One of the largest circus outfits in the world, Cirkus Cirkör also has one of the strongest and most recognisable visual identities. The consistency of tone, style and colour they maintain across their branding and marketing is thanks in part to a very long-standing relationship with the Swedish photographer Mattias Edwall, but also to the company's willingness to take marketing seriously right from the very start. Where once they sent the artists out on mopeds to toss out fistfuls of flyers on crowded pavements, now they produce video content extensively — always trying to fold the performers into the process. Today their marketing budget is around 1 million SEK (~100,000 Euro) out of a global budget of 40 million SEK; certainly a larger sum than in their first years, but, Susanne Reuszner points out, not in fact a larger proportion.
Key Ideas
Define your organisation
In 2000, Cirkör worked with an outside agency to formulate their own brand/value words. Finally, they settled on three pairs or contradictions: Cocky Commitment, Quality Madness, and Collective Individualism. Susanne says that they still find these useful as a guide when setting a voice and tone for their communications. Even before coming up with the keywords though, Cirkör put significant effort into self-definition. When the company was founded Tilde wrote a charter for the company, including a small number of key goals, which became a document both to direct activities and to imbue those activities with a set of larger ambitions that could attract collaborators and funders.