Marvin is a 100-year old, premium window and door manufacturer with a complex B2B2C audience. As Marvin prepared for a generational leadership transition, we contemplated how to strengthen their position in today’s marketplace and build new meaning for future innovation.

To do this, we helped Marvin tackle four major initiatives:
Redefine company vision, purpose and values
Reinvent brand architecture
Reinvigorate brand strategy, identity, and expression
Reimagine employee and customer experience

Our idea: Leverage Marvin’s legacy as a springboard to the future, guiding expression around the new company purpose: to image and create better ways of living.

In designing the new brand identity and expression system, the team began by digging deep into Marvin’s historic expression. There were crucial elements that had to be honored—like the symbol of the rose and optimistic yellow brand color. While these elements are foundational to the company, there was license to evolve them for a modern new identity.

The new identity maintains a familiar strong stance but with a refined design-forwardness. The wordmark evokes confidence and pride in the family name while details such as the letterform’s undulating weight and the subtle curve in the letter R leg suggest an air of sophistication. The new modern rose reflects the company’s optimism and warmth. Marvin’s redefined tone of voice expresses the company’s humanity. We implemented these changes throughout the employee and customer experiences to inspire and energize key audiences.

Successful branding efforts begin with building internal advocacy. Our goal was to drive engagement across departments, locations and the dealer network. Our greatest challenge was gaining support from groups historically resistant to change (e.g. sales, HR, channel partners).

We conducted training across 13 office and manufacturing locations to 5,500+ employees, plus a network of 2,200+ dealer partners. The response was overwhelmingly positive. Attendance, participation and satisfaction levels reached record highs. For the first time, sales and distribution leadership attendance was 100%––with zero negative responses. HR enthusiastically incorporated new branding materials into recruiting, on-boarding and training materials.

Coupled with the updated brand strategy, Marvin’s refreshed identity and expression positions the company to broaden its product offerings to drive growth today and into the future. We’ve applied the new design system across an extensive range of key brand experiences, touchpoints including website, collateral, employee communications, workplace environments, freight graphics, TV, print and digital marketing campaigns, and more. The new identity and expression reflect the ambitions of Marvin’s new leadership and demonstrate that Marvin is a modern and design-driven company. And the intended consequences of this work are taking hold. Marvin is innovating and currently bringing to market its new Modern product line as well as two new category lines in 2020 that, prior to this work, would have been deemed impossible.