Facilitating a formative and transitional period for an industry leader.

EOTech sought to gain valuable market share and increase its brand recognition from its established rank amongst the small arms holographic/red dot sight category.

That meant targeting the brand system as a whole, in terms of the over arching identity, to address all brand touch points which included revisiting the logo and all other subsets of design and development that EOTech would undertake in the future moving forward.

Through multiple seasons, United worked alongside EOTech to bring a consumer brand to life, based on the credentials of reliability and a truly robust product amongst military, law enforcement, and armed professionals around the world. The core value on which much of the brand’s perception pivots, is the concept of being, “Unmistakable”.

These programs included product launches, audience engagement touch points, and creative executions scaling from digital web banners to trade show exhibit fabrication and installation.

Challenging assumptions

The EOTech brand had to deliver at every level. Facing an industry unlike any other on earth, the approach meant speaking to customers clearly and effectively, far beyond shelves of the local gun shop, or the flat range.

Having previously worked closely with products that targeted the same demographic, United knew that military and law enforcement involved brands commonly misperceived how the civilian-shooter consumer thinks and behaves. In EOTech’s case, this was reflected in the unclear messaging that has flooded the arena of the firearms industry for years.

To really help the brand succeed, we knew we had to offer our client a deeper, more informed take on how to speak to this often misunderstood civilian-shooter consumer, and our first step in doing so was to demonstrate what they really cared about and the driving force behind their purchase decisions.

Considering environment, culture, lifestyle and everything in between, this led to a recognition across the board that, not only should EOTech’s messaging be more calculated, but the go-to market activity could be extended to include advertising, content and media creation, and social media programs, delivered as a 360° campaign.

Working closely with the Design and Brand Management teams, we embedded this learning process, developing the attitude needed across the business to establish a more meaningful brand-building experience, delivered in the most commercially effective ways.

The target audience was a hard one to win trust from, so authenticity was paramount. To really engage with the value-oriented mind of America’s armed professionals and civilian shooters alike—the brand had to be integrated and holistic to really demonstrate true understanding of, and an alignment to, the greater world of shooting sports, through the lens of armed professionals.

Our multi-faceted strategy did just that, with an approach that enabled us to elevate the design overhaul into an expandable campaign, and gave us the tools to deliver the reborn brand to market through more channels, transcending the brand’s previous perception amongst its core audience.

That’s not to underestimate the importance of the brand’s perception itself. We overhauled the dated and unattached EOTech identity into the striking new, “Flag-icon”, designed to connect visually with a more sophisticated and purpose-driven demographic. Our thinking being that this bold, industrial feel and a clean sense of aesthetic would not only be instantly recognizable at retail, but would underpin a powerful integrated brand identity.

Contrary to industry and consumer perceptions within the world of hunting, EOTech poised its approach into the long-range precision shooting category, with a strong sense of aspiration. To achieve this, United devised a strong support media program, which revolved around setting the stage correctly in terms of visual language, namely a keen sense of photography direction for all work moving forward.

This was a weighty endeavor, seeing as how EOTech came into prominence through its short-range CQB (Close quarter battle) optics offerings, predominantly within law enforcement circles.

The challenge that this endeavor presented was that of message continuity, and brand identity extension. This led EOTech into developing its premier line of hunting optics, alongside its ongoing efforts in the rebranding process; which meant, truly testing the dynamic nature of EOTech’s new brand identity.

The successful unveiling of the Vudu line of EOTech rifle scopes, brought to light a few key takeaways, which ultimately helped EOTech adapt swiftly to the industry’s new intrigue, concerning EOTech’s entrance to the world of long-range precision shooting. Due to its unrivaled reputation primarily in battle sights and its new consumer-appropriate identity, EOTech was able to leverage its track record and known qualities in an effective manner.

Culmination of Creative Assets

Finding the balance between creating an over arching brand identity and the subsets of categories that appropriately support the brand’s offering to the world, was a key component in successfully introducing EOTech to the American hunting scene. To generate enough thought and attention amongst the hunting community, United looked to an elements well suited for EOTech’s latest endeavor, “Aspiration”

United crafted a media program that would culminate in the generation of lifestyle-aspirational content, ranging from in-the-field photography to facilitating the capture of video assets and other imagery that would play into many of EOTech’s creative developments moving forward.

Determining Point of Sale

Having worked closely within the EOTech brand, United was asked to bring the Vudu line of rifle scopes into the market, prepared with as much visual support as possible.

The challenge in on-shelf displays as well as behind or inside the counter, was product differentiation in terms of competing brands and meeting the consumers’ eyes where they naturally arrive when looking at in-store displays.

This led United to determine the sale space within a given retail display opportunity. Not too dissimilar to many other clients when faced with this challenge, however understanding that in many instances, display real estate is preciously limited in much of the gun shops across the country.

United created a solution to elevate the display viewing experience, answering both brand differentiation and planting intrigue into the mind of the shopper, by developing in-case stands that work within the general footprint parameters of limited space and size-appropriation, to maximize the display capabilities when set in any given shop shelf or counter system.

