Maze Group

 

Consolidating a management team and bringing cohesion to a group brand

 

 

Challenge

 

When Maze first approached us, they had grown and diversified significantly and needed to form a group vision and identity. Originating from the in-house marketing team of a National insurance company — which became a major client — the company had been running for 9 years. They had, over the years, developed and launched niche agencies within the group and it was now a group of seven businesses. By the time we met them, they were operating as an umbrella group called The Maze Group— with what seemed to be quite a disparate set of brands, with 4 partners and 40 employees, working across King’s Lynn and London.

 

The challenge was to iron out inconsistencies within the group identity and align the vision of the founders — it was our job to help make that happen.

 

 

Solution

 

We began by creating a space for these four individuals to talk openly about the business where all their voices were heard equally. By facilitating a workshop, we were able to really get to Maze’s origin story and give the people involved in its creation a chance to speak on their concerns,  passions and unique perspectives.

 

We then conducted several 360 interviews from across the brands, mining raw feedback from its employees and teams to determine the value, philosophies, strengths and weaknesses of the business. This allowed us to create a new positioning document; it acted as a form of brand governance for the group, giving them a clear set of values and tone of voice that could draw the agencies together under the umbrella of The Maze Group.

 

 

 

We came up with Maze’s new tagline — ‘free reign to be brilliant’ — and they were able to launch a new Group website which hadn’t existed before with a modern design that reflected their company story. Their new branding was based on a narrative of cohesion; an assemblage of great businesses coming together as part of a larger mission, led by four founders with complementary skills and a shared vision.

 

Results

 

It can be a big challenge to create a space where everyone is comfortable openly sharing their views. We were able to help the founders of Maze come up with a true story of their journey formed from the contributions of everyone in the room — and was one they were proud, as a team, to get behind. By aligning the senior management team, we have given Maze a solid foundation from which all the brands under their umbrella company can grow together.