OUR EXPERIENCE

We have unrivalled experience advising the world’s leading professional service firms and knowledge-intensive B2B businesses on using their brand to drive growth and transformation.

Linklaters

One of the first international firms to invest leadership time and energy in law firm branding to create a globally unified brand.

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White & Case

Positioning White & Case as a global law firm with a distinctive ‘G20 flavour’ through powerful messaging and thought leadership.

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KPMG

Repositioning KPMG Management Consultants—the fastest growing division of one of the Big 4 professional service firms.

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Mayer Brown

Developing a new brand strategy for a distinctively global law firm, delivering excellence across four continents.

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PA Consulting

New purpose-led brand positioning for one of the world’s leading innovation and transformation consultancies.

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Baker McKenzie

Helping the pioneering firm, that invented the first 20th-century global law firm brand, reinvent it in the 21st.

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Read more about our experience

ABOUT US

Principia is a strategic brand consulting firm with a difference

We're specialists in a world of generalists.
 

We have unrivalled expertise and experience working with the world's leading professional service firms and knowledge-intensive B2B businesses to strengthen their brand reputation and ignite strategic growth.

 

Brands are much more than logos – we work with our clients to define a brand platform that brings their strategy to life, defines their proposition, and inspires actions that change market perceptions and drive demand.

 

Professional service firms and knowledge-intensive B2B businesses can be tough to navigate — but we know how — we’ve worked with hundreds of them. From huge, global organisations operating across every continent and every major economy, to smaller, boutiques, sometimes operating from a single location. 

 

Read more about our approach

OUR SERVICES

Brands are much more than logos

We work with our clients to define a brand platform that ignites their strategy, defines their proposition, and inspires actions that change market perceptions and drive demand.
We can help you...

REVIEW YOUR

Brand-Strategy

Strategy made visible

We’ll start from your strategy, defining how your brand can help bring it to life, both inside the firm and in the market.

Leadership engagement

We’ll help you build leadership buy-in – the critical first step in taking control of a professional service firm’s brand.

Internal and client research

Discovery research, conducted among partners, employees and clients, sits at the heart of the discovery process.

Competitor/market analysis

We’ll help you understand where your firm sits in the market and how your brand can be distinctive and differentiated.

Brand idea and narrative

The cornerstone of brand strategy – we’ll develop a strong idea that galvanises the thinking into a distinctive brand narrative.

Brand actions

We’ll define a coordinated set of year-one brand initiatives and applications that will bring the brand to life in the market.

REDEFINE YOUR

Brand Purpose

Discover your North Star

We’ll help you take a step back and connect your values with your mission in a holistic, inspiring and authentic concept.

Purpose with proposition

We’ll ensure that your purpose is designed with a baked-in proposition that integrates it with your business strategy.

ESG integration

Alongside a high-level purpose statement, we’ll show you how to connect it to the hard yards of policy and governance.

DE&I made visible

We’ll help you project your DE&I mission as part of your purpose to engage stakeholders internally and externally.

RETHINK YOUR

Brand Messages

Evidence-based

We’ll work with you to build the fact and insight base needed to ensure your messages have teeth in the current market.

Key messages

We’ll develop a powerful set of key messages that combine to bring your strategy to life and push your brand forwards.

Proof points

Using evidence and examples we’ll show you how to ground your messages in reality and make them convincing.

Differentiation

We’ll weave in a thread of differentiation throughout the set of key messages to stand your firm apart from your competitors.

REIMAGINE YOUR

Brand Expression

Visual identity

We’ll bring the power of your brand to life with a visual identity that expresses your brand personality and what you stand for.

Verbal identity

Through consistent language and tone of voice we’ll show you how to express your brand in aspects of verbal communications.

Thought leadership content

We’ll show you how to approach and structure your thought leadership programme to project your brand strategy.

Client experience

Through client service principles and internal engagement, we’ll help you align your client experience with your brand promise.

REVITALISE YOUR

Digital Brand

Website

We’ll show you how to effectively project your brand story through your website design, content and user experience.

Social media

We’ll help you harness your social media strategy so that it complements your overall brand narrative and key messages.

Digital client experience

With most of your overall client experience being delivered online and digitally, we’ll show you how to differentiate it.

REFRESH YOUR

Brand Values

Values that count

We’ll help you develop authentic values that will push your culture forwards, driving performance as well as beliefs.

Behaviours and actions

Through tangible client service principles and supporting stories, we’ll help you standardise excellence in client service.

Rewards and recognition

We’ll show you how to use symbols and substance in your reward and recognition programmes to reinforce your brand.

Employee Value Proposition / EVP

We’ll help you use your brand to project your firm and stand out in the talent market at all levels of seniority.

OUR INSIGHTS

How to use brand for transformation – not for decoration 

 

See all our insights

Brand is Culture. Culture is Brand.

The inextricable link between brand and culture for law firms, professional service firms, and knowledge-intensive B2B businesses

Branding is easy. Partnerships are hard.

As CMO of a professional services firm, do you see branding as an opportunity to put marketing at the heart of the firm’s overall business strategy, or a potential ‘career-limiting move’?

Why brand architecture gives CMOs a headache – and how relieve the pain

Brand architecture is market signposting. It helps clients navigate and make sense of a professional service firm's offer. It gives CMOs a big headache because of the internal dynamics.

Challenger brands in professional services and B2B

Challenger brands are relatively rare in professional services and B2B – despite conditions being ripe for many firms to benefit.

The magic of a mass-niche strategic brand positioning

A mass-niche positioning can be a potent way for an elite professional services firm or knowledge-intensive B2B business to stand out in a crowded market.

ESG. Brand differentiator or qualifier?

Firms need to be strategic about ESG branding to avoid confusing differentiation with qualification.