Technology/Telecom

CASE STUDY

Upward Climate

Launching a new brand in a high-growth category

Challenge

A new-to-market DTC company founded by technology and climate industry veterans was looking to launch an app that provides climate insights and daily tips, empowering people to make more climate-conscious decisions and ultimately accelerating the transition to a carbon-neutral economy. The company approached Prophet to help create a name and visual system that would deliver on its value proposition and create differentiation in a fast-growing category—all before the app’s launch. 

Solution

After immersing in the established strategy, Prophet’s verbal branding experts mobilized a sprint to explore new names for the company. We looked at numerous territories and styles, ultimately prioritizing names that felt conversational, optimistic, and unique. We landed on the name Upward Climate—which evokes encouragement with a nod to the phrase “onwards and upwards” and reflects a departure from the green or earthy category naming trends.

From this, we created a new brand purpose, “We believe happiness comes from being in the flow in all activities we do at home.” We then created brand principles, tone of voice, and the tagline “Work. Flow. Home” to bring the brand to life in a unique and distinctive way against other competitors. The name “Beflo” came out of the idea of being “in the flow” when everything you do works seamlessly and effortlessly.  

Beflo began developing a desk prototype, combining motorized height-adjustable settings with modular tech accessories around cable management, charging features and other productivity tools. As part of that, we worked with them to create brand principles based on their new purpose that would have implications for their product design.

The visual identity also used the “flow” concept to create a simple and ergonomic-looking logotype with rounded letterforms and the curved ligature between the “f” and “l” that mimicked the side profile of the curve on the desk’s legs.

We then crafted a visual expression for Upward Climate. We abstracted the “U” from the brand’s name to create a distinctive mark with repeating lines connoting data visualization. An understated, earthy color palette conveys a calming, steady grounding in the climate space, while pops of a bright hero yellow bring both positivity and urgency to the forefront of the brand’s identity. We designed the company’s new name and visuals to be integrated into its launch site and app, with iconography that extends from pictograms for branded moments to functional icons for in-product navigation. 

Results

The brand concept, name, visual identity and product design successfully came to market in 2023. The branding was recognized in the 2021 Transform Awards as the Best Visual Identity in Technology, Media and Telecommunications. 

Results

Prophet developed the name and new visual identity, complete with motion elements in just under five months. As the company just launched its launch site and app, additional impact will be defined in the coming months. 

An Expressively Optimistic, yet Functional Visual System

The app’s vision is to “facilitate the transition to a carbon neutral economy by empowering individuals to understand the climate impact of their decisions and elevating sustainable businesses.” The brand needed a relatable expression to bring that determination and optimism to life. 

“Working with Prophet was a transformative experience for our company. They were able to work on incredibly tight timelines to deliver a name and brand identity that fit with our broader strategic vision and was unique – in a space that can often feel homogenous. They were incredibly structured throughout the process, a huge asset in the ambiguous space of building a brand. Partnering with Prophet was a truly outstanding experience we’re grateful for. “

Eric Mandell 
Founder & CEO
Upward Climate

CASE STUDY

Beflo

Creating an innovative connected desk brand from concept design to activation 

Challenge

With the pandemic resulting in people balancing both work and life activities at home, there was a growing demand for furniture solutions that were more versatile, comfortable, and functional. Our original equipment manufacturer (OEM) client saw the opportunity to create a DTC brand that would deliver a solution to empower people to enjoy a better way of living and working from home. They partnered with Prophet to help create and launch their first consumer brand.

Solutions

With a blank slate, we worked collaboratively with the client to create a brand that would be relevant to today’s working-from-home customer. 

We used an AI-powered online research tool and interviewed 135 potential U.S. customers to understand their unmet needs and expectations around their WFH set-up. Our research revealed critical insights about how consumers need to not only prioritize their physical health but also their interest in a good work-life balance – including ways to optimize all the various parts of their lives.

From this, we created a new brand purpose, “We believe happiness comes from being in the flow in all activities we do at home.” We then created brand principles, tone of voice, and the tagline “Work. Flow. Home” to bring the brand to life in a unique and distinctive way against other competitors. The name “Beflo” came out of the idea of being “in the flow” when everything you do works seamlessly and effortlessly.  

Beflo began developing a desk prototype, combining motorized height-adjustable settings with modular tech accessories around cable management, charging features and other productivity tools. As part of that, we worked with them to create brand principles based on their new purpose that would have implications for their product design.

