The situation

As a firm filled with management psychologists specialized in assessment and CEO succession planning, Kilberry helps leaders make decisions about people, directly impacting the business outcomes of some of the largest companies today. They aid executives in navigating large-scale leadership issues, and provide novel and experienced perspectives on how executives can create organizational continuity throughout their company’s history.

Kilberry is lesser known than bigger firms and in comparison, smaller in size. However, it is in their size that they are able to curate and refine a specialized approach. They needed a differentiated and cohesive USP highlighting and leveraging their unique abilities and the way in which they have established and built trusted relationships over the last decade, and how they are now positioned to do the same over the next one.

Most unique propositions have the frustrating quality of being simple to state and difficult to demonstrate. In order to communicate something complex yet significant, we needed to understand what sat behind Kilberry’s success thus far, and how we could help communicate this without confusing the listener. 

Being small by design means Kilberry can provide the intimacy required to build authentic relationships. Their PhD laden team provides insight into how top level executives will lead, and Kilberry’s top of house experience allows them to know that business outcomes are determined by decisions about people.

Above all else, Kilberry is concerned with the outcome of every conversation. In these large scale, multi-stakeholder, multi-billion dollar decisions, there is one thing above all else required to make a decision, and that something is the sense of certainty.

Toward a more certain future.

The solution for Kilberry was to get C-Suite executives who feel uncertain about their future businesses and effectiveness as leaders to pursue Kilberry's offering. The way we would do this is by positioning Kilberry as the Executive Advisory Firm focused on providing the most authentic, insightful and experienced advice, facilitating certainty surrounding some of the world's most important business decisions.

With the concepts of certainty and assuredness being so central to the brand, the messaging needed to reflect this. The brand language influenced the visual system by reflecting a sense of certainty through the use of delicate lines. They symbolize a journey and connect to the story of Kilberry working intimately, one on one with their clientele, and the dark and rich colour palette further amplifies Kilberry’s executive approach.

The K logomark was constructed in a way to visually represent Kilberry’s commitment to moving with and guiding clients towards certainty. The two legs of the K appear to come from within the center point and act as a visual path outward and forward.

With a brand based on the concept of certainty and assuredness, we needed to ensure that Kilberry’s technology can continuously deliver on that promise, day in and day out. Positioned as they are, a breakdown in technology would devastate the brand equity. 

It is for this reason that we built a custom headless website. We not only needed a website to communicate the Kilberry brand instantaneously, but we needed a completely custom, foundational piece of technology to ready the company for the scale they are anticipating over the next three years.