Gelato (Italian pronunciation: [dʒeˈlaːto]) is the italian word for ice cream.

It has been a common sight of the many stores and pushcarts here in Singapore popping up with this catchy keyword. However it only gets authentic when operated by a true blood Italian with traditional storage methods for the freshest serving.

Edifice is proud to be appointed by Alfero to built her corporate website: www.alferogelato.com where we applied a black theme to the entire site to accentuate the delicious quality shots of the Gelato.

In Italy, it is also a common practice to have the menu hung outside the restaurant and often written over the chalk board.

Hence the usage of the fonts in handwriting was used which fits aptly into the black background as it present itself like the chalk board.

The tagline, “Even the god fathers love it” also suggest a more cheeky inclination. So any corporate feel was avoided.

Personally my favorite is Bacio and had lost count on the number of cups that i have swallowed.

If you happen to be around town, you might want to consider popping by Marina Square and check out the Authentic Gelato.

A promise that you will experience  is when you sink the first spoon into your mouth, you will notice how intensively the flavor would have melt and surround your taste buds.

Some insights:
The owner, Marco takes his Gelato business very seriously as he invites us for a Gelato tasting even before his store is open in Marina Square. Tailored and tweak the strength and even change the flavor if it’s not popular.

Everyone’s eagerly waiting for their turn…

Hey, don’t cut my queue!

Big Cup in Black

The small cup in white

And here’s my tasting review and all the flavors!

Web Technology:
HTML & Javascript
Compatible with iPhone, iPad and mobile devices

Every brand has a message. That message can be communicated in a number of ways, and one of the most crucial tools in your brand messaging toolkit is one of the most simple.

Storytelling.

Don’t you just love a good story? Well everyone does. And similarly for your business, it is essential that you have a brand story. The story and meaning of a brand is its most valuable and irreplaceable asset. Stories capture our imaginations, intrigue and engage us. And more importantly, having a brand story greatly helps customers in remembering your brand.

We are hard-wired, as a species, to connect to stories. That is why some of the most effective teachers throughout history were master storytellers. We’ll quickly forget carefully-crafted statements, and even the most profound principles, but we’ll remember a compelling story, sometimes for decades. And even pass it down for generations.

Let us take the popular cosmetic brand SK II as an example, they talk about how a scientist visited a sake brewery and noticed how an old lady’s hands were soft and youthful. He held multiple tests and eventually discovered that the secret lay in an all-natural yeast derivative, which they call Pitera®. Positioning Pitera® as the secret ingredient that is present in all SK II products, the brand has emerged as market leaders in many countries worldwide.

At Edifice, we believe every brand, large or small, has the potential to tell a unique and captivating story. If you had to tell your story for your business, what would it be? Would it have the right balance of fantasy, whimsy and fact? To assist you in creating your brand story, here are some pointers:

Ask Yourself Questions
How did your business come into existence? What was the process that led to its launch? Why do you now do what you do? What client need opened the door to a whole new venture that evolved into your brand? What made your brand survive over the years, when others faded?

Be authentic
Anyone can make up a story, but the customer’s innate sense of authenticity is what transforms a story into a brand message. Spend a good deal of time looking back at your history and personal values in determining why you’re even in the business you’re in. What’s your passion, and how can you tell customers about it?

Be consistent
It’s not enough just to tell a story; you must live it everyday through everything you do. From message to delivery to customer service, every element of your company has to align with your story.
There’s a lot of noise in the marketplace, and it’s hard to get your voice heard – and remembered. Do yourself a favor – spend some time rehearsing your story, finding what is compelling and interesting, and then weave it into your messaging to your customers.

SYY Group is one of the leading Aesthetic Medical practices in Singapore. SYY has 6 clinics setup island wide to provide convenience for her patients.

Edifice was appointed to build her eCommerce system which allows her patients to purchase or replenished their cosmetic and medical (non-prescriptive) supplies conveniently over the internet.

After a strategic review (consideration based on SYY’s customer’s familiarity and local brand awareness), SYY’ decided to go with eNets as her official payment gateway for her online store.

