BACKGROUND / CHALLENGE:

Aura Minerals, Inc (AMI) is a publicly-traded mid-tier gold and copper production company, with mines across the Americas including Honduras, Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia. Formerly headquartered in Toronto, Canada, in 2018 AMI moved its main offices to Miami, FL under new leadership, with the goal of creating a “new start” for the company.

The same year, the company approached WANT seeking help to rebrand the company in pursuit of that fresh start. Their desire was to create a stronger narrative for the business and to unite its employees across the Americas with their executives in Miami and Toronto. The AMI team additionally wanted to create a new identity and website for the refresh, as well as explore the potential for a new name.

SOLUTION:

After extensive research which included competitive audits, document reviews and interviews with nearly 20 stakeholders, it was clear that AMI had a different vision for its mining operations–over the past several years, AMI had taken a holistic approach to mining, ensuring that environmental risks were mitigated and that communities affected by the mining were compensated. That holistic approach led us to the final positioning idea: 360 Mining.

That positioning idea was further bolstered with audience-specific messaging, values and a mission statement: To find, mine and deliver the planet’s most important and essential minerals that enable the world and humankind to create, innovate, and prosper.

After the positioning was decided upon, we explored various new name options, but determined that the equity and legacy of the existing name were worth retaining, therefore we decided to simply shorten the name to “Aura’. We then created a new identity for Aura based on the 360 Mining positioning. Finally, we created a style guide and a new website to bring the new brand to life. The new brand refresh and website were launched in late 2019.

OUTCOME:

Aura continues to be a leading mid-tier mining company. It’s a holistic approach to positioning set a new industry standard and is now followed by multiple other companies. Further, at the time of our project, Aura’s stock was worth just over $20 per share, less than one year later, their shares are at over $80/share, an increase of nearly 400%.