Case Study: BKD

The Brand

Project Details

advertising
advertising
advertising
advertising
advertising
website
annual review
annual review

sharing the BKD experience

BKD is a top-10 U.S. accounting and advisory firm with more than 2,000 professionals in 30 offices across 12 states. It sits astride two competitive markets: 1) The large national and global accounting firms, including the Big Four and 2) the strong regional and local firms in each of BKD’s major locales. The branding challenge includes awareness creation—amid lagging perceptions of the firm’s top-tier emergence, locally and nationally—and preference creation; that is, crafting a brand message that differentiates BKD from its strong and savvy competitors.

The solution began, ironically, with a more client-focused twist on “The BKD Experience,” a time-honored service manifesto deeply embedded in the culture. Flipped, it became a benefit, not a feature, and accommodated an expansive list of advantages clients get from BKD. Partners and managers, featured in up-close and personal photography, are the stars of the brand. Their inclusion responded to research that says clients value the relationships BKD delivers as much as the firm’s top-tier resources.

The attention-grabbing iconography in a series of firm print ads can be tailored to local offices with local contacts. The idea was to make the firm-wide brand ads double as local awareness- and relationship-building tools. Imagine that!

Complementary icons combined with substantive, quantitative measures rounded out the brand tool kit and reinforced key selling points beyond the firm’s personal touch. They appeared in firm collateral pieces, including a scannable overview brochure and several industry brochures—all printed on demand. At the center of the branding effort was the firm’s new website, produced in-house, which put the firm’s messaging on the marquee.