Prophet

CASE STUDY

ASUS

Defining a compelling ESG story to lead a sustainable future 

Challenge

ASUS is a leading technology manufacturer that has set an ambitious sustainability goal to achieve 100% renewable energy in global operations centers by 2035. With a focus on creating positive impacts on the environment and society, ASUS has championed data-driven and scientific management methodologies to optimize sustainability practices.  

Having invested heavily into its ESG initiatives over the past few years, ASUS saw an opportunity to better communicate its ESG strategy and success to the market. Prophet partnered with ASUS to create a compelling ESG narrative to demonstrate the tech leader’s strong commitment to sustainability and a better future. 

Solutions

We started by understanding ASUS’s ESG vision and current strategy through in-depth interviews with executives and stakeholders across multiple business units. Our key focus was to better understand ASUS’s underlying strategic motivations and unique competitive edges in ESG. We also conducted audits on how ASUS and other leading technology brands communicate their ESG efforts and identified key trends and best practices to inform future communication strategy.  

Based on internal and external perspectives, we developed three potential creative territories to articulate ASUS’s ESG narrative and crystalized a unique and future-ready ESG narrative that’s deeply rooted in the company’s DNA. The new ESG slogan – “Sustaining an Incredible Future” – underscores ASUS’s commitment to creating shared value for everyone, with reference to its brand essence “In Search of Incredible”. A variety of activation ideas were co-created to guide ASUS’s key divisions in developing future initiatives to underpin its ESG strategy. 

To bring our narrative to life, we transformed the new ESG principles into a comprehensive visual system and flexible key visual. Our core visual pattern concept starts from a single pixel that symbolizes ASUS’s singular focus on technology advancement, and evolved into a grid system that signifies the accumulation of experience to create an incredible future for all stakeholders. A living brand flexible enough to anticipate and solve any environmental needs, representing ASUS’s focused areas for ESG. The color palette comprised of ASUS blue and a fresh teal, balancing contemporary and sophistication. Additionally, we created a comprehensive icon library, including recommendations on how the iconic visual patterns can live and expand with ASUS.  

Results

In January 2023, ASUS hosted an inspiring launch event with its new ESG value proposition , “Sustaining an incredible future,” at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), sharing with the world its commitment to a sustainable future. The ESG narrative creates a strong and compelling purpose for the tech leader to connect its organization, products and employees. 

Prophet continues to explore new initiatives and activation ideas with ASUS to bring its ESG ambition to life. 

Client Testimonial

“It was a pleasure to partner with Prophet on the journey driving sustainability at ASUS. Prophet’s experts understood deeply the core of ASUS’s DNA and ESG strategy and developed a sophisticated ESG narrative through storytelling and visual expressions. The updated ESG strategy was launched at the CES as the keynote of ASUS’s exhibition with wide attention and acclaims.” 

Eunice Chou
Global Commercial Marketing Head, System Group, ASUS 

CASE STUDY

The North Face

Defining a unique proposition for the iconic brand’s loyalty program in Greater China

Challenge

Since its inception in 1968, The North Face has become an iconic global outdoor sports and lifestyle brand. For years, the brand successfully operated a loyalty program called XPLR Pass, but the team determined that the program needed to be revamped in the Greater China market to create deeper engagement with its broad Chinese consumer base. The North Face hoped to expand on the types of benefits provided by XPLR Pass beyond monetary rewards, ensuring representation of the organization’s brand DNA while elevating consumer perceptions, building greater engagement and further differentiating itself from competitors. 

The North Face partnered with Prophet to craft a unique positioning for its loyalty program while ideating new benefits to bring it to life.  

Solutions

We started by immersing ourselves in the current state of the brand, conducting stakeholder interviews and reviewing past strategy efforts. In addition, we ran an immersive competitor audit to understand best practices around loyalty programs and interviewed industry experts to identify opportunities for differentiation. 

