How do you navigate to arrive at the perfect rebrand? In a niche industry with only a few players?
You challenge everything you thought and disrupt an industry intoxicated from smelling its own fumes and going on autopilot for too long.
“I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can’t be done.” Henry Ford
Especially when the previous incarnation (the business had a prior life as another brand) had customers who, even though they’d been underserved, were still loyal.
The short answer to such a situation? You rebuild it. From the ground up.
You Start with The Hero: Your Customer
“Living a life on the road never looked so attractive.” Motor1.com
There are those who love to live on the road.
Then there’s a micro-culture called “overlanders” who take this love of outdoors to a whole new level.
The vehicles they drive are called “expedition vehicles” — perfectly suited for those who love the independence and adventure of overlanding.
This community of adventurers love to go anywhere they want: off-the-grid, off-road and 100% on their own terms with zero compromises.
Adventure Has a New Name
Every rebrand desires to be the perfect rebrand. This was no exception.
Where to start? First, you determine the amount of existing noise there is with the goal of finding “the opportunity” for distinction and exceptional differentiation.
In the adventure vehicle space for Overlanding, we discovered a key opportunity: a wide chasm between good versus extravagant, a terrain no company had yet conquered.
The new company’s purpose was simple: fill the chasm between small campers and large (and often overpriced) expedition vehicles.
Every detail of weight, dimensions, and technology was rethought and customized for agility on the trail and long-term resistance to the elements providing efficiency over luxury while giving the cabins the feeling of home.
What to Call This New Company?
With competitors like EarthCruiser, EarthRoamer, and Alaskan Campers, the new brand needed to be descriptive, different and memorable.
Seeing what the industry already consisted of, we found agility was at the core of the brand’s DNA: agility in vision, agility in function, agility in service. Lightweight yet compact. Minimal yet superbly functional.
And what would successfully usher in a new era of a new brand with a new ethos filling a gaping hole in this category, replacing the previous XPCamper brand?
The criteria were simple:
- A name that conveyed agility.
- One that was easy to spell.
- One that instantly stood apart from the current players.
- One that could quickly become the gold standard in this uninhabited chasm.
The name we settled on did this perfectly: Nimbl.
The Nimbl story would form the nucleus and be the anchor for the brand story:
Adventure doesn’t compromise. Neither did we.
That’s why we designed and built the world’s most agile expedition vehicle for those who want zero compromise and total independence.
Nimbl™ vehicles eliminate the “giving up this to get that” mindset.
Nimbl. Adventure without the compromise.
Story First. Design Second.
Design without a core story that differentiates is merely decoration.
Which is why the name and the story for the new brand were nailed down before any design was initiated.
Here is more of the story we developed (after completing our competitive analysis):
Some companies feel lost with no grid, no rules, and no map.
For us, this is home.
Which is why merely building the world’s most agile expedition vehicle was never our goal.
Unearthing adventure was.
Having nailed the name and brand story, the design process commenced culminating in this:
The new name Nimbl was perfectly suited for the fine-tuned vision of where the company was to go:
- A line of expedition vehicles providing owners the perfect travel partner to effortlessly tackle any vista on earth in unwavering safety and complete comfort.
- And like a bespoke suit from a fine tailor, every Nimbl vehicle would come with the guarantee of customized, immaculate craftsmanship.
The custom-designed lettering was drawn to fit a specific symmetry:
Every Nimbl vehicle will provide all the desired creature comforts one could wish for on a Ford F-350-based camper: cooking, personal hygiene, relaxing in the custom upholstered dinette (which can be converted into a second bed for the little ones) and enjoying a great night’s sleep in the queen size, memory foam bed.
For All the Places You Won’t Find on Google Earth: The Perfect Message for the Perfect Rebrand
One mistake we wouldn’t make would be thinking the brand story was about making and selling expedition Nimbl vehicles.
No. The story would be about the adventures the Nimbl vehicle would empower its customers to go on, giving owners a front-row seat to awesome and an unlimited pass to adventure.
Eclipsing The Previous Brand’s Baggage
The old brand (despite incredible loyalty and customer satisfaction with the core product) was tarnished by a history of less-than-stellar service.
While small and smart motorhomes are cool and everything, nothing could beat a giant luxury camper built for couples who love the open road and the freedom that comes with it.
So the job was to paint the picture with words and capture the moments in stunning imagery.
Especially when we are talking about living a life on the road versus just going on summer vacation trips.
The “community of explorers that live and survive on the capabilities of their vehicle” is exactly the target of the Nimbl’s Ford F-350-based camper.
The first vehicle is called the Evolution, the Nimble Evolution.
The Campaign That Launched a Thousand Adventures
To introduce Nimbl to the world, we created a series of three ads that would introduce the new company in online and print ads.
Just like the Nimbl brand itself, the brand story and the brand language and visuals were as much as by what we included as well as what we left out.
The first ad:
The second ad:
The third ad:
The Online Presence
Bridging the Gap Between The Nimbl Universe and The Peoples of Earth
This is just the beginning of the Nimbl universe and it will start having many more facets going forward. Here are some sneak peeks in what’s to come.
Wearables:
Merchandise:
Signage:
Fanatical souvenirs:
Ready for your brand revolution? Let’s schedule a time to speak.