AI meets Oil

The Shaping and Polishing of a Cleantech Brand Gem

In January 2022, Cleantech innovator Rocsole invited OVERW8 brand agency to take their branding + marketing to the next level. Learn more here.

Client: Rocsole
Website: rocsole.com
Date: 4. October 2022
Services: Vision, Branding, Social Media, Collaterals, Pitch Deck, Website

Supported by OVERW8 with:

Clarify the Vision and Brand
Brand Design Makeover
Brand Communication

Social Media, Sales Material

Product Concepts
Website
Sales Material
Content Marketing Base
Brand Architecture

About Rocsole

When 👉Mika Tienhaara (CEO Rocsole) and 👉Harri Hedman (CMO Rocsole) were having first talks with OVERW8, they were the driven leadership team of a startup that had been carving their way for years investing in complex research and development.

Their technology is based on electrical tomography, a technology stemming from the med tech area that they and their team had transferred to come of use in a totally different sector: the Oil industry.

They (and we) knew they were sitting on a really cool asset, if not a real gem. But how to enable other people to also immediately get that? And how to create immediate relevance?

About Rocsole

When 👉Mika Tienhaara (CEO Rocsole) and 👉Harri Hedman (CMO Rocsole) were having first talks with OVERW8, they were the driven leadership team of a startup that had been carving their way for years investing in complex research and development.

Their technology is based on electrical tomography, a technology stemming from the med tech area that they and their team had transferred to come of use in a totally different sector: the Oil industry.

They (and we) knew they were sitting on a really cool asset, if not a real gem. But how to enable other people to also immediately get that? And how to create immediate relevance?

THE ROADMAP

How we structured the work process

  1. Trigger questions for preparation, analysis of existing material, analytics
  2. In-person workshop in Munich (1 day)
  3. Shape results for a reco about the vision and the brand values, refinement by leadership team
  4. Brand makeover + marketing/sales playbook
  5. Start spreading the word: social media + authority whitepaper
  6. Provide the unsexy but necessary: docs, templates etc.
  7. Products: give the babies a name
  8. Make sure sales is well equipped
  9. Double whopper super sprint: Pitch Deck and Website Makeover
  10. Wrap it up: case studies, wordpress coaching etc.

Refining the vision

Thorough preparation on all sides immediately paid off when Harri, Mika (Rocsole), and Kristin (o8) met up on a cold winter morning in the heart of Munich city. Within the first 90 minutes, the swapping of ideas piled up into vast waves of cocreation, mental experimentation, and stories about the ‘real life’ in the industry, about the team and its strength.

As expected, an intense day delivered a huge quantity of quality insights and a great ground to start from. After that, an authentic Bavarian beer was well deserved!

Refining the vision

Thorough preparation on all sides immediately paid off when Harri, Mika (Rocsole), and Kristin (o8) met up on a cold winter morning in the heart of Munich city. Within the first 90 minutes, the swapping of ideas piled up into vast waves of cocreation, mental experimentation, and stories about the ‘real life’ in the industry, about the team and its strength.

As expected, an intense day delivered a huge quantity of quality insights and a great ground to start from. After that, an authentic Bavarian beer was well deserved!

Creating the New Positioning: Cleantech

“Positioning” might sound like a foggy concept for you if you haven’t heard about it and worked with it. Indeed, it is a highly practical tool from the marketing toolset that helps the market, the target groups understand what you and your company are about and whether your offering is relevant for them.

In this case, it now might sound like a simple tweak, but it carried quite a bit of raffinesse in it. After truly finding out, digging for the long term benefits of Rocsole’s offering it gained shape: “Cleantech” – that was what it was about. And IoT – the combo of physical elements plus clever use of data. It was decided very quickly to go for that and just weeks later for a major conference, the OTC, it already could be seen that this really caught on.

A TRUE NORTHSTAR

Distinctive Brand Values + Imagery

The oil and gas industry is a pretty typical B2B market in that 80% of its players still stick to pretty bluish-greyish imagery and pretty conservative messages or shall we dare say it? They still communicate along the lines of “professional needs to be boring”. For innovator Rocsole it was a good opportunity to change that.

Oil & Gas + Human + High Tech

Roscole already clearly identified themselves as being a startup style company in a corporate world, a bridge builder and OVERW8 intended to help them get that across. “Imagery” i.e the deliberate use of a certain style of pictures telling a certain story is a powerful tool. The right choice of pictures can make an immediately conceived difference whether that might be on Social Media, on a website, or in sales material.

Marketing + Sales Playbook

Based on this, we headed on to create the marketing and sales playbook. You might be wondering why here not a ‘marketing strategy’ is happening. That is because in our long work experience with startups we simply gave up on that. It’s not working. The concept of it is too linear, too stiff.

A playbook like this here draws from the idea as in American football that you need to have a solid overview of your assets, make sure you got enough resources, then be able to quickly adapt to whatever is thrown at you. It does identify critical gaps, it gives a clear wishlist of options about what to do next, but at its very core it is and stays agile.