Through our research, our team identified key insights that allowed us to develop a unique positioning for XPLR Pass. We anchored the program on The North Face’s authentic history, providing trusted guidance to fuel exploration, which helped to reinforce the brand’s DNA while clearly articulating its distinctive values in Greater China. We then facilitated discussions and co-creative workshops across The North Face’s teams to clearly define XPLR Pass’s strategic objectives, design targets and customer journey roadmap. This helped us align on the key priorities of the revamped program, which was brought to life through four strategic pillars: outdoor empowerment, expert guidance, community and exclusivity. These pillars were then used to guide the ideation of the benefits provided by the program. 

A key ethos of our approach was to work collaboratively to ensure cross-functional buy-in of the new strategy. Our team leveraged innovative digital tools to facilitate interactive virtual sessions to drive alignment on the refreshed positioning. Once the strategy was set, we helped codify all elements of the updated program into a playbook, that could be used to inform all stakeholders about the program’s strategic components. 

Next, we developed an engagement strategy for next-gen high-potential brand lovers, to cultivate future growth potential. We defined identifying metrics, preference metrics and engagement tactics for the next-gen consumers. Also, we examined the existing engagement strategy of the brand and provided recommendations on how to build solid customer profiles that combine membership and transactional data with broader engagement data. Lastly, with our digital experience expertise, we recommended best practices for consumer tagging through advanced social media tactics, such as WeChat CRM, to help The North Face team drive ongoing engagement. 

Social media assets created by the North Face
Social media assets created by the North Face

Results

Our strategic work with The North Face set the foundations for the success of the revamped XPLR Pass program, serving as a key pillar of future growth for the brand in the Greater China market. The North Face team used the playbook to drive socialization across business functions and begin implementation of the new strategy.  

The strategy was then translated by the North Face team into customer-facing messaging. The revamped loyalty program was announced to Greater China consumers on WeChat in August 2022. The WeChat mini program was also designed to capture customer engagement data to help set the foundations for rich, actionable customer profiles to drive future personalization. 

CASE STUDY

NewStyle Media Group

Creating NSMG’s brand story to fuel future growth

Challenge

Established in 2015, NewStyle Media Group (NSMG) has grown quickly to span artist management, music publishing, record labels, TV/film production, merchandise and gaming. NSMG is on an exciting journey of growth with new intellectual properties, formats and capital.

In the industry, best-in-class entertainment brands focus on the customer, highlighting messages of inspiration, emotions, and resonance. Wanting to stand out in the crowded market across geographies, cultures and mediums, NSMG decided to partner with Prophet to reimagine its brand story and visual identity.

Solutions

Our team first developed a brand story that sits at the intersection of three factors: Company, Consumer and Category. Understanding NSMG’s unique ambition and capabilities in addition to its competitors and target audience, our team explored how to combine these elements to tell an inspiring brand story.  

We explored the unique capabilities of NSMG with the intention of introducing the world to unique Eastern culture and values. NSMG’s main audience profile was focused on passionate, bold and opinioned female Gen Zs who seek new and exciting things. To create messaging that resonated with the audience, we needed to gain a clear understanding of the brand’s audience and what they were looking for. We also researched best-in-class entertainment brands for inspiration to identify opportunities for differentiation.   

The new brand story articulated NSMG’s vision to connect audiences around the world with creative expression that is intrinsically human. We also established a new brand purpose – “Breaking barriers and bringing people together”.  

To help showcase their vision, Prophet then created the “New Wave Expression”. The “Wave” graphic connects to NSMG’s Chinese name Xin Pai (新湃), which means new wave or the uprising of NSMG. It is a visual interpretation of the sound NSMG is creating through music, film and media, while bringing it to the global audience.  

Results

Together, we helped NSMG revise its brand story with a refreshed visual identity. The rebrand helps NSMG accelerate its next wave of growth by amplifying a new wave of energy and movement to inspire and bring people together.

“We are very pleased to have worked with Prophet on what turned out to be a hugely successful project. The team had a thorough understanding of our needs and worked very hard to achieve our mutual goals. Prophet demonstrated both deep local insights and strong international expertise and impressed us with its agility in collaborating across different regional offices.” 

