CASE STUDY

SafePlace International

Elevating the story of an organization on the ground with the global LGBTQI+ community

Challenge

The LGBTQI+ community fights for space in this world. For a global community of queer persons, the simple act of living puts them at risk, and often causes them to flee their homelands in search of safety. SafePlace International is an organization dedicated to centering and amplifying the voices of LGBTQI+ people around the world.

The core of SafePlace International’s work centers on equipping their community members to find their purpose and thrive in their new environments. From welcoming someone who was recently displaced to supporting them as their goals change, the organization starts with a foundation of safety and stability, working side-by-side with global and local partners to protect people who need it. From there, they look to the future with The Dream Academy, a 10-week intensive virtual course focusing on leadership development, socio-emotional learning, and job skill training. Led by members of the LGBTQI+ community and available in English and French, the Dream Academy connects participants to purpose, power, and the new possibilities they need to heal from individual and collective traumas. The Dream Academy has over 1000 alumni from 19 countries to date, and as it’s virtual, it can be accessed from anywhere that web support is available.

The organization played a unique and vital role in the global LGBTQI+ community, but audiences didn’t always understand or internalize it. SafePlace needed a more comprehensive, clear, and cohesive way to express its mission to attract more supporters, and ultimately reach more people. Its new positioning had to be powerful and profound as well as easy to understand and share with a wide audience, from donors to partners to community members. Their team also needed a visual system that would bring this positioning to life.

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.

Solution

We started by analyzing the communications and visual systems of SafePlace International as well as peer and aspirational organizations and immersing ourselves in the organization’s strategies and materials.

Through collaborative workshops across three continents and interviews with several stakeholders, we found there was an opportunity for their mission to express not only the work SafePlace does, but also why it is so vital: expressing the lived realities of displaced LGBTQI+ persons as well as the broader implications and transformative impact these community members can have when in positions of leadership and influence.

We also learned their original strategic pillars were only telling part of their story. So, we worked to evolve these pillars and put more context around what SafePlace International does—and what community members can expect as a result. We wanted to keep the impact and memorability of the original pillars, as well as describe the full journey: Reach, Protect, Connect, Invest.

Bringing all of these elements together, we wrote an emotive narrative that acts as the foundation of articulating the strategy to community members, donors, and partners, and can be used in fundraising materials, video scripts, and anywhere they are trying to drive understanding of who they are and what they stand for.

From there, we shifted our attention to the visual system. We began with a key question: do we modernize their existing rainbow tree logo, which was recognizable and held a lot of affinity? Or do we introduce a new symbol? We explored 20 concepts that ranged from minor modifications to their existing logo to bolder designs that could cut through the noise with simplicity and strong graphic elements.

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 SafePlace International team launched its bold new mission, story, and visual identity at a fundraiser in Prophet’s San Francisco office in October 2023 as well as on the organization’s newly re-designed website.

A Story on a Mission: The Heart of the Strategy

We worked closely with the SafePlace International team to co-create mission and belief statements that could celebrate the diversity, nuances, and humanity of their community members, balancing the urgency of the organization’s work with its inherent optimistic and inspiring view of the world.

The Rainbow Connection: A Bold, New Logo

Ultimately, we landed on an abstracted rainbow, keeping the connection to a meaningful symbol embedded in their previous logo, while evoking a canopy, or safe place, through its shape. The design system celebrates the rainbow motif–one whose asymmetrical arcs illustrate the community’s intersectionality and SafePlace’s commitment to inclusivity. It is optimistic, simple, and flexible, while honoring the visual language of the LGBTQI+ community.

“I’ve been fortunate to work with Prophet several times over my career as a global Chief Marketing Officer, but this was my first engagement with the pro bono practice, Prophet Impact. It’s an intense sprint, but one that always left me feeling like a valued client and partner. We have tested the new brand identity and voice with donors, influencers, community members and board members to name a few stakeholders and the feedback is positive and jubilant all around—and we are just getting started. Thank you again, Prophet! “

Maggie Lower
Board Chair
SafePlace International

“Going through this process with Prophet was an absolute delight and nothing short of transformational. They’ve not only provided us with a clean, beautiful new brand identity that reflects our warmth and professionalism, but also helped us refine the way that we communicate our layered and often complex work to the outside world. We’re so grateful and could not be happier with the results!“

Rachael LeClear
Executive Director
SafePlace International

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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.

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

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

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CASE STUDY

G7 Connect

Uniting Two Giants to Digitally Transform the Freight Industry in China

Challenge

The logistics industry in China is hugely complex in scale, yet highly traditional in its operations. Most freight companies operate under the same conventional labor-intensive model with low efficiency.

