Desnogorsk 100%

SMOLENSK OBLAST, Russia

Desnogorsk 100%

100% best winner nuclear town branding

Rosatom is taking care of 21 towns in Russia and has many social projects to keep people in a healthy and happy condition. In 2019, Rosatom launched a branding initiative for all the towns and asked a few town experts to help with consulting needs. We've got two: Kurchatov and Desnogorsk. Plan was to make a quickie town branding without all those typical long-term researches, community educations, lots of variants, discussions, reflexions. When it came to visit Desnogorsk and our personal meeting with administration, we've been told that the goal of the brand was pure and simple:

Client: Rosatom

Work: research, branding, design

2019

Our brand should be the best one. We must win.

Natalia Barkhanoeva

DESNOGORSK BRAND MANAGER

No problems, you said that. Actually, Smolensk oblast is all about history of severe battles, bravery and victories. When you visit Smolensk or nearby territory, you'll always face some militancy. People here are taught to learn on histories of valiant victories of the past, watching proudly into the future. Desnogorsk is unexpectadly upholds this timid theory of us.

Research

We moved to Desnogorsk right the same day we left Kurchatov, another nuclear town of Rosatom we've been working on. Desnogorsk met us with the vast water reservoir the town is washed on. Smolensk nuclear station is built upon its shores.

We always take our time on visiting and taking our time on communication with the residents and collecting our own impressions on catching insights from the territory we're working with

Natalia Rybalchenko

BRAND STRATEGIST

We spent several days in Desnogorsk. It was enough to meet the town administration who weren't lucky enough to go on a vacation in july. We met involved and and attentive museum staff, almost malfunctioned the nuclear station training center, had a meeting with local business, held a roundtable discussion with residents and shook hands with the town head, promised him to ultimately make the best branding in the whole Rosatom universe.

It's all in numbers

If you deal with nuclear energy, you can't go wrong with the numbers. People in Desnogorsk see the world around from the perspective of the nuclear worker:

Numbers

100% sure

Desnogorsk has neighborhood naming, so does the streets. Proud nuclear worker lives in the 5th neighborhood, on the 2nd street, in the 3rd house and would be happy about it.
Trust numbers and you're good to go
People are into sports where win is the only strategy and the score is most important of all
Less words, more digits
Green number color is good, red one is bad
Technical and mathematical minds
Higher number of IQ
No excuses, not accepting errors
No time for loosers, cause we're the champions

People

100% of them

Accept no errors
Accept no excuses
We're the youngest town in the whole Smolensk oblast
It can be yes or no, there's no in between
Always hope for the best in all the things
No time for loosers
Cause we're the champions

100%

No extra words
Logo and slogan has no words, like the town
One hundred percent sure about everything
Fully charged energy
Thunder is a symbol of energy
Green is for ecology and reliability

Desnogorsk 100%

The idea got me the same day we visited Desnogorsk. After the whole day of communicating I got to the hotel dead tired with a dead iPhone. I've put it on charge and felt asleep. A few hours I woke up fully recharged. Same is my iPhone. That was the fastest insight I got.

Igor Makovsky

ART DIRECTOR, DESIGNER

Digital branding

Truly laconic and brilliant logo, probably one of the most accurate and precise that we made in digital.

When there are too many brand values

Athletic town branding

Young people used to shorten up the town name to DSN letters and use them instead, so we made special branding right for them. Brief and 100% clear.

It's all about certainty

Communication strategy follows the same topic across all the communication topics. Maybe, the answers are pretty predictable, after all, but who cares if they're 100% sure.

— Do you think she loves me?
— 100%

— Shall we win?
— 100%

— Is the Desnogorsk the best place to live and work?
— 100%

— Will the weather be ok in the weekend?
— 100%

Will you be ok?

Showcase 100%

It was called an official brand presentation on the special event in Rosatom headquarters, yet we'd better call it a stand-up perfomance of the town head with a well-prepared speech and applause by the end. Also it was a good day to grab some Desnogorsk merch, because we have a humble guess that it was the last time anybody could ever see it.

Another one example of how good boys and girls don't have to repeat others mistakes. Brands that have been requested from above the corporate giant company can't be loved without proper financial support and real purposes. Maybe, there were no such purposes, rather than show it for the hq. Might be, it wasn't well manifested across the residents, maybe they just do not need it. We hope, that Desnogorsk, as a well-developed nuclear town once will return its focus to the developed brand we carefully created in 2019.