Author: Simon Richards

Last week, we gathered for the Annual Charge Energy Branding Conference, hosted by EDP at their headquarters in Lisbon. The setting could not have been more perfect—EDP’s contemporary, inviting, and stylish conference facilities provided the ideal backdrop for two days of thought-provoking discussions, insightful presentations, and industry-leading expertise. This year’s event brought together energy branding experts, thought leaders, and innovators to explore how brands can unlock their potential in a rapidly changing sector.

Setting the Stage: EDP’s Commitment to Brand Purpose

The conference opened with an impactful presentation from Catarina Barradas, Head of Global Brand at EDP, the world’s fourth-largest energy brand. EDP set the tone by demonstrating how deeply embedded its brand purpose is in its operations. From driving the energy transition to prioritising sustainability, social impact, and supporting their people, EDP showed how they are “not just walking the talk but running it.” The presentation highlighted their passion for making energy inclusive, sustainable, and transformative, offering clear insights into how a brand can align purpose with action to create meaningful impact across the board. 

Branding Journeys: Insights from Industry Leaders

The day’s sessions featured several fascinating case studies that showcased diverse branding journeys. Will Bosanko of BrandPie and Christine Corkery Steinsholt of Höegh Evi offered insights into their naming and rebranding programme, explaining the strategic considerations involved in selecting and developing a brand name. Meanwhile, Katja Metz from E.ON presented the company’s successful repositioning programme. E.ON’s case study stood out for its seamless alignment between strategy and execution, placing the brand’s new positioning at the heart of their business. This alignment was reflected across leadership, communications, and tactics, with a strong emphasis on data-driven measurement and tangible results. Takeaways included; what’s the point of a brand purpose if employees are unaware or don’t truly understand it, the need to define what we are trying to achieve and with a greater sense of urgency and Fernando Ortiz Ehmann of Saffron Brand Consultants commenting on the need not just to define a brand but to fully activate it, 

Workshops and Breakout Sessions: Innovation, Engagement, and Sustainability

Throughout the conference, breakout sessions and workshops covered essential themes such as influencer engagement, sustainability, stakeholder communication, and innovation. One unexpected delight was seeing our own projects recognized in presentations by João Filipe Torneiro, who highlighted a customer-centricity discussion that featured Energia’s people engagement programmes. These sessions provided attendees with actionable insights into how brands can navigate the evolving energy landscape while staying true to their core values.

Energy Brands and Storytelling

Day two kicked off following a fantastic evening of networking and awards at Lisbon’s Secret Spot, Montes Claros. The sessions focused on how energy brands can elevate their employee value propositions, with Kate Aunaas Ingram of Statkraft sharing their approach to making their brand famous for recruitment and retention. One of the highlights was a workshop by Storyline, which explored how to craft compelling brand narratives. This session emphasized the importance of translating brand values into actions, not just words, to create authentic connections with audiences. Sandra Baer, CEO of Personal Cities, led a valuable session on using a creative question framework to unlock deeper brand insights and engage audiences meaningfully.

Key Learnings and Takeaways

The Charge Energy Branding Conference once again proved to be an essential platform for fostering innovation and progress in the energy sector. From EDP’s inspiring example of purpose-driven branding to the insightful case studies and engaging workshops, the conference offered attendees a wealth of knowledge and practical tools to apply within their organizations. The stunning setting of EDP HQ in Lisbon further elevated the experience, providing a fitting atmosphere for the dynamic discussions that took place.

As always, it was a pleasure to be part of such a forward-thinking and inspiring event. We were delighted to share the few days with clients and sponsor the event. We look forward to seeing how the insights shared at this year’s conference will shape the future of energy branding.

We caught up with Simon Richards, Founder & Creative Director at RichardsDee before he facilitates the interactive workshop ‘What can B2B brands learn from B2C brands?’ at CHARGE Europe on 14th October.

How do you see your clients building the business case for brand investment?

Our approach to helping clients recognise the need to invest in their brand often starts with a realisation from the clients themselves. They understand that their organisation isn’t reaching its full potential, and that brand development can help. However, they may not always know where to begin or how to bring others on board with this vision. 

Often, leaders from the CEO, marketing, and business development teams become our best ambassadors, advocating for the value of what we do. Interestingly, some of our strongest advocates have come from procurement and finance teams as well. Several catalysts can ignite the conversation around brand investment: 

Recognition of Neglect: A brand that has been around for some time may have lacked the investment and attention it deserves. With new market entrants and challenges, there may be a need to retell the brand’s story and recapture the attention it once commanded. In these cases, the recognition is there, but the challenge lies in deciding which aspect of the brand to invest in—be it the brand story and proposition, brand expression, or the customer experience. 

