Company Branding, Brand Agencies & Branding Companies In South Africa - About | Engage Brandcraft

OUR STORY

All branding agencies are not created equal. Neither are all brands. Engage Brandcraft was born out of disillusionment with the state of the brand development and design in South Africa. Founders, Chris and Ian (a young strategist and designer respectively), found themselves uninspired by their particular industries – both of which were categorised by high prices and egos and were low on creative excellence and results. Combining their skills, vision and passion, they formed a loose collaboration of skilled Brandcrafters and set out to change things one brand at a time.

Their combined mission was to bring world-class, creative business branding solutions to South African start-ups, new ventures and small to medium enterprises. Since then Engage has grown both in terms of scope, team and vision. Although we now serve much bigger businesses too, our spirit and approach remains unchanged. Our recipe? A focused team of strategic and creative brandcrafters who work in teams and directly with clients (there are no ‘account managers’ here) to deliver meaningful, forward-thinking and effective brands.

OUR APPROACH

Brands are people too. They have a mission; other people will remember or forget them; engage with or ignore them. They can be passionate or austere, open or private.

They can interact with other individuals and with each other in numerous ways. We see them as characters, bringing the inane to life and creating memorable and loveable brands that ignite the passions of brand ambassadors and markets alike.

What’s the point of a great brand if it never gets conveyed? Great brands are made of memories - of stories and legends. Exactly how we help brands create and tell these stories depends on who we want to listen.

We believe that a brand should tell its stories again and again from its logo(s) to the way the phones are answered – reinforcing exactly what makes it popular and educating the public all the while.

Talking AT people is no longer effective. Individuals listen to their networks. They trust their friends, families and communities. Ergo: getting networks talking about and living your brand is priceless.

Talk to individuals where they want, when they want and let them talk back – or even better, share with each other. Give them something to talk about - to share with others.

OUR VISION

It’s the Engage yin and yang. The perfect balance. All our work is executed with attention to detail (we’re perfectionists), but through a process that is authentic and enjoyable. It’s because we love our work that it works so well – and other people love it too.

We set high standards for ourselves, and this sometimes leads to working overtime and putting in extra hours, but as long as our work environment reflects who we are as people – it often doesn’t feel like work at all.

Yes, it’s a buzz-word and everyone’s using it. Despite being totally over-utilised, the term “innovation” remains mostly undefined. This is what innovation means to us:

It’s not about a grand invention. Or about reinventing the wheel. And it’s not even about coming up with something that hasn’t been done before. It’s about drawing inspiration from many different sources and compiling it in a brand new way. Pull ideas apart. Turn them on their head. Add real value.