The Swedish education system consists of day care centres, preschools, school childcare services, compulsory schools, upper secondary schools and adult education programmes. Instruction and teaching methods are regulated by the Government and Parliament at a national level, by municipalities and other authorities locally, and by the schools themselves at institutional level.

When the Education Department was founded, the idea that privately controlled institutions might offer contributions to the education system seemed contrary to the spirit of the era but in recent years this idea has gained wider currency. Today, they face competition from private alternatives in many of the areas they operate in.

Bulldog was hired to emphasize the importance of intelligent choice over efficient central control via this symposium with the department’s staff. You can hear a short audio clip from the event below.

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Would you like us to speak at your event, conduct in-house brand training for your organisation, a workshop for your clients or serve on a panel? Contact Bulldog at info(at)virtualbulldog.com

Related works:

1. Commemorative launch materials for the opening of the Calleja stores

We were completely shocked when we heard. In a field that includes some of the industry’s top firms, including Meta Design, Interbrand, FutureBrand, Siegel+Gale and Lippincott, we had to read the notification several times before we realize that we had won ‘Best of Awards’. Both Jonas and I were thrilled with the end product and so pleased the Rebrand 100 judges felt the same way.

Emphasis was on executed strategy that made an emotional connection, and met the stated objectives and needs of the identified customers and prospects. Jurors were unaware of the brand strategists’ name and size when reviewing the projects. Consequently, a small consulting firm had as much opportunity to be selected as did global organizations with exponentially greater budgets.

“There’s been some great work over the past months, and it wasn’t an easy task to shortlist the showcase projects,” said Sajag Patel, Managing Director and Principal Creative, Breathe Branding in United Arab Emirates and 2011 juror. To select winners, a new, international panel of multidisciplinary experts convenes yearly to review the best of the submissions. They consider “before” and “after” representations of brand transformations with written summaries.

Over 32 industries and 34 countries are represented among the 2011 winners. They ranged from the passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) to luxury car brand, Audi, the United States Mint, BPost and of course, Calleja.

Some 2011 jurors included Marty Neumeier, Director of Transformation, Liquid Agency and author of Zag and The Designful Company; Fred Gelli, Creative Director and Partner, Tátil Design de Ideias in Brazil; Janelle James, Vice President, Account Director, Leo Burnett Worldwide; Chris Butler, Vice President, Newfangled; and Inese Silina of Nike Golf Global Brand Design.

See the 2011 REBRAND 100 Global Awards, winners showcase here

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This is a video interview with Maltese design magazine RedWhiteMT about Bulldog and our participation in the 2011 REBRAND 100 Global Awards.

Related works:

1. New environmental graphics for Calleja’s lighting store entrance
2. Commemorative launch materials for the opening of the Calleja stores

Bulldog’s remit was to help create a new brand positioning, architecture and communication messages that would allow E. Calleja & Sons to redefine themselves as a more contemporary, unified brand.

The project began with research to identify key customer groups and the most powerful benefit for Calleja to own. Following workshops with top management, we gained a consensus on key elements of  a new brand design, including: target customers, essence, promise, personality and a new graphic identity. These were documented in a publication designed to help people both inside and outside the company understand the intent, spirit and expression of the new brand.

They were also used to drive the company’s marketing effort, products, services and human resources – ensuring consistency at every point of contact made with consumers.

This initiative represents more than just an exercise in aesthetics, it is an evolution of Calleja’s relationship with their customers. Over the years, those who chose them as their preferred electrical supplier did so, more because of interest in a given product rather than the brand.

Calleja hopes to correct this shortcoming over the next 2 years through a multi-faceted, solutions-oriented approach, that makes: dedication, innovation and personal responsibility in their relationships as important as the products they sell.

The combination of a complete branding system that encompasses Calleja’s corporate identity and how this is expressed in its many applications, represents a radical change to the legacy of the old brand. Intial marketing messages will seek to reassure loyal customers that they remain committed to the values that have contributed to an 85 year success story.

Wary of the risk of confusing existing customers with the brand transfer, for the next year, all major communications will carry a strapline advising that Calleja was formerly known as E. Calleja & Sons.

