Case ― ARK56 Branding

In the autumn of 2017 we started working with something completely new, something that hadn’t existed previously. The region of Blekinge in south-east Sweden should establish itself within the area of “sustainable outdoor tourism” – an initiative that went under the name “Blekinge archipelago route”. 

Think Kungsleden, think Skåneleden. And yet so very different as you as a visitor should be able to cycle, paddle and in other ways make your way through the landscape. Milou’s brief was to create brand platform including vision, mission, values, name, logotype, graphic profile, tonality and imagery – an extremely exciting and challenging responsibility.

Right away we started working with all the existing material and data, trying to analyze and come to conclusions based on the pre-data that our customer had been working on the past year or so. And quite soon we noticed that the viewpoints of the many parties, municipalities / tourism stakeholders / regional organizations / county government, added an extra dimension of complexity. Early on in our work, we also came to the conclusion that packaging and communication in the same style as other “trail-brands” in Sweden are doing it, would not be the right way forward for this initiative. Not saying their way of communicating is bad in any way – but rather that our ambition and direction was to focus our efforts in becoming an internationally renowned player. That what we were about to create, should be a travel reason even if you came from the UK or Denmark – an experience worth traveling far for. But also one that attracted and was suitable for a family just looking to get out into the nature on any given Sunday.

Furthermore, our work took great consideration in the impressions and reasonings that came from conversations and meetings with the client, steering committee and an extended operative group consisting of tourism industry players, all with some sort of business in or around the trails. This was an important part of the process as it helped us create a gross list of comments, thoughts and ideas from the same people that further down the road would work actively in what we were about to create. It simply gave us a fantastic foundation to later base our work on in our work with creating this new brand.

Bit by bit, a number of conclusions were crystalized – the name should be available to an international audience, we should work with powerful functional and emotional positions, the profile should be timeless yet up-to-date and our imagery grandiose and emotional. We felt we were well on our way to create an ambitious player within the outdoor and experience industry. The fact that the trails also run through a UNESCO biosphere reserve, added the formal empowerment that weighed in our favor – we are truly global and we’re not excusing ourselves.

In April 2018 we then delivered a final product. ARK56 was born – with no lesser ambition than to become a recognized player within this oh so exciting segment. ARK56 offers connected coastal trails in a UNESCO biosphere reserve – something no-one before had been able to offer. With the response and feedback we’ve received when presenting this new brand – naming, imagery, tonality, selling points and so on – we are completely comfortable in saying that ARK56 is a player with great opportunity in successfully reach a global audience as well as Blekinge natives.