From destination to partner brand

15 August 2019

An ancient street market and a startup innovation platform might seem poles apart but #strategiccreativity solves any brand challenge.

Petticoat Lane – branding a London icon

What constitutes iconic status? We found out during our 6-week research phase for branding Petticoat Lane Market.

We all knew the name but few of us had ever been there. One of London’s oldest recorded markets, Petticoat Lane has been in the East End since the 1600s and sits between Liverpool Street and Aldgate East.

A veritable melting pot of cultures and people it’s been home to Huguenot weavers, lacemakers, Jewish tailors, seamstresses and more recently, Bangladeshi and African fabric sellers.

Losing its chutzpah during the 1980 and 90s due to the power and variety of cheap fashion retailers and the inevitable advance of online, it’s now fighting back.

The City of London Corporation and Tower Hamlets are working together on a redevelopment plan to improve the area with visitor-friendly amenities and an enhanced market offering.

Our workshops with locals, traders and businesses gave us rich insight to a destination brand that needed to celebrate the past while being entirely contemporary – and definitely not gentrified! It’ll be gradually rolled out over the next year…so watch this space.

adidas – designing their partner brand

adidas decided they needed collaboration with startups to fuel faster growth. It would have the added advantage of building a more entrepreneurial culture and an inspiration for the whole group. 

We worked with corporate innovation specialists Co:cubed and the adidas team to help deliver the new partner brand, Base X. Our role involved naming, brand identity and launch communications to bring the idea to life.

A surprise Base X takeover at adidas HQ was staged to kick off the new innovation strategy starting with a competition to submit briefs for startups to tackle.

adidas are now on an exciting journey to scale new ideas.