Project
Helping Engineering Firm Define Its Formula for Success
EBA Engineering is a 60-year-old, established engineering firm with over 150 employees, 5 regional offices, and clients in both public and private sectors. EBA has built a solid reputation for its ability to solve diverse, complicated problems with unwavering integrity and unprecedented foresight
EBA engaged Substance151 at the time of its graduation from the MBE status in order to reposition the firm and develop a brand that reflects the company’s new status, while leveraging EBA’s strengths and longevity of experience.
Analytic Thinking
In analyzing EBA and its industry, competitive environment and new target audiences, Substance151 uncovered an ever-increasing difficulty for engineering firms, especially in the government sector, to differentiate themselves.
Given the same specifications and the same desired outcome and assuming a similar level of technical expertise among top engineering firms (EBA’s competitors), the end “product” will be similar no matter which firm is doing the work. As gathered from the customer surveys and supported by the industry and competitive analysis, ultimately, it’s not the final deliverable that’s highly valued, but rather it’s the “experience” of doing business with the engineering firm.
Strategic Thinking
As a cornerstone of the strategy, Substance151 identified “experience” as the real product – an insight that would give EBA a substantial advantage by enabling the firm to speak directly to what was most valued its audiences.
The recommendation was to highlight the experience of doing business with EBA by positioning the firm as the company holding the “Formula for Success,” willing to do “whatever it takes to get to the desired goal.” The formula was comprised of four of EBA’s key and critical value-based strengths, all of which held extremely high relevance to target audiences:
Access + Responsiveness + Know-How = An Exceptional, Client-Centered Experience That Delivers Results
Creative Thinking
Armed with a differentiating brand platform, Substance151 translated new brand strategy into a strong, compelling brand image. From corporate identity and identity guidelines, to a new website, we’ve developed EBA’s core communication pieces that convey the story behind and the brand promise delivered by the “Formula for Success.”
“Realizing a major change was needed for the company, EBA Engineering retained Substance151 to perform a complete rebrand consisting of a brand strategy/positioning, new logo, new colors, and a new website. The journey, although long, (working with engineers can be challenging) was absolutely worth every step. Substance151 really understood our needs and produced a product that was in synch with EBA’s core values. The end result was a professional, polished, refreshed look for EBA that continues to garner many positive comments.”
—Maria (Ree) Miskimon, Marketing Manager, EBA Engineering, Inc.