The visual identity also used the “flow” concept to create a simple and ergonomic-looking logotype with rounded letterforms and the curved ligature between the “f” and “l” that mimicked the side profile of the curve on the desk’s legs.

From this, we created a new brand purpose, “We believe happiness comes from being in the flow in all activities we do at home.” We then created brand principles, tone of voice, and the tagline “Work. Flow. Home” to bring the brand to life in a unique and distinctive way against other competitors. The name “Beflo” came out of the idea of being “in the flow” when everything you do works seamlessly and effortlessly.  

Beflo began developing a desk prototype, combining motorized height-adjustable settings with modular tech accessories around cable management, charging features and other productivity tools. As part of that, we worked with them to create brand principles based on their new purpose that would have implications for their product design. 

The visual identity also used the “flow” concept to create a simple and ergonomic-looking logotype with rounded letterforms and the curved ligature between the “f” and “l” that mimicked the side profile of the curve on the desk’s legs.

Results

The brand concept, name, visual identity and product design successfully came to market in 2023. The branding was recognized in the 2021 Transform Awards as the Best Visual Identity in Technology, Media and Telecommunications. 

Results

The brand concept, name, visual identity and product design successfully came to market in 2023. The branding was recognized in the 2021 Transform Awards as the Best Visual Identity in Technology, Media and Telecommunications. 

Positioning Around the “Flow”

Keeping the target consumer in mind, we developed different brand territories that would be relevant to their needs, and our positioning ultimately landed on the territory of Flow.   

“We believe happiness comes from being in the flow in all activities that we do at home.” 

The flow state was where people could fully immerse themselves in the task at hand and find enjoyment in the present moment. This resonated with the targets’ needs to balance multiple priorities and to find enjoyment in their WFH routine.

Meet Helena.

We developed a creative representation of our target customer who has a desire to improve their WFH set-up, anxiety around balancing all of life’s priorities and a strong interest in interior design resulting in a design-oriented approach to buying furniture. She prioritizes physical health, good work-life balance, success and connection with the community. This helped us imagine all our work with a certain persona in mind.

Applied Brand Principles

We created brand principles to serve as a guide for uniquely delivering on their brand promise. The four principles: Adaptive Comfort, Ultimate Ease, Holistic Wellbeing, and Lasting Innovation were then expanded into tangible guidelines and were applied in both the product design as well as the surrounding consumer experience.

The Visual Concept

The logo and visual system reflect the “flow” concept by embracing an equally weighted, san-serif to not disrupt the eye, but have a balanced and cohesive look. The crafted ligature between the “f” and “l” characters also creates a unique element that creates a visual “flow.” The system consists of the same curved elements that incorporate a soft flow across all communications and visuals, all the way down to the actual curved corners of the actual desk legs.

A Distinctive Verbal Voice

We created tone of voice principles to ensure that all communications had a cohesive tone of voice. Messaging guidelines offered guardrails around practical dos and don’ts as well as messaging examples.

Shopify Design

We created Beflo’s first Shopify design, creating both the site architecture, content hierarchy of each page, and design layout. Everything from imagery style to navigation and input fields was carefully designed to support the new brand.

A Cohesive System

We brought the brand strategy and identity to life by creating a visual system with a unique perspective on photography style, color palette, typography and graphic elements. This unique look created an unmistakable identity across all their applications from product design to digital interfaces and print communications.

Activating the Brand

We created an activation rollout plan to help Beflo navigate the different horizons of growth. We also developed a content marketing playbook to help create compelling and relevant content to attract, engage and convert consumers along the customer journey with recommendations across channels and partnerships to consider.

“Working with Prophet undoubtedly helped us build a rock-solid foundation for our brand; we wouldn’t be where we are without them. The branding groundwork they laid out has been our guiding north star, enabling us to stay focused and coherent with our work.” 

Beico Chiu
Founder CEO, Beflo

CASE STUDY

Mineral

Helping a stealth-mode X project “graduate” into a stand-alone Alphabet company 

Challenge

To discover more about the magic of Mineral, visit their website.

Mineral is developing artificial intelligence that can transform agricultural data into understanding to increase the resilience of the planet’s food production systems. Founded in 2017 as a bet within Alphabet’s X, the “moonshot factory,” Mineral had a planet-sized ambition and the technology and talent to get there. It also needed a partner to help them craft the market presence needed to launch—and grow—as a stand-alone company. 

