Putting on a show
William Reed Business Media
The client
William Reed Business Media (WRBM) owns a portfolio comprising many of the leading UK food & drink B2B shows. These include Food & Drink Expo, The Convenience Show, The Ingredients Show, Farm Shop & Deli Show, Foodex and The Forecourt Show.
The flagship show, Food & Drink Expo, takes place every two years alongside a selection of the other shows. They were collectively named ‘the UK Food Shows’. Over the years, individual identities had been developed for each show without a visual common thread.
The brief
We carried out a strategic rebrand, advising on how WRBM could better align its show portfolio, visually and through copy. This encompassed exploring a new way of collectively referring to – and visually presenting – their biennial show season, and rebranding and developing new straplines for their individual shows.
What we delivered
Our initial piece of work focused on bringing simplicity to the individual show identities, stripping them back to their names and reviewing the colour palette. We rebuilt them, keeping their core colours for consistency going forwards and treating them as one brand family. We kept brand elements to a minimum: one of the main purposes of B2B show identities is to act as a canvas for wayfinding and messaging at the shows themselves, and in a cluttered show environment, simple design tends to stand out more.
We forged an identity for a new, tweaked collective name – UK Food & Drink Shows – out of the individual show identities to create a strong and consistent brand family that was visually aligned.
Underpinning all of this, we created a set of straplines for UK Food & Drink Shows and for the individual shows. As the live events industry looks to next year for the reopening of trade exhibitions, the show straplines are designed to emphasise the importance of doing business face-to-face with their ‘Where the… meets’ construct.
What the client said
“I’ve worked with Sherlock on a number of projects now and they are without fail great to work with. Rich, Becky and the team are such a friendly, creative and professional company and have so much in-depth knowledge in the food and drink industry and of us as a client, which really comes through in their work. During the pandemic when our shows have been postponed, Sherlock have been really supportive and flexible and genuinely care about their clients. The standard of work is exceptional and we are delighted with the new strong brand identity and wouldn’t hesitate in recommending Sherlock.” Julie Adlington, Marketing Director, William Reed Business Media
