Digital branding for new car dealership Van Vaerenbergh

The brand was new to us, but the client wasn’t. During the last couple of years, we’ve been a privileged digital partner for Jaguar and Land Rover Asse, two car manufacturers owned by the Van Vaerenbergh family. The pandemic was the momentum for them to think about new opportunities. The car market had been disrupted and so it was time for a new story: Van Vaerenbergh. 

The Vaerenbergh brand stands alongside the other two brands, Jaguar and Land Rover Asse and has a very different mission in mind. The new company focuses on the sale, purchase and rental of numerous premium car brands as well as after-sales services such as maintenance and bodywork. Van Vaerenbergh must provide everyone in the family with a customized mobility solution. 

It all starts with branding

We must learn to walk before we can ride. Building a brand story is more than just finding a new logo or a fancy baseline. The branding of a company defines who they are, tells more about their values and mission and how they want to be seen by their customers.

Together with Van Vaerenbergh, we defined their core mission and values. This resulted in a thorough branding strategy and brand book which is used as a guide for their website development process, the brand’s look-and-feel and their social media approach. In terms of visual identity, the designers developed a logo, brand colors, typography and a mood board that matched with the core values and target group.

The copywriters on the other hand, came up with a verbal identity that defined the brand’s personality, brand message and brand voice. We gave Van Vaerenbergh a face and identity and determined the way they maintain their verbal and visual communications - both online and offline. 

In the next gear to a new website 

After the branding was approved, it was time for our next chapter: the development of a new website that not only shows Van Vaerenbergh’s services but also their full catalog of new and second-hand cars. Additionally, they needed to invite their website visitors and clients to take an action, such as requesting an appointment. 

The web design - which has a premium look and feel - was based on the visual identity defined in the branding strategy. The back end does not run on diesel but on Drupal 9 and their catalog importer is written in Vue, a new javascript framework that allows for even smoother implementation with their catalogue’s API. 

While our entire web team was busy developing, our copywriter ensured SEO-proof content for all pages based on thorough SEO keyword research. This should ensure that Van Vaerenbergh gets good ranking in the mid and long term. We also took care of an extra SEA strategy which should push the different content per brand to the top of the search engines. Curious about the result? Check out Van Vaerenbergh’s new website!  

State-of-the-art photography and teasers 

What’s a new website or social campaign without visuals and videos? To make sure footage matched the defined branding, we organized an on-site shoot. Our in-house photographer and designers provided a wide range of visual content. This included standard images in the showroom, promotional films with the Van Vaerenbergh family as well as drone footage.  

A social media strategy for extra polish 

You would think it’s time for a pit stop? Not yet. As soon as the new website was launched it was finally time to convert new visitors via the usual social media channels. We started with an awareness campaign to make sure people would notice the new brand. Later on, we reached this target group again with content from Van Vaerenbergh's various services. Additionally, we provided a Facebook lead generation campaign to increase their newsletter subscriptions. Our aim: to make it as clear as possible that Van Vaerenbergh is new in town.