Clarity in cohesion
Offshore Group
Peace of mind delivered with real commercial value.
Offshore Group offers flexible, outsourced accounting and payroll for businesses across the Channel Islands and beyond. Comprised of three separate service groups, Offshore required assistance modernising their brand, unifying their identity across offerings and ensuring a high level of standardisation across brand materials.
Offshore appointed Edward & James to deliver a complete, updated brand that centred cohesion and consistency whilst communicating modernity, quality and professionalism.
A key pillar of this rebrand was the transition away from the Offshore Commercial name—which leadership found to limit understanding of the wide remit of industries they worked with—to Offshore Group.
Importantly, branding needed to clearly delineate the separation between Offshore’s three key areas—the parent brand of Offshore Group and two sub-brands, Offshore Accounting and Offshore Payroll—whilst still clearly conveying their relationship. To do this, Edward & James oversaw Offshore’s transition from the singular brand, Offshore Commercial, to a Branded House including the parent company of Offshore Group and the sub-brands of Offshore Payroll and Offshore Accounting.
Over the course of the rebrand, Edward & James provided a complete updated brand identity including guidelines, social templates and stationery; provided copy for and oversaw a third-party agency’s updating of the website; provided guidance and oversight as Offshore transitioned into the new operational and branding standards of a Branded House; assisted with marketing operations such as HubSpot data cleansing and automation; and provided ongoing direction throughout the process.
Extraordinary growth since relaunching in 2022 had left Offshore with undefined service areas demarcated by inconsistent branding. Following an in-depth audit of their current branding and marketing, alongside a look at their long-term strategy, we concluded that a Branded House, in which the primary brand was consistently centred and sub-brands acted as offshoots, was the way forward for Offshore Group.
By moving to a Branded House, Offshore Group could centre efficiency whilst encouraging memorability and clarity within their market and avoid confusion around their services. Prior to this, Offshore Group faced market uncertainty regarding who they served and what services they offered, and often found market cannibalisation as a result of unclear service areas.
The rebrand strategically worked to combat those uncertainties and make Offshore’s market offerings clear and memorable.
With branding, marketing and company communications split over teams throughout Offshore’s history, brand systems had grown inconsistent; in addition to the key goal of clarity, this project had the intention of standardising brand materials throughout the business. and ensuring that team members were equipped with clear guidelines for application.
Updates included brand guidelines and logos, stationery (inclusive of business cards, letterheads and signage) and digital assets (such as social media templates, company desktop backgrounds, employee LinkedIn headers, and presentations). Staff participation played a key role in implementation, allowing for renewed brand cohesion all the way down to the staff level.
The result? A coordinated, modern brand system that clearly communicates Offshore’s services and identity.
Edward & James offered ongoing operational marketing support throughout the rebrand process, helping to ensure that Offshore’s systems were organised and modernised alongside their new brand structure.
This entailed a full website refresh. Collaborating with a third-party agency, Edward & James directed the updated website’s design and build and provided all copywriting and content.
To ensure clear systems at all levels, Edward & James further provided backend operational support within HubSpot. Data cleansing, optimised workflows and detailed reporting dashboards were built and provided to Offshore by the Edward & James team.
Edward & James continues to act as a strategic marketing partner to Offshore, working alongside their leadership to ensure that their branding and marketing evolve in a cohesive and logical way. Now with a solid foundation, Edward & James will offer marketing strategy, implementation and oversight; campaign planning and execution; and marketing budget management on retainer.
Edward & James’ ongoing work with Offshore has resulted in a refreshed identity that is cohesive, simple and considered, alongside comprehensive internal systems to serve the team’s commercial goals henceforth.
Craig Shorto, Managing Director