Marketing + Sales Playbook

Based on this, we headed on to create the marketing and sales playbook. You might be wondering why here not a ‘marketing strategy’ is happening. That is because in our long work experience with startups we simply gave up on that. It’s not working. The concept of it is too linear, too stiff.

A playbook like this here draws from the idea as in American football that you need to have a solid overview of your assets, make sure you got enough resources, then be able to quickly adapt to whatever is thrown at you. It does identify critical gaps, it gives a clear wishlist of options about what to do next, but at its very core it is and stays agile.

Because startup and scaleup life is very often like playing level 10 on Tetris.

BRAND DESIGN MAKEOVER

A New Lego System

A good brand system contains all the elements that you need to be consistent in your messaging thus creating trust. It is about logo, fonts, colors, imagery, visuals. We went on to create the brand manual.

Safety & Elegance, Contrastive Universes

The color palette draws from 2 main aspects: the real-life world in which the probes simply have a certain color palette – and the cultural world in which Rocsole wanted to make clear that they are a high-quality human and reliable partner. The palettes also allow for the complexity of communicating tech details, providing lots of opportunity for contrast.

Two main brand elements to define two different contexts

In terms of brand communication, it became clear that there will be big-picture topics to talk about as well as tech details to be shared. To make this easier to differentiate, we created visual icons to be used accordingly.

These decorative elements recall the “fluid” concept of Rocsole’s brand values, as well as the oil texture and the scientific representation of natural elements such as a tree trunk or geological shapes: they perfectly match the industry topic and the human / nature relationship, which are the core base of the brand.

They are stylish and elegant on-brand elements to be used in all collaterals, and in overlay backgrounds.

The dot pattern as well represents data points, the universe of AI and the diligent and organized structure of Rocsole’s processes and industry. The circle is a clean and simple symbol, an adaptation to the current O symbol from RS logo and it also recalls the pipes.

Those are secondary elements to use in documents in order to create contrast and recognition.

Last but not least, it’s linked to “Scandi” design patterns.

GET IT OUT THERE

Social Media Templates

After the main strategic pillars as well as the brand manual had been released, it was about time to share some of the new messaging on the outside. Social media with a focus on LinkedIn proved to be up for a quick and successful start.

STATEMENT PIECES

The Authority Whitepaper

When you have a new positioning, messaging, brand, it is good practice to let the world know that there is more to it than just a slogan. Especially if the positioning and offering are about cleantech, authority and firmness need to be shown.

Whitepapers such as this are perfect for that and are a true content asset that will last for 2 years of repurposing at least.

Products: Concept and Naming

What’s the name of the baby?

When creating the playbook, the o8 team noticed something so obvious no one had noticed anymore. The Rocsole team was certain that they had a clear offering and they knew what they did, but except for the leadership team, they had a hard time explaining it, and there had developed varying versions of how to name it.

Naming the then-called “separator profiler” just that was pretty much the same as selling Coca-Cola as “caffeinated lemonade”. It was time to shape the product offering – polishing the gems. Together with the Rocsole sales team led by 👉Pekka Kaunisto and supported by 👉Dung Nguyen, o8 started working on case studies and product descriptions, defining benefits, features etc.

Give it a name, have it protected, and make it an asset.

Clever Sales Mechanisms

Each product brochure is complemented by the respective case study in PDF and online format to provide sales with “show, don’t tell” opportunities.

Clever Sales Mechanisms

Each product brochure is complemented by the respective case study in PDF and online format to provide sales with “show, don’t tell” opportunities.

NOT SEXY, BUT NECESSARY

Docs, Templates etc.

Everyday B2B business contains documents such as proposals, tech sheets, and invoices. In a highly challenging environment consistency  is key and this especially accounts for the ‘small’ things – in this case Microsoft Docs, Power Point Master and the like.

Get the team on the same page

The culture at Rocsole is very collaborative and efficiency-driven at the same time. In this case, it meant that

  • leadership set the ground,
  • the sales team helped with their input for the playbook making sure we got the target groups’ needs right,
  • and the extended team, of course, was supposed to get involved, too.

An online workshop was on the agenda.

MAKE IT 360

Transfer it to the Office

The Rocsole team had a clear intention to make sure their team has a real ‘home’ at their founding place, Kuopio. To make sure the branding idea was translated into this physical space, Harri Hedman connected the architect, interior designer and o8 so together we could make sure you immediately feel where you are, and the team can look forward to coming to the office each morning.

In a typically ‘dirty’ industry, these airy and collaboration-inviting spaces are a statement of innovation in themselves.

Website

Get ready for the next (content marketing) level

The existing website had several issues that needed to be resolved so the Rocsole marketing team could head into a successful future:

  1. the tech base (October CMS) was very complex
  2. adding new content, blogs etc. was a true challenge
  3. the content was far too detailed, “down the funnel”
  4. the user experience had no clear story flow and often was overwhelming
Website

Get ready for the next (content marketing) level

The existing website had several issues that needed to be resolved so the Rocsole marketing team could head into a successful future:

  1. the tech base (October CMS) was very complex
  2. adding new content, blogs etc. was a true challenge
  3. the content was far too detailled, “down the funnel”
  4. the user experience hat no clear story flow and often was overwhelming
Double Whopper Super Sprint

New Pitch Deck + Website Makeover: Can it be done at the same time?

