Case Study

A strategic approach to global rebranding

Kolas Ventures

Venture Fund

Client: Kolas Ventures, a fund management company catered to early-stage IT startups.

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Background: When Kolas first approached us for a digital branding audit, we advised them on brand development, positioning, and visual language. Six months later, they entrusted us with their rebranding project.

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Challenge: Previously focused on startups from Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, the fund needed to emphasize its pivot to work with the global community in times of change without renouncing its roots.

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Our solution:

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  • Positioning and Slogan: “Digital nomads run the world.” We’ve converted Kolas's hastened market shift into messages highlighting this community of digital nomads who create products for modern living.

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  • Logo: "Kolas" is derived from the Belarusian word for "ear of grain," linking to the founders' heritage. The new logo incorporates these folk symbols and is versatile in its abbreviated and full versions.

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  • Color Palette: We chose natural, relaxed base colors with a bright, bold accent undertone.

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  • Illustrations & Graphics: Our artists designed a visual language system including color combinations, photo moods, graphic road elements (to reflect the “Venture Adventure” theme), and a set of emojis for venture vocabulary.

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  • Pitch Deck: All our creations were compiled into the fund's presentation and as an extended version for investors.

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  • Guidelines: We established rules for style usage with utmost attention to detail.

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Case Study

A strategic approach to global rebranding

Kolas Ventures

Venture Fund

Client: Kolas Ventures, a fund management company catered to early-stage IT startups.

‍

Background: When Kolas first approached us for a digital branding audit, we advised them on brand development, positioning, and visual language. Six months later, they entrusted us with their rebranding project.

‍

Challenge: Previously focused on startups from Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, the fund needed to emphasize its pivot to work with the global community in times of change without renouncing its roots.

‍

Our solution:

‍

  • Positioning and Slogan: “Digital nomads run the world.” We’ve converted Kolas's hastened market shift into messages highlighting this community of digital nomads who create products for modern living.

‍

  • Logo: "Kolas" is derived from the Belarusian word for "ear of grain," linking to the founders' heritage. The new logo incorporates these folk symbols and is versatile in its abbreviated and full versions.

‍

  • Color Palette: We chose natural, relaxed base colors with a bright, bold accent undertone.

‍

  • Illustrations & Graphics: Our artists designed a visual language system including color combinations, photo moods, graphic road elements (to reflect the “Venture Adventure” theme), and a set of emojis for venture vocabulary.

‍

  • Pitch Deck: All our creations were compiled into the fund's presentation and as an extended version for investors.

‍

  • Guidelines: We established rules for style usage with utmost attention to detail.

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Beginning

To kick off, we updated Nivea’s positioning to widen the scope of customers who could see themselves reflected in the brand’s message: “Nivea is your partner in everything.”

Then, we overhauled Nivea’s social media presence and improved their local share-of-voice:

our solution

1
Added more videos in the IG feed, experimenting with different formats from ASMR to funny clips
2
Made things local: we featured local girls and guys in our shoots, both pros and our followers
3
Worked with local brands for two giveaways, one with a national jewellery brand and the other with national merch
These collabs brought in over 1.5k new followers and got great feedback from our subscribers
4
Got influencers to create more user-generated content (UGC) by sending them boxes for unpacking or beauty
routine videos
aidana.esthete
beauty bloger
20nurs
Lifestyle bloger
aiferruz_
beauty bloger
This switched up their integrations from making an ordinary beauty talk to more lifestyle content, which helped build trust with our audience 
5
Complimented our ladies with 'Eye-Stoppers' featuring non-branded content that supports and inspires our audience
This format has become super popular on our account, always getting great engagement
Updated account promotion by trying different mixes of traffic, engagement, and reach spends to see what works best.
We found that a 60% engagement and 40% reach allow us to accomplish all KPIs even at costs lower than planned
6
Added gamification to our stories, like product battles and fortune-telling. Our users really got into playing these games!
7
Took another look at our giveaways.
We used to think they were the best way to get new followers. Spoiler: they aren’t
Even though we tried different prizes – beauty boxes, makeup store coupons, and even a yearly flower delivery subscription, we found that while these giveaways helped keep our current followers happy, they didn't attract many new ones.
But everything changed when we started collaborating with local brands (see this point above)

side challenge

You know, in Kazakhstan, women often only get flowers on special occasions like their birthday or Valentine’s Day? We wanted to change that and show that women deserve flowers just because they're awesome. And we decided to relate it to International Women’s Day

  • the idea

    We came up with this giveaway where the main prize was a subscription to a flower delivery service.
    The winner would get beautiful bouquets twice a month. And we threw in three beauty boxes as extra prizes. To enter, people just had to subscribe to our account, share the post in their stories, and tag a friend in the comments