Mineral chose Prophet as its end-to-end partner to launch a brand to represent Alphabet’s commitment to sustainable agriculture. In January 2023, Mineral successfully “graduated” as a stand-alone company and is already making an impact on the food system humankind needs to survive. 

The stakes couldn’t be higher. If humanity doesn’t change how we produce food, then, by 2050, feeding the population will clear most of the world’s remaining forests and push the earth’s temperature past its 1.5°C warming limit. But innovating farming practices to be more resilient and ensure our planet can provide for lifetimes to come is complex. The diversity of the ag value chain and its industry practices have not been data-rich nor shared across silos—let alone globally—for the last century. The agriculture industry is at a juncture where data-informed decision-making is required to innovate key efforts like traceability and demand forecasting. 

Solutions

  • Mineral is reimagining how food is produced more resiliently and sustainably by turning a world’s worth of agricultural data into new understanding.  

They’re working relentlessly with partners across the ag value chain to enable every farmer, researcher, crop breeder, and advisor to overcome the challenges they face, and build a more productive food system—together.  

“Mineral’s ambition is not about adding technology to agriculture. It’s about helping adapt the agriculture system to a changing climate and switch to a more sustainable path. We’re doing so by leveraging AI to deeply understand the plant world and unlock the possibilities of embracing complexity.”

Elliott Grant, Chief Executive Officer, Mineral 

Mineral is unique: while within the Alphabet ecosystem, it has the freedom to navigate the realities of being an early-stage company. It has the permission to build boldly, from the ground-up. 

In addition to a strong brand, to show up in the world as an independent Alphabet company, Mineral needed a modern marketing organization to drive momentum and, ultimately, commercial success. Prophet helped Mineral leadership drive a stake in the ground—navigating through the foundational commercial realities of launching a business. 

“Prophet helped us lay the brand foundation to mature from experimentation to commercialization and share with the world who Mineral really is. Prophet quickly diagnosed our brand needs, our in-market ambition, and the road that would get us there. They not only asked the right questions about our go-to-market approach, they also weren’t afraid to iterate with us; Prophet felt like an extension of our team.”

Elliott Grant

Prophet kicked off in March 2022 with a “graduation” checklist, which included building the business, brand, and marketing foundations to define, position, and externalize themselves to partners across the ag value chain and the world: 

  • Developing a thoughtful business strategy and visual and verbal brand, rooted in research to uncover key industry and customer insights to determine how best to position Mineral in the AgTech space. 
  • Externalizing the brand, mission, and vision on internal and external channels, including Alphabet-internal announcements and spotlights at high-profile events. 
  • Identifying and integrating the tech stack required to stand-up, design, and operationalize owned digital channels as they scale. 

“There are nuances of being an Alphabet company. Prophet took a true partnership approach to helping us navigate our launch strategy and execution, which required flexibility and a willingness to take feedback and adapt to our needs. After only a few weeks, the Prophet team had a firm grasp of who we were and who we aspired to be. They cleared the way for us and were patient every step of the way.”

Megan Fallon, Marketing Lead, Mineral

Throughout the partnership, Mineral realized they would need so much more to achieve their goals, which included: 

1. Co-developing and co-authoring a rich pipeline of content with various business area leaders to continuously position Mineral as a reputable thought leader in ag. 

2. Building muscles across the full commercial spectrum (e.g., developing multi-purpose sales materials for marketing teams and business development teams). 

3. Supporting product teams with market-facing customer knowledge to inform portfolio strategy and feature development decisions.

“Prophet has shown aptitude not only for delivering brand and marketing assets, but also for helping our teams build the muscles required to grow and run the commercial side of our business.”  

Megan Fallon

Results

Together, we crafted a business and brand identity that embraces the complexity of our agriculture ecosystems and showcases how Mineral’s breakthrough technology can create a more sustainable and productive food production system for our future. 

“As our product portfolio matures, our Mineral x Prophet team continues to add value through sourcing customer insights that inform commercial and product decisions.”

Elliott Grant

Beyond graduation, Mineral continues to work with Prophet in its first year: prioritizing joint product-commercial goals, executing in-market activations, co-authoring content strategy (incl. thought leadership), conducting market-back research, and enhancing website features—all in close partnership with teams on the ground to reflect pivots as the company tests, learns, and grows.

