An Elevated Brand to Reflect Elevated Services

The Need

Starting out as LA Chefs Catering in 2006, the brand has grown over the past 18 years, adding venue management, planning, and decor offerings to become a full-service event management company. They changed their name to LA Chefs Catering and Events, however, this didn’t accurately reflect the evolution of the brand.

The Challenge

The team at LA Chefs Catering and Events had some assumptions about their brand. They believed their name could be causing some confusion with customers, but they also had a great reputation in the community of Lethbridge that was attached to that name. The challenge was to understand customers' current perceptions so that we could create a clear path forward. Our goal was to create a new brand that retained this credibility while reflecting the evolution and breadth of service offerings, as well as act as the umbrella to a family of brands. Their website was also dated, difficult to navigate and could not be updated without a developer's assistance.

The Solution

We started by understanding the LA Chefs customer, their perceptions of the brand and what was important to them. We created a digital survey and engaged in stakeholder interviews with key segments of their audience sets. From there we created and validated detailed audience personas and a set of strategic recommendations that addressed their need for brand clarity, gaps in service offerings, and key marketing tactics.

With this base of customer understanding, we conducted a brand workshop with the LA Chefs team to uncover the future aspirations of the brand, understand its connection to its core audiences, and develop its brand hierarchy. This workshop created a foundational set of language that was used as our benchmark to develop a tone of voice, name, and brand identity.

In tandem, we ran a website workshop to determine goals for a new website, and their content management and technology needs that would best serve their team and audience. We found the ideal solution was to leverage WordPress as their content management system and website platform. From here we developed a sitemap, designed the initial look and feel for the website to match the new brand, and wrote copy in line with the new tone of voice. The site includes pages dedicated to each of their core audience needs. Plus, the content management system is easy to use, allowing their internal team to manage updates without needing a developer’s assistance. 

The Results

1. Strategic Brief: This document acted as their map forward, detailing customer feedback, and audience personas for marketing purposes and provided clarity on the future direction of marketing and sales efforts.
2. Brand Foundation & Tone of Voice: This document captures their brand language and story, with key examples of how Sky + Table should sound with writing guides. This document will act as a key tool to benchmark appropriate business and marketing decisions for all contributors to the brand.
3. Name: Sky + Table Event Group is the new name for their overarching brand. Sky represents their home base of Lethbridge with its expansive sky, and Table brings things back down to earth while reflecting their people's practical and humble nature and strong work ethic.
4. Brand Identity & Guide: A visual identity that represents the depth of experience, professionalism and passion for the art of hosting, with a brand guide that details logo usage, photography, illustration style, fonts, stationery and layout styles.
5. Website: An easy-to-navigate WordPress website that showcases the breadth of their services, and is connected to HubSpot and SEO optimized to create a seamless flow from capturing an audience with marketing tactics through to the sales pipeline.