Kidsland Brand Rejuvenation

Founded in 2001, kidsland is a premium toy boutique retail chain now with 2000 sales points across over 100 cities in China.

kidsland has worked effectively to develop its retail business and product portfolio, positioning itself as a market leader by representing leading foreign brands in China. Nevertheless, in an increasingly competitive market, kidsland hoped to define a distinctive brand image of its own to establish a loyal customer base and maintain leadership.

kidsland solicited Labbrand seeking to elevate its brand strategy. Its brand identity, brand experience and messaging were to be rejuvenated.

THE BUILDING BLOCKS

The first step for us was to gain insights of kidsland’s consumers, as well as their perceptions towards toys, toy retailers and kidsland. We conducted ethnographic research with families in 4 major cities in China as well as in-depth interviews with key internal and external stakeholders to better understand kidsland’s audience’s habits and pain points regarding toys, as well as its own brand journey and personality.

HITTING THE MARK

With a comprehensive understanding of the consumer needs, market opportunity and kidsland’s current performance, we helped the client to clearly identify a brand positioning that responds to customers’ needs and stays true to the kidsland brand. A Brand Messaging Guide was created to define a strategic messaging matrix that will guide the brand’s consistent communication throughout different touchpoints.

THE DRAWING BOARD

With the refined positioning in mind, Labbrand’s creative teams were set to create verbal and visual assets that reinforces its desired identity.

A Chinese brand name 凯知乐 [kǎi zhī lè] was created to facilitate its communication towards the local target audience. Perfectly matching the sound of the original English name, 凯知乐 conveys kidsland’s brand value that kids can learn knowledge while having fun, in the same time delivering a premium and modern sense. Smart Legal Check and Linguistic Check were conducted to ensure the name’s trademark availability and performance in different Chinese dialects.

Subsequently, our designers studied kidsland’s previous visual assets to inform the signature creation and visual language design strategy. A simple yet dynamic visual identity system was developed. The wordmark Labbrand custom created for kidsland is simple and fun, designed to look like blocks and simple toys that children could play with.

THE BRAND AMBASSADORS

With kidsland’s brand elevated and redefined, the client understands the importance to enable its employees to become true brand ambassadors and embody the new brand positioning in their day to day operations. Collaboratively, our second project with kidsland was to develop a Structured Engagement Program composed of three modules helping kidsland to effectively communicate its new brand strategy internally, have their own voice in the content and create an engaging and sustainable customer journey.

WHAT’S MORE?

The impact of this project is fundamental. Most importantly, having a strong and clearly defined brand positioning has enabled kidsland to present itself with a distinctive image in front of its customers and to establish brand equity of its own.

A new kidsland store with concept based on the positioning developed by Labbrand was opened in Hangzhou, China at the end of 2016.

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Our comprehensive project for kidsland was honored with two Transform APAC awards in 2016, including a SILVER award for Best Internal Communications. Additionally, the visual identity system developed for kidsland was recognized by iF Design Award 2017.