Building a New Brand in the Digital Transformation Space
[ LONG READ ]
Client / Enginess
Industry Sector / Digital Transformation and Technology Consulting
Services / Brand Research, Strategy, Naming, Creative Development
Launched in 2000 as the web and digital development offshoot of a typesetting and printing company, Movable Online built a solid reputation of its own to become one of the most sought-after digital consultancies in the country. The company’s legacy brand and positioning however hindered its ability and prospects for future growth. The company reasoned that it required a brand that would sufficiently distance it from its origins, better reflect its intellectual capital, leadership and technical problem-solving capabilities, and position it to take on global firms competing in the Digital Transformation space.
Approach
The firm issued an RFP to a number of leading branding consultancies, and awarded the contract to our team. As we began working together, we all realized the opportunity to create something truly unique. This however would take the willingness on the part of the company’s leadership to leave behind pre-conceived notions of what a successful brand within the digital transformation sector should be, and to look at the category with fresh eyes. This is why we took the client on a journey to envision the future of the digital space.
Branding a Digital Firm in a Crowded Space.
This meant that the standard themes like “partnering”, “innovation” and “strategic leadership”, needed to be expressed in fresh and surprising ways from what any client had been exposed to before by a digital firm. To help ensure this could happen, the positioning communicated a value proposition that was understood as markedly superior to that of competitors, and helped alleviate any doubt in a prospect’s mind that their interests would be best served by working with the company.
However, we quickly confronted the fact that the language of the digital space is stuck in neutral, using the same tired and overused lexicon to communicate its value. We needed to leverage the power of language to develop fresh and more relevant expressions of the brand promise and value, so the market would take notice.
We conducted an analysis of 17 of the top international players in the Digital Transformation space and realized that virtually no one addressed their brand positioning relative to a client’s overall operational business needs. The opportunity quickly came into focus to:
Address holistic, higher-level business needs instead of just digital needs.
Address clients’ confusion with “digital”.
Help clients diagnose their primary digital needs.
Ensure client feels safe in their choices by demystifying the process.
Redefine not only the work of the company but the entire sector.
Develop a brand to “own” this newly redefined sector.
Branding a Digital Firm in a Post-website World.
The unpredictable and dynamic nature of the digital space is such that we can only partly anticipate what the next five years will bring. So branding with any sense of permanence in this context poses real challenges. The company had to come to terms with disruption, not just of its clients’ industries, but of its own as well.
The unpredictability of the industry and changing digital strategies meant that entire lines of business can be marginalized almost overnight. Painting oneself in a corner with a brand that is too narrowly focused could easily spell future trouble.The company needed brand options that gave it a wide berth and an eminently adaptable core value proposition to adapt to emerging market opportunities and changing technologies.
Futurecasting by Defining the Language
Because of the fluid and fragmented nature of the digital technology landscape, clients are often perplexed as to which type of agency/consultant to hire. We determined therefore that the goal of the rebranding should not be to define our value proposition in terms of the firm’s services, but instead to focus of the business outcomes clients require, regardless of the technology solutions needed to get them there. Our goal became to simplify the client’s decision process by helping them diagnose their primary operational needs, and by reinventing the language of the industry to redefine the digital industry key markers to address those needs.
Battling Giants, “Categorically.”
In this context, the company needed to be the David to the digital transformation sector’s Goliaths. The opportunity was therefore: To be “categorically” different by redefining the category rather than to be defined by it. To develop a brand and core value proposition to “own” the category… what every good brand should aspire to do.
Following this thinking, we were able to pack the positioning with a potent emotional punch that would lift the company above the fray and create unique story/narrative opportunities. This also provided the inspiration for naming the company in the most propitious way.
Naming
Before we began exploring various name options for the company, we agreed on a few key principles, the first being that the right name should not be about “who we are,” and “what we do” but about “where we are going” and “where we are taking our clients.”
[ Logo Design by Clear Space ]
We also agreed that with these key principles backed by solid selection criteria, the naming exploration could be streamlined and highly focused on only those names that were strategically delivering against these principles. This meant that we could eschew the all-too-common practice to develop hundreds of names, an approach we consider a waste of time and certainly not one that is respectful of the client’s time and intelligence.
Messaging the Future
Based on carefully curated customer personae defined by the role individuals occupy within enterprises, we developed a sophisticated massage map to help address the specific informational needs of individual customers. In order to develop the message map, we then looked at the commonalities between all personae:
– Uneasiness in the face of constant technological change
– Concern over disruptive technologies that could potentially upend their business
– Difficulty and overwhelming complexity in optimizing business/operational process efficiency
– Struggle to improve financial returns
– Preoccupation with price competitiveness in a globalized marketplace
– Readiness to face market upheavals
– Perplexity regarding solutions to implement and consultants to hire marketplace
All of these translated into a palpable anxiety level for clients, when facing constant changes and what the future will bring. We were therefore able to focus on this to evolve the firm’s Core Value Proposition as “helping customer face the future confidently.”
This led to the development of a tagline created to put the emphasis squarely where the clients focus and priorities were: “Ensuring the sustainability and competitiveness of their enterprise, well into the foreseeable future.”
[ Visual Style by Clear Space ]
Internalizing the New Brand Promise
To build cohesion and unity around the new brand and to have employees emotionally invested and engaged in delivering against the new Core Value Proposition, we developed a Brand Manifesto that became the focus of animated discussions and allowed employees at every level of the company to provide input into a shared vision of the new brand.
