CASE STUDY - Evergreen Landscapes
Evergreen Landscapes is a premier landscape firm that has been serving the greater Hamilton area since 1984. From its humble beginning in the early eighties to now, Evergreen Landscapes has grown into a multi-faceted landscape firm offering full design, build, and maintenance services.
Adverdea was approached in early 2012 by Craig Gaynor, owner of Evergreen Landscapes, to look at enhancing their brand, from logo design to marketing materials and company website. Their brand had grown tired and was not reflective of Evergreen Landscape's position as a high quality, industry leading firm. In addition, some landscape clients did not realize that they also provided maintenance services (and vice versa), which called for a re-introduction of the brand.
Our first recommendation was to remove their brand from the 'evergreen tree' imagery that had been used as part of the company brand since it's inception. While at first blush the evergreen tree is an obvious choice as it is synonymous with their name, it is not necessarily representative of high end landscapes. Rather, we wanted their brand to be synonymous with landscapes that are 'forever green'; landscapes that will stand the test of time.
The true test of a quality landscape is not the fresh and impressive scene left as the trucks roll away from the job site, but rather how the landscape will stand up to provide many years of enjoyment for the home owner. That is what we created the new Evergreen Landscapes brand to reflect. In connection with that, we also introduced a new tagline: "Landscapes For Life".
In designing the new Evergreen Landscapes logo it became paramount, as mentioned above, to avoid evergreen tree imagery that could confuse their brand message. The new logo achieves this by using a clean, contemporary font with generic leaf shapes, is memorable, and stands out with it's simplicity and coordinated splash of colour.
A new marketing strategy was also put in place to maximize the return on investment for their advertising dollars. Replacing the traditional magazine and other print advertising was a more digital focused campaign. As most potential clients were researching landscapes firm websites before contacting the company, our primary focus was to design and develop an industry leading website (with a custom content management system to allow the client to keep their content current) and introduce a Search Engine Optimization strategy to achieve a high ranking in local Google searches for landscape contractors.
A post card mailer was also designed to introduce the new Evergreen Landscapes brand to their audience. The mailers will strategically distributed to targeted neighbourhoods, and produced immediate results. Additionally, door hangers were created to be distributed, throughout the year, in the neighbourhoods of current Evergreen projects.
Special attention was also paid to new business cards, which are the piece of marketing most handed out to potential clients. The cards were printed with a custom ink mix, then laminated and die cut to round two of the corners. The cards have already received great response from potential clients, and leave the right first impression of a landscape firm that is all about quality.
To communicate the new Evergreen Landscapes brand to their client base, a personalized letter was sent to each client, mailed flat in a specifically designed 9x12 envelope, to inform them of the change: a new brand, but the same dedicated, quality landscape firm that offered both landscape and maintenance services.
