We have moved our blog from here to here http://www.hoffi.com/blog

We will leave this blog live so you can look through our old articles however check out our new blog on our brand new site.

So, as we saw it, it would be a good idea to look back at how we started so for a limited time only we will be showing our first piece of print on our brand new website. We are really happy with the new site, but what do you think? let us know your thoughts. We will be adding more projects in the coming weeks so keep your eyes peeled.

Well it seems a day ago that we setup. However five years have passed by and we have moved from a bedroom, to a small office, to our current studio based in Cardiff Bay. We have employed Elin who has been with us for well over two years now and we have had many students come for work experience.

We have learnt loads in the last five years, Some things we didn't really want to learn (TAX returns), through to developing new ways of working and improving our knowledge and skills within design. For us though, we think that the best thing about our five years has been the people we have met and become friends with. We hope that the next five years will be even better.

So thank you to everyone who has been part of our last five years.

P.S. Look out for a new development in the next few hours.

As Hoffi's fifth birthday is coming up very soon, we have been working really hard on a little gift to send out to all of our lovely clients!...Keep checking the post in the next couple of weeks!!

Hoffi announces more FREE seminars for Welsh Businesses

Following the success of our last two seminars, which covered branding and online strategies, we have been working on the arrangements for our third seminar and have a date confirmed. In this seminar you will discover why your brand is the most valuable part of your business, and why a good brand can benefit you.

Taking place on Thursday 14th of April, at Enterprise House, Cardiff Bay *.

We will be there from 8:30am where you will be able to get a coffee and a bit of breakfast, before we start at 9:00am.

The initial seminar will run through some examples of what branding is and what it is not. After a short break we will then continue to look at why having good branding is valuable for your business and what the key ingredients of a good brand is, we will be particularly concentrating on how to use your brand to position itself in the marketplace.

This will take us up to 12pm, when there will be around an hour or so for networking (we will be around afterwards should any of you wish to chat about any particular issues you have.)

We hope you are interested in attending the event and look forward to seeing you all there. Please note places are limited so book early to avoid disappointment.

For your place at the seminar please email elin.williams@hoffi.com quoting reference: brandemail

* Enterprise House is located opposite the train station on Bute St, Cardiff Bay.

The Training Room, Enterprise House,
127 Bute Street, Cardiff Bay, Cardiff CF10 5LE.

Look forward to hearing from you

Image for illustrative purposes only and does not include whole market.

We have had a number of conversations in the office recently about the development of branding and the products and services it offers. There seem to be a number of branding and business ventures that are coming together to create a rather different type of output.

Firstly lets look at some history. In the Western brand scape it has been quite rare for a brand to move to different markets or sectors. There are probably two that spring to mind that have challenged this view. Virgin and in a similar way EasyJet. These brands have managed to create a strong brand over a range of sectors yet kept their core values in these new ventures. However if we look further afield to the Asia market and in particular the Japanese market. Which for years has had companies that diversify from it's initial product/service to encompass many other products or services. Some examples would be Mitsubishi (air conditioning through to Cars), Or MUJI (electronics right through to the food market). Another line of branding and business strategy is the well publicised Starbuck's strategy of opening as many coffee shops as it can in the area to then drive out other competitors. So for a short term loss per shop there would be a long term gain for the brand and company.

So if we look at companies are combining these two strategies and using this within one market sector. The theory being swamp the market with different brands offering the same product but in a different way, whether that be different through look, age range, values etc. An example close to home is Admiral. A Welsh based company that has a huge protfolio of insurance options. for example Admiral themselves provide car insurance, then there is confused.com that also provide car insurance then there is also elephant who also provide car insurance, Diamond who also provide car insurance, I think you get the message. So each brand is targeted at a specific area of the marketplace, and all of them owned by Admiral.

In the same way, but with a slightly different approach is Ariel who have for many years developed their washing powder range to be the next best thing for cleaning your clothes. Recently they have stretched their brand to Stain removal products. So extending their product range within the same market.

So what is happening?

This scatter gun approach to business seems to be at first highly self defeating (being expensive to develop a brand, and setup an infrastructure for a new company), yet if we look at it another way these companies are already very established within their market they are invariably one of the leaders in their marketplace and they are vigilant about threats and other companies challenging their market share. So instead of fighting through just one offering why not make the offerings multiple and make the offers niche or bespoke to markets within markets?

The rule seems to almost feel (in the Case of Admiral at least) become large and dominant through a wide brand offering (Admiral) then diversify into smaller conversation offerings for smaller groups and niches (confused.com, Elephant etc). This can also be seen in other companies such as Google who have grown into the largest company in the world and now they are refining and developing new ventures that are aiding in the development of niche responses to their market, and also fending off other companies which maybe trying to break into these markets.

INFLUENCERS FULL VERSION from R+I creative on Vimeo.

For those of you who have read Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point you are going to be familiar with some of the thoughts that come out in the film. It is also a lovely piece film and as I am going to New York next week it's nice to see snippets of the city.