Intro

Delightful x Collaborative Effort

Client: Crystallised
Sector: B2B Arts, Culture and Heritage Marketing
Website: https://crystallised.co.uk/

The team at creative marketing and communications agency Crystallised, work with organisations that have a social conscience – and that make a social difference.

The company’s UK and international clients include arts and culture organisations, ethical retailers, local authorities and councils, charities, not-for-profit organisations, and heritage, travel and tourism organisations.

How we worked

• Tone of voice development
• Website copy development
• Manifesto creation

In 2019, Crystallised engaged North East-based creative agency Sail Creative, to rebrand the business after six successful trading years and with an ambition to grow further. The Sail Creative team works with clients to design for commercial and real-world impact.

The brief? For the rebrand to reflect Crystallised’s distinct ethos, as well as its growing and diverse client list – and showcase the team’s award-winning marketing and PR campaigns.
Working in close collaboration with both Laura Rothwell, founder of Crystallised, and Mandy Barker, founder of Sail, our role was to redevelop the company’s tone of voice – and to craft the messaging and copy for the new Crystallised website.

The brief also included a commission to write a team manifesto that would outline what Crystallised stands for as a business.

The Challenge

When any organisation diverts money from their front line to invest in marketing, the ambition is for that marketing campaign to work – and gain a solid and tangible return on investment.

This ambition is especially true when the organisation in question is a charity and it became clear, through working with Laura and the team, that this is a responsibility that Crystallised takes with respect and gravity.

The outcome of our project, then, needed to demonstrate the bold, innovative and thoughtful approach that Crystallised takes in response to their clients’ investment in them. Both as a force for good – and as a marketing agency that delivers tangible results.

The Response

We started by asking questions and facilitating a workshop, using Nick Parker’s Voicebox kit. This helped up start to pull together the emerging core themes, words and statements that would result in a clear tone of voice for Crystallised.

It also kicked off a series of conversations, discussions, and dissections as, between the three organisations, we batted around new thoughts, ideas and suggestions.

Laura defined Crystallised’s brand purpose as, ‘Getting culture out of institutions and into the hearts and souls of humans.’ And from that moment, everything came together.

Using the workshop findings and brand purpose, we developed the tone of voice that forms the foundation of the Crystallised website copy.
This collective momentum between the three businesses gathered energy and speed until, right at the finish line, Laura – a creative copywriter in her own right – added a spark of genius to the draft website copy. And to the manifesto, which now sits on the company’s website.

The Results

The result is a website that celebrates Crystallised’s approach to their work – and their fierce respect for their clients. It demonstrates the strength of feeling Laura and the team have for the people they work with – and the projects they undertake. Most of all, it represents a company that champions women and holds feminism and equality at the heart of all that it does.

The tone of voice workshop really helped to clarify what Crystallised stood for, how we could put these values into words, and helped us define the way that we write copy. I feel more confident speaking on behalf of Crystallised after participating in the workshop, and we now have a set of guidelines which will help our new employees to represent Crystallised also.

Lauren Watson, Account Manager | Crystallised

It’s uncomfortable trusting anyone with your business. The decision to rebrand – and tone of voice is a huge part of that – requires you put your trust entirely in the team that you choose to deliver, otherwise you’re getting in your own way and you will waste money.

The work we did with Katherine delivered everything you would expect and more in terms of outputs (tone of voice, website copy and so on) and developing an understanding of the importance this work as part of your brand; but more than that, it was the care with which we were guided through the process.

Katherine is a warm, consummate professional who very quickly gets under the skin of your business to understand exactly how she can best represent it in words. At no point did this ever feel like we were “creating a tone of voice”, it felt as though we had a series of enjoyable conversations (with biscuits) that then through Katherine’s expertise became the embodiment of our organisation. That’s why we chose to work with Katherine, because lots of people can write copy, but no-one does it like Katherine.

Laura Rothwell, Founder and Managing Director | Crystallised