Impact

+7k

impression in the first 24 hours

10

press articles published on graduation day alone

+7%

engagement rate on first post (vs. -2% benchmark)

Client Testimonial

“Our relationship with Prophet has continued to evolve alongside the progression and positioning of our business in market. The team deeply understands what we are trying to do—and are so passionate about it. We’ve been fortunate to have them.”

Megan Fallon
Marketing Lead, Mineral

CASE STUDY

Coherent 

Uniting science and technology leaders under a powerful new brand

Challenge

In 2021, II-VI, a global leader in engineered materials and optoelectronic components, announced its intent to acquire Coherent, a global laser technology leader. Integrating these two powerful organizations would create a global leader in materials, networking and lasers—shaping markets from communications to industrial, electronics and instrumentation. 

II-VI engaged Prophet at this critical inflection point to help them define the strategy and expression for the new company, signaling to the market why it came together, what it stands for and what it promises to deliver. 

Solutions

Leadership wanted to clearly signal its intent to create a truly integrated organization  
and elected to adopt the Coherent name. The word “coherent” has a technical meaning in laser technology, but also means being united or forming a whole—which served as an apt metaphor for the companies coming together. 

From there, we helped them articulate the brand strategy, using leadership perspectives and category analysis as key inputs. For decades, both companies helped their customers develop and design groundbreaking products. Coming together created an unrivaled combination of technologies, platforms and deep expertise that positioned the new Coherent to be their customers’ design partner of choice—helping them not only respond to current demands but anticipate where their customers and industries would go next. With that insight, we developed a brand strategy focused on helping customers shape the future and create a world that’s safer, healthier, and more connected than ever before. We used the brand strategy as the foundation for a modular messaging framework and adapted it for key audiences. 

We brought this idea to life with a powerful new visual identity. The new logo celebrates the atom, foundational to all of Coherent’s products. The new logo features the atomic structure embedded in the typography to represent the full breadth of the integrated Coherent offering. Combining a vibrant Neptune blue with a striking, high-contrast color palette, the dynamic graphic system brings the design language of science to life. 
 
Finally, we supported the brand’s launch with a communications rollout plan and an extensive library of assets, from banner ads to signage to a launch video. 

“Rebranding a multi-billion-dollar company was an opportunity of a lifetime that required the support of a top brand firm. Prophet was a great partner all along the way. Prophet’s process helped us converge towards a bold and highly relevant new visual identity that felt like it would stand the test of time and potentially become iconic in our industry.”

Mark Lourie
Global Vice President of Corporate Communications & Brand Development

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

Enotek

Transforming a logistics technology brand for a smart future

Challenge

Eoslift is a Chinese intralogistics solution provider. Since its inception in 2008, the company has evolved from a forklift manufacturing company into a vertically integrated technology company with proprietary hardware, software and smart solutions. For the next way of growth, it aspires to become a leading logistics technology company that provides innovative solutions across a broad set of industries and geographies.

Eoslift came to Prophet to modernize its brand identity to reflect its evolved ambitions.

Solutions

Prophet worked closely with Eoslift to rejuvenate its brand positioning, name and visual identity.

Our team took a holistic approach to rethink Eoslift’s brand strategy through internal and external immersions. Based on conversations with the organization’s key stakeholders, we illustrated the positioning territories and landed on one final positioning direction. Through this thorough process, we created relevant, ownable and differentiated brand positioning that is rooted in the company’s ambition – to maximize business value through innovative technologies.

Next, Prophet helped Eoslift develop a new brand name “Enotek,” signaling a new chapter. Enotek inherits the company’s DNA and culture, core capabilities and commitment to customers. The new name’s starting letter, “E” represents the organization’s commitment to producing products of excellence and excelsior. The “En” represents its goal to envision and enable, while “Eno” and “Tek” represent Enotek’s use of innovation and technology. We also created the brand tagline, “Future Moves Now,” and a compelling brand story to illustrate Enotek’s transformation to its customers and partners.

Anchoring on the renewed brand strategy, Prophet’s Asia design hub then developed a flexible, vibrant and future-forward visual identity that brings the brand’s ambition to life. We retained Enotek’s heritage by keeping a square box and blue color from the original logo, using them as core elements in the new one. The arrow symbol is constructed by connecting a small square with three larger squares to form an “E” – signifying the spark that ignites growth. Lastly, we adjusted the original blue color into a more vibrant tone to inject the young energy of the brand.

