The brief
Amicus is a new client, a consultancy that has provided high-level leadership development to large-scale enterprises, SMEs and startups since 2014. Headed by Jennifer Carnegie and General Sir Peter Wall, ex-head of the British Army, Amicus combines the best of leadership development from the senior military and corporate worlds, creating the best conditions for personal, team and business growth for its clients.

In the past, Amicus created bespoke leadership programmes for clients. Programmes are always well-received and often result in repeat business, but the model has not permitted the business to scale. Oi were approached to help refine the business strategy, position the brand for growth and develop a supporting campaign across multiple channels.

The strategy
From service to product
Bespoke programmes, whilst profitable, take time to develop and can only be effectively led by experienced people involved heavily in the programme design. Leadership development products on the other hand are repeatable, can be led by more junior people who are trained, and can be quite profitable with the right pricing. So we turned a service proposition into a transparently-priced product proposition that allows the business to scale.

Leadership that lasts
Amicus has a simple operating philosophy. Corporate training is often ineffective as the lessons it teaches are forgotten about when trainees return to the day job. The work Amicus does is always applicable to the day to day running of a business and programmes incorporate followups, all designed to ensure development continues in the long term. This approach led to a new positioning for the brand and a new tagline: Leadership that lasts.

The work
A standout brand
The corporate training category is littered with visual cliché. Hardworking people in suits around a table, smiling and shaking hands, mountains being climbed and marathons run. We wanted to stand apart and stand out, so, drawing on logo graphics that suggest a row of medal ribbons (a nod to the business’ military roots) we developed a simple visual metaphor for the attributes of successful leadership through a series of polygonal origami-style graphics suggesting strength, resilience, vision, communication and so on.

These graphics and other accents are picked out in bold orange on a decidedly non-corporate blue/green again alluding to the military foundations of the business, and the overall result is a look and feel that’s clean, to the point and highly distinctive in the category.

A secret campaign weapon
The campaign to relaunch the brand and drive incremental product revenue has paid, owned and earned components. Targeted advertising on LinkedIn will reach senior leaders in SMEs and training budget owners in big corporates. These ads, introducing the product range, will link to a new, slimmed-down website that focuses squarely on the Amicus product offer. Social media will share team, client and brand news, while paid search will drive in-market traffic. These promotional materials will be complemented with sales collateral such as case studies, presentations, one-pagers, even pull-up banners for use at events.

In addition, General Sir Peter Wall is a marketing asset in his own right. His ability to combine insights from the military and corporate worlds and deliver them cogently and with real expertise make him a valuable and high-profile source of content. So we’re developing an event calendar and are working with high-end business partners like the Henley Business School to provide great content in exchange for raising the profile of Amicus with blue-chip prospects.

Results
The brand and campaign is going live in November 2022 so watch this space for an update on results. If you sign up to our newsletter you’ll be the first to know. And of course if you’d like to learn more about what Amicus have to offer you can visit them at www.amicuslimited.com.