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WOW Design, a strategic brand design consultancy has associated with Mahindra Group for strategizing the brand creation for its newly launched digital Mobile & Web application for Car Servicing, called Carworkz.

Mahindra First Choice Services(MFCS), a part of Mahindra Group, offers end to end car servicing solutions for all sorts of cars. Its main motto was to venture in the digital space by partnering with Petronas Lubricants India Pvt Ltd so that they can launch a new app and web portal with the name- Carworkz. The concerned brand aims to revolutionize the car servicing industry by providing assistance to consumers and catering to all kinds of car maintenance through this digital product.  And that’s where Mahindra took WOW Design on board to create the entire foundation of a New Brand, its Positioning, its Core Essence and its Identity and Design language.

When the car stops, life stops.

WOW Design took a Design Thinking approach to the entire project, by looking at the problem statement from multiple angles, deriving plethora of ideas and then finally narrowing down to the solution post testing and analyzing. They started with a workshop with the key stakeholders at MFCS to identify and articulate the vision for the Brand.

Then to arrive at the Key Need Gap, Indepth Interviews and Focussed Group Discussions(FGD) were condusted across multiple cities, to better understand the consumer associations and pain points of the industry.

The features of the app were also studied in detail to match the proposed solutions with the consumer pain points, thus helping to articulate the role that the Brand will play in the life of the consumer. The research and the analysis that followed helped them with the understanding of how ‘Car’ is more than just a ‘vehicle of transportation’ but an instrinsic part of the customer mobility, where the life stops if the car stops. The proposed Brand Strategy was to take Car Servicing to the next level of ‘Maintainace’ and upgrade the category to a digital medium.

WOW Design arrived at the Brand Core for Carworkz, “Simplifying consumer’s life for a hassle free living.” The consultancy tried to reason that a Car isn’t merely a vehicle of transportation, but a fundamental part of customer mobility. Hence, addressing the digital savvy Consumer, who is in constant need for easing the entire process, transparency and wants to reduce dependency on the mechanics; the concerned brand core was created.

Addressing the Problem Area of ‘customer feeling helpless’ and no source of reliable information, Carworkz is Positioned as a solution that ‘Empowers the consumer to make the right choice’. The Brand Personality has been defined as being ‘Transparent, Solution Provider, Quick response, Reliable and friendly assistance’. This would reduce consumer’s apprehensions about the ‘transparency bit and also making the whole experience more consumer friendly.  

The differentiated Identity and the letter ‘W’

WOW Design adopted a strategic approach for the concerned identity creation and design. Instead of using the first initial of the brand name, the letter ‘W’ was chosen to depict the relationship of the car with servicing. The alphabet stands for namely two things- first, the interaction between the Car and Workz and second, the resemblance to the Jack used in repairing cars. The identity was created by decoding the category semiotics and integrating the core elements of car servicing like spanners, nut and bolts. The colour palette of orange, white and blue was inspired from the product’s core offerings and stood for technology, growth and transparency. 

Mr Saswata Das, Partner and Executive Director- WOW Design said, “The car service industry in India is highly fragmented, non transparent and has utter inconvenience associated from the consumer’s point of view. Since the consumers don’t have an in depth understanding of their vehicles, they are highly dependent on the Garages and the mechanics. The digital medium can act as a platform which can revolutionize the industry providing a convenient 24/7 hassle free solution for the consumer. Hence, we created the Brand Carworkz which could make a mark to build a trustworthy image in the minds of the consumers.”

Ms Deepti Kshirsagar, Partner and Executive director- WOW Design said, “It was an exciting project to create more than just a brand identity for Carworkz, the element of which also needed to be a powerful app icon. An App icon needs to imbibe a sense of memory and connection on both a functional and emotional level with the potential users. The deep diving into the category of car servicing, understanding its pain points, symbolic semiotics and its evolution to the digital mediums enabled us to design a striking, easy to decode, yet unique and fantastic brand identity for Carworkz.”