The rebirth of  Calleja’s retail showroom embodies the new brand promise in every aspect – from the ‘look and feel’ to the way customers move through the space. Bulldog created environmental graphics that compliment the great work done by Italian firm: Ideainterni, who were responsible for designing, engineering and implementing the striking interiors.

Circuit diagram influenced graphics provide a seemingly endless source of inspiration for collateral and point of sale material.

Armed with a new sense of purpose brought about by the rebranding exercise, Calleja are looking forward to the challenge of protecting and extending their legacy for many years to come.

www.calleja.com.mt

Related works:

1. Commemorative launch materials for the opening of the Calleja stores
2. New environmental graphics for Calleja’s lighting store entrance

In 2006, Europlay was awarded Class A and C licenses allowing it to operate a fully integrated gambling system. Bulldog was hired to develop a strategic brand platform that would align with the company’s business strategy, ensure differentiation in a highly competitive market and inspire investors to recognise the potential value of Europlay’s offering by becoming stakeholders.

Our first objective was to define what makes Europlay special and different in the competitive context of the igaming industry. We found that a key issue which prevents more people from participating in gambling as a pastime is that it is still seen as an activity that is a socially unacceptable. Much of this is down to the well publicised consequences of problem gambling.

Paradoxically, a common thread amongst a diverse demographic of people that strenuously claimed NOT to gamble is that many of them, regularly purchased lottery tickets or scratch cards. Inspired by this insight, we crafted a new brand aimed at people who like to play money games but who don’t consider themselves gamblers.

If this does not sound very original, given the gaming industry’s current obsession with appearing socially responsible, consider this; all major gaming websites, under the guise of social responsibility, allow players to set their own limit in respect of how much they can lose. Isn’t that like asking an alcoholic to decide when he/she has had enough to drink?

We saw this as a case of reach outstripping grasp and with low stakes, high involvement games, strict measures to ensure responsible participation and game themes that reflect emerging consumer attitudes to everyday life situations affected by politics, fashion, popular culture etc – the Mowjow brand was born.

In order to explain Mowjow’s intent, spirit and expression to potential investors, the brand kernel was outlined in a manual that included: audience insight, industry niche, competitors, vision, business objectives and key offerings. The manual also contained a comprehensive identity – defining: key messages, symbolic expressions, architecture and standards to ensure consistent application.

Bulldog also designed Mowjow’s first mobile phone game: “Seduction Lottery”. This is a downloadable Java application that works on the majority of current mobile phones. Built around a dating theme, Seduction Lottery adds role play, escapism and greater involvement to the traditional lottery game experience. This is important because experiencing a lottery game on a mobile phone is not the same as physically participating. The main difference being, the length of time between the stake and the outcome. On a mobile phone, this is instant, making a more involved user experience imperative – especially when the player loses (even though the stake is very low). Seduction Lottery rewards players with a simple but highly enjoyable experience whether they win or lose.

That said, because of the risqué nature of the game theme, not everyone will like Seduction Lottery. It is designed to appeal to an 18 25 age group and reflects a world which they will recognise as what is around them. This is not to say that all 18-25 year olds should be stereotyped as belonging to a homogeneous ‘sex obsessed’ subculture. What it does say is that there are attitudes and feelings which this age group are likely recognise, and these have been used to develop a game theme that celebrates both commonalities and differences.

In any case, the technical architecture behind the game was designed in such a way as to allow the skinning of new themes on to the existing back end. This allows the creation of multiple games that target very different groups of people with relatively low development costs.

In order to inspire, inform and ultimately move potential investors to become stakeholders in the project, we also developed a short brand film about Mowjow and the Seduction Lottery game.

‘Cocaine Charlie’ is a character that did not make the final selection. As you can see, the early development visuals contained much more detail than the final versions. Along the way, we realised that the screen size on some phones (and resolution) was so small that this would be impossible to retain.

For more information, feel free to get in touch at info(at)virtualbulldog.com

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When giftware chain – Eyespy asked Bulldog to help with this problem, we suggested using an alternative approach. By combining different items into loosely related groups, housing them in this custom made package and selling them as stand alone sets, our client not only drastically reduced his excess stock but also turned a healthy profit.

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