G7 and E6 Technology are both leading IoT SaaS providers striving to transform the road freight industry through “smart logistics” software services based on the Internet of Things. In Q1 2022, G7 and E6 announced their merger. Despite the completion of the initial stage of integration, employees and customers were still uncertain about the direction of the new company.

To further accelerate the integration process, NewCo urgently needed a unified brand strategy. However, as the two companies were both industry leaders, it was important to retain the legacy equities that G7 and E6 established in the market.

Solutions

Prophet’s team started with a series of in-depth interviews with internal and external stakeholders to understand the unique DNA of both G7 and E6. It was crucial to identify the synergies of each organization – the common DNA.

Having gained a deep understanding of the business, we then defined a distinctive and unifying brand strategy: propel the productivity of the logistics industry with IoT SaaS technology and innovations to bring beautiful changes to all industry stakeholders. It clearly defines NewCo’s frame of reference as an IoT SaaS provider in the logistics industry, while creating broader connections with various types of audiences, from big owners of cargo and small logistic company owners to finance managers and truck drivers, by demonstrating a compelling purpose. A powerful tagline was also created to encapsulate the strategy – “Beautiful Changes Happens Now.”

With a robust brand strategy in place, we recommended the Chinese name “G7易流” (G7 Yiliu) that fuses the two names to retain the legacy brand assets from both G7 and E6.

Inspired by the essence of connectivity of logistics networks, our design team developed a unique creative concept of “Unlocking the new pathway together.” The new visual identity adopted the core visual elements from the two companies – the purple arrow from G7 and the green dash from E6. These elements came together to symbolize flowing “turns” and harmonizing “roads”, telling a confident story of how G7 and E6 intersect to form greatness. The newly designed logo and visual system represent human-centered innovation, speed and precision. The color palette was updated, adding turquoise, to give the brand a smart and modern element.

Through this new visual identity system, we successfully maximized both brands’ visual equity while crafting a new way forward to reflect the new company’s new purpose, frame of reference and direction.

Results

The new brand strategy and visual system of G7 Connect, introduced a clear purpose and direction to the business, reassuring employees and customers about the future of the newly merged company. It also served as a guide for external communications across multiple touchpoints, including the CEO’s announcement speech to the theme of its annual client conference.

“It is uncommon and more difficult for a B2B or industrial company to market its strengths in data and technology through a human-centric lens. However, with such strategic guidance, every touch of our communications feels deeply authentic, results-driven and compelling,” expressed Yayun Guo, head of brand communications and marketing at G7 Connect.

“We’d like to thank Prophet for its strong expertise, insights and methodologies that helped accelerate our merger. It allowed us to assess G7 Connect’s strengths and equities in a more thoughtful way while being committed to human-centricity in our long-term strategy. Moreover, the precision in Prophet’s design capabilities lent to creative expressions that embody our brand perfectly.”

“Everyone (within our organization) resonates greatly with the new brand. Our work throughout the year has been centered around how we are bringing beautiful changes to the industry and the organization – the new slogan has become an important anchor point for the whole company.”

Xuehun Zhai
Founder and CEO of G7 Connect

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CASE STUDY

Seatrium

Unlocking a New Chapter of the Global Marine Industry

Challenge

Keppel Offshore & Marine (O&M) and Sembcorp Marine have played a key role in Singapore’s past, present and future. Keppel O&M is one of Singapore’s flagship multinational companies with a global footprint in more than 20 countries, whereas Sembcorp Marine has a nearly 60-year track record in the design and construction of rigs, floaters, offshore platforms and specialized vessels.

Changing industry dynamics towards cleaner and renewable energy have led to the O&M and energy industry needing to forge a new path forward. This has created an opportunity for 2 leaders to merge and transform, giving birth to NewCo to better transition, operate and capture opportunities in renewable energy. Prophet helped to create a new brand strategy and visual system for NewCo.

Solutions

We started by immersing ourselves in the current state of the brands, reviewing data through sustainability reports, brand strategy documents and merger materials to deeply understand existing efforts. Apart from meeting with the steering committees, we also conducted in-depth stakeholder interviews across employees and customers to understand both perspectives.

