About the Client
The Drake Group has been a much-loved client of ours since the beginning. Their name is synonymous with innovation, strength and quality trailer engineering. Their story started in 1958 with a small trailer workshop located in Brisbane’s west, called Drake Trailers. From the early days, their focus has always been on strong materials and robust engineering which offers long-term efficiency, safety and rock-solid reliability. Some of their heavy transport models from the ‘70s are still on the road today, tasked with carrying large equipment for every kind of industry.
Over the last ten years, Drake Trailers expanded their portfolio, acquiring renowned semi-trailer brand O’Phee Trailers and launching an incredibly popular diecast model business, Drake Collectibles. Their subsidiary brands and partnerships grew too. They became the exclusive Australian dealer for Cometto’s self-propelled electronic trailers, as well as an industrial and commercial partner for BoXLoader’s range of side loaders, with O’Phee collaborating to build container transport models for the side loader container industry. To top off their luxury brands, The Drake Group is the exclusive dealer for Sunseeker yachts on the East coast.
Client Objective
The expansion of the brand prompted Drake Trailers to relaunch as The Drake Group, bringing all their brands under the one umbrella. Their goal was to seamlessly change their visual identity to unify the brand that would be rolled out over the course of a year. The elements they needed included a new style guide and a single website that would house all the brands, products and services. To rebrand was no easy task, which is where we came in!
iFactory Solution
Using the 60 year anniversary as the catalyst to usher in the new identity, we started with a landing page that outlined what was to come and provided visitors with contact information. From there we created a new style guide incorporating the famous “Drake” logo which was rolled out across every touchpoint including social media, merchandising, products, uniforms and internal stationery.
In the meantime, we got to work creating a website that would house everything the company is doing in a way that wouldn’t dilute the legacy of the individual brands. Bearing in mind that one of the cardinal rules of changing a visual identity is “evolution, not revolution”, we made sure that The Drake Group website would be seen as the natural next step of the brand instead of a complete makeover.
We went with large, responsive visuals to emphasise the scale of the trailers – as the tagline says, they’re Drake Size – and how they famously make light work of heavy loads. A simple to use back-end allows for easy addition of new products and updating existing product lines, and extensive work on the site’s search engine friendly structure ensured continuation of outstanding organic search rankings. All in all, we’re proud to be a part of The Drake Group’s continuing legacy.
