Kate began her journey at MA back in 2019 as the next step and exciting challenge in her recruitment marketing career. Being engulfed by the recruitment industry during University, Kate was keen to continue helping brands stand out and make her mark on the industry. 

What started as a website build, soon evolved into a full rebrand, discovery workshop and web development project. Together, Venn and Montreal Associates took a deep dive into the existing brand. Working with the wider team, we created a brand strategy and website that will continue to grow with the business.

With offices in both London and Barcelona, MA wanted to reassess their brand values across their various locations in preparation for future growth. The task was to realign the internal culture with the external brand image and improve user experience. 

MA are a diverse brand with a vibrant culture across Europe, and yet the old website reflected none of their unique values. Over the past five years, they have implemented innovative processes, such as shared parental leave and mental wellbeing sessions. MA are far from your average recruitment company. 

With plans to expand, MA needed a memorable, modern brand & website to reflect their personality. With the goals being to improve user experience and lead generation, design and creativity were vital. The Result: A beautiful new brand, and a flexible website that MA can continue to grow.

Post go-live, we interviewed Kate to get her feedback and opinion on the brand and site launch.

What did you want to achieve from your strategy?

My first aim as Marketing Manager was to find a digital partner that could help us achieve our goals. Being new to the business, I was in a position where I was about to start a project for a brand I didn't really know myself. The brand discovery was essential for me, and I made sure to take it on myself.

The main goals for the project were; to improve user experience, lead generation and technical SEO. The past website was old, and the user experience was terrible. From an admin perspective, we had no flexibility for customisation. The site was nearly ten years old, and the business had grown massively in that time. Not only had MA expanded into new markets, but also the tech ecosystem was rapidly changing. 

Lead generation was an important objective, and a focus on the website design would help us achieve this. The old website was very complicated. It wasn't getting us the right traffic and was not SEO optimised, even simple keywords were not ranking.

From a commercial perspective, we needed to show that we are active across Europe. The new location market pages were an important addition, and making sure they were SEO optimised was essential for our reputation. Now we can show where we are active and rank for location-specific searches in the tech recruitment sector. And it doesn't stop there, the new site also leaves room for us to grow into new markets, continue to showcase results and expand as we become more commercial with our services.

Employer brand was ultimately the reason we rebranded. We wanted to be attractive to a different era of likeminded people. The career site is a current work in progress and due to be launched early this year, but for now, we can clearly share our brand values and attract new talent.

Going into this project, we didn't want our mission to be 'the best one in Europe'. Instead, we wanted to partner with people and brands that share our view and values. We want to help businesses achieve success and give the best service. Venn got this straight away.

In our industry, it's easy to shout about us and our success. Instead, now we have the new site, we want to showcase our candidates and clients and what we can achieve together. Beyond this, we want to set the standard for the type of people we want to work with. We didn't want to come across as typical recruitment and instead took a fresh approach and tried to fit in with 'our people' – the tech sector.

What was your favourite moment during this project?

The discovery of the brand. 

We involved everyone in the discovery project. This created a unified vision of what the brand and website could be. The outcomes from the focus groups and the company-wide feedback we received were the same. Without the discovery, I wouldn't know the business as I do now, so I am very grateful. Our achievements would not be the same without this consultation phase.

How did you view your brand before the project began?

Corporate, typical recruitment.

There was a vast disconnect between the values of the brand and how we were displaying it online. We perceive MA as vibrant, diverse and different; this was far from the brand image that we were sharing externally.

The colours were predictable, dull, and they didn't reflect the drive of the people that work here. From an employer brand perspective, that was a huge issue. We weren't showing off that actually, we are very different from other recruiters. This needed to change if we were to attract the right people.

What kind of feedback have you received so far?

Great feedback! We expected to have some of our longstanding members feel a bit unsure, as we have taken the brand they knew so well and shaken it up. However, their open-minded approach and love of the new brand was such a relief!

We filmed some of the team seeing the new logo for the very first time to capture their natural reactions. After the initial 'Oh's' and 'Wows' here's what they had to say:

Where do you see Montreal Associates in five years?

We have plans for continued growth and the opening of new offices.

We want to expand both our presence and coverage by increasing our physical locations in Europe. It would be great to see us dominating in the European market, we hope by this point, the brand has really come into its own.

We also want to see the employer brand flourish so we can continue to expand and attract the right consultants to our business.

I can imagine us becoming more streamlined with our services. We want to create total staffing solutions. This will be a 360 service, including staffing, payroll, contractor care etc.

In the future, we want to create deeper candidate engagement and build a community for them. Thanks to Venn, we now have the candidate portal, but we want to take it a step further and build on these relationships.

How did you find working with Venn?

Great! I love the team at Venn.

I'm so gutted that Covid stopped us meeting in person. I was planning regular visits to the Venn office and catch-ups with the project team, sitting side by side with the developers and designers.

Doing everything remote was a big change, but it did not affect the quality. Nothing was sacrificed, and no corners were cut.

Emily, the Project Manager was terrific and the performance marketing team really put the effort in.

We had so many ideas and Venn took the time to listen to us and bring that vision to life.

When I met Brian, the Managing Director for the first time, he made an effort to come down to the office to discuss our goals, objectives and the brand. He had these ideas that got me so excited. It was great to see someone who understood what we wanted to achieve.

I think we've created a fantastic website and a brand that truly resonates with us. It's all to do with the effort from the Venn team, always being willing to hear what we have to say. Being me on my own was daunting, but Venn was so supportive and the organisation was outstanding.

Brian was incredibly supportive in reaction to the stress of Covid. There were times when we were worried the project wouldn't even go ahead, but Venn continued to be the best support system. 

Building a website during Covid has helped me see Venn as a genuine brand. They care about their clients and partners, and I can't wait to come up and see everyone in person!

Why did you choose Venn as your digital partner?

It was down to the values of the business.

My initial conversations with Brian were so promising, he had a real vision for us. It wasn't a case of us saying what we want, it was a team effort. Venn got very involved, particularly in the discovery phase and provided an excellent level of creativity.

The whole team were so willing to understand what we wanted and get stuck in. I didn't see that level of commitment or personal touch with any other agency.

We wanted to do business with someone genuine and someone open to doing things differently. Venn offered a bespoke, flexible service; they didn’t just build us another recruitment website.

I also appreciated that Brian took the time to help me understand Venn as a business and what they are all about. When you let an agency change your brand, there has to be trust, and Brian understood this. The work that Venn put in at the start meant that the project was incredibly successful.

We are thrilled with the results of this project and would like to thank Kate and the entire team at Montreal Associates for going on this journey with us. If you want to learn more about our work within recruitment, visit our recruitment websites page.

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