Results

Enotek launched its new brand with refreshed strategy, tagline and visual identity in January 2022. The new brand identity empowers Enotek to stay relevant to its customers while setting itself apart from competitors. The company strives to attract new investors and inspire its employees with a redefined vision, unlocking the next stage of growth.

Lastly, our work with Enotek was recognized by Transform Magazine’s Transform Awards Asia 2022, winning gold for the category of Best Visual Identity from the Transport and Logistics Sector and bronze for the Best Brand Evolution (Business) category.

CASE STUDY

GAINS

Inspiring the next generation of girls with a new messaging strategy

Challenge

Though more women than ever are graduating with degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, men make up most of the workforce. This is because many young girls do not pursue a career in STEM, they have more barriers to getting there, they’re traditionally offered less encouragement and they have fewer female role models.

Girls Advancing in STEM (GAINS) Initiative is a nonprofit on a mission to break down barriers by empowering high school girls to envision, prepare for and pursue academic and professional futures in STEM. GAINS’ clubs and conferences tackle this head-on by helping students discover STEM topics and professions, connect with other like-minded girls and learn from industry professionals. To further its mission and expand its impact, GAINS needed a compelling messaging strategy that would resonate with a wide audience to grow its membership and clubs around the country.

Solutions

Drawing insights from a series of qualitative interviews with students and volunteers, we collaborated with the GAINS leadership team to define a new brand strategy framework for the organization. Prophet’s consultants added substantive detail to the framework—developing the context statement, brand promise and overarching theme, which formed the foundation of the work. 

Once these elements were in place, our team of strategists and verbal branding experts built out robust messaging guidelines to reinforce the core components of this newly defined strategy. We created three supporting messaging themes to spotlight the community, learning opportunities and networking benefits of GAINS. Through a rigorous creative process, we codified messaging guidelines to help bring the new strategy to life. The guidelines included sample words and phrases for each theme, guidance on when to leverage each theme and how to flex them by audience (current and prospective students, teachers and volunteers) and tips on how to ensure a consistent tone of voice across all copy.  

Results

The GAINS team has used this messaging across its website, social media channels and marketing materials to target current and prospective students, teachers and volunteers – helping the organization consistently grow its following. In addition, Prophet’s work has helped the organization communicate its mission when applying for grants and seeking partnerships with schools and employers.  

Testimonial

“The whole Prophet team listened really well to everything, caught a lot of the nuance and was able to reflect it back as they structured our messaging materials. Having this all laid out has truly helped me refine the message and maintain consistency in our communications.”

Antoinette Decker
Director, Creator

CASE STUDY

BOE

Building a new technology brand to empower the global IoT industry

Challenge

To fuel a new wave of strategic growth, leading IoT technology company BOE realized the imminent need to upgrade its master brand strategy. BOE came to Prophet with two key objectives: First, to extend its brand perception from a “business-oriented” company to a “consumer-oriented” one by creating a clear and consistent image as an IoT technology leader; second, it wanted to define a new brand architecture that fuels the growth of its diversified business portfolio. 

Solutions

Prophet partnered with BOE to help upgrade its master brand and refine its brand architecture. Based on our strategic recommendations, BOE decided to launch a new technology ingredient brand – a first in China’s semiconductor display sector – as a significant strategic move to establish itself as a B2B2C company. The new brand aims to strengthen a strong connection between BOE’s core technologies and its master brand while energizing the global smart technology industry.

Through a series of co-creative workshops with BOE’s business and technical teams, we first clarified the brand’s main objectives, core audience, key technologies and activation strategies. Based on these strategic principles, we defined the naming strategy for the new brand.  

We leaned on our previous relationship with BOE and our deep understanding of its business to create product names for its core display technologies as well as the tagline “See the Unseen.” In addition, we worked closely with BOE to clarify the functional and emotional benefits of the new brand and developed a unified positioning framework for the technology brand and its core display technology products to follow. This allowed communication with BOE’s diverse audience in a simple and straightforward way. We also developed the activation strategies for both BOE’s business and consumer audiences

Next, our design team created an impactful visual system, bringing the brand positioning to life through a distinctive identity and a living system. Using the creative concept of “unleash possibilities”, we developed a visual system of dynamic shapes and a high-saturation palette to symbolize the brand’s commitment to deepening the integration of life and technology, unlocking endless possibilities. The design utilizes simple graphic elements of dots and squares. The dots are derived from BOE’s master brand’s logo, representing the company’s ambitious vision, while the squares are meant to mimic screen pixels, symbolizing the innovative technologies that BOE provides to the world. 

