Business Opportunity
As Vice President of Marketing for Rohit Group, Nathan is responsible for managing the strategy, engineering, and activation of brands across parent and subsidiary companies. Over the duration of a year, and as a foundational initiative within the National Marketing Strategy, Nathan led development and go-to-market of the Rohit national brand, as well as for six integrated subsidiary brands.
This brand transformation was essential as Rohit Group had entered a new stratosphere as a real estate organization, expanding well beyond its early-day reputation as a home-builder.
In 10 years, assets under management had increased from $337M to $1B.
The organization expanded to multiple markets across Canada, operating in Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon, Regina, and Ottawa regions. The volume of customers, business affiliates, and political stakeholders had exponentially grown.
The number of employees had doubled in just under 10 years.
New divisions had been introduced and rapidly expanded, enabling Rohit Group to be a distinctly vertically integrated organization.
In short, the identity of the organization and points of competitive differentiation had notably changed. Where establishing new brand strategy would be required to sustain market performance, recruit top talent, and effectively build corporate culture.
Actions + Outcomes
Nathan brought on DDB Canada as the agency partner that he would work with through each phase of the process over the next 12-months, which included collaborating with their Vice President of Strategy and Vice President of Design. The work would include building from the ground up architecture, positioning, and creative platforms across seven corporate brands.
“This brand transformations was essential as Rohit Group had entered a new stratosphere as a real estate organization...”
01 Research | 40 Employees Engaged
External, as well as internal, research was conducted. First looking outside the organization, market forces and characteristics were assessed in the form of an environmental scan and competitor review of brand strategies. Then focusing within the organization, an internal brand audit was conducted, pared with individual staff interviews, and several staff focus group sessions; engaging over 40 employees in total.
02 Brand Architecture | Branded House Model
➤ Brand Model | To support the strategic marketing objective of shifting the corporate identity to one of a diversified national real estate entity, a branded house model was adopted. This is where it was decided that a Rohit master brand would inform the identity of the six corporate sub-brands within the portfolio. These formal sub-brands were identified as Rohit Homes, Rohit Communities, Rohit Rental Living, Rohit Commercial, Rohit Health, and Rohit as an employer brand. Establishing Rohit as the master brand required significant formalization to have it ready to effectively take on this role.
➤ Brand Names | The names of each sub-brand went under a review, where two of them were refined to offer further alignment and clarity to their positions within the portfolio. Rohit Communities became Rohit Homes and Rohit Land Development become Rohit Communities. The former, to emphasize positioning as a home builder and the latter, to define the sub-brand as a placemaker and creator of communities.
03 Brand Positioning | Rohit is BOLD
➤ Brand Pillars | The research phase revealed an underlying theme and thread of connectivity across divisions, the brand DNA of the organization consistently took on a BOLD position; being unwavering, risk taking, uncompromising, entrepreneurial, unafraid, and unexpected. These became four brand pillars:
Bold Thoughtfulness: We pay attention to the little things. Because we know that those little things add up, and make big differences in the communities we touch. There is intention and purpose behind all that we do.
Bold Innovation: We are constantly evolving to stay ahead of the latest thinking and trends. We are pioneers in the lines of business we compete in. Delivering products, ideas and solutions that are often the first of their kind.
Bold Agility: Our entrepreneurial roots have fuelled a culture of adaptability and speed. We are not afraid to pivot as we know any kind of challenge should be tackled from all sides. And in this ever-changing industry, this is one of our greatest strengths.
Bold Relationships: Rohitians backgrounds and experiences are diverse, but we are cut from the same bold cloth. Our relationships internally and externally are strong and genuine. Unwavering client dedication is the way we build trust.
➤ Brand Tagline | To effectively communicate the positioning and value proposition of the master brand, a corporate tagline was established that would be adopted across each of the sub-brands: Bold goes further.™
04 Brand Creative | Visualizing the Brand Portfolio
➤ Brand Sizzle Reel | Announcement reel showcasing evolution of the Rohit family of brands. Produced by DDB Canada.
➤ New Corporate Logos | A new corporate logo was developed to better reflect the boldness of the organization and evolution to a national real estate entity. This included replacing the historical red primary colour with a more refined black, leveraging white and yellow as secondary option. Further, logo lockups were introduced to showcase application of the sub-brands with the new corporate tagline.
➤ New Creative Assets | Additional creative assets were added to the toolkit to distinguish the brand further visually. These came in the form of unique illustrative patterns to be used as secondary identity elements across various media.
➤ New Colour Pallets | New brand colour pallets were introduced to add further vibrancy and Boldness to the master brand, as well as associated sub-brands. These colours were inspired by an East meets West theme that had origin back to the historical Indian roots of the company’s founders.
➤ Corporate Brands Style Book | A robust Brand Style Book was produced to guide consistent application and expression of the seven corporate brands across the organization, media, and agency partners that we work with.
View Rohit Brand Style Book →
➤ Advertisement Styling | Advertising styling across suite of corporate brands. Designed by DDB Canada.
➤ Vehicle Fleet Brand Execution | Rohit Homes vehicle fleet branding across Canadian markets. Designed by DDB Canada.
➤ Rohit HQ Brand Activation | Visual activation of the brand, bringing it to life, at Rohit Headquarters. Designed by DDB Canada.
The personality of the brand was brought to life in the form of feature-wall custom art pieces, each paired with a gallery plaque (placed adjacent) that shares the background story of each unique piece. These one-of-a-kind murals were strategically located across 14 common spaces (boardrooms, entertaining areas, and dining spaces). In addition, brushed gold and matted black custom mandalas, inspired by a previous legacy brand mark, were brought to life in an artistically modern way within three reception and lobby areas.
➤ Web Overhaul and Transformation | Visual activation of the brand online at RohitGroup.com. Designed by web studio Savian.
05 Go-To-Market Game Plan | Execution Is Everything
To prepare for launch, several key activities where undertaken. First, Nathan, as the Vice President of Marketing, introduced an implementation framework, where the Marketing Managers within each division built out a 90-day brand implementation plan, specific to the markets in which they operate. These five plans outlined what would need to be changed and brought to market, as well as the timing, budget, and change champion for each activity.
Second, the Vice President led a series of key engagements with stakeholders to build in-depth awareness and support. This included, bringing the strategy to the Enterprise Advisory Committee, presenting to 70 of the organization’s leaders from across the country at a corporate retreat, and delivering a company-wide webcast (attended by 120 front-line employees).
Third, a brand governance structure was established, where the marketing team providing overarching enterprise support, was assigned responsibility of overseeing quality assurance, the newly established brand asset library, division implementation, and the evolution of brand standards. Governance also involved introducing an internal email address, for employees to receive quick support and response to all things brand, image, and reputation.
➤ About Rohit Group | Rohit, more formally known as Rohit Group, is a national real estate organization that is headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta. Rohit operates five key subsidiary divisions, which include land development, home building, commercial, residential, and healthcare infrastructure. Collectively, these divisions hold over $1B in assets under management across Canada.
