Ravensburger Brand Books

How we brought three distinct brands into focus and developed clear guidelines to inspire Ravensburger's team and partners.

Image: Grace Hwu

Ravensburg, Germany

Games and Toys

Focus: B2C, Internal

CONTEXT

Ravensburger was looking to unify its portfolio of beloved, award-winning game and toy brands. The combined teams had done some collaborative brand-building exercises, but they needed help solidifying distinct identities for each brand. Vitamin C collaborated closely with Ravensburger's marketing and design leads to create a polished, comprehensive brand book capturing the unique spirit of Ravensburger, Wonder Forge, and Brio in the context of the overarching Ravensburger North America brand.

VITAMIN C SERVICES

Brand Strategy

• Development and refinement of brand pyramid diagrams for Ravensburger, Wonder Forge, and Brio, using inputs from brand-building exercises

• Recommendations for overall brand and product line strategy, addressing areas of overlap and opportunity, treatment of licensed properties, and analysis of specific toy/game platforms

Brand Activation

• Development of distinct voice and spirit for each brand book, drawing inspiration from brand heritage, existing brand materials, and product line

• Creation of initial visual layouts for all brand book pages

• Overall creative direction, working in close collaboration with Ravensburger's in-house designer

• Creation of all brand book copy, including brand manifestos, expression of brand values, and voice/tone guidelines.

Vitamin C refined and simplified brand pyramid diagrams to clearly communicate the unique spirit of each brand.

Visual timeline celebrating Ravensburger's heritage

Vitamin C created brand manifestos for both Ravensburger and Wonder Forge.

MOMENT OF CLARITY

While the brand books were under way, the product line strategy came into question. Vitamin C collaborated with the brand team to recommend how licensed properties should be split across the two brands, incorporating compelling consumer quotes drawn from focus groups in California and Seattle. This shaped the overall strategy as well as the brand books themselves.

Vitamin C recommended keeping popular licenses and portable formats with Wonder Forge.

CREATIVE INSPIRATION

We wanted even the standard pages to truly reflect the spirit of the brand, so for the Wonder Forge colors page, we gave the colors playful names and styled them like bouncing balls. This became the primary visual motif for the Wonder Forge brand book.

Mockup brand book page with bouncing ball motif

CONTENT CLIP

HAPPY CLIENT

"When my company was acquired, we selected Vitamin C Creative to help us evolve branding for our newly formed parent company and two major sub-brands. Vitamin C won our business over other big names in branding because they demonstrated--from the very first meeting and throughout the project--a deep understanding of our business and our industry and an unyielding commitment to helping us solve our toughest branding challenges.

Catherine was a true partner in every sense of the word--strategic, creative and thoughtful; a brilliant writer who found just the right voice and tone for our distinct consumer audiences; and a clear and direct communicator. She brought structure and focus to our project and always delivered work on deadline and on budget. We could not be happier with the end result, which included new brand positioning, refined brand pyramids, a roadmap for new product development, and compelling brand books to educate our internal teams and guide our marketing efforts. We are very pleased with the contribution Vitamin C Creative made to our business." Kimberley Pierce, Head of Marketing, Ravensburger North America

COLLABORATORS

Kimberley Pierce, Ravensburger NA

Brian Alm, Ravensburger NA

#internalcommunications #Ravensburger #brandguidelines #B2C #brandmanifesto #storytelling #brandstrategy