Snappy turnaround on strategic brand language for a global facilities management giant

Defining your brand essence with print or online communications relies on a synthesis of visual, functional and textual elements. When budgets or deadlines are under pressure, it’s often the copy that gets the least attention. Sodexo Australia’s recent website development proves that strategically outsourcing copywriting requirements can achieve outstanding brand communication – without compromising cost or time imperatives.

Sodexo Australia is part of the Sodexo group, a global integrated facilities management enterprise recognised as a leader in the provision of food and facilities management services. From remote mining sites to big-city corporations, from primary schools to aged care villages, from healthcare to military ... Sodexo is there, providing fully integrated services to a range of government and non-government clients. With over 375,000 employees globally and a turnover in excess of $26 billion, Sodexo is a truly international entity.

Sodexo originated in France and it was from there that a re-brand was initiated and rolled out across the enterprise, including the launch of a global web platform. With a growing presence Sodexo Australia needed a web identity that was Australia-centric. And they needed it fast!

Julie Monnet, Communications Manager for Sodexo Australia and New Zealand, explained that reading DDG’s newsletter (HeadzUp) had encouraged her to outsource the website copywriting aspect. “DDG’s Richard Duerden had been visiting us for about a year, discussing various opportunities to work together, and we had been receiving the HeadzUp newsletter. I was impressed by its style of language and felt the catchy writing would work for our website. We had been collating the content for some time, but really needed the text to be more engaging, consistent and relevant for our Australian market. We wanted something less corporate, more engaging.”

Richard Duerden, DDG’s Strategic Sales Director, explained “Sodexo approached us to partner them in developing an appropriate copy style and language. Comprising more than 100 pages, this was a large-scale and strategic web project requiring specialist resources.”

“I understand Sodexo was attracted to DDG’s full service offering and demonstrated experience in strategic partnerships,” said Richard. “We have the flexibility and resources to concentrate efforts and achieve rapid turnaround without compromise to quality.”

“We allocated expert copywriting resources to the project and worked together to plan the optimum approach, given that the raw copy for the site would be contributed by multiple sources”

“Early trial pages were used to identify and lock-in the required style and language conventions. With that already in place, we were able to turn the project around with very few client revisions and within three short weeks (spanning the Christmas break).”

The Sodexo Australia website design echoes its international counterparts, but has a unique Australian character achieved in part by its engaging text and in part by a fun “flash” animation component developed by the DDG design team. The website marries together visual, functional and textual elements to accomplish a true brand expression.


To view Sodexo Australia's website, visit http://www.sodexo.com.au


“Our new website is attracting excellent comments both from within and outside Sodexo. We are absolutely happy with the results and the way DDG managed the project within an extremely short deadline.

We know the site speaks directly to our Australian customers and is a real reflection of our operations here. During my many years with Sodexo this has been the most rewarding project I have worked on. It took a long time for us to put together the raw content and now everything has fallen into place with the copywriting being the cherry on the cake.

We have since engaged DDG to manage the copy-editing of our new quarterly magazine which will be distributed to our staff and clients throughout Australia. ”

Julie Monnet, Communications Manager, Sodexo Australia & New Zealand