Mimzy Si
Former Senior VP, NewStyle Media Group

CASE STUDY

MetLife

Creating a differentiated retirement solution value proposition for the new generation of customers

Challenge

MetLife, one of the largest life insurance companies in the world, is committed to providing deep and meaningful values to its customers as a trusted life partner.  

Prophet has been a long-term partner with MetLife to help the brand propel its customer-centric transformation across the globe. In China, we started by helping MetLife China develop the overall customer value proposition – “Global Protection, Human Care.” We have also developed a series of customer-centric value propositions and solutions, including health, wealth, and education, to accelerate its transformation ambition in China. 

Retirement planning has been a rising need for Chinese consumers, given the aging population, declining fertility rate, shortage of public retirement funds and the shortage of retirement facilities in China. MetLife partnered with Prophet to uncover insights into Chinese consumers’ retirement needs and to co-create a distinctive and compelling retirement value proposition and solution that truly meets Chinese consumers’ retirement needs. 

Solutions

Through our research, we found that younger Chinese consumers, between the ages of 30 to 45, feel anxious and uncertain about retirement.  

To understand consumer retirement needs, we spoke to people from different life stages and household statuses. From there, we identified four consumer insights that create distinctive market opportunities for MetLife China to develop its retirement value proposition: 

  • Retirement preparation: First, retirement needs do not start in people’s 60s. Consumers want to start retirement planning early. Health issues often trigger consumers to start thinking about retirement planning. Protecting themselves from aging-related health issues has become a big part of their retirement preparation beyond financial preparation. 
  • Retirement services: In China, while most retirees prefer to stay in their homes for retirement, there’s a shortage of retirement services and facilities options. Consumers are less worried about covering their daily living expenses and medical bills and are instead concerned about access to quality services and facilities.  
  • Family support: For Chinese consumers, retirement is not an individual need but requires planning as a family. Most of them need to ensure support for their elderly parents before they can think about retirement preparation for themselves which still requires not only financial support but also quality retirement and health service support. 
  • Mental health: Retirement is more than just financial stability. It is also about the long-established life rhythm and goals. Many Chinese consumers feel a loss of identity and meaning after they retire. A critical part of ensuring individuals thrive in retirement is to figure out how to be mentally prepared and how to leverage the abundant free time to explore new hobbies, expand their horizons and socialize. 

After gaining a deep understanding of these needs, our team worked with MetLife to articulate its retirement value proposition– “Helping you and your family achieve total preparation towards a fulfilling life post-retirement.” We also worked with MetLife’s key stakeholders to co-create the product, service and experience of the retirement solution and developed a clear roadmap to bring the retirement solution to life and for future upgrades. 

Next, our design team created graphics to bring the value proposition to life visually by developing detailed design guidelines for the retirement solution to ensure its visual identity system is compatible with MetLife’s master brand visual system and architecture. Additionally, we have designed brochures and other communication materials for internal and external communications. 

Results

MetLife China launched its new retirement solution, 360Future, in December 2022. Through a live-streaming launch event, MetLife shared inspiring stories and distinctive insights from their employees, customers and industry experts. 

Prophet’s Associate Partner, Lily Wen was invited to join the panel discussion to highlight global and Chinese consumers’ unique challenges toward retirement. “Consumers’ retirement needs are multi-dimensional. Helping them develop the numerical financial goal alone can’t truly solve their worries, anxiety, and confusion toward retirement,” Lily said, “Financial service companies must address Chinese consumers’ holistic needs, by supporting their desire to secure their parents’ retirement while providing quality health and medical services beyond just financial security.” 

CASE STUDY

Scoperta!

Wooing young wine lovers with break-through creative and a full-funnel media campaign

Challenge

It turns out wine drinkers in America are thoroughly bored with the current online shopping options and wine clubs. Instead, young, wine-curious consumers want to broaden their horizons, but they’re frustrated that it’s so hard to explore America’s thousands of independent wineries.  

Enter Scoperta!, a start-up that provides a richer experience for shopping for wine, including a fun, manageable exploration process. To disrupt the e-commerce wine market, Scoperta! needed name recognition and a digital marketing strategy to drive demand. 

