Ascend Payroll.
Launching a challenger brand in the payroll sector
Ascend Payroll.
Ascend Payroll was launched in November 2024 with an ambitious business plan to challenge the world of outsourced payroll.
At one end of the spectrum, large corporate businesses dominated the sector, and at the other, a multitude of small bureaus and accountants.
Ascend Payroll appointed Sourcefour from the outset, working closely with the founders on the brand positioning, marketing strategy, branding, website, marketing assets and campaigns.
Richard Rowell, Chairman of Ascend Payroll, explained, “Having previously worked with Sourcefour, we knew they had the expertise and passion to help us deliver our vision with clarity, creativity and speed.
They also had the breadth of expertise we needed, from marketing strategy to design and web development. We could place all our marketing in their capable hands and know they would deliver. Which they certainly have”.
Brand positioning.
The project’s first stage was in-depth brand positioning and strategy for a new brand launch.
Our Director of Marketing, Alison Clynes, led the effort, working closely with the business founders to get under the skin of the business, including understanding the business’s origin story that would drive the brand proposition.
From all this work emerged one simple yet compelling ethos… “Do the right thing, always”
- Do the right thing, even when taking a shortcut is easier
- Do the right thing, even if no one is watching
- Do the right thing, even if it means having a difficult conversation with a colleague or client
As part of this process, we also worked with the team to establish their brand values.
Branding.
Once the work on the company positioning had been done, it was clear that the branding also needed to challenge the norm.
In the B2B services sector, there is a tendency for safe and very corporate-looking brands. Lots of smiley stock images of smiley people on laptops and high-fiving in offices. Professional, clean, but boring and very ‘samey’.
We knew Ascend needed to stand out, so our creative team took this brief and ran with it!
Our use of a bold colour palette in non-corporate colours set the scene. We avoided the use of stock imagery as much as possible and focussed on typography.
As a quirky way of delivering key brand messages, we created a series of sticker graphics that could be used across all media.
Stuart Waddell, Ascend Payroll’s CEO commented, “We absolutely love the branding Sourcefour has come up with. We had a vision for the business, and they have taken this vision and created a dramatic and imaginative brand look that we are extremely proud of.
We are already receiving fantastic positive feedback from the prospects and clients we are talking to, so it is great to know we have hit the mark with this.”
Tone of voice.
The tone of voice was equally important for the brand positioning and personality. B2B marketing often uses very corporate language, and we saw tone of voice as a great opportunity to stand out.
The subject might be technical, but the language shouldn’t be impenetrable.
Our solution was to establish a deliberately informal and to-the-point tone of voice and focus on emotional storytelling that tapped into the market’s known pain points.
We knew we had hit the mark when Ascend received unprompted feedback on the branding and messaging:
“I want to commend your marketing and branding, not just in terms of the clean and fresh aesthetic, but also of how you have made it feel conversational.
It’s hard to get the balance of not feeling like you’re being sold to, but also still getting all of the points and information across, and I think you’ve done such a good job of that. Such an exciting trajectory for Ascend!”
Brochure and marketing assets.
Alongside the website, we also created marketing assets to support the sales process, including brochures, factsheets, presentations, social media and proposal documents.
The branding also stood out at events where the stand and promotional items were a beacon of difference and colour in a sea of bland stock imagery and bland corporate colours.
Website.
The website is the primary lead-generation tool for the business. Clients looking to appoint a managed payroll service will usually go to a few providers for a quotation, so again, it was important that the Ascend website stood out and was memorable.
The bold brand style was enhanced with selective animation and the use of sticker graphics as icons.
CEO, Ascend Payroll
Animation.
Explaining a service can be tricky. How do you sum up what you do and what you do differently when there is no tangible product?
Our solution was to create a fun explainer video, using the analogy of the perfect cocktail mix to showcase all the points of difference with Ascend. The animation lent itself perfectly to the graphic style of the branding.
What the team says:
“Managed payroll is a service, which means there is no tangible product. It is also heavily compliance-driven, so every payroll bureau should offer the same service.
The reality, however, is very different, and we spent time understanding customer pain points and the areas of weakness within each competitor set.
This was an opportunity to create a genuine challenger brand and do things differently. The founders had a clear vision about the type of business they were building that went beyond just ‘what’ they provided but also focused on the ‘how’ they delivered it.”
Alison, Director of Marketing
