Aprilaire came to us with a challenge, for the established B2B company to enter into the B2C market. A highly competitive landscape, Aprilaire needed to make an authentic connection directly with its customers without excluding its loyal brand advocates: its contractors.
With a multiphase strategy in place, we crafted a comprehensive 360º approach to achieve that goal, while also curating a brand voice and heartbeat in the process. The ideation for creative and engaging content commenced, including the addition of a new friendly face for Aprilaire customers: April the Bear.
The core brand identity of Aprilaire had been previously established. However, its appeal was very much centered around their historically B2B approach. This created a set of parameters, within which the B2C strategy could live. It was critical not to disturb or disorient the existing customer base or muddy the recognition aspect of their long standing visual identity, namely the logo and long-standing Madison Blue core color. With these considerations, a ‘brand expansion’ approach was appropriate to build on the existing identity by adding new and inviting color palettes, photography guidelines, and a unifying design touchpoint - a design pattern to provide a visual representation of the Healthy Air benefits that Aprilaire products provide.
The solution was to create a systemized approach to the development of new icons, to allow the brand and its campaigns to scale endlessly and on pace with the brand’s ambitions. With a large and saturated market, many of the brands relied heavily on stock graphic assets. By using a simple and principal based approach we were able to devise a framework for new icon and graphic creation. Two elements make up the icon system: a line icon style with a unified weight that overlays a transparent color-filled shape. The end result is a clean, airy, approachable design language that communicates quickly and effectively to consumers - while remaining true to Aprilaire’s aesthetic.
It was important that each campaign contain an element that represents the meaning and intent behind each campaign or sub-campaign. Each of the four campaign marks is designed with a container shape as well as an inner shape, which is then comprised of two or more symbolic elements. For the two evergreen campaigns Healthy Air and Healthy Home a rectangle shaped container was used. For Healthy Clean Air and Healthy Humidity, which sometimes run multiple times per year - an ellipse.
From the creation of the Healthy Air Campaign, then came Healthy Humidity, Healthy Clean Air, and Healthy Home. Each campaign representative of the variables that can impact air quality, like weather and time of year, with their own set of goals for driving awareness to those conditions. It was important to distinguish them visually to indicate that the content was new to the audience and worthy of their attention.
The original Aprilaire website was focused on B2B communications. Separating the site into Aprilaire.com (Hub/B2C) and AprilairePartners.com (B2B) granted the opportunity to take targeted users on a journey to easily navigate through the benefits of having healthy air in their home, as well as take interactive quizzes to determine their individual needs - with the end goal of contacting a Healthy Air Professional for installation.
A user experience focus led the charge to drive even more content consumption and shareability. Taking user experience strategies and optimizing the blog, we streamlined the content to be findable and digestible. By creating content that flows from one blog to the next, it created a seamless transition from blog posts, thus increasing time on page and number of page visits, and organically boosting Aprilaire’s credibility for search engines. With the integration of shareable social media icons, it became easier than ever for Aprilaire’s readers to share content across social media platforms, helping educate and spread the word of healthy air as brand ambassadors themselves.
Each of the April Bear graphics and posts was conceptualized, hand-sketched, and digitally inked by yours truly. The evolution from designer to illustrator was not easy, so I take pride in this moment of my career. The bear family would be pictured across the seasons and conveyed in a myriad of narratives. The composition’s candid feel was inspired by the idea that these are in fact photographs taken from within the world of the bears, evoking a warm and wholesome feeling when viewed. Read the next section to see how these went from the iPad to the page.
Starting from the beginning, a storyboard was created to convey a journey across the seasons that would tell the tale of Healthy Air throughout the year. With each milestone illustration included representative of the key holidays and annual events. Every handmade illustration was redrawn with children coloring in, and out of, the lines in mind. These brand new coloring books were then printed and distributed digitally by Aprilaire’s Healthy Air Professionals to their respective clients for the simple enjoyment of their children.
Below, I've included some of the my favorite creative executions, showcasing the various content types for organic social: education, seasonal, product, testimonial and aesthetic.
