Inchcape

The challenge

Inchcape is the world’s leading independent automotive distributor. Operating in nearly 40 markets, Inchcape manages the lifecycle of vehicles from launch to aftersales, partnering with mobility companies to build stronger brands.

Historically, a relationship-centric approach has allowed the Inchcape brand to sit alongside some of the world’s leading volume automotive manufacturers as well as prestigious brands.

Having worked as brand guardians for the company for almost 20 years, we’ve developed a deep understanding of Inchcape’s distribution model and their brand partnerships.

Inchcape’s offer has grown and diversified over the years through a series of global acquisitions and, as a result, the brand portfolio was inconsistent and unaligned across the regions.

Our brief was to help Inchcape transition to a consistent and strong brand look that could work in both digital and dealership environments across the globe.

One of the key objectives was to find a simple approach that could work in all markets and would be future-proof for acquisitions.

Our approach

We needed to move away from a fragmented and complex brand environment.

We took the core brand elements we had developed for Inchcape’s digital brand and applied them across the full spectrum of the business. We positioned the revised Orb at the centre of Inchcape’s universe to leverage the power, simplicity and efficiency of a united brand image.

The Orb

A transition to the flat Orb provided clarity and stability, aligning with the move towards simplicity that most of Inchcape’s partners had already embraced.

The word mark

We replaced the capital ‘I’ with a lowercase ‘i’ to improve legibility for a global audience, making it less likely be read as an ‘L’.

The results

A fully-aligned brand universe that is being implemented globally. Creating a series of distinctive brand assets is helping to cement the core Inchcape brand for customers as well as colleagues.