Understanding that they bear a high level of similarity in culture and mindset, we combined strengths from both organizations to retain their unique DNA and bring the best of both worlds together. While NewCo’s vision was to be the global player to drive the energy transition and ensure energy security, NewCo also aimed to create meaningful impact for employees, Singapore, and shareholders. After running competitor audits, there was an opportunity for NewCo to differentiate with a stronger purpose in providing premium and customized solutions to the energy industry – being able to combine engineering and execution excellence with people centricity to deliver on customer needs.

From beginning to end, we involved employees and stakeholders in the extensive naming process to make sure the new name resonated with them and best captured NewCo’s storytelling. The name ‘Seatrium’ created by the client was selected – “We are the atrium where we gather the people of the seas, and we are a collaboration of industry leaders, bringing the best of engineering solutions to our customers and partners.” Its direct connection to sea highlights Seatrium’s expertise and creates relevance to the industry, while reinforcing visual identity at the same time by complementing the ‘seagull’ element in its logo.

Inspired by forms in the industry, the new visual identity highlights new waves of innovation in the marine environment and elevates Seatrium to new heights. Inspired by the shape of Singapore and the bow of a ship, Seatrium showed their commitment to expand their footprint to reach new customers and markets. The three crescent shapes form their foundation; anchored in offshore marine, defining new horizons and ensuring clean skies for all, together helping to elevate above and below. The symbol reflects the key principles – flexible, fearless and resilient. Moreover, the new color palette is refreshing, minimal and outstanding. A brand book was also created to familiarize employees with their new brand strategy and visual look and feel to ensure they communicate in a cohesive way that is uniquely Seatrium.

Results

Officially launched in April 2023, Seatrium continues to remain Singapore’s largest shipyard group with expanded work across the energy transition, including cleaner oil and gas, as well as offshore renewable opportunities.

The enlarged post-merger company has started implementing integration initiatives. Seatrium is expected to benefit from greater synergies given its broader geographical footprint (Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, China, Japan, the UK, Norway, the US and Brazil), larger operational scale and enhanced capabilities. Our work with Seatrium was recognized at the Transform Awards Asia 2023, winning two silver awards for Best Corporate Rebrand Strategy and Best Visual Identity.

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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.

Results

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

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CASE STUDY

Josun Hotels & Resorts

Creating a winning brand portfolio strategy

Background

Established in 1914, Josun Hotel has become an exemplary hospitality brand, transforming into the current Josun Hotels & Resorts while maintaining its original “First & Best” mentality.

In a market where new entrants have raised the bar on hospitality, Josun Hotels & Resorts wanted to position its brands at the forefront of hospitality experiences in South Korea. Prophet worked closely with Josun to create an independent portfolio of brands, each targeting different consumer groups.

Approach

Prophet helped Josun Hotels & Resorts define a winning brand portfolio that captures distinct opportunities in the Korean travel market, with clearly defined roles and relationships for each of their hospitality brands. Understanding that each hospitality brand needs to meet the unique needs of Josun’s varied audiences, fresh insights were uncovered to define distinctive concepts for each brand. Through extensive research, expert interviews and in-depth audits, we created a hybrid brand architecture with a series of flagship brands with reimagined concepts appealing to different target audiences in Korea.

Each hotel brand is tied to its unique idea, name and story that delivers a hospitality experience like no other. L’Escape was born for those who wish to get away from reality and create their own dreams and fantasies, a true Parisian escape in the heart of Seoul. Gravity was created to become a thriving social hub for Millennials, a center of gravity in the community to foster creativity, collaboration and inspiration that blends work and play together. Combining Josun’s legacy with fresh modernity, Grand Josun reflects a refined sensibility for premium customer experiences while catering to families. Lastly, Josun Palace represents the group’s highest-grade luxury offering, encapsulating the key essence of the hotel’s heritage and appealing to “The Cultured Connoisseur.”

We brought the different brand strategies to life by carefully crafting distinctive visual identities for each hotel. We also developed complete branding concepts for some of the food and beverage offerings within the hotels.

Impact

The four new hotel offerings by Josun Hotels & Resorts – L’Escape, Gravity, Grand Josun and Josun Palace – were subsequently launched between 2018 and 2021 to great success. The optimized portfolio and architecture strategy maximized revenues across the brands and serves as a growth engine for the group, unlocking new possibilities in its journey to become a global hospitality brand.

Our work with Josun Hotels & Resorts received critical acclaim including multiple awards from Transform Magazine’s Transform Awards Asia ^[1][2][3].

L’ESCAPE

Creating a Parisian escape in the heart of Seoul

SEE OUR WORK

GRAVITY

From hotel to Millennial experience hub

SEE OUR WORK

GRAND JOSUN

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

SEE OUR WORK

JOSUN PALACE

Creating a luxurious hotel brand under a winning portfolio

SEE OUR WORK

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Have questions about your next growth move? Prophet has answers.

