Backslope Tools

Project Scope:

Brand Strategy

Messaging

Identity

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Summary

Backslope Tools are the tools that build the trail that connects communities. More specifically the build the non-motorized vehicle trailer: mountain bike, equestrian, hiking, etc. If you’ve utilized a major mountain bike trail in the US there’s a good chance the hands of the Backslap tools team has helped shape that experience.

Backslope Tools are tough, specialized, and purpose built. Their tools are not for everyone - they are for serious trail builders that demand job specific tools that are the very best. Backslope Tools is committed to being the leading brand for trail building tools in the world.

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Wildstory’s Mission?

Help Backslope Tools build a brand that is worthy of their mission, appeal to their target customers, and launch a new business model.

Our approach needed to communicate to its target customer: we see you. We’re here for you. We stand by you. This thought impacted customer touch points from brand strategy to a visual identity that would communicate clearly the position of Backslope Tools in the marketplace.

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Wildstory’s Mission?

Help Backslope Tools build a brand that is worthy of their mission, appeal to their target customers, and launch a new business model.

Our approach needed to communicate to its target customer: we see you. We’re here for you. We stand by you. This thought impacted customer touch points from brand strategy to a visual identity that would communicate clearly the position of Backslope Tools in the marketplace.

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<div class="w-layout-grid rich-text-2-columns_grid is--green-text"><p class="rich-text-2-columns_item"><span class="georgia-font is--italic">Challenge</span><br>Translate the vision of the Backslope Tools team into a comprehensive brand strategy that would inform the visual identity. The brand had to both be appealing out of the gates, they have the lasting power and extendability to grow into a global supplier of trail building tools. In addition, the clarification of the brand’s positioning and the customers they serve was pivotal in aligning around a singular marketing strategy.</p><p class="rich-text-2-columns_item"><span class="georgia-font is--italic">Outcome</span><br>Wildstory helped Backslope Tools focus their brand and marketing strategy. This led to a clear vision and of to market strategy. With a laser focus on their target customers and the necessary brand assets the business was able to complete the build on their website, social media channels, launch and begin generating revenue. </p></div>
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Marc Gutman’s hands are oddly smooth for such a rugged man. I would work with him again any day!

Greg Manzu, Founder & CEO

Wildstory’s core philosophy: It Must Start With Strategy

Wildstory’s Chief Strategist, Marc Gutman, facilitated remote sessions via Zoom (thank you pandemic) with the Backslope Tools team. Over a course of multi-day facilitated sessions, Marc surfaced the challenges the organization faced. In the process, they prioritized the needs and goals of the business and its customers. This became the foundation for the branding and messaging strategy as the business went to market.

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Understanding the Customers

Knowing who you serve is the single most important insight to develop in your brand strategy. The Backslope Team intrinsically knew who their customers were but getting the information out of their heads and into an organized and clearly articulated format was the challenge. To gain clarity around who the target customer is and ultimately understand the needs of these customers, we created unique user profiles to represent the range of core and growth customers. This painted a clear picture of their demographics, psychographics, needs and wants.

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Defining the Brand

Through a series of exercises in the brand strategy session, we were able to extract and refine the key pillars of the brand. This defined the brand’s personality: how it should look, sound and act.

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Positioning

Understanding what the Backslope Tools brand is and who they are champion for, helped define the positioning statement of the organization. This set the tone for everything created for the brand.

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Built on the stuff of trail building

Backslope is a company founded by people who got out and build trails every day, so they wanted a logo that was literally built from and representative of “the stuff they work in everyday”. Wildstory leveraged established backslap angle recommendations and trail landmarks to create a sturdy monogram that embodies a lot more than meets the eye.

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Brand Identity

Wildstory developed an entire identity system to make sure every customer touch-point reflected the brand. The new identity included a fresh logo, introducing a new color palette, and a new typeface. This created a cohesive experience and atmosphere for both the physical locations and its digital extension.

All assets were presented in a comprehensive style guide so that the brands standards and consistency would easily be maintained across all teams.

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Website Design

Wildstory did not design or create the website. However, the scope required assets to be created that could be leveraged by the internal Backslope Tools team.

This collaboration resulted in a website that maintained the Backslope Tools brand, allowed the client to save budget, and go to market as quickly as possible.

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