CorpComms Magazine

When corrugated packaging manufacturer Encase decided to rebrand, the brief it came up with was a design agency's dream. 'We want it wacky, off the wall and definitely different,' Encase told John Pendleton, managing director of marketing firm Design Principles.

Pendleton was happy to oblige and felt, along with his team, that the best place to unleash his firm's creativity was on a revamped corporate website. 'The great thing about websites is that they can be modified and updated very easily,' he explains. 'This gives you the opportunity to try something a bit more interesting, and we were really pleased that some of the more unusual ideas put forward were adopted. One idea that really caught the imagination of Encase customers - and the wider public - is our 'ducks-in-a-row' concept. It went down so well it is now being used for all sorts of things, such as direct-mail marketing and Christmas cards.'

The original ducks-in-a-row concept can still be viewed on Encase's website by clicking on the 'What's up duck' tab. Next to the strap line, 'We'll help you keep your ducks in a row', there is an image of a cardboard box with a number of yellow rubber ducks inside. The ducks are initially spread out and pointing in all directions, consequently wasting a lot of space, but they scramble before eventually lining themselves up neatly, allowing the box to be filled to capacity. 'I've been told it has become very popular and just stuck in people's minds,' says Pendleton.

When it came to developing Encase's new corporate logo, however, a more conservative approach was taken. 'You have got to try to make people smile and be happy to deal with you, and yet at the same time you can't be so quirky that people think you are completely off the scale,' points out Encase director Ian Palmer. 'It is important to get across an underlying sense of professionalism.'

Palmer also feels that, while the ducks have proved a useful marketing tool, it is important for Encase to keep refreshing its campaigns - which is another instance where the website comes in handy. 'We can't go on with the duck theme forever because we could lose sight of who we are,' he points out. 'It is only a phase, and the brief for the website now is to keep updating on a regular basis.' 

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