Scoperta! tasked Prophet with two objectives: create a buzz-worthy digital activation to accelerate name recognition, and develop a digital media campaign that included management, planning, buying and SEO strategy. 

Solutions

Our team leaned into the brand’s charm, wit and audacious name to develop and orchestrate a digitally-focused campaign to connect with a new wave of discerning wine buyers – through an opera, of course! 

First, we created a video opera, complete with beautiful arias. It tells the tragic tale of poor Brenda, a wine-loving woman disenchanted with the typical services of e-commerce wine brands. Her love affair with Scoperta! brought our “wine discovery made simple” campaign to life.  

To reach our audience of adventurous customers aged 25 to 55, we developed a full-funnel media plan that leveraged video, podcast, search and social to drive awareness. Meanwhile, display, search and social drove consideration and conversion. Our team strategically chose specific tactics across each funnel stage, with prospecting audiences at the top and high intent/retargeting audiences at the bottom. We then paired the campaign’s creative with each tactic accordingly and tested various formats to optimize the performance.  

Results

The campaign creative and media plan drove unprecedented engagement on YouTube. As we continually solidified learnings from smaller segments, we opened the campaign to a national buy, increasing brand awareness and driving sales during the company’s first months in the market.   

The opera video has received several industry awards and recognition:

  • Finalist for Most Effective Use of Video in the 2022 Drum Social Media Awards
  • Gold awards for two categories in the 2023 Muse Creative Awards: Music video Category and Food & Beverage Video Category
  • Bronze Honor in Medium-Length Video in the 15th annual Shorty Awards
  • Shortlisted for two categories in the 2022 New York Festivals’ Advertising Awards. 

Impact

1.8M

Video completions across YouTube and CTV

90%

Video completion rate 

CASE STUDY

Resilience Education

Harnessing brand experience to help formerly incarcerated people

Challenge

Resilience Education is a nonprofit organization that aims to stop incarceration cycles by improving employment outcomes and re-entry success through high-quality business education. Since 2011, the organization has graduated 500+ individuals from five correctional facilities across New York and Virginia, with early data revealing that 93% of program graduates stay out of prison for at least three years.  

The nonprofit aspired to expand its program nationwide and build a new digital platform to support formerly incarcerated people on their reentry journeys. To achieve these long-term aspirations, the organization enlisted Prophet to help it develop an overarching brand strategy that codified a new vision for the organization and rethink the brand positioning, expression and onboarding experience for its new digital platform.  

Solutions

Over the course of several pro-bono projects, Prophet developed a holistic understanding of Resilience Education’s current state and aspirational trajectory. Prophet first interviewed Resilience Education employees, program students and graduates. The insights from these interviews were used to identify opportunities to craft a brand positioning framework highlighting the nonprofit’s purpose and vision.  

After establishing the overarching brand structure and strategy, the team shifted its focus to optimizing the organization’s digital platform experience. Prophet’s team hosted a hackathon with the nonprofit to understand how it acquires and onboards mentors and mentees for its programming. The insights gathered helped the team define an optimized user journey for both audiences in their digital platform. Finally, in collaboration with verbal and design teams, Prophet crafted a refreshed brand positioning for the digital platform accompanied by refocused messaging, voice, and a reconceptualized visual identity. 

Results

The new organization-wide brand structure defined how the nonprofit’s digital and post-release initiatives work in relation to the in-facility programming. In addition, the ideation of the optimized user experience and journey for both mentors and mentees not only influenced the organization’s digital platform but was also the basis for the organization’s mentorship program development.   

Follow-up interviews of formerly incarcerated users revealed how empowering their one-on-one mentorship relationships have been for their reentry journeys. Resilience Education is continuously refining the program to maximize participants’ benefits and will be launching its third pilot in early 2023.    

With a robust new positioning framework, design concept and verbal identity guiding the digital platform, Resilience Education has the brand structure and strategy to support its nationwide growth goals and better serve its formerly incarcerated users’ needs. 

