Clearing the waters: Overcoming brand misconceptions with compelling positioning

Onslow Port Services

As Western Australia’s first carbon-neutral port, Onslow Port Services (OPS) offers a flexible, bespoke marine logistics service to onshore and offshore industries. Their unique offering provides cargo certainty for clients in decommissioning, energy and bulk logistics and project, general and containerised cargo.

The brief

The Onslow Port Services team reached out for support to craft and execute a marketing and communications strategy that would: help address known misconceptions about their brand and offering, articulate a compelling value proposition, and ultimately, increase activity through the port.

What we did

We conducted a series of semi-structured interviews with clients, collaborators and prospective clients to understand their decision-making considerations when looking for a commercial port. We also gathered their perspectives on the OPS offering, capability and brand. The research provided key insights about the market’s job to be done and the key pain points or challenges to success.

Based on the research findings, we collaborated with the OPS team to workshop a compelling unique value proposition (UVP) that resonated with the team—it was important that we include as many voices in the session as possible so OPS had strong ownership of their new marketing approach.

Once we had a firm UVP, we developed a marketing and communications strategy to address misconceptions, give voice to their disruption and elevate the brand positioning.

We covered the UVP, pricing considerations, communication themes and key messages, tactics and timing.

We then crafted new website copy, a capability slide deck and a thought leadership plan to arm the team with everything they needed to bring their new approach to life.

The result

Our work together not only armed OPS with a considered marketing and communications strategy and the tools to implement it, but also lifted the team’s in-house marketing capability—all helping to address misconceptions and create more cut-through in client and prospect engagement.

Jean-Pierre Veder, Head of Commercial for OPS said: “Working with Rich and Veronika was refreshing – we gained valuable insights into our target market and developed a UVP and branding approach that everyone could get on board with. Having a thoughtful marketing strategy in hand has helped us set the program of work for the year ahead and we’re confident we’re heading in the right direction as we grow and mature the business.”