About the business
Kärcher is a German family-owned company that has become world market leader for high-pressure cleaners and cleaning systems. It’s portfolio includes a variety of floor care systems, gardening tools, window vacuum cleaners and more. In some countries, the products have grown so popular that the term „Kärchern“ is synonymously used to refer to cleaning floors with any kind of cleaning equipment. 

Challenge
Kärcher was a strong brand already since Meta’s last rebranding in 2015. Nevertheless the brand needed to keep pace with expectations of younger target groups and evolving digital media challenges four years later.
We had to develop a progressive brand evolution with a simple and flexible system to empower maximum visual impact – still we needed to ensure that the existing brand character is built upon and enable a holistic, consistent brand experience across all media touchpoints.

Solution 
The new brand experience evolves application of layout, logo, color, typography and image style. 
We developed a layout system, that promotes a flexible, yet simple application of color and imagery across all media formats: Yellow is Kärcher‘s strongest brand asset, therefore we got rid of the white area in layouts of high brand volume. This impacts a louder brand appearance and enables bolder storytelling through imagery. At the same time, the flexible layout system provides a broad range of layout solutions.

We also challenged the logo application and defined a more flexible set of rules which now allows the application on different backgrounds, even imagery. Accordingly the logo doesn’t have to stand exclusively on white anymore which follows a more modern branding approach.
In consequence of this modern approach, we also decided to drop the claim tagline of the logo. This simplification feels less corporate and works better on several digital media touchpoints, such as Social Media.

Speaking of digital media challenges, we needed to define a designated Call-to-action color which converts better because yellow is already in extensive use within all layouts and draws much attention.

Last but not least we also had to define a consistent style of product staging. In favor of the brand character, we wanted the products to be perceived as heroic but not static. Accordingly we defined principles for perspectives and cropping which don’t distort or alienate the product but still feel confident and energetic.
In addition to that, the interplay of product and headline amplifies this dynamic approach by adding a playful tension to the layout.