Through Prophet’s pro-bono program, Propheteers lend their expertise to a select group of nonprofits, helping them achieve remarkable results. If you or a nonprofit you know is interested in working with us, reach out today.  

Client Testimonial

“We couldn’t do what we’re trying to accomplish – bringing the highest quality business education and professional support to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated students – without Prophet’s dedication and insights!”

Tierney Fairchild
Executive Director and Cofounder

CASE STUDY

Lantheus

Modernizing a healthcare leader’s purpose and values

Challenge

Lantheus has been a pioneer in the healthcare industry, creating next-generation diagnostics and targeted therapeutics that delivered better patient outcomes since 1956.

In 2015, Lantheus was listed on NASDAQ, ushering in a new era of change for the healthcare leader. A new leadership team and the acquisition of Progenics Pharmaceuticals followed. These changes fundamentally altered the organization’s DNA, and the leadership team knew it needed to modernize its purpose and values.

Lantheus tasked Prophet with reinvigorating the organization’s purpose and values statements to effectively communicate its long-term aspirations, inspire employees and assert its core beliefs to customers and investors.

Solutions

Prophet first worked to understand the organization from the outside and in– performing a competitive audit, gathering out-of-category analogs, conducting executive interviews and sending employee surveys. We worked closely with Lantheus’ executive leaders to co-create potential solutions and test them with industry experts as well as current and prospective employees.

Our team used this data to develop the go-forward purpose and values and defined behaviors designed to empower employees to live the organization’s values. To help Lantheus’ leadership team activate the organization’s new purpose and values, we developed a high-level communication strategy that included a set of socialization materials.

Results

The new purpose, values and defined behaviors are playing a pivotal role in Lantheus’ communications to customers, employees, prospective talent and investors. In addition, Lantheus has weaved its purpose and values throughout its website, aligning its brand identity with its organizational DNA.

“Prophet helped us create meaningful purpose and values that are more than words on a PowerPoint slide.”

Paul Blanchfield
Chief Operating Officer

CASE STUDY

Grand Josun

Extending the Josun heritage to create a premium hotel brand for families

Challenge

Josun Hotels & Resorts was facing competition from new entrants that raised the bar on luxury hospitality in the South Korean market. During its separation from the Starwood Hotel brands, Josun Hotels & Resorts had ambitious plans for growth.

Prophet first partnered with the client’s teams to create a cohesive brand portfolio strategy that leveraged the Josun name, provided a level of cohesion and integrity and maintained its distinctiveness within its portfolio. Having created a rejuvenated brand identity for Josun Palace, the group’s highest-grade luxury offering, Prophet worked with the hospitality group to create a new premium family-oriented hotel.

Solutions

We started with understanding the real needs of Josun Hotels & Resorts’ varied audiences which included families with kids, young couples and business travelers. Insights into these pain points helped to inform what experiences its hotels needed to deliver to its audiences. Based on these insights, we created the new family-oriented hotel brand Grand Josun.

We clarified the brand’s unique distinction as a pioneer and leader in South Korea’s hospitality landscape, crafting its brand positioning as “Reimagining a heritage of excellence”. Combining both Josun’s legacy with fresh modernity, we took its signature customer service and infused the brand with new moments of delightful discovery throughout the customers’ stay, with a refined sensibility that is always balanced, intuitive and multi-sensorial.

The strategy came to life with a variety of new activation programs, amenities, F&B, design and service elements tailored to meet the distinct and high expectations of the audience. We created unique signature elements such as Josun Junior, a comprehensive offering that creates a memorable holiday experience for children to explore their creative energy, discover lifelong skills, and connect with the destination they are in. Another signature program that was rolled out was the Lending Library, a hassle-free supply for everything a guest may need at a hotel whether on business or for family.

Next, Prophet created a visual system that brought the bespoke and delightful experiences of Grand Josun to life, speaking to the heritage of “Josun” with a modern twist. The symbol is a carefully crafted monogram paired with a classic modern typeface and complemented by contemporary and balanced hues of emerald, natural and light secondary colors and copper accents. We also created a cohesive color and textural palette to communicate a warm, natural environment that allows families to feel both comforted and energized while reflecting the refined sensibilities of the brand. The “terrazzo” pattern was incorporated both in the overall hotel as well as modified for the kids to create a cohesive but also tailored experience.