Till date, SYY enjoyed an additional stream of income from her online store and at the same time created convenience to her patients who are both within and outside of Singapore.

View Online Store: www.syy.com/store

Target Audience:
Aesthetic Medical Patients

Web Technology:
PHP & MySQL

3M Singapore is a wholly owned subsidiary of 3M Company.

Serving customers in more than 200 countries around the world, 3M Company is a highly diversified, multinational, technology corporation with operations in more than 60 countries. The company’s 67,000 people use their expertise, technologies and global strength to lead in major markets: consumer and office, display and graphics, electro and telecommunications, safety, security and protection services, health care, and industrial and transportation.

3M has a long history of inventing many innovative and useful products that make people’s lives better. Besides satisfying its customers with superior quality, value and service, 3M is also about contributing towards a better social and economic environment for the public.

3M’s leading brands of products in the worldwide markets include 3M™, Scotch®, Post-it®, Scotch-Brite®, and Command™.

Edifice was appointed by 3M Singapore for her press ad in Today (local newspaper). The press ad needs to communicate and raise awareness of her fair in Giant Tampines and Giant IMM.

Having an array of brands and a myriad of products to showcase, it was challenging to fit every item into the ad without looking like another cluttered, ‘directory listing’ type of message.

Edifice’s approach was to inject an emotional feel into the deliverables. At the topmost portion of the ad was a cottage’s roof that was drawn to symbolize that 3M is a household brand and secondly to draw the relevance that 3M’s products are used mostly within the consumers’ family.

There are several announcement to be made on the advertisement and instead of huge fonts and strong texts to elaborate those points, an illustration of the Post-it notes was being pasted on the bulletin board (see left top portion of ad) displaying Post-it’s notes’ actual application.

Subsequently, Edifice was also appointed for other creative developments,
For example: See Christmas Print Ad with Cold Storage below:

The Bathroom Gallery is the sole distributor for various European designer sanitary wares.

Her target audiences are interior designers, architects and property developers who seek the finer details in their home design and not forgetting the end consumers who are willing to pamper their hard day work in the luxurious bathroom.

The Bathroom Gallery’s initial website was developed in 2002 and was hence, outdated.

Edifice was appointed to revamp the site. One of the main challenges was to include the highly regarded 300 products (out of the 1000+) on her new site. Bearing in mind that the site was to be coded in Flash, Edifice also had to prepare the site to be easily updatable as the product catalog is expected to change occasionally. The site were therefore programmed in dynamic flash.

As the products are extensive, the layout and product arrangement are vital. Hence Edifice decided to prepare the wire-frame to obtain the approval before proceeding further.

Besides the technical concern, Edifice also paid careful attention to bring out The Bathroom Gallery’s brand identity where it was done to portrays the high life, designer brand.

Lastly, flash animation was applied on the entire site.

Web Technology:
Flash & XML

Website:
www.wantai.com

The Singapore Heart Foundation (SHF) is a non-profit charitable organization which positions much emphasis on the battle against heart disease in Singapore. It reputability makes it well-known locally and internationally. Based on its vision, which was to be a leading heart health movement in the region and a household name in Singapore though educating and motivating the public in generating awareness of heart disease in Singapore. We saw the vision as something extraordinary and scaled as a powerful message in which could be disseminated wholly through the proper mediums available.

The initial task was to rejuvenate the existing website and the other technical challenge was to include a self manageable module for SHF’s administrator to update the website’s content as and when they require.

It was challenging because when technical programming enters the development, aesthetic design will need to be compromised as it will not designing on a ‘free play’ platform any more.

Before we embark on the above, research was done on the organization where we reference the other heart organization in other parts of the world together with the reference site provide by the client. By combining the different elements and adhering to the branding guidelines, the initial mock up was gladly accepted and shortly, fully developed.

And we have included some screenshots to show some of the more commonly used functions for a self manageable website.

Screenshot of the administrator editing one of the content  page on the website (Notice that the interface and it’s tools like Bold and Italic that makes the whole back-end looks like a MS Word making edit works a breeze). It also includes features like, Uploading/Inserting of Image to your webpage.

