[Interview] Bram Holzapfel, Executive Creative Director, VENGEAN

VENGEAN is a creative branding agency founded in 2021, on a mission to ignite impact by energizing enterprise with a vengeance.

Built by seasoned brand and business leaders, VENGEAN partners closely with founders and brand leaders to craft bold, business-driving concepts. Believing that branding shapes the very core of an organization, VENGEAN helps companies, from startups to scaling corporates, claim a greater share of the future.

Bram Holzapfel, the Executive Creative Director and Founder, had a chat with Marketing Report about the agency’s business model and the trends shaping the industry.

What inspired you to launch VENGEAN, and what gaps were you hoping to fill in the creative branding industry?

After a long and highly successful track record as brand stewards and business leaders in the global advertising business, my co-founder CEO Andy Mosmans and I saw the opportunity to apply our knowledge and experience to more comprehensively help businesses from startups & scaleups to corporates that never stop starting & scaling up, to thrive through Branding.

We believe Branding is fundamental to scripting the entire operation of a company or organisation and help them claim a greater share of the future. In order to ensure that Branding is owned and inspired from the core, we saw the need to work more closely with founders, company- and brand leaders - people with skin in the game.

Collaborating to create concepts that drive the business. Or as we like to say it; we define “the game of the name” - the game a business or organisation plays in its name that paves the way for current and future success.

The name ‘VENGEAN’ is striking. What’s the story behind it?

Our name is derived from "with a vengeance," meaning we go all-in with our clients and deliver beyond expectation. We share our clients' drive and entrepreneurial spirit. After all, we are founders and entrepreneurs too, on a mission to ignite impact by energising enterprise, with a vengeance.

As Executive Creative Director, how do you define great branding in today’s fragmented media landscape?

First of all, in many ways the media landscape has always been fragmented. It's still just as important to understand your specific target audiences and know what media they are exposed to. And then concentrate on those media where you get the biggest bang for your buck. But that's just the beginning. Consistency in differentiation is key.

A strong brand is noticed and recognised, all the way and in every detail. We excel at creating unified, overarching brand assets that travel across borders and cultures, ensuring that everything our clients do is consistent and always recognisable as their unique brand.

To achieve this, we apply our specially developed methodologies. We set up a brand by following a logical sequence of steps in close collaboration with our clients. From Brand Strategy through to Brand Theme, Brand Story, Visual Identity and 360-Communication Concept development. Having locked all this in in a comprehensive Brand Guide for all to work with, we set to work creating a long-term Communication Plan that includes media and channel strategies. Finally, it's a matter of staying the course and building on that foundation.

What major shifts are you seeing in branding and design right now and how are you adapting to these shifts?

I guess the biggest shift today is in the development of creative content and the use of online search engines and algorithms. Social platforms and search engines are scrambling to rethink their ad delivery architecture. AI is replacing search, putting the focus back on content; the better, more accurate, unique, ownable and interesting your branded content is, the more likely an AI is to pick up on it and point someone in your brand's direction. Which seems contradictory as at the other end of the spectrum, a lot of new content is being created with AI and as a direct result loses some of its differentiating characteristics.

VENGEAN started experimenting with AI as soon as it became available and we have integrated it into our daily routines and continue to evolve our capabilities on that front. From helping us find information more quickly to creating quick summaries of long articles and assisting us with the creation of certain types of images and short video formats.

But for the time being, AI can't replace our unique ability to understand our clients and work with them to create a brand that is both unique and a natural expression of their vision of their business. For that, you need real life experience, empathy, curiosity and what I call human "fuzzy logic" creativity. Without a human interface, AI is still just a very handy extra tool.

What role does storytelling play in modern branding, and how do you craft compelling narratives for clients?

In a sense you can say that Branding is storytelling. It's the base narrative that builds the business and the compelling tale that employees and a businesses' customers buy into. Writing a good Brand Story unique to a specific company, its founders and leaders is a craft that takes human insightfulness, broad language skills and creativity.

By treating the writing of a Brand Story as a logical next step after the development of a Brand Strategy in our process, we are able to weave the rational and the emotional arguments into a fresh new perspective that rallies everyone involved around their brand.

In a world increasingly driven by purpose, what responsibility do you think brands and creatives carry?
I think we're past the point where anyone should have to make a point of being a responsible brand or brand steward. By now I believe that's a dissatisfier. At VENGEAN we like to work with companies that are both good business and good for the world. Simple as that.

What’s next for VENGEAN? Any exciting projects or expansions on the horizon?

Wow. Where can I start? We've been around as a business for just edging on four years and we're already servicing clients across the globe. They include BEEQUIP, NIBC, Patagonia King Salmon, Sealand Advanced Aquaculture, Natpro, CIBA, The Kingfish Company, La VIE, Hans Anders, nexeye, eyes + more, Schouten & Nelissen, New Heroes, Little Cow & Cookies, Erik Gutter, Plantitude, Welten Groep, ONA Group, Bite of Amsterdam, Sempergreen, Gradyent, E-magy, RGS Development, Powall, Crunchr, TRIAS, Powercrumbs, A-Insights, The Farm Kitchen, iCEEP, Provalu, Ecorus, Nippon Express Group, Aethon Groep, Mission Ae, One Two Capital, Trinamics, Rakoo, Lionsville, AlgMighty, Batenburg Techniek, ChainCraft, Dukers & Baelemans, City Hotel Gouda, Bakkerij 't Stoepje, European Hotel Capital, GRRRO, MarshBerry, Pronto Wonen, AltFin, Sanorice, SynVest, Goedkooplenen.nl, Whitehouse Development, Rakoo, Kern Konsult, Management Stars, Natuurbegraafplaatsen van Waarde, Trinamics, Unknown Campus, Unknown University, Young Perfect, Eatertainment and many more.

Currently, we continue to expand across borders and into ever more fields of expertise as our clients continue to grow. And perhaps significantly, we are increasingly working for PE and investment firms who see the huge value we can deliver in a relatively short time frame by either branding or re-branding the businesses they invest in. Some of the businesses we started working for at the start have already been sold at considerable profit.

www.vengean.com

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