Results

Grand Josun was successfully launched in Jeju and Busan in 2020. Many of the signature experience ideas we created, including the Josun Kids program and Lending Library, have been successfully implemented with outstanding reviews.

The addition of Grand Josun hotels not only expanded Josun Hotels & Resorts’ reach in the South Korean travel market but is also expected to be a new growth engine for the group, unlocking new possibilities in its journey to become a global hospitality brand.

And, our work with Grand Josun hotels received recognition from Transform Magazine’s Transform Awards Asia 2022, earning bronze in the Best Visual Identity from the Sports, Travel, Leisure and Tourism Sector.

CASE STUDY

Josun Palace

Creating a luxurious hotel brand under a winning portfolio

Challenge

Established in 1914, Josun Hotel has become an exemplary brand in hospitality, transforming into the current Josun Hotels & Resorts yet maintaining the original “First & Best” mentality that it originated with.

In a market where new entrants have raised the bar on luxury hospitality, Josun Hotels & Resorts wanted to position its brands at the forefront of hospitality experiences in South Korea. It was in the process of separating from the Starwood Hotels brand and came to Prophet for help creating an independent portfolio of brands.

Solutions

Our teams first defined a winning portfolio by sizing the South Korean travel market and conducting customer segmentation. With a hybrid brand architecture, we went on to create relevant flagship brands, with Josun Palace being the luxury namesake label. We focused on its flagship offerings and aimed to redefine the luxury and lifestyle hotel experience in Korea. 

Our brand strategy was built to appeal to the sensibility and finesse of Josun Palace’s target audience – “The Cultured Connoisseur.” To speak to this audience, three experience principles were created from Josun’s unique DNA and heritage but also focused on remaining relevant to today’s and tomorrow’s target consumers. The “Josun Touch” principal marks Josun’s quality service standards that guests have always come to expect. The “European Sophistication” principle demonstrates how the brand has always been inspired by global design, culture and lifestyle while providing a comfortable introduction to the Korean travel market. The “Timeless Innovation” principle demonstrates that good experiences with high-end technology should be felt but not seen.

We then developed a draft of a future-state guest experience map to guide a focused collaborative exploration of potential signature touchpoints. This was followed by a hierarchy containing distinct levels of signature experiences.

With this in place, the three principles came to life in the creation of a bespoke and crafted crest symbol that brings the unique heritage and symbology of Josun in perfect balance with sophisticated European visual cues. The symbol reflects the premium stature for its luxury brand with a custom modernized serif logotype that highlights the iconic Josun name, referring to Korea’s royal dynasty.

This modernized classic logo is supported by a light and modern set of visual elements including a sans serif typeface, P22, in a variety of weights along with lighter pastel color palette and graphic elements that complement the strong logo and its chiseled font.

Results

The rejuvenated Josun Palace was launched in May 2021, welcoming guests around the world and elevating its customer experience across all touchpoints. The optimized portfolio and architecture strategy has maximized revenues across the group’s existing brands. Additionally, the portfolio strategy left room for future growth, enabling the group to effectively add new brands in support of local expansion.

The new brand identity of Josun Palace encapsulated the key essence of the hotel’s heritage while ensuring that it was distinctive in its own way among other flagship brands. Prophet was successful in launching a prestigious brand with five-star reviews and part of the Marriott Autograph collection.

And, our work with Josun Palace was recognized by Transform Magazine in the Transform Awards Asia 2022, winning bronze for the category of Best Visual Identity from the Sports, Travel, Leisure and Tourism Sector. It also was mentioned as highly commended for the Best Creative Strategy category.

CASE STUDY

SPI

Burnishing a value proposition for a medical technology brand

Challenge

SPI, an innovative start-up in medical technology, is transforming the surgical experience, helping teams choreograph workflows and analytics in the operating room. Now a part of Johnson & Johnson, the fast-growing, young company needed to clarify its value proposition. It also wanted a brand refresh to show a relevant, robust and consistent face to its complex network of partners and customers.