Lastly, to ensure the new brand’s successful and consistent implementation, we developed a clear and curated brand guideline, which details the final visual identity, the comprehensive visual system and applications.

Results

In December 2021, BOE officially launched the first technology ingredient brand in China’s semiconductor display field. The new brand introduces a portfolio of BOE’s premium, proprietary display technologies, including ADS Pro, f-OLED, and a-MLED. 

BOE has announced strategic partnerships with both domestic and international technology brands including AOC, Skyworth, Hisense, Lenovo, OPPO, Vivo and Xiaomi, to jumpstart the new technology platform. As one of the key components of IoT innovations, the advancements in display technologies will enrich diverse application scenarios. BOE is committed to continuing to lead the industry forward with new innovations that unleash endless possibilities. 

And, our work with BOE earned recognition by Transform Magazine’s Transform Awards Asia 2022, winning gold in the category for Best Visual Identity from the Technology, Media and Telecommunications Section, and silver for Best Development of a New Brand Within an Existing Brand Portfolio and Best Strategic or Creative Development of a New Brand categories.

“With strong diligence and dedication, Prophet demonstrated deep insights into the technology industry and a true understanding of our business. It helped us successfully overcome the roadblocks of rebranding amid a business transformation, elevating our existing brand strategy in a clear and concise manner. All these endeavors were highly effective in repositioning BOE as an IoT company with a refreshed identity system.”

Da Si
Vice President and Chief Brand Officer

CASE STUDY

BOE

Defining a purpose-driven technology brand with a revigorated identity 

Challenge

With nearly three decades of rapid development, leading IoT technology company BOE has become one of the world’s largest semiconductor display providers, producing more than a quarter of the world’s digital screens.  

Though BOE has built a strong brand reputation over the years, its new corporate strategy prompted the organization’s imminent need to upgrade its master brand strategy. BOE came to Prophet with two key objectives: First, to extend its brand perception from a “business-oriented” company to a “consumer-oriented” one by creating a clear and consistent image as an IoT technology leader; and second, to define a new brand architecture that fuels the growth of its diversified business portfolio. 

Solutions

Since 2017, Prophet has been BOE’s long-term strategic partner, supporting the business’s and brand’s continuous growth. Through this relationship, BOE entrusted Prophet with elevating BOE group’s master brand. 

Our team first carried out in-depth interviews with both internal and external stakeholders  – from executives and employees to customers and ecosystem partners. Combining insights with learnings from the benchmark study of leading global technology brands, we identified the core elements that BOE brand needed to retain and build. We then held multiple co-creation workshops with BOE’s core teams and executives to hone in on its brand mission for future growth. As a result, we defined the brand mission to “Change life with heart”, presenting people with a technology brand that’s warm, human and aspirational. 

Anchoring on this core mission, we also clarified BOE’s brand promise and principles. This allowed the client to ensure that its mission was brought to life both in terms of external communication and engagement and internal behavioral codes and actions. 

Our work didn’t end there. We teamed closely with the BOE team to define its brand architecture, a crucial component of a successful brand strategy. The refined brand architecture set the foundation for BOE’s transformation from a single, master brand-led approach to a hybrid architecture powered by master brand and key sub-brands. The new brand architecture better supports the organization’s growth vision across business areas. We then created a comprehensive decision framework to help evaluate where BOE needs to build sub-brands across business, technology and product levels. 

Results

In late 2021, BOE officially unveiled its new brand positioning. Soon after BOE launched its first sub-brand – display technology ingredient brand. With the elevated brand positioning and architecture, BOE continues to accelerate building a connected and symbiotic IoT innovation ecosystem to empower the growth of upstream suppliers as well as the digital transformation of lower-stream partners. Working closely with a network of global partners, BOE strives to push forward a new round of technological disruption to unlock uncommon growth. 

