Award-Winning Branding:
Valdivia as Winner of
German Brand Award 2023

What a reason to cele­brate: Togeth­er with our creative agency new office, we were award­ed with the German Brand Award 2023, the prize for success­ful brand­ing in Germany, on 15 June 2023. Valdivia as a brand convinced the jury in the cate­gories Excel­lence in Brand Strat­e­gy and Creation: Brand Design and Corpo­rate Brand. We could not be any proud­er, happi­er and more grate­ful for the outstand­ing coop­er­a­tion with our agency. Togeth­er, we have been able to create a unique brand to go with our services from the very start and in the most expres­sive way.

’Sail­ing the Seas’ With a Bold Idea

From the very start, depth has been our motto and togeth­er with the creative people of new office, we succeed­ed in devel­op­ping a high­ly orig­i­nal idea:

To begin with, there was the concept of an exclu­sive Exec­u­tive Search Consul­tan­cy – a compa­ny with the vision to discov­er outstand­ing talents so as to perfect­ly place them in lead­ing posi­tions in the construc­tion and real estate indus­try. From that perspec­tive, every search is simi­lar to an expe­di­tion: expe­ri­ence, exper­tise and fore­sight are just as impor­tant as flex­i­bil­i­ty, indi­vid­u­al­ism and trust. This is what the first German deep sea expe­di­tion vessel Valdivia symbol­is­es for us: a spir­it of research and tech­ni­cal excel­lence. With a lot of seri­ous­ness and love for our field of exper­tise, we want­ed to go to all depth in order to find the very best solu­tion, just like you would find a pearl. This is how our name came to see the light of the day – and the brand story became the guide­line and inspi­ra­tion for our branding.

It was only logi­cal that ancient sea charts inspired our corpo­rate design: navy blue symbol­is­es ocean­ic depth – discreet­ly elegant, but with­out any cold­ness. Differ­ent shades mark the profile of the depths, in which we endeav­our with the range of our services. So the design presents itself as both reserved and respectable as does our enter­prise itself, support­ed by the intu­itive navi­ga­tion on our website. This thor­ough­ly consis­tent brand­ing language has now convinced the panel of high-rank­ing experts from Brand Econ­o­my and Brand Science, who make up the jury of the German Brand Award.

A Flag­ship Prize for Brands

The German Brand Award iden­ti­fies, presents and gives its award to unique brands and makers of brands. This way, they do not only promote the winners, but also their respec­tive indus­tries. The award of the cate­go­ry Excel­lence in Brand Strat­e­gy and Creation focuss­es on the strongest campaigns, concepts and strate­gies of the differ­ent fields of exper­tise. In Valdivi­a’s case, it honours our compelling brand­ing, all the way from the basic idea to the visu­al elements of our print mate­ri­als and web-based commu­ni­ca­tion tools. Inde­pen­dent and inter­dis­ci­pli­nary experts from busi­ness, science, consult­ing, service, and agen­cies make up the jury of this high-rank­ing brand prize.

It was the renowned German Design Coun­cil (Rat für Formge­bung) who initi­at­ed the German Brand Award. This inde­pen­dent insti­tu­tion supports enter­pris­es in effi­cient­ly commu­ni­cat­ing their design and brand­ing compe­ten­cy. With their awards, exhi­bi­tions, confer­ences, semi­nars and publi­ca­tions, the coun­cil promotes design, brands and inno­va­tion and thus aims to strenght­en the broad public’s under­stand­ing of design. Follow­ing an initia­tive of the German Feder­al Parlia­ment (Deutsch­er Bundestag), it was estab­lished as a foun­da­tion by the Feder­a­tion of German Indus­tries (Bundesver­band der Deutschen Indus­trie) and a number of Germany’s lead­ing corpo­ra­tions in 1953; today, it includes over 350 German and inter­na­tion­al enterprises.

Setting Sail for New Destinations

Of course, we want to cele­brate the occa­sion a little – togeth­er with the team of our brand­ing agency, whom we collab­o­rate with on a daily basis as if they were a part of Valdivia. With their creativ­i­ty, their will­ing­ness to ‘think outside the box’, and their very own puris­tic style, they coined the elegant design and thus contributed substan­tial­ly to the success­ful course our ’boat’ has taken.

And yet, the award moti­vates us to look further. We can see that taking unusu­al routes is worth it for us as an enter­prise, provid­ed the idea behind it is the right one. So the award will only make our  atti­tude stronger: do not just go with the flow, but stick to your course with the courage to be original.