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

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Swiss Re

Future-proofing the brand in a rapidly changing world

Challenge

The world – and what needs to be insured and reinsured – is fundamentally changing. Swiss Re, a world-leading provider of reinsurance and insurance, had seen the needs of its clients and partners reshaped by the likes of global warming, the expanding role of digital and data in consumers’ lives, new types of risk and an increasingly disruptive competitor set.

Swiss Re had already evolved its business strategy to better address these new, emerging realities and the changing risk landscape. But, with a new customer-centric business strategy in place, it was vital that the Swiss Re brand better connected with its audiences in a more compelling way.

Solutions

Prophet partnered with Swiss Re to redefine their brand strategy, including a refreshed brand positioning, an evolved visual identity and a first-in-kind audio brand. Collaborating with all corners of the global Swiss Re team – and with a deep understanding of the challenges that the brand needed to address – we set about developing a more relevant and differentiated position in the market.

The refreshed brand positioning now reflects the dynamic, digital-first Swiss Re has become and demonstrates the firm’s growth ambition. This distinctive positioning brings its tech and innovation, data and insights and societal leadership strengths to the fore to better reflect new types of risk that clients face, as well as attract new talent and partners.

To support the new brand strategy, there was a need to advance the visual identity to embrace all facets of the business and build a sense of ‘oneness’ in today’s digital world. Prophet partnered with the team to activate the identity with a suite of design assets including bespoke imagery, to act as a metaphor for how Swiss Re powers progress and their unique perspectives on the world. And – rather atypical for a business-to-business brand – an audio brand was introduced to strike the right tone and deliver a more contemporary expression of the brand.

Results

Awarded a prestigious Red Dot Design Award in 2022 and a German Brand Award in 2023, the sophisticated refreshed brand reaffirms Swiss Re’s leading position in the industry as a future-ready business, working to attract new talent, stand out against the competition and unlock new opportunities for the company. Well received internally, it is also resonating with employees, enforcing the unifying notion of ‘oneness.’

“Prophet’s unique approach to strategic design has delivered a far more contemporary and sophisticated expression of the brand. We couldn’t be more proud of the outcome.”

Dr. Jan Dietrich Müller
Head Group Communications, Managing Director

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UGG

Building a relentlessly relevant brand

Challenge

A beloved brand known for its iconic boots, UGG was looking to expand its relevance and connect with Gen-Z consumers in an emotive and ownable way. With a mix of established and emerging markets across the globe, UGG wanted to not only identify their target customer but understand where and how to create deeper engagement and drive further growth with them. The brand needed to show up as a more assertive and compelling brand— inspiring its consumers to join a community that stood for something beyond trendy footwear.

But creating a relentlessly relevant brand for UGG meant balancing several key challenges. We had to reach (and win with) Gen-Z consumers without alienating UGG’s existing core customers. Which meant managing the tension between making bolder moves to meet the self-expression of younger consumers and maintaining the classic UGG brand for legacy consumers.

Solutions

We began our immersion by conducting internal stakeholder interviews to understand the vision and aspirations for the brand. We then conducted global consumer qualitative research to better understand consumer perspectives on the brand, their lifestyles and communities, and to generate a hypothesis for a global brand direction.

Using this as a foundation, Prophet implemented a rigorous quantitative process to deliver consumer target segmentation for UGG driven by customer style attitudes and core emotional & functional needs. Out of the 6 segments identified, we prioritized 3 unique segments that UGG could act on and start driving engagement with. Our team also provided targetable Micro-Communities built around passions, hobbies and other interests with these segments for future activation. From these inputs, we worked iteratively with the UGG team through workshops to define UGG’s global brand positioning and voice, and how to activate this newly defined brand.

Results

Prophet worked with UGG to identify and prioritize consumer target segments along with a global brand strategy to align the product, marketing, and overall consumer experience across all of its brand touchpoints.

Prophet delivered a brand book used to communicate and rally the new strategy internally and guide activation efforts across functions and organizational teams. Our work aligned UGG and the parent company, Deckers, to have a unified focus on their brand’s “north star” and their primary consumer targets.

“The Prophet work was a rallying cry for the entire organization to galvanize around our primary consumer target. We’re all speaking the same language now and that was almost indescribable in terms of how far we’ve come in a very short period of time.”

Carole Diarra
Vice President of Marketing

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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

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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.”

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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

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