Authority in Motion.

Data and technology were reshaping the discipline, while the value of marketers risked being reduced to tools and tactics. CIM needed to strengthen its relevance to current and prospective members, and its influence with business leaders, without severing the institutional credibility earned since 1911. BRASH saw the opportunity in that tension. The answer was not to abandon the past, but to make its authority newly useful: a brand strategy that could carry professional standards, shared knowledge and a more collaborative voice into a faster, more connected marketing landscape. BRASH saw that the challenge was not simply to organise a vast digital ecosystem. It was to give that complexity a human face: one clear promise people could recognise, understand and trust wherever they encountered it.

BRASH built the identity around authority in motion. We retained CIM's historic crest, redrawing and simplifying it into a crisp linear mark, then paired it with a distinctive CIM wordmark and a royal-blue palette. The system moved from the heritage symbol to a modern signature, expressing continuity without nostalgia. A restrained typographic language and flexible outline graphics gave the brand clarity across stationery, publications, signage, interiors, events and digital screens. Even the crest-to-wordmark reveal made the strategic thought visible: institutional weight becoming an open, contemporary voice for collective marketing intelligence.

Launched in late 2014, the new identity gave CIM a coherent platform for global rollout across communications and physical environments. BRASH transformed a complex heritage asset into a recognisable system that could hold its authority at every scale, from a letterhead to Moor Hall signage and an event stage. The work helped CIM enter its second century with its history intact and a clearer visual language for the profession it represented.