MICEport has launched its new brand identity this January.
With thanks to Stuart Fogarty CEO of Admatic in Ireland, a post graduate MBA marketing program from Dublin, Ireland and the MICEport Team in the US, we have launched our new brand identity - we hope you like it - we do!
MICEport was founded by Matthew J. McElroy in March 2011 as an international marketing, incentive events company. During the pandemic, we decided for many factors, that we would change the brand identity of the company, partially out of choice and partially out of necessity beyond our control.
Our colors, design, fonts and wording were thoroughly thought through, and sometimes were painful, but we got there. Now, in the world we live in, the company moto of 'Adventure Awaits, Experience Counts' could not be more apt. So many things have changed in small business marketing but especially in incentive and luxury travel industries over the last two years and our branding had to reflect that.
The swirls that we had, which were inspired by Newgrange in Ireland, has now been replaced with our interpretation of the Giant's Causeway stones on the North Coast of Northern Ireland in County Antrim. It also symbolizes the importance of the close relationships needed in our business with suppliers and customers. One column may be strong but the multiple columns enable greater strength, similar to a honeycomb in a beehive, and enable us to achieve better results for our customers.
'Adventure Awaits, Experience Counts'
This was really something that came out of the current climate and our perceived optimistic future outlook. The uncertainty that the pandemic has created has caused understandable hesitation for businesses and travelers alike, however we looked at this in a more positive light. The coming months/years are going to be an adventure and unexpected things will happen - hence Adventure Awaits, but if you have an experienced team and experienced partners behind you, that Experience Counts.
The Colors & Font
These were important choices for the company. We knew that we wanted to have yellow/orange because it combines the energy of red and the happiness of yellow. It is associated with joy, sunshine, and the tropics, it represents enthusiasm, fascination, happiness, joy, creativity, determination, attraction, success, encouragement and stimulation - all of which we hold dear in MICEport. Black is associated with power, elegance, formality and prestigious color as well as enabling us to create depth. While the grey represents neutrality and balance.
The fonts that we used were very difficult to land on. We didn't want anything too simple or anything too complicated. We didn't want strict harsh lines but we did want something that was rounded - hence why we landed on Foco Bold, Foco Regular, Ubuntu Bold and Ubuntu Light.
Service Offerings
We really did need to put this in the brand identity. MICE, in the travel industry is Meeting, Incentive, Conference and Events while Port was our way of incorporating Passport because a lot of our work is for international clients. So we played off the word of MICE for our service offerings in the brand:
Marketing ideas
Incentive travel rewards
Conference experiences
Event concepts
We hope you like our new brand because we do, and once again thank you to our partners on this, especially Admatic CEO, Stuart Fogarty and the marketing team at MICEport and the postgraduate students in Ireland.