  • Support

    We promoted the giveaway and got some influencers involved. Five bloggers got flowers from us and shared the giveaway with their followers. We got over 7k comments from participants in just a week, so we were really excited about it

  • the fun part

    But here's the funny part.
    The winner was actually the girl who had been following us for years and was super active on our page (our SMM manager recognized her right away by the link to her profile). When we did the maths, the cost per new subscriber, including prizes and promotion, came out to about 6 euros, which was much more than we expected

  • Outcomes

    But you know what? Despite not getting as many new subscribers as we hoped, the giveaway was still a success. The winner gets to enjoy beautiful flowers, and we got so many lovely comments and stories from people sharing their own flower experiences. It was totally worth it!
8
Chased trends on TikTok. we're quick to create content that keeps us connected with our subscribers
This has helped us build a friendly community that states “the account is in safe hands”
9
Supported the brand's offline activities during Nauryz – that’s the national holiday celebrating spring and new life
We promoted a BTL activity held in one of Almaty's malls. Guests enjoyed tea, national treats, and a prize draw and sure shared tons of UGC. We reposted mentions from the event to our account, and to support this holiday spirit collaborated with a makeup artist to create a Nauryz-inspired look

side challenge

This is just the tip of the iceberg. For New Year, the brand planned a 360 campaign, and sure we couldn’t stay away. It all started in September when NIVEA announced a massive campaign, promising to paint Almaty blue in December with BTL, outdoor ads and zones, and much much more

  • Bus stops concept

    The first challenging task was to create branding for bus stops. All we knew was that the stops would be heated and there are some limitations from city authorities regarding the design elements of the stop roof. We brainstormed, presented three ideas, and the client chose one which referred to the KV mostly

  • Bus-stops design

    The next step was bringing our design to life. This task was handled by the RTS Decaux team, who patiently discussed different lighting options and the setup of each spot. We put in a lot of work, and five stops kept the people of Almaty warm throughout the entire New Year season

  • Give-away

    Are there any better ideas for New Year giveaways than advent calendars? The challenge? Getting the calendars themselves: they're not sold in Kazakhstan, so we had to order them from Europe and get them through overloaded customs during the pre-holiday season. The post announcing the giveaway got 9.5k comments (normally we have about 7k for such posts), and we received many requests from those who wanted to purchase the same calendar

  • Advent-calendar

    From December 1st to December 31st, we ran our online advent calendar. We had games, holiday preparation to-do lists, and even compilations of movies and songs. Each day, we also featured a countdown to the New Year. Our subscribers interacted greatly with these stories, showing us that our advent calendar was a fantastic idea

  • VFX-videos

    While we did shoot December content in studios with a New Year setting, we wanted to do more. We created VFX videos for TikTok featuring locations known and loved by Kazakhstani people, such as famous spots in Almaty and Astana, and the Shymbulak ski resort in Almaty (spoiler: remember this name). We also added a touch of magic to our NIVEA Creme video, aligning it with the campaign's key visual. These videos got loads of love from viewers, proving that people really dig it when big global brands put in the effort to make things local

  • BTL-activities

    The climax of the New Year campaign was
    the BTL activities managed by the Duende team. In Almaty, we set up several photo zone, and every weekend, an orchestra of Santas dressed in NIVEA colors strolled through shopping malls, performing New Year songs to share some New Year spirit. At Shymbulak, several times a day, our NIVEA-Santas skied down the slopes alongside other skiers and snowboarders (we received a ton of user-generated content with these guys). When they reached the base station, they hung around with people, inviting them to our "Yurt of Warmth"

  • UGC

    We supported the BTL activities with numerous reposts of user-generated content. Additionally, to keep our subscribers engaged during offline events, each weekend we gave away beauty boxes
The NIVEA New Year campaign got a ton of media attention, and we're pretty sure we managed to paint the town blue with our bus stops, outdoor promos, and BTL activities

outcomes

4.3mln
Monthly users on Instagram
+25%
Average video views
+10% ERR
Engagement per reach sum of reactions (likes, comments, etc.)
+420%
Reach KPIs increased by 420% on engagement
+157%
Engagement-per-reach
x3
We've tripled the number of comments
54.7k
We've attracted about 54.7k new subscribers
1.5 mln
We've racked up 1.5mln likes for our videos
Our strategy is clearly paying off, but we're not stopping there! Over the next 300+ days with NIVEA, we're planning to introduce more IG rubrics, keep experimenting with formats, and find new ways to engage our subscribers.
We're also looking to add more educational content to TikTok, giving our users even more value. More local collaborations, more experiments, and more connection with our followers – that's the game plan for 2024

We're passionate about working with teams of all sizes, and building relationships based on trust, professionalism, and true partnership.

Strategy
Branding
Creative campaign
Web design
Social media marketing
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