Scaling up by swimming against

Bubblefish is not your everyday branding agency. We build brands that help our clients build their businesses. A mission that is succinctly captured in our brand promise: Scaling up your business. 

Why the scale?

The fish scale has become a distinctive verbal and visual metaphor for the agency in many ways.  

It is depicted as the visual icon accompanying the Bubblefish® logotype. It represents an upward pointing arrow, a symbol of growth that continually inspires us to seek our ‘True North’. Not just in terms of business goals but also our guiding values. 

Equally, the scale has a close association with a ladder as in ‘scaling the ladder’. Something that constantly reminds us that we are in the business of helping our clients grow their business as we continue to stretch ourselves. 

There’s more scale to our story

Another strong association is through the concept of the Bubblefish Ladder™ our proprietary four stage methodology which explains how we do things here at Bubblefish. 

A quick insight into what a Fish Ladder Is:

In order to breed, fish need to migrate back from the sea to the river systems where they come from, but are frequently hampered by the presence of dams, culverts and waterfalls. The fish ladder is a uniquely designed structure that allows fish to reach higher levels by negotiating obstacles and leaping through opposing currents. The steps along the ladder allow the fish to rest and regroup before venturing to the next level of their journey back.

Why our clients are willing to climb along?

Many of our clients tell us that they too are caught in a vortex of change and often feel unable to achieve growth in an environment where they just flow with the market currents.

The Fish Ladder seemed like a fitting metaphor because we seldom hesitate in asking our clients to swim against the tide in reaching greater heights. The thinking and analysis underlying the Bubblefish Ladder™ helps these businesses to effectively combat competitive pressures and overcome tough economic conditions. 

In fact, as a strategy focussed creative brand building agency, we follow the same principles ourselves. We are known to do things differently from our competitors.

More about the Bubblefish Ladder™

The Bubblefish Ladder™ involves four distinct steps:

• Understanding context
• Analysing issues
• Ideating strategies and 
• Crafting solutions 

Together these achieve the ultimate goal of “scaling up” our client’s business.

We do not jump straight from a brief to developing solutions. Because our intent is to build a brand not produce a piece of communication. At every stage (akin to the steps of a Fish Ladder), we reflect before we move to the next step so our work is anchored to this core purpose. When we eventually present to clients, they are able to see the sound reasoning and bold imagination that underpin our branding solutions.

Four steps to success

• Understanding context
  The first step is appreciating the context of a business. It helps us to understand the factors that might help or hinder a client’s growth objectives. These include examining industry and competitive data and any available customer information. 
• Analysing issues
  In the next step, we diagnose the specific issues and problems, the opportunities and market potential available to the Brand. We deep dive into the brief and any new research, isolate usable insights before exploring alternative directions.
• Ideating strategies
  In this, the third step, we synthesise all our learnings, overlay our experience in brand building to devise specific positioning/branding strategies that will address the challenges comprehensively, paving the way for future growth.
• Crafting solutions
  The final step is where we blend the logic of strategy with the magic of creative to arrive at design/content solutions that will help build the client’s brand and grow their business profitably and purposefully. 

We strive to live up to our reputation

Our clients say we are a different kettle of fish. Here is why. 

Everything we do at Bubblefish stems from our overarching promise around scaling up businesses. Every element of our work is in some way inspired by the scale, that little icon in our logo that reminds us as to why we exist.

By Mahesh Enjeti, Advisor, Bubblefish