From the outset, the EOTech over arching brand dialogue included a widely involved rebrand launch program. This transitional period meant not only that EOTech would be unveiling its new face to its consumers both professional and civilian, it also needed to address its various brand elements, web and social media, as well as updating the product packaging across the board.

United constructed a systematic approach to addressing these challenges by clarifying the market messaging into its equal subsets; military and law enforcement, armed professionals, and the civilian shooter (soon would include, aspirational hunters both professional and sport).

Turning brand recognition into brand aspiration.

Between the three core subsets in the weapons sights market (military and police, armed professionals, and civilians), the language in the firearms industry was noticeably dissonant with what consumers engage with on a daily basis due to the phenomena of online reviews and social media.

United brought more elements of the brand into the forefront of its language, which capitalized on the holographic technology featured in EOTechs primary and proprietary HWS product line (Holographic Weapon Sights). These unique product attributes, in conjunction with much market support in terms of positive feedback and a reputation of robust reliability, ultimately ensured EOTech’s new skin in the game would be well received.

Transition and Transcendence

The market perception of EOTech presented a league of challenges, where solutions were often required to address different aspects of the brand identity, how a new logo would effect recognition and consumer continuity; how to delegate the appropriate visual language to support already existing products.

In order to build upon EOTech’s reputation, United needed to configure a brand strategy capable of maintaining the best of EOTech’s existing equity, while actively unrolling the new brand identity; where both endeavors coexist for the support of the other.

With a new brand identity in transition, United sought a more revolutionary approach from the outside, however maintaining a sense of evolution within the proprietary components of the EOTech brand, namely the optics product offerings. There needed to be a clear message to the audience that the brand they know didn’t just change, it changed for the better in all aspects—transcendent.

United was heavily invested in the creative assets presented to EOTech during the rebranding process, which also flowed down into support media and lifestyle elements that looked beyond the optics themselves.

In a migration towards brand recognition balanced with lifestyle aspiration, it was important to meet the prospective new shooter on their level, while elevating the unique qualities of EOTech’s products.

EOTech was looking to gain a higher level of consumer influence, which United leveraged into a series of brand awareness campaigns, revolving around the rebrand, and the launch of its new Vudu line of precision hunting scopes.

United generated the artwork and creative assets which enabled EOTech to move swiftly forward with their own series of lifestyle products to support any and all avenues necessary, scalable to meet their needs into the future.

The EOTech brand has built itself around the innovation that is the heart of its claims in the firearms industry and an optics manufacturer, rugged reliability, life-saving solutions to threat engagement in terms of target acquisition and sight alignment. These were key in the development of a new program that would ultimately result in EOTech’s launch of a new brand identity.

To set the parameters in which a successful rebrand endeavor would be staged, United developed a transitional program that would hold EOTech to a more sophisticated brand standards, in tandem with phasing out the brand’s outdated visual equity. This meant elevating their existing language, both visual and verbal, to meet the brand’s future prospects and aspirations.

We considered the rebranding process as a filter to sort the various elements of the brand, to find what needed to stay, change or be removed.

This meant ensuring the launch and ongoing marketing activities were perfectly executed through every media, including print advertising, in-store, outdoor, social and web media.

As an example, this activity included the development of visual systems put in place to meet design deliverable objectives with a sense of consistency, which would manifest in print ads, digital banner campaigns, and all web media.

The strategy going in, was to clarify and define EOTech’s moving parts and the role each part would play and how they would interlace. This meant developing a roadmap capable of showing EOTech where they intend to grow into, while also showing a true depiction of their current standings against those intentions.

Our role evolved to be not only the driving creative force, but also one of supporting the various teams across EOTech’s brand and marketing teams, as well as those responsible for activation and growing market share. United provided internal communication collateral including brand books, educational and promotional materials.

Ultimately, we demonstrated to EOTech just what was possible with the right insight, ideas and audience understanding. With standing programs producing increased brand recognition and market share gain across all of EOTech’s product lines.

Moving fast upon the ever changing trends in the firearms industry and the tactical world as a whole, presents a few extremely challenging assumptions. Especially within the optics category, claims to reliability and tested-ness, are cheap and frivolously dispersed. In addition to what optics manufacturers say about themselves, and the manner in which they do so, United honed in on the concept of purpose.

A key observation United noted for EOTech was—EOTech has a real world reason to exist in the first place, their position in the market is unique in that their name already, undoubtedly mentioned when shooters are discussing weapon sights.

United dissected this observation and distilled it into a more recognizable and understandable state. This meant EOTech needed to speak to the market at a level more aligned with their purpose for existing—to give military and law enforcement, and armed professionals the advantage, to ultimately make it home to their families.

United recognized that a vast majority of the market was influenced by purpose when educated properly on EOTech’s products and extended models within each of its offerings. This would serve as a lens to further develop EOTech’s advertising and promotional materials into the future.