A new brand for Jacksons Law firm, which has been caring for clients for almost 150 years, was launched at exclusive events at Wynyard Hall and Baltic’s Riverside Suite.
Team members from Jacksons joined a range of business leaders across the North East as the firm’s head of legal Erica Turner and head of operations Amie Callan unveiled the new brand, which has been a top secret for several months.
Even the name badges given out at the events were kept in plain black and white, so as not to give anything away before the brand was exclusively presented.
The brand features merging coloured lenses with the red and orange representing the firms’ caring employees working in collaboration with clients.
Clients are represented by a blue-green lens, colours which reflect clarity and confidence – and the merging lenses reflects the firm’s long heritage of providing a caring and tailored service when collaborating with clients.
The brand also anticipates an exciting future where the best is yet to come for Jacksons, its employees and the community it serves.
However, while it is attractive and distinctive, Erica and Amie’s presentation demonstrated how the new brand is about far more than just a new logo and nice bright colours.
Erica said: “Since 1876, we have been more than just lawyers, we have been a guiding light and a steady hand for generations, through the biggest moments in our clients’ lives.
“We are proud of our longstanding history and while we are also evolving and moving with the times, it is important that our new brand has a nod to our heritage, which should not be forgotten.
“We now have a new identity that reflects who we are and who we have always been.”
Amie added Jacksons is there for people at every stage of their lives and in their business endeavours.
“Buying a house; arranging a will; selling a company; resolving a dispute. For generations, Jacksons have been a guide through life’s biggest moments – and we’ve always done so with genuine care,” she said.
“Through times of joy and happiness, pain and stress; through the ups and downs, the highs and the lows; at every milestone and every challenge – we take care.
“Whether it’s business or personal – we provide expertise, reassurance and peace of mind. We listen with empathy and guide with clarity.”
The rebrand has seen Jacksons develop a new manifesto and Erica explained the firm embarked on a different “external vision” as they felt the previous brand didn’t reflect “who we were internally”.
“The feedback we were receiving from people when they met the partners was that they were not what they expected – and we took this to mean our internal image didn’t match our external image,” she said.
“We are a people first organisation that is looking to the future with a dynamic range of individuals, which is the reason why we have such a long and proud heritage in the North East.
“The new brand reflects Jacksons as the North East’s trusted independent law firm and we now have our external messaging aligned with our internal vision.”
Jacksons prides itself on offering proven expertise with a personal approach, whether working with private individuals or PLCs.
It effectively resolves legal matters with confidence, clarity and care.
“Clients come to us because they appreciate the relationship they have with our people, as we provide a personal, tailored service,” Erica said.
“We listen to each client, understand every circumstance and we achieve the best outcomes together.”
To achieve the rebrand, Jacksons worked with Better Brand Agency – and this involved some soul searching on why the firms’ partners and employees do what they do day in and day out.
“I would recommend this exercise to every business,” Erica says.
“We talked a lot about how we are always looking to the future, finding new ways of doing things and evolving to meet the needs of our people and our community.
“We talked about how our working environment challenges individuals and gives them career and development opportunities for the long term.
“Ultimately, we needed a brand that balanced our heritage with modernity in both the working environment and the legal services profession.”
Mark Easby, founder and managing director of Better, worked with Jacksons’ marketing and business development manager Emily Bentley, and the wider Jacksons team on the rebrand.
“We have worked with Emily before and she clearly understands what branding means – it’s not only about the logo,” Mark said.
“Branding is about working together and scratching the surface of a business to see what makes it distinctive and special – and ensuring the rebrand captures that.
“The first stage is talking to the team and getting the senior leaders around the table.
“Internal stakeholders and external clients have all fed into it.
“The narrative is built; the visuals come last.”
He added the word ‘care’ was important to include as part of the narrative, as, when you think of most people’s engagements with a lawyer, it is a very big event in their lives.
“That care came through from speaking to the team and we quickly realised that ‘care’ is a big part of their heritage,” Mark said.
“They would not have been around this long if they weren’t special and they didn’t care.
“Purpose is a big thing – for clients and the team – and branding joins that together.
“Branding isn’t only about sales and marketing; it affects the whole team, relationships with clients, recruitment and retention, across the board.”
