Our work for Pigsback.com

Innovative sales aid for Pigsback.com

14 February 2005

Empathy Marketing asked us to help them create a sales aid that would explain their suite of Marketing Tools which are available to marketers via their website Pigsback.com. Our solution was a concise booklet — primarily addressing the advertising industry — summarising current Internet usage in Ireland and outlining the benefits and feature set of each Marketing Tool. We designed this booklet to increase understanding among Media Planners of Pigsback.com as both an optimally focussed medium for reaching Irish consumers and as an effective way of addressing key interactive marketing objectives. Ultimately, this sales aid should lead to increased usage of Pigsback.com within integrated marketing campaigns.

Pigsback.com brand identity

02 June 2002

Like many great ideas Pigsback.com is an essentially simple concept - connecting brands with customers through permission-based online marketing. The Pigsback.com strategy was to grab attention, to cut through the clutter, to focus on target consumer groups and to create on-going loyalty in a way that is welcomed by consumers. This was to be a website that your mother or even your grandmother would feel comfortable using. The memorable name for the website needed a powerful and direct brand mark of its own.

BFK worked closely with the Pigsback.com start-up team to establish the visual manifestation of the brand. A range of initial visual positioning options were developed - analysing how the brand might present itself in different business scenarios, for example, as a pure Internet proposition or as a mass-market offering. It was important that, while being seen as competent and trustworthy, this brand should also contain a rich element of fun. We had a memorable name to work with and we decided to create a strong, clear, direct logotype that would look as good onscreen as in traditional printed applications. The curl of a pigs tail incorporated into the descender of the 'g' character suggests a friendly, approachable brand. Bright pink was chosen for the primary colour to reinforce this and to generate reaction.

We developed a suite of concepts for Pigsback.com's mascot Curly, ranging from hip Pokemon styles to cute Disney-animation styles. All were researched for marketplace impact and finally a graphical, iconic-style rendering was chosen - an option also ideally suited to the simplicity required for application to the website interface.
A gallery of over fifty Curly portraits were produced for use as icons to represent the different areas within the site - holidays, motoring, shopping, etc. As Pigsback.com was in start-up mode we also created a suite of materials to promote the concept and to get buy-in from the mainstream brands whose support was needed to launch the site.
Easy-to-use brand guidelines and standards were created to ensure that the brand would not become diluted in application. We also worked with Pigsback.com's technology partners to oversee the application of the brand identity to the front-end interface of the site.

'BFK took the pig and flew with it. Combining the twin values of trust and fun into the new Pigsback.com brand required the twin capabilities of professionalism and creativity from BFK. They delivered beyond our expectation.' Michael Dwyer, CEO Pigsback.com