“We partnered closely with Prophet to drive the upgrade of BOE group’s master brand. With strong diligence and dedication, Prophet demonstrated deep insights into the technology industry and a true understanding of our business. It helped us successfully overcome the roadblocks of rebranding amid a business transformation, elevating our existing brand strategy in a clear and concise manner. All these endeavors were highly effective in repositioning BOE as an IoT company with a refreshed identity system.”

Da Si
Vice President and Chief Brand Officer, BOE

CASE STUDY

McAfee

Repositioning McAfee for accelerated growth

Challenge

With innovations like streaming and teleconferencing as well as external trends like COVID-19, people found themselves living more of their lives online—and in turn, looking to find better online protection.

At the same time, McAfee, the global cybersecurity leader, announced it was spinning off its enterprise business to focus exclusively on consumers.

These two realities provided McAfee with a moment-in-time opportunity to redefine what its consumer business stands for and become even more relevant for the people it serves and position itself for accelerated growth.

Solutions

McAfee partnered with Prophet to uncover how it could best become more relevant with consumers. After auditing the competitive landscape and immersing in what made McAfee unique, Prophet conducted research with over 5,000 customers internationally to understand the needs and opportunities where McAfee could play. In our research, we uncovered a white space that customers care about and where McAfee could credibly deliver.

Working closely with McAfee executives, we crafted a new brand strategy, including a more human-centered brand positioning that pushes beyond the category’s conventions. We looked at untapped drivers of purchase to build a brand that focuses on how McAfee’s protection—not just cybersecurity, but identity, privacy and family protections too—frees and empowers people to confidently enjoy their lives online.

We developed a new verbal and visual brand identity to match—crafting a brand voice that is approachable and optimistic, messaging that highlights McAfee’s research-backed strengths and a look-and-feel that is modern and dynamic that can be applied across marketing and product.

Prophet translated the new strategy and identity into a compelling digital launch campaign. The “Free to Be” campaign highlights how everyone deserves to be able to do what they want to do online—that people should be free to learn, free to shop, free to bank, free to connect—confidently and without fear of online threats.

Results

The new strategy, brand identity and corresponding campaign herald the future of online protection—not just for McAfee, but for what consumers should demand from the online protection industry. McAfee will continue to roll out major updates and industry firsts that help consumers stay protected and enjoy life online.

“Prophet became our indispensable ally. They expertly bridged strategy and execution and helped us effectively align our organization around our new brand strategy, which is helping us continue to deliver on the future of online protection.”

Judy Bitterli
SVP of Marketing

CASE STUDY

Trellix

Building one modern cybersecurity brand from two storied players

Challenge

When Symphony Technology Group merged McAfee Enterprise and FireEye, it wanted to create a new brand, one modern enough to address the rapidly evolving needs of cybersecurity experts. It needed to demonstrate that in an age of cloud computing and machine learning, it could fend off the increasingly malicious actors that make headlines nearly every day. And it knew this new brand had to convey the strength and history of both companies.

Solutions

Prophet’s multidisciplinary teams dove into customer research with security buyers, quickly learning that these experts operate in a near-constant state of digital transformation. They wanted smart, responsive products that evolve to deal with ever-changing security threats. They wanted a partner that instills confidence in their ability to maintain and grow operations and organizations.

Prophet developed the core idea of NewCo’s brand strategy: living security – a system that learns and adapts. From this strategy, the Prophet verbal team created Trellix, a name that evokes a natural system that grows with customers.  It also reflects the powerful combined capabilities of the new company,

We then mapped out a brand expression for Trellix that telegraphs the new company’s purpose and promise. A distinctive graphic element invokes a pool of data lines, representing the artificial intelligence and machine-learning algorithms that are the backbone of the robust Trellix living security ecosystem.

Using a vibrant, modern color palette, the company’s new name and look convey an optimistic and positive approach to cybersecurity — a departure from the industry’s warlike and militaristic tropes. And our experience team developed a comprehensive content strategy for the new Trellix website.

Results

Prophet developed this new identity and digital experience in just under five months, leading up to the launch and included an internal celebration event and external marketing and PR campaign. Early analyst feedback on the brand has been positive, reflecting Trellix’s strong positioning for market leadership.

Brett Hannath, Chief Marketing Officer, explained that “Prophet helped us create a differentiated brand that conveys our fresh approach to cybersecurity. In a sea of same, Trellix stands out as we create a resilient digital world enabling trust and success.”

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