Lyle & Scott
The Challenge
Combine our historic brand knowledge with independent expertise to attract new audiences to the brand.
Our Response
We used our dual role as insiders and outsiders to become an extension of the L&S team, and to focus more clearly on brand, audience, and messaging.
Long Story Short
All brands need to attract new audiences. Which is why they often need a bit of outside help to connect with younger, less traditional consumers. The heritage clothing brand Lyle & Scott (L&S) came to that conclusion after working with us for several years on retail design and fit-out.
So, we started to work more closely with L&S as brand partners to refine the messages and to codify every aspect of internal and external communications. We used our experience as insiders and outsiders to think about different demographic audiences and their brand perceptions. And then we codified those insights in a comprehensive branding toolkit that brought youthfulness and coherence to a thriving brand.
The Finer Details
Lyle & Scott (L&S) is a heritage clothing brand that teams quality with youthful street style. It’s been providing brilliant casual wear since 1874 and has built an eclectic fan base ranging from royals to rock stars.
Over the years we’ve worked on many L&S retailing projects from designing the flagship store in Edinburgh to supporting the brand’s retail expansion into Europe. As our relationship with L&S became more strategic, it was a logical step for the team to ask us to work with them as partners. L&S wanted us to help them reach out to new demographic audiences, and we wanted to do it in a way that would amplify some of the brand's hidden treasures and echo this through all aspects of branding and marketing communications.
The first task was to immerse ourselves even more deeply in the brand to tease out the core values and the history. At the same time we were able to act as an external filter to focus on the practical aspects of messaging and target audience. We had clarity because we were long-term brand insiders as well as dispassionate outside observers. Our thinking and insights were sharper because of those dual advantages of being inside and outside the brand.
To give consumers a clearer route into the heritage, we split the concept into three: Our Beginning, Our Eagle, and Our Brand. The eagle is a powerful emblem of the brand’s Scottish roots, while the high quality of the knitwear connects consumers with the craftsmanship on which the brand is built.
Once the fundamentals were in place, we codified the design elements in a branding toolkit that gave the brand a cooler, more youthful vibe. It covering everything from fonts to photography guidelines to internal templates. Nothing was left to chance: we helped develop a wide range of visual and graphical elements, including retail graphics, window campaigns, product labels and packaging, ecommerce, influencer seeding, mailers, internal seasonal presentations, and product presenters.
At the end of the process, L&S had all the materials, templates, and insights it needed to present the brand consistently, internally and externally, across all platforms to both traditional and younger audiences. It had become a brand that consumers in both groups could instantly recognise and connect with, wherever and whenever they encountered it.
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Lyle & Scott Brand Book
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