Branding InQuest (Part I)

05Apr08

A great product deserves a great image. Some of technology’s most recent branding successes include Apple, Google and Skype.

Is InQuest a great brand? Only time can answer a perennial question. What I can say with absolute confidence is that I gave the branding process the time, respect and effort I think it deserves. This post explores some of what went into that effort. You may find this interesting if there is a branding initiative on your horizon.

The branding process spawns from a deep understanding of who our audience is. We use this insight to to create a brand that connects with them. My audience happens to be recruiters. With all due respect, recruiters are typically not the most avant-garde folks around. They are a very conservative group which is a big reason why the majority of the recruiting software available today is so uninspiring. Recruiters simply don’t demand more — yet.

I digress, the point being that in branding InQuest, I wasn’t going to have much success convincing recruiters to embrace a product called Snazzle. Or some other overly ambitious manifestation of the left side of the brain. Therefore, the focus never was to come up with a high concept name. Instead, the focus was on how to incorporate the problem the software solves into the brand.

So what is the main obstacle that stands between a recruiter and success? Finding who they are looking for!

In other words, the quest.

a search or pursuit made in order to find or obtain something

This is the key activity a recruiter engages in between getting a search assignment and closing a deal. Once this activity has started it is ‘in’ process. That is, the process of being in quest of something. It is this painstaking process that my software facilitates. So my branding objective was to create a brand recruiters would instantly recognize and associate with as a remedy for easing that pain.

The concept of ‘pain’ should not be taken lightly or humorously. The process of searching today is indeed an often agonizing undertaking. Not because recruiters don’t like to search or feel they shouldn’t have to. But because of the way the industry has changed in response to technology advancement. Technology like the internet has created a new breed of frustrations for recruiters who now are not only competing against more recruiters (most of which are unskilled sourcers) but against they very candidates they want to represent.

Again, I digress. The whole point being that if the search process is considered painful the brand I want to create should communicate pain relief.

As a writer, I have a true appreciation for the beauty of words and how they can manipulate emotions. Not just in just a contextual sense, but in an auditory and visual sense. Are they pretty to look at in their structure and balance? Do they have graphic design potential? To they roll off the tongue elegantly?

I felt with inquest (formatted as InQuest), I had found the perfect brand.

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