Experience

CASE STUDY

UBS

Repositioning the brand and engaging 60k employees

Challenge

Bigger and broader than previous brand campaigns, the one UBS launched was designed to communicate the company’s transformation under CEO Sergio Ermotti. In the several years since he’d assumed the role, Ermotti led UBS through brand repositioning and aligned all business divisions around a single strategy. UBS was finally ready to share its transformation with the outside world and use the brand relaunch to drive further change.

Before launching a more modern, human and unique brand and ad campaign, UBS had to first win over and prepare its most important advocates – the more than 60,000 employees who live and breathe the brand. UBS looked to Prophet for help developing and implementing an employee engagement campaign that informed, inspired and engaged employees.

Solutions

To engage employees, Prophet created a microsite on UBS’s employee intranet and regularly published relevant content. The topics and formats of posts varied, including quirky educational videos on tone of voice, a brand guidelines game and a series of intimate video portraits of UBS leaders and clients discussing the new positioning and direction. Additionally, we struck a partnership with a young, up-and-coming graffiti artist to immerse employees in the brand’s ethos through four large-scale artworks.

Using rigor and strategically-inspired creative thinking, we applied the same best practices of external marketing to deliver effective internal employee communications:

  • Equal effort applied to creating and promoting the site
  • All content must be easy and fun to assimilate
  • Select a few simple messages to communicate and repeat them

Results

The employee engagement campaign has been and continues to be a resounding success, with UBS continuing to win preferred employer awards every year. We initially defined success as having 30,000 employees visit and engage with the microsite, but have far exceeded that expectation as the microsite has now reached more than 62,000 employees. Both employees and top management have expressed how impressed they’ve been with the employee engagement program.

When asked about the brand relaunch, Hubertus Kuelps (group head of communications and branding) told Forbes, “This particular campaign has definitely energized the employee base. It has brought them to a level of pride…I haven’t seen in my communications career.”

Download UBS’ brand relaunch employee engagement content timeline.

“This particular campaign has definitely energized the employee base. It has brought them to a level of pride…I haven’t seen in my communications career.”

Hubertus Kuelps
Group Head of Communications at UBS

CASE STUDY

Chick-fil-A

Reimagining an experience for a quick-service giant

Challenge

Chick-fil-A, a leader in the quick-service industry, was growing faster than it ever imagined. With double-digit sales growth year after year and new restaurants opening up all over the country, it was becoming increasingly important that the thousands of restaurant operators and headquarter employees were aligned around a vision for the future of the company.

One of the most important channels Chick-fil-A uses to communicate its business vision is its annual event that brings the entire organization together for four days. This event had been occurring for over 40 years, however, the approach and experience had become predictable and was losing relevance. Prophet was engaged to provide a “fresh set of eyes” to this event with the goal of rethinking how it could more effectively inspire Chick-fil-A Operators to take their businesses, and even their lives, to the next level.

Solution

Prophet took leaders at Chick-fil-A through a strategic process to reimagine and redefine this annual event, and to elevate its purpose and impact well beyond just a few short days. Prophet then helped design an entire experience with multiple formats that reflected how Operators wanted to engage with each other and the organization. The result was a newly branded and newly defined event called NEXT.

At NEXT, key leaders and external speakers were able to share inspirational perspectives and a vision for the future through bite-sized TED-style talks during “Common Ground” time. Breakout sessions became “Labs,” and the “Expert Corner,” and gave attendees the chance to work together to hone specific skills and engage with speakers in a more intimate format. The typical corporate expo became the “Garages,” which brought the most critical initiatives across the organization together into a highly experiential and hands-on format.

Results

Prior to NEXT and Prophet’s involvement, there was a sense of frustration from Operators that the event, which was once meant for them, had lost its focus. However, following the first reimagined event, attendees and especially Operators felt re-engaged, empowered and inspired to be part of such an incredible organization. In fact, more than 80% shared they were likely to make a change in their business or their lives as a result of NEXT.

CASE STUDY

Zurich

Bringing a financial services brand back to life

Challenge

Zurich Financial Services was becoming just another commoditized insurance company in a sea of undifferentiated providers. Like the rest of the industry, Zurich was too internally focused, with Underwriters, Risk Engineers and Claims Adjusters calling the shots, and a brand positioning that lacked relevance in customers’ lives. Customers who told us they saw insurance providers as non-responsive, slow and untrustworthy – “little more than an organized crime syndicate”. We knew we needed a dramatic change in order to stand out.

