Aramark Facilities Management

Consulting CASE STORY

Bringing a line-of-business brand into focus

Aramark, a Fortune 500 company, engaged Hinge to bring greater clarity and definition to their Facilities Management line of business. Working within Aramark’s corporate brand guidelines, we helped Aramark Facilities Management develop powerful new positioning, messaging and visual brand frameworks. Equipped with these strategies and tools, they are able to differentiate themselves from key competitors and speak with confidence about who they are and how they deliver a unique experience.

Today, Aramark is able to differentiate themselves from key competitors and speak with confidence about who they are and how they deliver a unique experience.

A story untold

Aramark, a company known primarily for its global food service business, reached out to Hinge to help its Facilities Management line of business express its brand with greater clarity and style. Itself made up of four subunits, Aramark Facilities Management needed help telling a compelling, unified story—to articulate their value proposition to audiences outside and inside the organization. They also needed help creating a distinctive visual brand that conveyed a high level of credibility to prospective clients while adhering to the master Aramark corporate brand guidelines.

Research 3 ways

We kicked off the initiative with research into three key groups. First, we interviewed senior-level executives in charge of critical business functions (such as sales) and relevant service unit leaders. We wanted to find out what challenges they faced when pitching their business to prospective buyers. Next, we interviewed 40 clients across the different Facilities Management service areas to learn about their challenges and how they found, evaluated and selected Aramark’s services. Finally, we conducted a detailed review of the business unit’s competitors to uncover opportunities to position the Aramark group.

Aramark’s Golden Record
Aramark’s Golden Record

Positioning strategy & brand framework

Informed by this research, we identified several differentiators that set Aramark Facilities Management apart from their competitors. We turned these into a compact market positioning statement and elevator pitch the client could use in the marketplace, highlighting key benefits and points of differentiation. To synchronize this strategy with the other Aramark business units, we built out a brand framework that showed how Facilities Management’s new brand aligned with Aramark’s corporate culture, values and personality.

Aramark’s Golden Record
Aramark’s Golden Record

Name, logo & tagline

A confusing or misleading name can damage a brand’s prospects. So we led Aramark’s team through a naming exercise in which we created and tested a range of name options for the facilities line of business. While we ultimately recommended the original name, Facilities Management, the client team left the engagement with full confidence their name was the clearest, most elegant option. We also locked the name up with the Aramark logo and generated a package of logo formats to suit any branding application.

Next, we led the client through a formal tagline development process, exploring hundreds of options. This was a highly collaborative process in which we worked actively with the client to deliver the concise, inspiring statement they were looking for. The selected tagline, Making Essential Exceptional, speaks to both the importance of what they do and the lengths they go to deliver an extraordinary experience.

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Visual identity & brand guidelines

To establish a distinctive look for Aramark Facilities Management, while remaining true to their master brand’s corporate identity, we took the client through a process that began with mood boards to explore typography, color, imagery, icon systems and graphic treatments. Then we set to work on a “golden record” to turn abstract concepts into a practical and in-depth brand expression. This 12-page document would serve as inspiration and guidance for everything to come. In addition, we formally documented our creative decisions in a set of brand guidelines.

The new identity is sophisticated and differentiated from Aramark’s other lines of business. Yet it retains the essence and spirit of the Aramark brand. It perfectly positions Aramark Facilities Management as a force to be reckoned with in the marketplace.

Stationery & collateral

Once the golden record and brand guidelines were finalized, we quickly began applying the new identity to a few urgently-need branded materials, including a stationery suite, presentation template, service collateral and social media branded imagery.

Website

We collaborated with Aramark’s web firm to apply the new branding to the business unit’s web pages. We also wrote headlines and key messages that reflected the foundational strategy work we did up front, positioning them as leaders in the facility management space.

Case Study Design
Case Study Design

A brand at work

Hinge’s work for Aramark Facilities Management is paying off in multiple ways. Internal brand awareness has improved. In fact, they are now receiving far more leads from other Aramark lines of business, a testament to the power of clear messaging: at last people across Aramark know how to talk about their facilities business and its value proposition. They are also receiving many more leads than before through their website, which speaks to a more credible brand, stronger messaging and enhanced visibility.

Case Study Design
Case Study Design

What we did

Branding

  • Brand Research
  • Differentiators & Positioning
  • Positioning
  • Brand Framework
  • Line-of-Business Naming
  • Line-of-Business Logo Lockup
  • Tagline
  • Visual Identity & Brand Guidelines
  • Golden Record Design
  • Stationery Suite
  • Presentation Design
  • Collateral Design

Line-of-Business Website

  • Design Consultation
  • Creative Implementation
  • Messaging
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