Qhesive Solutions

Creating a strong brand to digitally transform a business offering

MONTHS FROM IDEATION TO BRAND ROLL OUT

STAKEHOLDERS AND BRAND AMBASSADORS

100M

EXPECTED YEARLY TURNOVER WITHIN NEXT DECADE

The ask

Create a new future proof brand within the business unit “Adhesive Technologies” that unites formerly separate business cases and innovative solutions under a unique and recognizable umbrella.

The Solution

A strong brand including a logical ingredient brand strategy, recognizable brand design and impactful brand activation all driven by a rapid, data based, user centric and completely remote process.

Background

Henkel “Adhesive technologies” is one of the three very successful business units of the German FMCG company Henkel, historically focussing on the production and sales of adhesives. When their different sub-units started producing innovative, digitally, data-enabled services off the beaten path of adhesives, they needed a framework so that their innovative pull effect for the B2B2C customers could be bundled and leveraged. Henkel Adhesive Technologies asked MVPF to unite the fragmented products and create a meaningful brand “home” that their customers and employees would love.

The Challenge

Brand building means communication and collaboration. When Henkel approached us in late 2020 the pandemic made traditional brand workshops and processes impossible. Based on our liquid workforce approach we assembled a remote team of experts and designed a unique rapid branding process. Henkel asked for results - fast - and so we only had three months from first ideation to the delivery of the completely fledged out brand strategy, brand design as well as the a/b tested brand name and logo.

MVP Factory was asked for support to build an agile, efficient and scalable innovation process to evaluate ideas within a few weeks, validate them in the market through rapid prototyping and bring those with the greatest potential to market - along with the associated business model. And to do all this in a smart and efficient way, to operate scientifically, make decisions based on hypothesis validation and strong customer involvement, and then launch promising cases as MVP’s on the market.

The second phase of the project upped the complexity even further, designing the communication and roll out strategy the team had to onboard and align with Henkel Adhesive Technologies colleagues from four different continents to create results that work for all B2B2C customers around the world. All deliverables of the second phase, be it a unique and catchy brand video a landing page that fits well into the Henkel website CMS, a brand ambassador programme, digital brand tools and many more needed to be handled by our multidisciplinary, multinational, remote team in close collaboration with Henkel’s own distributed workforce. Challenge accepted!

IMAGE VIDEO PRODUCED BY THE MVPF TEAM FOR INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL BRAND ACTIVATION

Process

What we did

Data driven brand strategy & brand design

After establishing a unique team of experts from our liquid workforce the process started with thoroughly analyzing all aspects and ingredients of the future and current products that would be part of the brand. Too many branding processes are rooted in gut feeling and intuition, which is why we made sure that all strategy decisions are based on data and customer feedback. Carefully selected aspects of the brand strategy and brand design (incl. logo & brand name) were put on a landing page to be A/B tested by Henkels target customers. Based on their performance they were either chosen to be part of the brand or scrapped. After countless remote workshops, tough decisions and multiple iterations the brand strategy & brand design was signed off on time and on budget after only 3 short months.

Internal & External brand activation

All of the careful planning culminated in the first communication of the brand to audiences outside of the project team. To create an emotional and long lasting positive brand perception we created several impactful formats and deliverables for each of the stakeholder groups: Internal stakeholders were involved via a unique remote, workshop-based brand ambassador program including digital tools that they can use in their daily business (i.e. PowerPoint templates, digital brand card, etc.). To excite external stakeholders we created an emotional brand video, LinkedIn posts and a landing page (among many other things). It doesn’t stop there, though. As an ongoing partner of Henkel MVPF is shaping the brand even in the future.

Market entry & communication strategy

The foundations have been established and so our focus shifted to precisely define how Henkel will approach their audience with the new brand. Henkel Qhesive Solutions’ Goal is to empower customers in transforming their products, services and processes by giving them a new, extended meaning beyond their current function. This storytelling needed to be carefully mapped to a marketing funnel to provide maximum sales impact. In the end we provided a thorough marketing playbook on where and how the brand will be communicated most effectively in the months and years ahead.

achiEvements

Value delivered

By employing a data-based, rapid branding process, MVPF created, tested and rolled out Henkel Qhesive Solutions within 6 months.

Challenged by the constraints of the pandemic, MVPF was able to create a global B2B brand in cooperation with Henkel in record time. This was made possible by our core belief in the liquid workforce approach. Delivering the highest standard of work with various global stakeholders and partners remotely. By employing a data-driven & iterative branding process, we ideated, validated and created the Henkel Qhesive Solutions Brand in 6 months.

Creating this brand had two distinct functions: It gave Henkel the organizational umbrella to unite their multiple innovation streams & products into one global team. Launching Henkel Qhesive Solutions internally empowered employees to transform their disparate business processes into a cohesive narrative, leveraging business tools that were developed for Henkel Qhesive Solutions to get the job done.

Externally, the brand communicated this transformation to clients. Customers understood the move from products to solutions, as Henkel’s ambitions with this project were to leverage their competitive advantage of offering customer-centric solutions rather than off-the-shelf products. This message demonstrably resonates with customers as the brand has seen a 20000% increase in organic Google Search Traffic since it’s launched in the first half of 2021. This is partly due to the innovative brand name which opens up a new category without any “search competitors“. Moreover, the Henkel Qhesive Solutions products are expected to generate over €100M in yearly turnover within the next 5-10 years.

Check out the landing page for Henkel Qhesive Solutions.