REPHIKE - Find your people

RepHike was a young company, based in Buffalo, NY, that helped brands find their ideal micro-influencers and manage campaign collaborations. The world of online micro-influencers is a new one, but already the market is saturated with many players who look and sound the same. We immersed ourselves in the sector and carved out a unique, relevant and authentic personality for RepHike - one that stands head and shoulders above the crowd.

SERVICES:
• Brand strategy
• Visual identity
• Website (direction)
• Investor deck (direction)
• Print (direction)

The more we studied the competition and learned about micro-influencers, the more we were able to get under the skin of what the project was really about. The competition is characterised by vibrant colours, technical marketing jargon, a fixation on data & tech, digital illustration and generic digital fonts. They look, feel and sound very similar. Everyone talks about these so-called micro-influencers as if they were just data points for the brand's bottom line. 

These observations gave us clear direction. Unlike the competition, the RepHike brand identity would be characterised by a natural colour palette, plain speaking, a focus on real people, photography and fonts with humanity & personality. The new brand message find your people became the prominent piece of communication, with the name RepHike taking a back seat. Whenever possible we avoid the word micro-influencer, talking instead about people or creators.

Though the identity is primarily about people, the company name needed to remain RepHike. The logo needed a refresh that worked alongside everything else, without overshadowing the photography or the find your people message. It needed to be relevant and minimal. An R for RepHike merged seamlessly with a speech bubble form gave us a simple & elegant logo that references conversation, doesn't try too hard, and ties neatly into the logo typeface. 

In contrast, the old logo featured vibrant colors and gradients (which already forced it into a bucket with the competition), and a shape that was needlessly convoluted and irrelevant. The typeface had an uncomfortable mix of rounded and sharp edges, which we cleaned up with a simple, contemporary sans-serif. 

Before:

LINKS:

Marketing Communication News

Upstart NY

Under Consideration

Logo Designer

REPHIKE UPDATE SEP 2023: the new brand design and direction was very well received, so much so that it was acquired soon after relaunch by the parent company of Tap Root Fields CBD.