The challenge
Nichols is a recruitment and headhunting agency, specialising in FMCG and healthcare. They operate globally on behalf of some big, big clients. The task: show they kept getting these clients the best talent.
What we did
Two comments in discussions struck as interesting start points for ideas. The first, about ‘stone age’ practices in the industry, led to their main corporate brochure, which proactively attacked some of the common but archaic approaches, showing how progressive Nichols were in comparison. Lovely, humorous use of visuals by Kimpton Creative really drove the message home.
One of Nichols’ principal innovations, Map and Track, was worthy of a brochure in its own right. By planning ahead strategically and making contact with people even up to three years before a career move, they saved their clients the nightmare of what they call “distressed recruitment”, where all the cards were stacked against an employer forced into last-minute appointment. Why search frantically when you can already have someone lined up? This “distress/stress free” idea led to the design for the Map and Track brochure.
What happened next
Nichols used the brochures digitally too, on platforms such as LinkedIn.
All this work sprung out of a prior rebrand we we did some years before, which I’ve added to the archive for the record. Kimpton Creative’s logo for Nichols, based on a compass – the premise being about finding the right way forward – is still going strong well over a decade later, as is his Map and Track sub-brand logotype.
We also produced a lot of emerging markets collateral over a number of years, which you can see here.
