their gut feeling. In other words, they don't know, they guess.

Sereviso wants to change this.

The company provides the processes and technology to collect data from a variety of sources and formats into a single source. This source of truth makes information available at the touch of a button through a visualised dashboard. By automating the underlying process – using AI-driven software, for example – decision makers are less reliant on their staff (and therefore less reliant on their resilience or susceptibility to error). They gain time to focus on the qualitative and enjoyable aspects of their work: planning, deciding and acting – empowered by the reassurance of accurate and up-to-date information.

From data to identity

When we talk about creativity, we tend to think of the usual suspects: Designers, musicians or filmmakers – members of the so-called creative industries. In the case of Sereviso, these associations are revealed for what they really are: rather short-sighted stereotypes.

Sereviso sees creativity as the basis for fostering unusual perspectives, finding alternative approaches and experimenting in order to ultimately create something new and extraordinary.

Creativity is necessary for the development of solutions for which there are no blueprints.

As a result, individual consultation has become a natural part of Sereviso’s service. So is Sereviso’s penchant for going the extra mile – the team simply wants to help. As former financial experts, IT project managers or data engineers, they have experienced their current clients’ problems the hard way. This gives them a deep understanding of the other party’s needs, both on a professional and a human level.

This understanding is what sets the service company apart: Combined with its agile and compact structure, Sereviso offers personalised support based on partnership, often over a long period of time.

Der Claim dient als Anker für eine Unzahl an Slogans, die dem klassischen Schema der Datenverarbeitung folgen.

From data to meaning

A company’s purpose and personality are fundamental to a brand’s storytelling. Not only are they reflected in its vision and values, but they also influence a brands communication as a whole – for example, the colours, images and messages, as well as the structure and tonality of web content.

At Sereviso, this can be seen in the strong identification with the Creator and Sage archetypes, which represent the realms of creativity and knowledge. The core question that drives Sereviso can be directly derived from this: What new things can we create with the knowledge we have gained?

The new claim “from data to knowledge” reflects the process from data to information to usable knowledge. It outlines the common path Sereviso takes with its customers. But this is only the beginning of the most exciting part of their journey together: the ability to use said knowledge.

From data to knowledge is the starting point of the claim. At the same time it serves as an anchor for a series of slogans in which we replace the last word with the objectives of Sereviso's Clients.

The result is a system for a wide range of statements that can express the benefits of services or products, but also serve as headlines for use cases. The new slogans provide a linguistic framework that can be easily adapted to suit a project’s objectives.

From data to design

Designers Marlene Leichtfried and Vinzenz Luger from the design studio both and pursue the same idea and translate it into a design system. 3D animations visualise the abstract path between chaotically arranged data fragments, their consolidation in a central source and finally their shaping – depending on the goal of a project. The message is supported by a clear and structured design language, the new brand design, which aims to differentiate Sereviso from its competitors.

The image concept of both and picks up on thoughts visually.

The unusual tones of green set Sereviso apart from the competition.

Design: both and

The messages and the design result in a coherent system.

Design: both and

Both and’s design avoids the blue colour common in the IT industry and instead focuses on the meaning of the name “Sereviso”: Sere is derived from the Latin verb “serere”, meaning “to sow”. “Viso”, on the other hand, alludes to “make something visible”.

The result is an unusual combination of greens that sets Sereviso apart from its competitors. The logo is reduced to a word mark: a deliberate choice of understatement – because Sereviso is never about itself, but about the needs of its clients.

From data to branding

In retrospect, naming Sereviso’s identity was one of the easier tasks. It was more difficult to understand what Sereviso was all about, and not only to explain it to the design team, but also to derive effective communication from it.

A brand does not reinvent identitiy. Instead, it effectively expresses, what is already there.

The new branding simplifies and illustrates the factual level, that gives credibility to the services. And creates a new level of meaning that conveys the identity and qualities of Sereviso and establishes them as a brand.