Fragmented Brand Story: Over time, the brand’s story or proposition may become fragmented. There may be a need to refocus and retell the core aspects that made the brand great, ensuring alignment among employees, customers, and investors.

Business Strategy Shifts: When the business strategy evolves, it often requires an updated brand narrative that reflects the organisation’s new trajectory. This calls for the creation of a fresh, cohesive story that resonates with all stakeholders.We frequently work with smaller teams that may not have the extensive marketing resources of large multinational corporations. These teams rely on our expertise to help them communicate the need for brand investment, design effective programs, and provide the evidence needed to unlock the value that a strong brand can bring.

The business case for brand investment often centres around the following key areas:

• Brand Investment and Employee Engagement
• Clarity in Brand Proposition and Customer Understanding
• Brand Building and Commercial Results

What lessons can you share about simplifying complex concepts/technologies for branding and communications?

There is a relentless pursuit to innovate, expand, or add new features to products and services that can sometimes lead to overly complex solutions that confuse customers rather than help them. Also, industries such as energy are going through significant development where the range of products targeted towards the end-user has dramatically increased and requires different skill sets to communicate these.

Simplifying complex concepts and technology problems requires a thoughtful approach that emphasises clarity, usability, and a deep understanding of the customer’s perspective.

Do customers get it?

There’s a tendency within organisations to continuously expand product ranges, introduce new jargon, or add suffixes to product names, believing that each addition will enhance the value or relevance of their offerings. However, more isn’t always better.Each new addition can dilute the core product, creating confusion and making it harder for customers to understand what they truly need.To simplify, it’s essential to step into the customer’s shoes. What do they value? What makes sense to them? How do they navigate the decision-making process? By focusing on what matters to the customer, businesses can strip away unnecessary complexities.Sometimes, the best innovation is knowing when to remove or retire features that no longer serve a purpose, rather than adding layers for the sake of outdoing a competitor’s offerings.

Do customers understand your portfolio?

Complexity can be overwhelming. To combat this, make your products or technology solutions easy to understand. Even simple frameworks like categorising portfolios such as “Good, Better, Best” can help customers quickly grasp how products relate to each other. Defining each product or technology within the context of your entire portfolio—not just against competitors—can further clarify its purpose and positioning.Clear language is key. Avoid industry jargon or overly technical terms that may alienate your audience. Focus on straightforward, and crisp communication that highlights the differences and benefits of each product tier and invest in a naming system that helps customers navigate portfolios.

What are the Purpose and Benefits?

When introducing or refining a technology product, always start by defining the problem it solves. Why does this product exist? What specific benefit does it offer the customer? By clearly articulating the product’s role and purpose, businesses can ensure that customers understand its value and relevance to their needs. 

This clarity helps customers connect with the product on a practical level, making it easier for them to see how it fits with their business or solves a particular problem. It’s about the struggle of deciding what is a feature, proof point or technical specification and to emphasise the tangible benefits that matter most to the user.

Are your sales and customer team confident in promoting it?

Complex concepts and advanced technologies can be challenging for sales teams, whether they’re internal or external, such as third party retailers. This often leads to atendency to fall back on selling familiar products instead of promoting new and innovative ones. To counter this, investing in on boarding programs and providing your sales force with the right tools and resources is crucial. 

When Marketing and Sales work together seamlessly, both teams feel empowered and better equipped to drive results. This effort is not just about pushing product information, but understanding each departments needs and ensuring both have a shared point of view, support and tools to boost confidence, helping to feel more comfortable building trust and authority when promoting new technologies.

This is also a challenge for customer service teams, where once they were dealing with simple transactional queries, where as they now have to deal with several products, services and technologies questions that previously did not exist.

Is there another way?

Finally, ask yourself: Does it have to be this way? Just because something has always been done a certain way or conforms to industry norms, doesn’t mean it’s the best approach. In fact, questioning the status quo can lead to more straightforward and customer-friendly solutions.

Understanding the lifecycle of your products and services is also critical. Recognising when a product has reached maturity or when it’s time to retire a solution can prevent clutter in your product lineup, making it easier for customers to navigate and choose the right option for them. Always consider the customer’s viewpoint when making these decisions to ensure your product lineup remains relevant and accessible. 

