BKD

Turning strategies into action

BKD is a top 10 U.S. accounting and advisory firm with more than 2,000 professionals in 30 offices across 12 states. It sits astride two competitive markets: 1) The large national and global accounting firms, including the Big Four and 2) the strong regional and local firms in each of BKD’s major locales. The branding challenge includes awareness creation—amid lagging perceptions of the firm’s top tier emergence, locally and nationally—and preference creation; that is, crafting a brand message that differentiates BKD from its strong and savvy competitors.

The solution begins, ironically, with a more client-focused twist on “The BKD Experience,” a time-honored service manifesto deeply embedded in the culture. Flipped, it becomes a benefit, not a feature, and accommodates an expansive list of advantages clients get from BKD. Partners and managers, featured in up-close and personal photography, are the stars of the brand. Their inclusion responds to research that says clients value the relationships BKD delivers as much as the firm’s top-tier resources.

Complimentary icons combined with substantive, quantitative measures round out the brand tool kit and reinforce key selling points beyond the firm’s personal touch. They appear in firm collateral pieces, including a scannable overview brochure and several industry brochures—all printed on demand.

The iconography goes to an attention-earning next level in a series of firm print ads that can be tailored to local offices with local contacts. The idea is to make the firm-wide brand ads double as local awareness and relationship building tools. Imagine that!

A new firm folder houses brochures, pitch books and proposals, and puts the brand message on the marquee—front and center. Even the every day touch points get into the awareness building and differentiation act.