Q&A with Peter Connaghan, Brand and Communications Director, Kainos

We recently caught up with Peter Connaghan, Brand and Communications Director at Kainos. Peter shares his thoughts on managing major rebranding and website projects, and the role of story-driven thought leadership content.

What is your role at Kainos and what does it entail?

As Brand and Communications Director at Kainos, I lead the team responsible for creating brand strategies that support our commercial and headcount growth targets; developing our brand identity, from visuals, to tone of voice, and brand-level positioning; and managing corporate communications, including PR, thought-leadership, and purpose-driven comms.

You recently managed a major rebranding and website project – what were the challenges that you faced?

We delivered a major brand refresh in 2019 which saw our entire brand architecture streamlined under a new ‘one Kainos’ brand strategy. The project came about after almost a decade of rapid growth, during which the creation of several sub-brands had added some complexity to our identity that we wanted to simplify. The main challenge here was the scale of the project, which saw us building up our brand from almost a blank page, and bringing the whole business along on the journey with us.

As a continuation of our efforts to streamline our brand, we redeveloped kainos.com in 2021, consolidating several disparate websites into one. It represented a major leap forward for our web presence. Content and copy was developed from scratch across the entire site for our services, products, careers, investor relations, and about us sections. The project was big and complex, requiring input and expertise from multiple teams across the business, and external support from our web development partner, and Spark on content.

How important is it to have stakeholder engagement from across the business? How do you nurture that and secure that buy-in?

Stakeholder engagement at all levels is essential to the success of a project. Clear and open lines of communication throughout is essential for bringing people along, leading to effective decision-making, quicker resolution of blockers, and a sense of shared responsibility to make the project a success. For progress to happen, everyone needs to be bought into the vision and direction and have a clear understanding of the objectives and outputs. We also established a steering group to ensure we had representation from across the business at every stage – from creating the brief to going live.

Were there any surprises that you hadn’t accounted for? How did you overcome these challenges? How important is it to be flexible?

We followed a robust methodology and managed the project in an agile way, with daily stand-ups, and worked with experts throughout - so thankfully, there were no huge surprises and we were able to work through blockers and challenges quickly! In saying that, there were challenges around every corner. There were lots of decisions that required lengthy discussion and consideration about how they would impact the build or end user experience. Nothing in our business stands still for too long, so being flexible and open to change is so important.

What did you enjoy about the project? What are you most proud of?

I’m most proud of the site’s visual design and user experience. It’s distinctly Kainos, but representatives the cleanest, most simple version of our visual identity. We were keen to ensure that our own website applied the same user-centred and inclusive design principles that we bring to customer projects. The site has gone on to win a few design awards, which we’re all absolutely delighted about!

And secondly, I think the website is a true reflection of Kainos, and a huge leap forward from where we were before. The site provides a complete picture of who we are and what we do, so current and new customers, along with those interested in joining us, can get a real sense of our identity, our culture, and what we stand for. The content and copy plays a huge part in communicating all of this.

What value was Spark able to add?

We’ve worked with Spark for several years now, and have developed a good relationship with the team, so I was confident in bringing them into the project to support our copy requirements. They understand our business and our brand, they get our people and our culture, and they know our tone of voice, so they are well placed to help us tell our story. The size of the project meant that we had multiple copywriters, internal and external, working alongside each other, and Spark fitted into the picture without fuss – working diligently against tight deadlines to get the job done!

How important is having story-driven thought leadership and content to Kainos?

Connecting with new audiences and sharing our story and our thinking with them is so important to us. From a marketing standpoint, producing great quality, engaging content is vital in helping us sell our services and recruit new people. It comes from a place of real authenticity – we’re so passionate about the work we do, and the impact we’re having alongside our customers, and we truly believe Kainos is a special place to work, so the content that we create is a reflection of all of that.