In early August, the Rocsole team ran into a luxury problem: Investor interest had heated up much earlier than expected and the opportunity needed to be taken. At the same time, the website makeover had been a defined priority to be done till “back to school” in September.

What if… ? Would it be too crazy to do both at the same time?

Maybe yes. Then again, it might have its advantages. We gave it a solid thought and then

…together went for a true sprint.

The True Challenge of a Pitchdeck

A truly effective pitchdeck needs to strike the balance between what will interest the investors, what should interest the investors (anything that will give them the wished for 10x evaluation in the future) and what the company / CEO can credibly offer.

At OVERW8 it is one of our favourite and most honourable tasks as it can make the next investment round so much easier and gives you great leverage.

The True Challenge of a Pitchdeck

A truly effective pitchdeck needs to strike the balance between what will interest the investors, what should interest the investors (anything that will give them the wished for 10x evaluation in the future) and what the company / CEO can credibly offer.

At OVERW8 it is one of our favourite and most honourable tasks as it can make the next investment round so much easier and gives you great leverage.

How we got it done together

Basically it went like this:

Go Live

robust mechanisms

Newsletter + List Building

Templates and concept for the newsletter had been prepped already, the list was put together, the content received a bit of coaching (for example, boldly showing off the tech pioneer listing), and the first newsletter went out.

From that moment on, o8 kept an eye for list building opportunities and for example set up a “signup to download” process for the product pages that is bringing in new leads.

no need to wait around

Newsletter + List Building

Templates and concept for the newsletter had been prepped already, the list was put together, the content coached a bit (for example, boldly showing off the tech pioneer listing), and the first newsletter went out. From that moment on, o8 kept an eye for list building opportunities and for example set up a signup to download process on the product pages.

A Bigger Picture for the future

The #greendustry Initiative

Of course, marketing never ends, it can just get to a next level and then progress from there. In this case, it was important to pave the way into a bigger future by finding a platform to invite other players from other fields such as academics, media etc. to start shaping the future.

Based on existing ideas from the Rocsole team, o8 distilled things down to a very hands-on approach that is, on the one hand, long-term yet, on the other hand, concrete enough so people can engage with this.

The initiative will start to get active in 2023 – so if you are interested, feel free to reach out to 👉Harri Hedman to find out more about the details.

Handing over to the team

It is part of our work principles to enable easy handover and coaching into the clients team where that makes sense and can be covered by internal skills. The new WordPress page allows for easy adding of press material, events and blog articles, the templated newsletter tool makes it easy to create the next newsletter and for some specialties there might be explanatory tutorial videos such as this.

DIY Tutorials

WordPress Coaching

Newsletter Coaching

Tools

Our Tech Stack for this Project

Project Management: Asana

Brand Landscape & Web Design Process: Miro

Graphic & Brand Design, Social Media Templates: Canva

Collaterals and client communication: Microsoft Office (PowerPoint / Word / Teams)

File Sharing and Collaborative Doc Revisions: Google Drive

Web Design & Development: WordPress

Some exemplary results

  • Clear positioning makes communication much easier, and gains more relevant (!) interest
  • Selling made much easier with elements sales had asked for to be successful (case studies, product brochures)
  • Sped up product development (turning tech into product into a subscription)
  • Active newsletter with 800 people and xx% opening rate
  • Content Marketing of the future already set up with statement pieces and long term initiatives
  • Complete marketing and sales system base setup
Harri Hedman

Rocsole CMO

In 2022, our goal was to take our marketing and branding to the next level. With overw8, we found a great companion and top-quality work partner to get this done. Within just nine months, they covered all bases for us – from strategy and positioning through new design and communication tools from social media to whitepapers incl. a complete website makeover. Our product and sales communication now have a new level of clarity that has already started paying off. Mindset-wise a 100% fit for any startup and growth situation. The work style is friendly (even fun!), efficient, creative, and highly reliable in quality and timing. Goal achieved, highly recommended.

And by the way… even a competitor of ours just told us they noticed the massive shift in our marketing and that they envied us for that!

Thanks to the Rocsole team for a highly efficient super speed work process:

This was enabled by the highly reliable, bold and open-minded decision-making on Mika Tienhaara’s and Harri Hedman’s part. From an agency point of view, the “time till completion” built upon that is quite record-breaking. Chapeau!

So this whole process took…

Timeline

January - September | 9 Months

In Person Time / Workshops

2 1-Day Workshops for CEO/CMO Rocsole

Internal Time Invest @Client

For the CEO besides that on average 2h / month

For the CMO besides that on average 2,5 - 4h / month

So what's the budget?

Expect something similar to range around 100K €. Depending on the starting point, complexity/fogginess and needed project management.

Want to do something similar?

Every situation, goal and company is different.
We are happy to advise you to find out what suits you.