Color you can trust for Sensient

With an established heritage in the textiles market, Sensient Imaging Technologies had aspirations to build brand awareness in highly regulated markets such as food, packaging and pharma. Herein lay the challenge – Sensient needed a brand proposition that would resonate across these diverse markets. With multiple routes to market and a diverse customer base, from brands and OEMs to distributors and manufacturers, the new positioning needed to be carefully crafted. 

To add an additional layer of complexity, there were significant inconsistencies in the customer experience. There was a need for a brand level solution that transcends sectors and geographies, and builds customer relationships with the whole organisation.

From a timings perspective, Sensient had a major global textiles tradeshow rapidly approaching. The new brand would need to be in place to have a new website, stand graphics and sales materials ready for the show.

To reach help Sensient reach its goals, we needed to differentiate and elevate their brand and communications.  We started with the development of an insight-led brand strategy and positioning to support future growth. This involved in-depth competitor research to find the white space that Sensient could credibly own. The findings were then validated with Sensient’s sales and customer service teams. Interviews were also carried out with a sample of customers to better understand their perceptions of the Sensient brand and establish how best to articulate Sensient’s proposition in future markets while remaining relevant to textiles.

We uncovered that, no matter what market they operated in, reliability, compliance with regulations, performance and innovation were the most important engagement triggers with Sensient’s key stakeholders. These key pillars ultimately translated into Sensient’s new proposition; colour you can trust.

By elevating the conversation beyond just ink, ‘colour you can trust’ communicated Sensient’s understanding of the chemistry of colour. It would also help to justify their premium position in the market, offering high quality products supported by market-leading expertise.

Once the new value proposition was in place, we set about creating a powerful brand identity to reflect the updated positioning and distinguish Sensient visually from the rest of the market. The end concept centred around the use of an aperture which created a window into Sensient’s world of colour – conveying a sense of humility and trust by revealing what goes on behind the scenes – a powerful mix of chemistry, technology and expertise. The creative drew on vibrant and bold imagery to convey the quality and sharpness of Sensient’s ink. It also gave us the flexibility to evolve it for different markets and applications.

The new branding was launched at ITMA 2019 in Barcelona – the world’s largest international textile and garment technology exhibition which takes place every four years. This involved the creation of a new stand design, reflecting the new branding, development of a new website, sales materials, PR activity and supporting blog content for the new website. We also developed a new video to communicate Sensient’s offering for the textiles market and demonstrate its commitment to cleaner, greener ways of working with its water and energy-saving inks. The video was played on an impressive LED screen which formed part of the booth wall at ITMA.

Media meetings were also arranged at the show to introduce the new brand to key trade publications and highlight Sensient’s focus on sustainability within the textiles industry.

The new Sensient branding received positive feedback from Sensient’s internal and external stakeholders. The creation of new brand guidelines has meant that the business now has a clear direction for messaging and new creative to ensure a more consistent experience for customers.