Our work doesn’t sit on shelves. We take great ideas from design and create what you need to bring them to life. Here’s a taste of the types of projects we’ve worked on:
Creating a cutting-edge brand site
The world’s largest telecommunications company had a dated platform for communicating about and distributing assets for their brand identity. They asked us to guide them in defining, designing and building a dynamic, powerful, engaging site to deliver brand guidelines, training and brand identity assets to internal and external constituents.
Needs definition: conducted extensive user and creator interviews and created functional requirements addressing functionality, experience and content.
RFP guidance: guided client teams throughout RFP processes for design and technology agencies, including defining necessary skillsets and deliverable language for scopes of work.
Briefing: developed creative briefs for brand identity, information design, content architecture, and other inputs based on user research and knowledge of a variety of digital asset management systems.
Execution: supervised every aspect of design and development, providing direction on design, functionality and user experience. Reviewed and approved all functional user stories and led client UAT team in site validation, testing and optimization.
Content creation: evaluated all existing site content and assets and created new taxonomy and tagging structure; developed site content and created editorial plans for the first year of launch.
Launching and sunsetting—brand identity implementation
Whether sunsetting an acquired brand or introducing a new brand, clear communications and an eye to process are the keys to success.
Launching: For multiple US and global clients, we’ve developed rollout plans for launching a new brand identity system. We work closely to align stakeholders in evaluating all branded collateral to determine costs, timelines, additional resources required, and owners—to develop a comprehensive plan for migration. In many cases, we created the communications materials and training content to fuel the launch. We also created launch communications plans and designed activities and materials to assist internal team in bringing their new identity to life throughout the organization.
Merging and retiring for M&A: Among the brand M&A projects we’ve done, one of the most comprehensive involved creating and implementing an acquisitions guidebook across brand and marketing functions for a global technology consulting firm. With over a dozen existing acquired companies and more added each quarter, the company needed a standard way to lead brand and marketing leaders through the process of sunsetting their brand and embracing the corporate brand. We created a logo architecture for endorsed brands, sub-brands with permanent and interim/transitional logos. We established a multi-channel comms plans to guide clients, prospects, and the broader marketplace through the transition. And we established the infrastructure for a touchpoint audit to evaluate and prioritize internal and external brand presence. Throughout the process, we acknowledged the emotional aspects for brand and marketing staff at acquired companies who are losing a brand they’ve worked so hard to build and embrace.
Changing the paradigm of brand governance
Traditionally top-down brand governance feels like a burden—something you have to check off. We helped the world’s largest telecommunications company to redefine how they interacted with creators who used the brand. We started by incorporating more helpful tie-ins throughout the brand site to help users understand context and see the brand come to life.
Then we analyzed all processes and the tech that supported it and managed the creation of an end-to-end workflow app where users could submit materials for review, chat with the brand support team, and view feedback on their materials that integrated with brand guidance and examples. Our combination of brand strategy, production, training expertise, and technology fluency was the key to a universally-embraced new tool and a new definition of engagement with the brand team.
Showing the way for strategy consultants
A leading global professional services company needed to provide their consultants with foundations in financial statements, corporate finance and business case development. They needed a hands-on, interactive course—an MBA-in-a week—to educate their consultants and ensure they had tools they could use long after the course was completed. We created a four-day in-person course that combined lecture with a challenging business case that they built iteratively using knowledge from each course module. We taught the course 5-8 times a year to hundreds of learners throughout Europe, North America and Asia for 10+years. Developed and led multiple other courses in communications and analytics.