Not just defining the way you look, but capturing the way you are

Creating a future-proof brand strategy means looking beyond logos and brand manuals. Times change, trends come and go, but the one thing that remains is your reason for existence. The reason why you love doing what you do every single day. This essential feeling is what people connect to. It’s why they won’t mind walking the extra mile to use YOUR service or buy YOUR product. Because they support your reason for existence. And capturing these reasons in words, imagery and experiences is what I love doing every single day.

Case One

Absolute Cycling – A lasting brand

One partner I’m working with is Absolute Cycling, a team of passionate cyclists and tech innovators from Arnhem. The team had one goal: collect enough funds through their crowdfunding campaign to launch the smartest cycling computer in the world in the first quarter of 2020. I was responsible for creating a lasting brand strategy, developing their website, and writing their copy. During their crowdfunding campaign I was also responsible for their digital advertising using Facebook and Instagram.

The brand strategy

Every time I had a conversation with Harm Giesen – the founder of Absolute Cycling – I got more passionate about this project. His overwhelming enthusiasm for cycling and high-quality design perfectly aligned with his product, the Absolute Cycling One. A high-end cycling computer for high-speed racing cyclists. He had a clear vision; every distraction, every agitation during a ride should be removed. Cycling is all about having fun, being on the road with your beautiful bike and pushing yourself to the limit. After many brainstorms and iterations we ended up with the first version of the brand:

Together with Vincent Hammingh we created an aesthetic to perfectly match this philosophy. We gained a lot of inspiration from the Scandinavian design principes: a place for everything and everything in its place.

The website

Launching a website for a startup is something entirely different than launching a website for an established company or an artist. Everything is subject to change within a week. Product details might get updated, specifications might improve and sometimes the company will make a huge pivot, overhauling the entire product. It was my responsibility to create a website that was easy to scale, incredibly good at telling the Absolute Cycling story and of course could convert potential visitors into fans.

The digital advertising

To get enough funding during the crowdfunding campaign, we set a specific goal for the amount of fans Absolute Cycling should have before the launch: 10,000. It was my responsibility to acquire those fans before the 18th of June, 2019 – the launch date for the Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign.

The results

The Indiegogo campaign ended up reaching 103% of the target goal. More importantly, the team gained an amazing amount of feedback from the cycling community. This will make sure the smartest cycling computer in the world will be even smarter. We also realised that cyclists, above all, want the cycling computer to work as smoothly as possible. We’re already working on new campaigns that will highlight all of the features that make the Absolute Cycling One the smoothest of them all.