The Adaptavist Group

Historically, The Adaptavist Group’s branding was heavily influenced by its flagship brand, Adaptavist, sharing similar colours and visual styles. However, as TAG evolved into a prominent public-facing umbrella entity, the need for a distinct and separate identity became critical.

The new branding had to perform a difficult dual role: it needed to be inclusive enough to represent a diverse family of specialist companies while appealing to a broad range of external stakeholders, including future employees, strategic partners, and potential customers. The challenge was to move beyond the shadow of the parent brand and create an identity that felt like a cohesive home for a global group of innovators.

Our partnership began with a series of discovery and conceptualisation workshops. Through these sessions, we established that the new identity needed to visually explain TAG’s role as an umbrella brand while remaining distinctive, energetic, and human-centric.

We conducted extensive research into global parent brands to identify a visual space where TAG could stand apart. This was paired with a deep-dive personality evaluation, utilising a "word cloud" of core values extracted from the brief and existing site. This data-driven approach allowed us to identify the specific traits the brand needed to evoke: expertise, vitality, and human connection.

We scrutinised the existing colour palette to understand how different tones corresponded to TAG’s personality—identifying denim blue as a symbol of knowledge and orange as a representation of technology and energy. However, we found the palette lacked a sense of transformation and excitement. To solve this, we introduced a vibrant gradient palette. The sense of motion conveyed through these gradients provided the "invigorating" feel the brand was missing, symbolising the constant evolution and vitality of the group.

With the visual direction agreed upon, we moved quickly to build a comprehensive set of brand guidelines and a full suite of assets. This provided the technical and creative foundation for a total website redesign and ensured that the new identity could be applied consistently across all touchpoints.

Following the successful launch of the rebrand, the new identity has been seamlessly integrated across the entire organisation. It has moved beyond a simple visual update to become the definitive visual language for the Group, applied to everything from high-level presentation decks to global social media campaigns.

What we accomplished was more than just a new look; we delivered a flexible, scalable system that can grow alongside TAG’s changing needs. The brand now provides a clear, professional, and vibrant front that effectively represents the diverse family of brands it houses.

As a rapidly growing global entity, TAG needed an internal merchandise store that reflected its modern, tech-forward identity and could efficiently serve its expanding team. However, the existing store was built on outdated technology and managed by legacy teams, creating significant operational friction. The platform was difficult to manage, lacked flexibility, and was falling behind the modern tools and languages used across the rest of the business.

This presented several key challenges:

• Manual Overload: The Marketing department was burdened with manual tasks, from processing orders to managing inventory, diverting their focus from strategic initiatives.

• Lack of Flexibility: The old system couldn't support essential features like generating unique voucher codes, making it difficult to reward staff or run internal campaigns.

• Poor Reporting: The finance team lacked clear visibility into stock and sales, complicating accounting and budget management.

• Outdated User Experience: The store did not provide the seamless, secure, and modern experience that employees of a leading technology group had come to expect.

Brew Digital was tasked with designing and building a new, modern merchandise store from the ground up. The goal was to automate processes, enhance the user experience, and provide the flexibility needed to support a global workforce.

Our solution was a complete technical overhaul, built on a modern, serverless architecture. We chose to build the new store using Shopify Hydrogen, a React-based framework, and deployed it on Oxygen, Shopify’s serverless hosting system. This decision immediately aligned the store’s tech stack with the modern development practices used across TAG.

To deliver enhanced functionality, we leveraged GraphQL APIs. This allowed us to build a more dynamic and responsive user experience, including custom features like a prominent discount code form on the homepage for easy voucher redemption.

Secure and simple access was paramount. We implemented an Okta integration, allowing over 1,000 employees to sign in seamlessly and securely using their existing company credentials. To manage the product catalogue effectively, we used Shopify’s tagging system to clearly distinguish between internal products for employees and potential external-facing merchandise for future use.

The new TAG merchandise store successfully transformed a dated internal tool into a modern, automated e-commerce platform. The project delivered a flexible, scalable solution that drastically reduced administrative overhead and improved the employee experience. By building the new store with Shopify Hydrogen and React, we created a fully modernised platform that aligns with TAG’s identity as a technology leader. The automation of orders, inventory, and voucher management freed up significant time for the Marketing department, while enhanced reporting capabilities provided the Finance team with clear, real-time data. Furthermore, the Okta integration provided a secure and user-friendly login experience, allowing employees to easily browse and purchase items using voucher codes on a fast, modern, and intuitive interface.

In summary, we provided The Adaptavist Group with:

• A fully modernised, automated e-commerce platform.

• Reduced administrative workload for the Marketing team.

• Improved financial oversight and reporting.

• Seamless and secure access via Okta integration.

• An enhanced, user-friendly employee experience.