Solutions

To better understand this rapidly growing and evolving marketplace, Prophet interviewed the company’s surgical procedures teams, colleagues at J&J and external stakeholders, including surgeons and hospital purchasing experts. We complemented these interviews with creative and problem-solving sessions in addition to research into the surgical software and MedTech landscape, including an analysis of competitors. Next, we dug into many possible trajectories of the surgery and robotics industry.

Our team then developed a new brand promise: “Transforming surgery. Enabling teams to excel.” This promise enables SPI to differentiate itself in market and speak to the company’s pioneering technology and the benefits the organization provides its surgical teams. We partnered this with a supporting value proposition, product architecture and naming approach that better conveys features while remaining flexible for SPI’s fast-growing catalog of products.

This strategic work was the foundation from which we built a brand identity that reflects SPI’s vision of surgical excellence. Through multiple iterations and explorative workshops, we created a modern, bold and dynamic brand fit for the fast-moving world of surgical technology.

Lastly, using these new branding guidelines, we created a set of user interfaces for the next version of SPI´s technology, ushering its new identity into the operating room.

Results

SPI has rolled out the new branding internally and externally and is applying the new naming architecture and user interfaces to existing versions and new products. SPI is growing faster than ever, with products helping surgeons operate more efficiently. That results in hospital savings, higher satisfaction among surgical teams and better patient outcomes.

CASE STUDY

Hootsuite

Redefining an iconic social media brand

Challenge

Hootsuite is the leading social media management provider with millions of users around the globe. As the world’s first social media management platform, it has been on the pulse and at the forefront of how people use social media for over a decade. However, since the company was founded, the industry Hootsuite pioneered has expanded and evolved—becoming crowded, noisy and diluted. As social media matured and became an environment of instant feedback, hot takes and influencer culture, conversations around mental health challenges inherent in the space began to bubble up. ​

​Catalyzed by organic growth and key acquisitions of companies like Heyday and SparkCentral, Hootsuite needed to reassert its category leadership while expanding its frame of reference to include growing capabilities around social marketing, commerce and care. It also needed a way to show how it intends to mitigate the negativity and challenges of the channel—using its position as a leader to show a better way forward. As a result, Hootsuite partnered with Prophet to create a refreshed brand strategy and identity. 

Solutions

We started with a robust evaluation of the competitive set, conducting methodical audits in tandem with stakeholder and customer interviews to understand what made Hootsuite’s products and people unique.

Inspired by Hootsuite’s expanding capabilities and its values-driven, positive organizational culture, we identified an opportunity to elevate the entire category of social, dismantling the tradeoff between using social for-profit and social for positivity. ​We crystallized the strategy by articulating a new purpose: “We believe in the power of social to uplift people and ignite brands and business.”  

We designed a refreshed take that would break Hootsuite free from the sea of sameness, both in the way the brand looks and speaks. Hootsuite is a brand that seeks to uplift, amplify and delight, and its longtime icon, Owly, needed to play a critical role in the evolution of the brand. We worked with the team to appoint Owly as Hootsuite’s new chief connection officer, the anthropomorphism of the brand’s tone and tenor.

For the verbal identity, we knew we needed to express the next generation of social maturity in a unique way—by demonstrating Hootsuite’s expertise, not just claiming it. To help Hootsuite stand out in a sea of simple, conversational voices, we leaned into its warmth and personality, largely via Owly, helping its new voice shine with a playful, mischievous edge and a touch of Canadian colloquialism to signal its roots as a Vancouver-based company.

