How Ickle Bubba used brand strategy to fuel growth and global expansion

Client stories

11 Apr

Working with Ickle Bubba to understand their brand positioning, and define a brand strategy and creative direction that makes them stand out in a crowded market.

“Brand is the starting point of any decision a business makes. When you truly know what your brand is, its strengths and what it offers your customer, it’s easy to validate your decisions - the brand becomes your strategic compass.” — Emma, Marketing Director

Ickle Bubba have a goal to be a leading global baby brand. With plans for international growth and a growing team, they needed a brand that could keep up. Not just a new look, but foundations they could use to scale.

They’d only been in business for 7 years when we got together to discuss their brand. Having grown quickly, they’d never had the chance to work on telling the story of who they are, and in a crowded marketplace, this was becoming crucial. We started what became a rebrand project by auditing the brand and their industry to understand how to proceed.

The project impact:

Doubled sales of key products in low-traffic (“fallow”) months
A strategic foundation to support future growth, both in the UK and globally
Aligned internal and external perceptions of the brand
Brand pillars to guide product development, communication, and cultural alignment
Brand consistency across all channels and touchpoints

The challenge: standing out in a crowded market

Ickle Bubba had momentum, a growing team, and big plans but no brand strategy to support their next stage of growth. Their identity wasn’t clearly defined, making it hard to create cohesive campaigns or communicate what made them different.

Like many fast-growing start-ups, their early focus was on sales. But with plans to expand globally and build a stronger connection with their audience, they knew it was time to invest in their brand inside and out so they could continue to see the success they had experienced over the last year or so.

Emma was leading a small but growing team of five and knew the brand was fundamental to the business’s success. They needed it not only to support upcoming campaigns, but to shape the internal culture as the team expanded. In such a crowded market, Ickle Bubba had to be clear on what they stood for – and make sure their audience knew it too.

“The rebrand was needed to support the growth of the business, not only in the UK but also globally. Fliss understood exactly what we wanted to deliver and even in our initial conversation we were drawing out ideas and concepting how the new brand would take shape. She gave us the building blocks to engineer a cohesive, well-thought-out brand.”

They needed support to:

Develop a clear and cohesive brand identity to support their next stage of growth
Build a brand that could shape not just marketing, but also culture and customer perception
Clarify their positioning in a crowded marketplace, especially with plans to expand globally
Connect more meaningfully with their target audience of parents-to-be
Evolve their visual and verbal identity to better reflect who they were and where they were going

What we did: Ickle Bubba growing up

Stage 1: audit and analysis

We began with a brand audit and global market analysis to understand how Ickle Bubba was perceived both internally and externally. This helped uncover gaps between the team’s ambitions and how the brand was showing up in the market. We examined competitors, customer perception, and their current visuals to understand how to position the brand confidently in a competitive landscape, with future international growth in mind.

Ickly Bubba customer perception analysis

“The analysis became the foundation for how we rebuilt the brand and the time and effort we took to do this is starting to reap rewards now. We are seeing consistency across all of our channels, and it is starting to filter into our products too.”

What we did at stage 1:

Undertook a brand audit to compare internal and customer views of the brand
Conducted competitor analysis to identify where they sat at the time, where they wanted to be and know how to get there
Reviewed and evaluated their existing brand visuals and assets
Completed a gap analysis to uncover where the brand needed to evolve
Did research into parents around the world to shape the brands positioning

The brand before the rebrand

Stage 2: brand strategy and messaging development

Using insight from the audit and customer research, I worked closely with the Ickle Bubba team to define a brand strategy that clarified their purpose, positioning, and personality. We began with a brand workshop where we identified what the business stands for and how it should show up internally and externally. The brand strategy evolved from there, including creating brand pillars, refining their vision, mission and values, and developing messaging that would resonate across markets and touchpoints – supporting both team growth and customer connection.

What we did at stage 2:

Ran a brand strategy workshop to get to the core of why the business exists and what they wanted to be known for
Defined brand pillars to guide all brand activity: from comms to product development
Refined and articulated their vision, mission, and values
Created a messaging framework tailored to their audiences’ needs and expectations
Outlined how the brand should operate internally and globally, with guidance on culture and communication

Stage 3: evolving their creative direction

With a solid vision for the future and their brand strategy in place, we translated Ickle Bubba’s brand into a distinctive visual identity that would connect with their audience and scale with the business.

This wasn’t about creating something ‘shiny’. It was about building a recognisable, flexible brand personality that reflected their values and could be applied across channels, products, touchpoints, and cultures. I worked closely with their internal team to shape a creative direction that felt true to who they were and was flexible as the brand grew, but remained recognisable.

“We now have a consistent and identifiable brand that helps us identify opportunities and ways of working. Our tone of voice and messaging are starting to sound like the brand that was already in existence– but we hadn’t quite brought to life."

What we did at stage 3:

Refined their visual identity, ensuring it aligned with their brand pillars and positioning
Developed a distinctive photography style to bring personality, relevance and consistency
Defined a visual language to give the brand consistency across touchpoints
Ensured brand consistency across products, digital platforms, and campaigns
Collaborated with the internal team to implement and embed the creative direction into day-to-day brand activity

The outcome: the brand in action

The new brand has repositioned Ickle Bubba in their market and the consistency in the brand execution and strong visuals has really helped them to stand out. By putting strategy at the heart of the brand, Ickle Bubba now has the confidence, clarity and consistency to grow on their terms.

“We have doubled sales on certain products in fallow months, which suggests the newly branded campaigns we are running have an impact on consumer buying behaviour without the need for a promotion. This is a direct reflection of the power of our creative campaign execution and clear brand messaging that originated from the rebranding exercise.

We are also translating our values through our internal culture, and working on projects that are meaningful to our employees. We don’t just see our brand as a commercial aid, we see it as an opportunity to be a positive force in society.”

What changed:

Improved sales – doubled product sales in slower months without discounts
Increased brand consistency – unified look and feel across all channels and products
Clearer customer targeting – stronger connection with the right audience
Global readiness – a brand strategy that could flex across international markets and expansion plans
Internal brand alignment – team clarity on who they are and how to show up
Confident brand leadership – brand used to guide marketing and business decisions
A foundation for growth – strategy now shapes products, hiring, and direction