In a few words
For i-Pharm, the COVID-19 pandemic had suddenly shifted the attention of the entire world onto the life sciences industries. One key area that was holding i-Pharm back from taking full advantage of the opportunity they had been handed was a poor quality brand that was more often than not inconsistent.
With this in mind, i-Pharm turned to Fablr to help refresh their brand and produce a wide range of marketing assets for use across their global teams and offices.
Fablr were also tasked with creating an employer brand careers website that could attract new talent to this industry leading business by successfully selling i-Pharm’s culture, people and benefits.
Key Challenges
When recruiters like i-Pharm grow far and beyond their original founding offices and teams, the importance of knowing who you are and what you stand for as a business is far more important than just corporate window dressing.
It is a key differentiator for the business and can set the foundations for continued growth into the future. i-Pharm had already begun a directed process of self discovery that could channel the i-Pharm origin story and purpose. As part of this, i-Pharm canvassed opinions of people right across the business to create a compelling corporate story alongside a set of key values.
But there was only so much they could do as an internal team, and then needed insight from an expert brand and design agency. The project needed of a coordinated delivery of creative design to support multiple areas of the business in core visual identity, employer brand, internal comms and business development.
Approach
i-Pharm’s values are connected with their mission statement – that of ‘Changing lives by placing people at the heart of life sciences‘. We sought to position i-Pharm as playing a deep-seated role in connecting life sciences human capital the world over. After all, progress depends on us talking to one another. International scientific partnerships, like-minded connections, professional friendships forged around a sense of what is possible. i-Pharm and the work of its consultants is absolutely at the heart of that story.
Our visual identity work took the i-Pharm logo as its starting point to build a wider visual framework inspired by the world of science, atoms and chemistry. We counter balance this with a photographic and tone of voice emphasis on the human story in Life Sciences. Celebrating human endeavour in driving new treatments and positive patient outcomes.
Where creative design often falls short
It’s a blind spot in many brand development processes that the creative agency’s output ends up being surface level, and fails to become embedded in the day-to-day materials and collateral used by internal marketing departments. The result can often be a lack of consistency in materials and a haphazard application of the brand from social media through to internal comms and business development materials.
Developing a library of assets
We don’t just work on the exciting brand development but also produce materials, artwork photography, design and build websites, and create a library of assets that our clients can use in their day-to-day activities. And we continue to build on these resources for as long as the client needs them, providing support and assistance as part of a long term on-going relationship.
Fablr worked closely with the i-Pharm’s internal marketing team to develop their brand into something cohesive and applicable. This included creating and building a range of brand assets including customisable consultant toolkits, whitepaper InDesign templates, PowerPoint decks, internal comms templates and a suite of social media templates that were set up and managed through Canva.
Employer brand
As a business that was expanding quickly across the US and the DACH region, internal recruitment and the employer brand rose straight to the top of priority marketing focus.
The Fablr team responded to the challenge by proposing a full careers website to support the brand’s ability to connect with prospective talent from entry level right through to leadership positions.
Fablr commissioned a recruitment specialist copywriter to work on the content for the website, and we worked with the i-Pharm team to determine the structure and format that could best communicate their culture, learning and development and career progression offer.
The best marketing tool in any business or organisation’s employer brand toolbox is always their staff. i-Pharm are no exception, so we looked to remote call interviews that could be quickly and cost-effectively recorded featuring consultants located right across the globe.
The ‘How will your story go?‘ videos that Fablr produced and edited are the perfect asset for the i-Pharm marketing team to use in the web and on social to quickly engage potential talent and sell the diverse range of personalities and professionalism of the team.
Fablr’s work for i-Pharm has produced a wide library of visually consistent marketing assets and templates that have really empowered their internal design team in a much more cost-effective way than building out a senior design resource in-house.
