The Southwest's marketing community had outgrown its identity – and it was starting to show
Building Brands had been doing something genuinely valuable for years. Gathering the brightest marketing minds across Devon, Cornwall and Bristol. Giving freelancers and founders and interns and industry leaders somewhere to belong. Creating a community that people actually cared about.
But look at the old logo. Look at the old website. You wouldn't have known it.
Dave Briggs, the founder, knew it too. "Before, if potential sponsors had looked at that website, they would have been like, 'Really? How much money? And they can't even get a decent logo.'" Big brands – the kind whose names marketers actually recognise – were out of reach. The community was growing but the brand was holding everything back.
What Upshot did
Strategic thinking
Trying to capture everything brilliant about Building Brands is hard. As usual, it's where we start. What are we aiming for? What do we want to be known for? Posture – not skillset.
Working with copywriter Olivia Dunn, we ran the directors through our brand pillar process – a focused set of exercises designed to draw out what an organisation actually stands for, rather than what it thinks it should say. Four brilliant minds with wildly different personalities, asked to agree on the essence of what they'd built.
The result was three pillars: Seriously Playful, Relentlessly Supportive, and Practically Inspiring. Sharp, honest, and – crucially – immediately useful. "Using those pillars, I now know what should be part of Building Brands and what shouldn't be," says Dave. "The things that should be are the things I want to concentrate on. The things that shouldn't be are being left behind." That kind of clarity isn't just nice to have. It's a decision-making tool.
Visual impact
The new identity needed to hold up in front of a room full of creatives and marketing experts – the hardest possible audience. It also needed to feel like Building Brands: warm, energetic, and a bit irreverent.
The BB initials gave us a starting point. We landed on a playful emblem that, tilted, becomes a set of quote marks – a nod to the exchange of ideas that sits at the heart of everything they do. Seriously Playful came to life through a saturated, bold colour palette. A radiating signal graphic – the Southwest as epicentre, influence spreading outward – gave the brand a distinctive visual asset to stretch across every touchpoint. The typefaces Obviously and Shelby were paired to give the team a system with real range: big and loud when it needs to be, warm and personal when it doesn't.
Launched at the first conference of the year via a brand film created with Olivia and The Tannery Creative. "The change was significant," says Dave, "and the reception was overwhelmingly positive."
Online experience
The old Building Brands website was beyond rescue – cluttered, out of date, and, in Dave's words, "embarrassing." The new one needed to do real work: showcase events, list jobs, and be easy enough to manage that one busy person could actually keep it current.
Built on Webflow, the new site is professional, intuitive, and fast to update. The jobs board in particular took off quickly – pulling in significant weekly traffic and, crucially, changing behaviour. Employers started sending jobs in proactively, some even adding salary information they'd originally left out, because they understood the value of the platform. Dave can now spot a role on LinkedIn at 9pm and have it live in 30 seconds. "Before, I would have been like, 'you know what, that's just going to be a ball-ache.' Now it takes me 30 seconds."
"The things that Upshot did, the things that they got us thinking about and doing, and the certainty that the whole branding project has given us is game changing. I honestly couldn't have asked to work with better people!"
Reception
The impact
Sponsors that weren't possible before
Organisations like Foot Anstey and Omnisend – names that would have walked past the old website – are now committing real money. "They can see it's a proper community," says Dave. "It looks the business. Whereas before they would have been like, 'oh, really?'"
The confidence runs both ways. Dave will now pitch to brands he wouldn't have approached before. He has a media guide, a website that holds up, and a community he can describe clearly.
A filter as much as a magnet
Clarity attracts the right people – and helps you recognise who they are. "I'm now getting really great quality people involved, experienced people wanting to come and either talk or be at the dinners." The brand gives Building Brands the confidence to aim higher.
Bigger ambitions, properly grounded
When Dave surveyed the Building Brands community after launch, people mentioned the brand unprompted. "One of the overwhelming things that came through is it feels like a proper community." That confidence is shaping bigger decisions: a possible CIC structure, grant-funded mentoring, regional meetups, webinars. "Before, you'd look at the website and think – if I send a survey out, I know exactly what they're going to come back with."
Why this matters for organisations like Building Brands
Some organisations are doing genuinely valuable work that the world hasn't quite caught up with yet. The gap between what they actually are and how they appear externally is invisible from the inside. You get used to it. You work around it. And it quietly limits what you're willing to try.
Getting the brand right changes what you believe you're capable of. For Building Brands, that meant bigger sponsors, better speakers, and bolder plans – with the identity to back them up.
Event photography ©Building Brands
Animation by Callum Taylor | The Tannery Creative |
Strategic writing support from Olivia Dunn | Profound |
