Balancing Beauty, Science and Business for St. Louis Heat Treater
Early on in the branding program with Paulo, our team went on a tour of their St. Louis heat treating plant. And we saw something surprising in the thousand-degree furnaces. It was all beautiful.
That’s right: where Paulo’s engineering team saw purpose, control and raw functionality, we saw surprising strength and beauty.
Even in that purpose, we found unexpected interest: Paulo doesn’t actually make anything. They make things better, safer and stronger. Specifically, they take metal parts from major manufacturers and alter them – heating (and then, often cooling) the parts so they meet specific standards.
For example, that metal seatbelt buckle on your car? It was probably heat treated at Paulo to make sure the parts meet exacting safety specs. Paulo works with manufacturers in a range of industries, from automotive, to aerospace, defense, agriculture and firearms.
So here’s this nearly invisible brand that touches (and even protects) lives every day. How do we capture this unexpected beauty in a way that raises Paulo’s profile among its top-tier manufacturing clients?
As we always do, we started by asking questions.
We started by talking to both their internal teams and their customers. We learned about the deep scientific underpinnings to Paulo’s processes. Everything they do is meticulously measured at every step. They have metallurgists – scientists who specialize in metal – on staff. That’s not something every heat treater can say.
To gain some clarity with this project, we started writing, looking for a way to tell the Paulo story as simply and succinctly as we could.
This lead us to a new tagline.
Paulo’s existing logo was already relatively strong, so we built on this foundation as we created their core identity pieces – including sales slicks and business cards. Our goal was to show how Paulo reveals the strength in the best metal parts in the world.
As we began to design to the website, our goal was to translate this scientific, measure-everything approach to a compelling selling proposition – visually and, of course, in copy.
This wouldn’t be a good story without a little drama – and this is where it started. Where we saw graphic interest, our client saw unrealistic (or overly negative) fluctuations in data. To assuage their fears, we smoothed the graphs and changed the format to better reflect the kinds of data and graphs their customers see during the course of the project.
The core promise of the brand – that Paulo makes the best parts even better –underscores the company’s partnerships with the world’s most respected manufacturers.
When we started thinking about the website’s structure, we wanted to make it a valuable resource for Paulo’s customers. That meant identifying the core ways people may use the site, and what they need to know in order to make a buying decision.
Industry lists, example parts and service lists make it easy for people to find the information they need. And carefully structured calls to action lead people to contact or quoting forms, so they can get their projects started quickly.
As always, we made it easy for Paulo to keep their site updated – so if they have upcoming tradeshows or new service lines, they can add pages themselves, with little or no help from us.
We’re looking forward to doing more with the company as we find new ways to help them reach their customers.