Simplifying complex technology problems isn’t just about reducing features—it’s about honing in on what truly matters to the customer. By focusing on clarity, ease of understanding, and challenging unnecessary complexity, businesses can create solutions that not only solve problems but also resonate with their customers. In a world where complexity often reigns, simplicity can be a powerful differentiator

What can attendees look forward to hearing from you at CHARGE Europe?

We will explore innovative strategies to reimagine the customer experience and sales journey for B2B brands. By examining industries outside our sector, we can gain insights into how they’ve successfully built customer loyalty, tackled complex brand challenges, effectively segmented audiences, and aligned sales and marketing efforts. Ultimately, our goal is to learn from these examples and prioritise putting the customer at the centre of everything we do.

Established in 2012, RichardsDee is a world-class strategic and creative branding agency, specialising in brand strategy, design, engagement, and communications. They help multinational organisations navigate change, achieving sustainable, tangible, and meaningful impact by seamlessly aligning brand and business strategy. Whether building brands from the ground up, repositioning them during transformation, or refreshing them for future growth, their approach merges strategic insight with focused creativity. They empower businesses to stand out, connect, and grow through impactful brand-led change.

Originally published: https://charge.events/https-charge-events-wp-content-uploads-simon-richards-1-jpg/

We’ve been recognised as the Irish agency leading the way in design practices

Our drive to be a company recognised for our work, team and impact has been acknowledged by the esteemed Institute of Designers in Ireland. At their annual IDI Awards in November we were elated to win Design Practice Team of the Year 2023. 

The judges noted: 

“(RichardsDee) demonstrates how an Irish design agency can show up with heft as a trusted design partner for organisations across the private, public and civic sectors; as an employer that understands the need to develop and retain talent; and, as a fulcrum for community mobilisation.”

This award is testament to our dedication to our purpose – Designing Meaningful Change for our people, local community and our brilliant clients.

Meaningful Change centres around our foundational belief that our work makes an impact. That strategy, creativity and design combined can bring truly meaningful, positive and game-changing transformation. We’ve built our whole ethos, client mix, employee value proposition, outreach activities and ways of working around this vital purpose – and it’s evident in every endeavour we undertake.

In 2022 we celebrated 10 years in business, won four Transform Awards and began working towards becoming Ireland’s a B-Corp brand agency. This year we’ve partnered with exceptional mission-focused brands like DEBRA Ireland and Childline and are competing (and winning) against large global agencies for projects in Ireland and USA.

And, for our own team we’re making sure everyone feels inspired and supported to do their best work – including hybrid working, health insurance, finishing early on Fridays, birthday days off and paid leave for volunteering. We’re also dedicated to ongoing learning programmes to ensure people and careers progress. 

There’s so much more to the above than one blog post can cover, but this gives a sense of how we’re achieving our ambitions as an agency and why we won this amazing award. The judges on the night commented:

“RichardsDee have a strong selection of projects that demonstrate strong originality and excellence… and have articulated a clear vision, for the organisation and for its people. A clearly evidenced commitment to learning, experimentation and innovation, with particular emphasis on providing space and financial support for the team to learn, develop, experiment, and thrive at work…”

We couldn’t of put it better. This Christmas and New Year we’ll be raising a glass to every one of our ambitious team members and clients who make us the agency we are…

Ideas Made Real is a school outreach programme designed to bridge the gap between curriculum and industry needs, championing the role of advanced manufacturing in our lives and opening young minds to the limitless potential of a career in STEM.

STEM education equips students with analytical, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills that are relevant to many careers. Furthermore, it fosters creativity and innovation, which are essential for addressing the most pressing challenges facing society and our world today

The Ideas Made Real program is a nationwide STEM and advanced manufacturing schools program from Irish Manufacturing Research (IMR) that empowers the next generation of makers with the tools for the future. We’ve been involved in helping with brand naming, brand identity, and the challenges of managing the many brands and organisations involved in this program. The objective was to inspire students of all ages to create, innovate, challenge stereotypes, pioneer new technologies and make their brilliant and bold ideas real.

Often, projects may seem straightforward at the outset, but as you unbox the complexities of branding programs and initiatives involving multiple stakeholders, branding projects can help create clarity regarding who should lead and who should endorse. In this case, we had to determine the correct branding relationship, whether the program should have its own name and brand or if it would add value and credibility by being closely associated with IMR.

Evaluating the correct branding relationships

Both options had merits, but when evaluating the outcomes, it became clear that this program needed its own name and brand assets while also maintaining a close connection to IMR. The rationale for this decision was that the delivery, content, and investment were made by IMR, so they should take credit for it. Additionally, IMR brought value and credibility, demonstrating that the program was run in association with a recognised and reputable body that could connect schools with leading manufacturers.

