Tirlán, our Co-operative’s new identity, has launched to great fanfare across the world

Creating a new brand identity that represents an organisation’s past, present and future is no mean feat, and for Tirlán it was a year in the making.

To get an insight into the creative process and how Tirlán represents our Co-operative in a new era, Overherd caught up with one of the chief architects of our new identity, Head of Consumer Development Nicola O’Connell.

Tirlán’s Head of Consumer Development Nicola O’Connell launches our new company identity in Abbey Quarter, Kilkenny.

Nicola, congratulations to you and the team on the successful launch of Tirlán. It must’ve been quite a journey to get to the recent event at Abbey Quarter?

It has been quite a journey and I’d have to say a very enjoyable one, really, for the most part.

Approximately a year ago a small group including Andreas Mantis, Pat O’Keefe and I kicked off the process of finding our new identity with a review of a number of different branding agencies. By the end of last September, we had awarded the project to Siegel and Gale who have been strong partners with us on this journey.

With the agency and a supportive group of executives behind us, we set about discovering what we wanted to stand for as a business, using our values to guide us, and looking toward the future as a modern Co-operative. Lots of thought went into establishing that brand positioning up front and that really directed us to be able to consider the sorts of names that might be appropriate for our new business.

Choosing a name for a business is a very long and lengthy process because you have to work through legal considerations, what names are available, will the name be suitable in all the countries we supply into etc.

Eventually, we landed on Tirlán as the name we really wanted to progress and we took it to the board in early April this year, just after the transaction which formed the new Co-op closed. Thankfully, they really liked the name, meaning we could keep working on the look and feel of our new identity. From that point, the process expanded to a core launch team that have worked so hard to get us to the launches in Abbey Quarter, the satellite employee events across Ireland, China, Dubai and the US, along with the very well-timed event in Japan which tied in with an Irish trade mission.

From L-R Tirlán CEO Jim Bergin is joined by Brand Ambassador and Irish Rugby International Tadhg Furlong, along with Tirlán Co-op Chairman John Murphy.

The name Tirlán communicates as a ‘land of abundance’, can you give us more insights into how this new identity resonates with our company?

When creating a new identity for a company, the important parts to consider are who we are as a business and who do we want to be – how do we want to show up in the world if you like! Siegel & Gale spent time conducting stakeholder interviews across the business with several people in different functions, with the executive team and with a couple of the board members as well. They also spent quite a while leafing through a bunch of strategy documents and asking lots of questions, while they also looked at our competitors – the likes of Danone and Friesland to see what they stand for.

The agency then came back and said, ok this is what we’re hearing from you, this is what your competitors identify as and this is what we think best represents who you are, while uniquely positioning you in the market.

At its core, what we’ve created is all about balance. The symbol you see in our new logo was inspired by the inscription for earth or soil in Ogham, reflecting our farming ethos and provenance, while the horizontal line reflects balance between the land above and the soil beneath.

Tirlán’s identity has been very much informed by the balance we want to strike between nature – how we farm and nurture, how we produce food and ingredients for our global customers.

Our Co-op wants to nourish people with great food and ingredients that we produce, but the balance piece is important because as we embark on a new era for farming, we must care about the people who work for us, our farmers and the environment we live in. If we can do that in a caring way, then maybe we can stand out a little bit differently from other organisations out there!

Tirlán Brand Ambassador Tadgh Furlong pictured on a newly branded milk tanker.

So, we’ve launched our new identity. What can colleagues expect to see over the next few months?

Between now and Christmas, it’s really about getting the name out there and starting to bed-in before we formally start trading as Tirlán Limited on the 1st of January. The build-up to that is really about getting the name into customers and consumers heads, along with employees and farmers. Brochures and collateral are all ready to go, so you’ll start to see that going out to various trade shows. Our consumer team will be in Singapore and Vietnam over the next two weeks and then we’ll have trade shows in the US and Europe featuring Tirlán branding over the next few months, with Ingredients planning a big splash at FIE at the end of November.

Here in Ireland, we’ll start to see advertising on radio, in print and online. There’s already been a bit of that in the farming farmer facing media this week. Then there’s the big task of updating our building signage and our milk trucks – things that will become really visible. And then, on January 1st our email addresses will switch over. We have up until the middle of March to complete everything and I hope all colleagues enjoy seeing Tirlán come to life.

Thanks again to the core launch team who under the guidance of Pat O’Keeffe and steering of Ed Elder, have really played a blinder over the last number of months.