Part of the Luxottica Group (who own RayBan and Oakley), Vision Direct are one of the world’s biggest suppliers of contact lenses, offering great prices, whip-fast delivery and online eye care advice.

It’s a proposition that’s seen them grow into an ecommerce powerhouse, with millions of customers and tens of millions in sales.

But great brands don’t rest on their laurels. To help them stand out in a busy yet uninspiring market, Vision Direct asked us to turn them from a pure-play online business into a truly global brand.

To grow a brand, you’ve got to know the brand

Our brief from Vision Direct was to help them know themselves so they could look, sound and behave in a way that would attract more like-minded customers.

To do this, we held a series of strategy discussions with their senior team, getting to know what makes them tick and what their audience motivators are. 

From this, we could position Vision Direct — giving them a personality and a story that reflects both the brand, its people and the target market.

Vision Direct don’t sell contact lenses. 

They sell freedom. 

From our discussions with Vision Direct, we came to a key realisation: contact lenses are amazing. A millimetre wide and basically weightless, these tiny, everyday items do something magical: they help us see our worlds.

Contact lenses are mini miracles that empower us to see more. They bring us closer to our world by removing the need for frames. And they free our faces so we can go anywhere — and do anything.

This key insight saw us give Vision Direct an Explorer archetype — a brand personality based on empowerment, wonder and discovery. Because Vision Direct don’t really sell contact lenses, they sell freedom.

Not bad for something that fits on your fingertip.

Built on solid foundations

Inspired by our Explorer archetype, we (re)defined the Vision Direct brand with a new mission, a new vision and new values. 

These brand foundations will drive internal behaviours to create a revitalised business culture — and they’ll help the brand tell an intriguing, attention-grabbing story to improve brand salience and attract more customers.

The result

The next step was to show how this newly minted Explorer brand should look and sound. 

We created a tone of voice that ramps up the inspiration while still making the brand feel friendly and approachable. And we created a series of designs to capture this Explorer spirit across social media, website and email. 

As things stand, we’ve given Vision Direct two Explorer-inspired creative identities. One that’s punchy, more kinetic and direct. And one that’s softer, more human and emotive. These are being tested with various audiences — and once the results are in, we’ll start rolling the new brand out.