Pulze
Hamish worked with Live & Breathe agency helping Imperial Tobacco develop an end-to-end digital strategy for their heated tobacco brand, Pulze. Starting with launches in Greece and the Czech Republic, the brand expanded into six additional markets.
Working alongside Executive Creative Director James Hoxley and Associate Creative Director Michelle Connolly, our goal was to address a poorly designed website and boost brand visibility to increase revenue and support growth across Europe.
By evolving the visual identity and redesigning the website, social media content, and email newsletters, we ensured consistency across all touchpoints. This complete digital transformation delivered measurable growth and expanded Pulze’s market presence.
Services
• Identity systems
• Web design
• Photographic art direction
• Marketing campaigns
• eCRM newsletter design
• Social media design
• In-store print material
Impact
• Increased online sales and revenue
• Enhanced brand visibility and awareness across digital channels
• Expanded into six additional European markets
• Improved user experience and engagement on the new website
• Consistent and cohesive brand identity across all digital touch-points
• Strengthened customer relationships through optimised eCRM newsletters
• Positioning Pulze as a formidable player in the competitive tobacco market
• Tangible growth metrics indicating the success of the digital transformation
Process
Our journey began by collating all of the existing brand assets, leveraging elements like color palettes, fonts, and lifestyle photography to lay the foundation for an evolved brand identity. Drawing inspiration from the Pulze device’s distinctive on-button shape, reminiscent of a skateboard, we conceptualised a dynamic design system using the core gradient colours.
By playing with the ‘skateboard shape’ alongside the gradient colours, we began to create beautiful compositions that could be used across the website and other digital touch-points.
Working closely with our UX designer, we crafted prototypes in Figma before seamlessly transitioning to web development.
The new website not only prioritised a mobile-first approach but also integrated the skateboard identity across various components for a consistent and visually engaging user experience. Extending the new look and feel beyond the website, we revamped social media content and email newsletters, aligning them with Pulze’s refreshed brand identity.
The Skateboard Shape
The skateboard shape is fundamental to the visual identity and is inspired by the device button. The skateboard shape is a strong brand asset that is integral to the digital ecosystem and integrates on and off-line communications.
Shape Integration
By using the ‘skateboard’ shape and the gradients from our brand colour palette we can build a dynamic design system.
The Design System
By incorporating the core gradient colours into the skateboard shape and the background, we begin to develop an interesting brand world with no limits. The design system is a great device for holding products, imagery and other information. The design system creates a series of assets to be used across all digital touch points. It also creates a strong design language to use in retail through comms and fixtures.
Key Art
This key-art would be intended to be used in hero banners on the main website. Here we are showing our exploration into how we used photography within the skateboard shape, as well as how we can begin to use a typographic treatment without the shape, but applying the same gradient effect to keep within the brand world.
Website
Working alongside a team of developers to translate the web design into a real working site, we used Figma to prototype each page and build a customer journey flow.
Each page was designed for various formats, prioritising mobile, to help determine pixel perfect specs which are then used by the developers to build out the pages.
The skateboard identity was weaved into various components throughout the website to keep consistent with the new look & feel. Website designs currently for both Greek and Czech markets
eCRM
Pulze use a variety of newsletters to keep customers engaged with the brand and update them on the process of their order, using a series of follow-up emails. The newsletters are built in Optimove, using a simple build process. We created a selection of custom assets to use within Optimove to help tie the newsletters to the brand ecosystem and keep in line with the new look & feel.
Social Media
Social media plays a huge role for Pulze by targeting their audience through paid ads and keeping them visually engaged on their social pages, through the use of static imagery and motion video. The social profiles for each market has been designed with the new look and feel in mind to give Pulze a solid online presence and to add maximum standout in feed.
The social assets consist of 3 categories, branded, semi-branded and non-branded to allow for a flexible toolkit which can be adapted with ease.
Branded
This post is designed in the full brand visual identity. The post will often featuring product or a headline.
Semi-branded
This post uses the Pulze skateboard shape to maintain an iconic link to the brand, whilst providing space for imagery.
Non-branded
This post uses the Pulze skateboard shape to maintain an iconic link to the brand, whilst providing space for imagery.
Outcome
Our efforts resulted in a comprehensive transformation of Pulze’s digital ecosystem. The redesigned website, featuring the skateboard-inspired design system, provided a visually striking and user-friendly platform for customers. Social media profiles and email newsletters followed suit, maintaining consistency and maximising brand visibility.
Lifestyle photography captured on shoot brought a compelling emotive quality into the content, enhancing the overall brand narrative. The new design language extended into retail, allowing Pulze to communicate its identity consistently across both on and offline channels.