Brand naming and identity solution

Although the solution has a clear association with IMR in terms of colour, typefaces, and visibility of the IMR brand, the program required a shift in tone and language that could resonate with schools and students. It also needed a name that could quickly generate interest, be active, and serve as a signpost for the program. The name ‘Ideas Made Real’ was developed to work on multiple levels: it provides an understanding of the activities, emphasises creative opportunities in manufacturing, and is fun and straightforward. This naming structure allows ‘Ideas Made Real’ to lead communication with a close relationship to Irish Manufacturing Research and be used as an ingredient brand when courses are led by a third-party educational brand.

Upon launch, it became evident that the close association with IMR had two significant benefits. First, it lent the program credibility and expertise. Second, it added value to the IMR brand through the awareness, leadership and innovation-focused outreach program. While the final brand solution may appear simple in execution, the journey and process to reach this solution took time and involved input from various stakeholders. Success was evident in the adoption of the program by many schools.

The 2017 Airline Economics Conference is taking place in Dublin’s Shelbourne Hotel this week and is attended by airlines from across the globe with specific interest in finance and leasing. The theme of the conference is Growth Frontiers, a name perfectly suited to our client Goshawk who themselves have undergone significant growth since their inception only 18 months ago. 

We were appointed as brand partners to Goshawk, an aircraft leasing company, with the focus of rebranding this young, but highly experienced team of aviation experts. In a short amount of time the company a committed portfolio of 89 aircraft with an attributable value of approximately US$4.4bn. Achieving these numbers in this short amount of time is reflective of the high level of ambition within the company.

Our creative solution for them had to be equally ambitious. Having reviewed their international peers, we identified a very conservative approach to brand and communications existed. Many employed the old trusted blue colour of financial institutions, however we wanted to reflect the passion and ambition within the company, therefore choosing a vibrant red to orange gradient as the primary colour palette. 

This bold gradient brings energy and dynamism to communications when used in combination with the new photographic style. Black and white images of open skies and horizons reflect the Goshawk approach of looking at things differently than their competitors while the use of a handwritten font reflects the personality of the company.

Ireland’s Biggest Coffee Morning for Hospice together with Bewley’s, is 24 years old. In over two decades, Ireland’s longest running one day charity event has raised over €32 million for hospice care nationwide and served over 16 million cups of coffee.

However, the non profit landscape is changing. There are more charitable organisations in Ireland, with more fundraising initiatives to compete with, than ever before. Donations are down, consumers are skeptical and contributions to ensure the vital services of hospice groups to our communities, are being challenged. Hospice services remain in desperate need of funding and in many areas around Ireland, there is a real lack of available services.

We all know people who have been supported, comforted and cared for by hospice services. Staff work tirelessly to help patients to live life as fully as possible with dignity and comfort whilst making the most of precious time with their family and friends. Realising first hand the critical nature of these services, we were delighted to come on board to transform Ireland’s Biggest Coffee Morning for Hospice supported by Bewley’s.

We began with stakeholder workshops to get under the skin of what the event was all about. We conducted international benchmark reviews and positioning studies on all Irish same day charity events. As a team, we rewrote the campaign ambition, aligning everyone behind a huge, audacious goal.

e created a campaign identity that brims with personality, its loose typographic style feels personal and everyday, rather than institutional, reflecting the deep personal nature of the services delivered. Our key visual is a coffee cup with the sun rising in the background and our optimistic orange colour palette reflects the comfort and care provided by the staff.

We set about developing a messaging system elevating why this campaign is so important. A core message being that all money raised locally, stays locally. So by supporting the campaign, you are supporting a vital resource for your local community.

Our next requirement was passionate brand ambassadors, ambassadors that had experience with hospice, and that could speak fluently about the importance of supporting the campaign and the impact the monies raised made at local level. To date, Domhnall Gleeson, Brendan Gleeson, Imelda May, Gabriel Byrne, Mario Rosenstock and a host of other high profile advocates have readily come on board to support and promote the day.

The campaign launches this week and Ireland’s Biggest Coffee Morning for Hospice is on Thursday 15th September 2016. We’re hosting a big coffee morning in the studio and are asking all our agency friends and clients to register on hospicecoffeemorning.ie to host a coffee morning at your workplaces. If you can’t host one, please donate online at hospicecoffeemorning.ie where you can select the hospice you want to donate to. Remember, all money raised locally, stays locally and in this campaign, every cup counts.