After the site has went live, Singapore Heart Foundation and her team has been maintaining her website on her own on a frequent and timely basis, providing tips and informative information to the public.

Visit Singapore Heart Foundation at: www.myheart.org.sg

Web technology: Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Flash, PHP & MySQL

Garibaldi is one of Singapore’s most popular and respected Italian restaurant landmarks.

Located along the trendy Purvis Street, Garibaldi provides a fine example of a stylish Italian eatery – modern, elegant yet friendly and dynamic. Distinguished for its fascinating character and strong identity, the atmosphere in the main dining area is always stylish without being stuffy.

Garibaldi Pte Ltd is managed by the Garibaldi Group of Restaurants (GGR). Edifice was appointed to revamp her corporate website which was last developed in 2006.

Before the revamp, all 4 restaurants were parked on the same domain name and shared the same layout of the website.

After the revamp (www.garibaldi.com.sg),

One of the significant strategies proposed by Edifice was for Garibaldi to adopt the ‘brand portfolio’ strategy for her web presence where every restaurant was given:

1. A distinctive color scheme
2. A series of detailed and exquisite Victorian age ornaments that are sprinkled sparingly and carefully throughout the sites
3. Unique domain name to differentiate themselves.

Hence, creating a clearer brand recall impression for the customers to who visited their restaurant.

See also, Menotti and Ricciotti below.

www.menotti.com.sg

www.ricciotti.com.sg

The reason for the Victorian age ornaments as decorative items brings us back to our research on the history where Garibaldi, Ricciotti and Menotti are all historical figures of Italy.

Mood board and development process for Menotti:

Mood board and development process for Ricciotti:

After establishing the differentiation, a common point of similarity was maintained to reflect the restaurants were under the same group by using the gradient of black.

Hence when the patron visit the site individually, the brand stands out distinctively and when it’s an evangelist customer of the Group who visited all the other restaurants before, will be able to see the artistic relationship.

Web Technology:
HTML, Flash & PHP

Subtle flash animation was applied to elevate the elegant feel of the site while HTML were applied on the menu and promotion’s page where weekly updates were expected for the ease of maintenance (instead of embedding it in Flash or using the unfriendly approach of having to download the PDF menu).

Conclusion:
This case study illustrates Edifice’s approach to a brand portfolio scenario, by applying a clear idenity to the respective restaurant and yet able to tie the different brand’s close relationship together using a common element.

Average Outlier’s armed with the belief of bringing good designs to raise the standard of living in China and beautifying the world, has decided to gather a team of Designers to join their team. At the same time giving opportunities to the designers a stage to showcase their craft.

To display the level of creativity that Average Outlier has and her goal to build a team of top tier product designers, Edifice’s approach on this task would be to give her site a unique identity by combining both Life Objects and Illustrations to break away from the usual visual treatment where websites are built with the standard layout and photographs.

To make it more interesting, animation with interactivity was added into the Flash based website.

Below shows some of the backend scene when building the site.

A black designer label sketch book, stamps, old train ticket, bookmark, peacock feather were used as props.

Each scene was captured by a digital camera and later animated by sequencing them in motion.

After the flipping motion has been established, illustration was drawn (and approved) before being animated.

Enjoy the eye candy at www.averageoutlier.com

Target Audience:
Designers & Product Designers.

Web Technology:
HTML, Flash & PHP

Most small businesses can’t afford to invest thousands of dollars in advertising and promotion every week. They have to rely on making the greatest possible impact with a small budget. The starting point for many of them is a well-thought-out positioning statement that captures the essence of the company and then gets translated into a meaningful and memorable tagline.

The easiest way of getting into someone’s mind is to be first. It is very easy to remember who is first, and much more difficult to remember who is second. Even if the second entrant offers a better product, the first mover has a large advantage that can make up for other shortcomings.

However, all is not lost for products that are not the first. By being the first to claim a unique position in the mind the consumer, a firm can still effectively stand out from its competitors. For example, when Starhub entered the telecommunications industry in Singapore, it was the first firm to offer free incoming calls. Prices aside, it offered a unique proposition that was not seen in the marketplace before, and this enabled it to quickly gain market share in the ever competitive telecommunications industry.

