Seeding Opportunity: Branding Deloitte’s Emerging Market Group
The branding of Deloitte’s Emerging Market Opportunities (EMO) group was an independent project I completed through my studio, Steuerhaus. The objective was to create a distinct yet flexible brand for EMO, reflecting Deloitte’s established identity while being adaptable for each emerging technology initiative. This brand captured EMO’s purpose of developing new market opportunities and releasing them into the world as independent ventures when ready.
Objectives
Brand Flexibility: Create a system allowing each EMO team to have a distinct identity, with unique color schemes for each technology focus (like 5G), within Deloitte’s established palette.
Cohesion with Deloitte’s Brand: Integrate Deloitte’s core design language while infusing a dynamic, forward-looking approach that reflects EMO’s mission.
Scalability: Design a brand structure that could easily adapt as new technology opportunities arise, such as a potential 6G team.
Process
Research and Discovery: To start, I led key stakeholders through a full-day brand workshop to unpack their needs as a collective. Through structured exercises, we worked through EMO’s challenges and ambitions, which provided invaluable insights into their core values and mission. This collaborative approach ensured that the final brand identity would fully resonate with the team’s objectives.
Brand Strategy Development: Defined the messaging and values that would guide the brand, emphasizing adaptability and growth, which became the backbone of the design.
Symbol Selection – The Dandelion: In capturing EMO’s essence, we chose the dandelion as the brand’s symbol. The dandelion embodies resilience, growth, and the natural process of developing opportunities and releasing them into the world, much like its seeds disperse on the wind to thrive independently. This metaphor captured EMO’s mission of nurturing new ventures that grow and make an impact in emerging markets.
Design Execution: Created a modular identity incorporating the dandelion motif across EMO materials. Each EMO team received a unique color scheme within Deloitte’s palette, representing each technology focus. The dandelion seeds became a versatile visual element, symbolizing each team’s potential to make a distinct impact.
Implementation: Rolled out the brand across digital and print materials, with a focus on adaptability, ensuring that as new technologies emerged or teams spun off, the brand could be reconfigured smoothly.
Outcomes
Brand Adaptability: The modular system allowed each EMO team to establish its own unique identity, facilitating effortless reconfiguration for new technology initiatives.
Enhanced Recognition: The refreshed, symbolic brand increased EMO’s visibility and appeal within Deloitte and among clients in technology sectors.
Seamless Spin-Offs: The adaptable brand framework supported each EMO team in transitioning to standalone brands when spun off, with each team ready to support the next technological wave.
This project, executed independently through Steuerhaus, achieved a flexible, scalable, and symbolic brand solution for Deloitte’s EMO initiative. The collaborative workshop, dandelion metaphor, and modular identity system underscored EMO’s mission to nurture emerging technologies and release them into the world, ready to take root and thrive.
