Ten years after launch, VION had genuine trust in the market, but its identity hadn't kept pace with the ambition of the range behind it. Our task was to refresh VION for its next decade: sharpening its positioning, clarifying its relationship to William Smith, and building an identity flexible enough to carry a growing product range with one consistent voice.
We built the strategy on a genuine truth: William Smith is a sign company too, and struggled to find a range that balanced performance with affordability, so they co-designed one with their own customers. Customer feedback gave us the hook for the entire strategy: they told us VION products delivered the best performance at a good price.
That backstory grounds the proposition, "Technical performance can be affordable," distilled into the strapline "Performance. Price." A confident, matter-of-fact positioning that owns the value conversation rather than apologising for it.
Together with the marketing and sales teams, we defined the VION personality as 'the crowd pleaser', creative, warm, energetic, dependable and expert, shaping a tone of voice built on peer-to-peer expertise. We also resolved VION's place in the group, positioning it as a product brand of William Smith Group 1832.
Led by the idea of making VION visual, the concept centred on showing the creativity possible with VION films, while still proving that strong performance can be affordable. The VION "V" became the core graphical device: a window that could be filled with bold, expressive imagery, giving the brand a way to demonstrate creativity rather than just claim it. Its angles, taken directly from the letterform, also generate the gradient backgrounds that run through the identity, tying every application back to the same idea.
The new identity was rolled out through a full brand guidelines document covering logo use, colour, typography, photography and the graphical toolkit. From there it extends into product literature, packaging, merchandise, digital and social channels, and campaign activity built around the V-window device.
To introduce the new identity, we built a launch campaign around VION's tenth year. "A Decade On" reintroduces VION with the confidence of a range that's been proven in the industry for a decade. We rolled out a range of digital and printed comms, alongside event graphics for a birthday party launch celebrating ten years of VION.
The campaign brings the refreshed positioning to life through a new animation, landing page, email activity and updated collateral, all built around VION's "expert, dependable, warm, creative, energetic" tone.