Most businesses usually make the mistake of trying to be everything to a consumer. They presume that by following this method, they would appeal to everyone. However nobody likes a jack of all trades, they prefer products that are masters in their own areas. Not forgetting that consumers are bombarded by a myriad of marketing material everyday, there is no way that they will remember your brand unless it stands out in a unique way.

It is important to understand your product from the consumer point of view relative to the competition. In order to begin positioning a product, two questions need to be answered:

1. What is our marketing environment?
2. What is our competitive advantage?

The marketing environment is the external environment. Some things to consider:

• How is the market now satisfying the need your product/service satisfies?
• What are the switching costs for potential consumers for your market?
• What are the positions of the competition?

The competitive advantage is an internal question. What do you have that gives you advantage over your competitors. Some things to consider:

• Is your company small and flexibility?
• Do you offer low cost and high quality?
• Does your product offer unique benefits?
• Are you the first on the market with this product (First mover advantage)?

To help you get started in a systematic manner, here are seven positioning strategies that can be pursued. Run through them and see how you can effectively positioning your business in the market.

Product/Service Attributes: What are the specific products/services attributes?

Benefits: What are the main benefits to the customers?

Usage Occasions: When / how can the product be used?

Users: Identify a class of users.

Against a Competitor: Positioned directly against a competitor.

Away from a Competitor: Positioned away from competitor.

Product Classes: Compared to different classes of products.

Selecting an appropriate name for your business is without doubt one of the most difficult tasks. Making that final decision is a lofty goal, as it is the chosen name that takes you out to your clients and consumers.

So what makes a winning brand name?

A name that requires no introduction, no explanation and very little advertising to give it clout.

A great brand name is one of the most powerful forces in branding, marketing and advertising. It is at once the story about what makes you different from your competitors and the emotional tug that connects you with your audience—all in one or a few words.

A brand name is a trigger. For example, if I mention the name ‘Ya Kun’ I trigger your memories, experiences and perceptions of that brand. Or if I mention the name “NKF”, it would also trigger off different memories and perceptions. At the end of the day, you want your brand name to trigger off positive vibes to your customers.

“ A good brand name can save millions of dollars over the product’s life because it carries its own meaning, describes the product’s advantages, is instantly recognized and services to differentiate the product significantly from competition. “ ~ Stern,(1983)

To help you get started, here are a few brand name strategies:

• The shorter the name, the better. Example: Apple, Osim.
• Keep the name simple. Use fewer letters of the alphabet by repeating letters. Example: Google.
• Be suggestive of the category. Example: PlayStation.
• Use alliteration (the recurrence of the same letter and sound in accented parts of words). Example: Volvo, Kodak. Note: a repeated sound is more effective and memorable than repeated letters.
• Be easy to say and read (spoken as spelled). Test: do you have to spell the name over the phone?
• Be shocking! Examples: Yahoo, Virgin.
• Avoid negative connotations. People often associate inappropriate ideas and things with names. Do market research to make sure that there are no negative connotations with your name. An English word might mean something different in another country in its own language, consider this if you are planning of expanding overseas.
• Use a name, not an acronym (a word formed from the initial letters of a name). “Names” are 60% more memorable than an acronym. Comments from a recent survey on acronyms: “I do not like names with abbreviations in them. I prefer the name written out, rather than an acronym. I like names that are not abbreviated. They are simpler to understand.”

Brand names are so important, that is too important to leave to already overworked brains of a few employees, tossing around ideas at lunch or entering a contest, as many companies like to approach naming. Those people simply don’t have enough time to take into account the many things that must be considered when developing a brand name, such as: comprehension, memorability, ease of pronunciation, negative and positive associations, competitors, trademarks and domain name possibilities.

These are just a few reasons smart companies that need a brand name turn to branding professionals for guidance.

Alternatively, you can have a try with the online program at http://www.whatbrandareyou.com that generates brand names.