​Visually, we designed an Owly glow-up, expanding  Owly’s appearance—optimized for the logo mark—to a full body with poses. For the first time, Owly could emote, react and empathize, emulating the feelings of both Hootsuite and its customers. We paired Owly’s playful, flat illustration with a funky wordmark (based on “Adieu” by Good Type Foundry) and a daring, nature-inspired color palette. We specifically crafted these core elements to feel human, tactile and warm to buck the glossy, pastel artifice common across the industry. However, this is a modern, visionary brand, so we balanced this friendliness with a sharp, dynamic design system.  ​

Emphasizing rhythm, momentum and transformation, the new system reflects the energy of the social landscape and the positive impact Hootsuite has on organizations, consumers and society. ​

Finally, equipped with the new strategy, visual and verbal identity, we partnered with the Hootsuite team to create value propositions for their emerging capabilities around social commerce and care, bringing the brand’s DNA into cutting-edge new offerings to resonate with existing and new buyers alike.

Results

Hootsuite’s new brand launched to much excitement. Adweek explored the rebrand with a full feature article, while other outlets around the globe from Mexico to Spain and the UK to Australia covered the transformation resulting in millions of brand impressions to date. Hootsuite’s employees are enthusiastically embracing the brand’s new identity, posting on social with a passion that burns bright as they disrupt the industry all over again.  ​

Within 60 days of the brand relaunch, 36 pieces of global earned media coverage have resulted in a total reach of over 10 million unique monthly views. In the same period, the brand’s launch campaign reached 19M unique users, generated awareness with over 1.7M prospects (brand lift), influenced 528 conversations and delivered over 94M impressions.

This award-winning work was recognized by Fast Company in its 2023 Innovation by Design Awards in the Best Branding and Enduring Impact categories and as a Silver winner in the 2022 North America Transform Awards for “Best use of copy style or tone of voice” and “Best brand evolution (business).”

Impact

10M+

unique monthly views within 60 days of brand relaunch

1.7M+

prospects (brand lift) within 60 days of brand relaunch

94M+

impressions within 60 days of brand relaunch

Testimonial

“When we started our rebrand process, we knew we needed a partner that fully understood our objective for this new brand identity–Prophet was able to deliver a strategy that was robust, creative and aligned with our business goals and guiding principles.”

Maggie Lower
Chief Marketing Officer

CASE STUDY

Kuraray Paper & Packaging

Creating a compelling, customer-centric brand campaign

Challenge

The Paper & Packaging segment of Kuraray Group, a Japanese manufacturer of chemicals, fibers and other materials, plays a central strategic and commercial role in the organization. But because it functioned in business-unit silos, it often missed opportunities to respond directly to customer needs, cross-sell and collaborate with other business units. Segment leaders hoped that with Prophet’s help and a clarified value proposition, the team could better communicate the potential impact of the integrated Paper & Packaging division. 

Solutions

First, our team researched the industry and competitors, interviewing Kuraray stakeholders and customers to understand perceived strengths and unmet customer needs. This analysis helped identify value proposition themes. We then refined each of these thematic building blocks, combining them to create a differentiated and unified value proposition. 

Next, we developed a holistic brand campaign to allow the company to talk about its many products and cross-sell effectively, and to also elevate the Kuraray brand as a single entity, one with deep expertise, a global network of experts and exceptional innovation skills.  

Our campaign introduced a much-sharper, game-changer Kuraray brand to inspire its customers, using attention-getting visuals that further set it apart from competitors  – and where the company hopes to go in the future. 

To support this new approach, we created strategic tools and assets, such as a sales presentation that all customer-facing employees can use in conversation with existing or potential customers. These tools ensure the new value proposition is implemented consistently and effectively, throughout all levels of the company.  

Lastly, we created a playbook to help employees activate the value proposition and execute the campaign, as well as internal efforts to increase awareness and understanding of Kuraray’s new cross-segment approach. 

Results

The strengthened Kuraray brand is being rolled out across Kuraray’s social and digital channels, as well as industry conferences where it is distinguishing itself from competitors, breaking through the noise and reaching its customers with a consistent message. The company is integrating the new tools into customer interactions, effectively supporting the new Kuraray Paper & Packaging positioning and leading to positive business outcomes. 

“The Prophet team completely immersed themselves in our field, becoming experts on our business and its needs. The work they delivered has been truly transformational and is the uncontested gold standard for marketing communication at Kuraray”

Bettina Plaumann
Head of Communications and Marketing, Kuraray Europe

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