Solutions

The idea was simple: We’ll help you deal with the most important things first, like securing a rental car or a place to stay.  Then we’ll help you through the process of restoring your world to order. We’ll put you at the center by delivering REAL help. And in 2008, at the height of the financial crisis, Zurich launched one of the most extensive global campaigns, introducing Zurich HelpPoint externally and internally.  Our unequivocal promise to customers was that Zurich delivers when it matters.

This could have been seen as yet another empty promise were it not for the vision of transforming 60,000 employees into authentic evangelists of the brand, armed with the permission to identify and execute proactive, spontaneous touchpoints, unheard of in the world of insurance.

Results

In a few short years, the sheer size and ambition of the transformation have been astounding, ranging from internal engagement programs, brand ambassadors, employee awareness-raising tactics, customer satisfaction and loyalty metrics, and the launch of hundreds of new product propositions globally. Revenue, margins and brand tracking scores are all up; and ten years later, Zurich ranks 7th in global insurance brands, and 206th in brands globally by Brand Finance.

CASE STUDY

Kellogg School of Management

Inspiring growth through brand strategy

Challenge

The Kellogg School of Management has been ranked among the top five U.S. MBA programs by leading publications for decades. However, beginning in 2008 the school began to see slippage in its rankings. Pushed out of the top 5 in 2013, Kellogg realized it had to re-energize the brand and align the program and the curriculum around the renewed brand strategy. Prophet was brought in to help Kellogg revive its brand and to drive more students to consider and ultimately choose Kellogg as their top choice program.

Solutions

From the results of a robust customer study involving hundreds of interviews with faculty/staff, current students, prospective students, alumni and employers, we identified what makes a program a student’s top choice and where Kellogg could improve and understand what the vision for Kellogg was and what elements of Kellogg’s history the school wanted to leverage as they rewrote the school’s future.

Regardless of who we asked there was a belief that Kellogg’s MBA program inspires growth in many facets – personally, professionally within organizations and across markets. With the big idea nailed down, we turned to help Kellogg activate its new brand strategy of ‘inspiring growth’ across key audiences. We mapped out every touchpoint from the time before a student applies to Kellogg to the time after they cross the stage at graduation to determine the implications of this new brand strategy and the plan to activate it across key stakeholders.

Results

Kellogg has a renewed sense of purpose and a clearly defined strategy with which to move forward – and that is the first step in the right direction.

CASE STUDY

Club Marriott

Enhancing the guest experience for Chinese travelers

Challenge

Club Marriott, Marriott International’s Food and Beverage membership program in APAC, was looking for opportunities to grow. The program, where members get discounts on food and beverage in their local market, needed a new strategy. The goal was to expand the program beyond local food and beverage discounts to a more holistic membership program that was better tied to Marriott Rewards and offered consumers more benefits. Marriott enlisted Prophet to help redefine the brand strategy and also create a new, refreshed visual identity that would appeal to a broader audience and help explain the newly expanded membership program.

Solutions

Prophet worked with Marriott to create a new brand positioning for the Club. “We Bring More to the Table” plays on Club Marriott’s core offering around food and also includes a set of new services and experiences that the Club would offer – bringing to life the idea of “more.” These included broader hotel benefits like access to the gym, pool and spa, as well as dining benefits like exclusive dinners, chef’s tastings and more. The idea was to create a more holistic local program for people who wanted exclusive membership to a club in their local hometown without all the pomp and pretense.

We also worked with Marriott to re-design the Club Marriott visual identity to bring this new strategy to life. The icon-based system provided flexibility for each of the local markets to illustrate their individual offerings while showing the potential total offerings of the Club Marriott program.

Results

To date, the new program has attracted over 200,000 members and is reaching larger scale with new hotels being added every month. Following its success, the program will be rolled out in other key countries in the Asia-Pacific region including Singapore, India, Vietnam, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, The Philippines, Indonesia, Guam and Thailand.

CASE STUDY

Turkish Airlines

Launching a delightfully different experience

Challenge

Turkish Airlines had doubled its yearly passenger load, revenue skyrocketed from $2.33bn to $11.4bn, and the carrier had been crowned Europe’s best airline 3 years in a row. In an industry plagued by bankruptcy, consolidation and government bailouts, Turkish Airlines wanted to build on this momentum and compete with airlines having larger destination networks, newer planes and higher recognition.

Solutions

We started by learning about the ambition and business strategy of Turkish Airlines, which was to draw more international transfer passengers into Istanbul and better compete with other transfer hubs in the region. In parallel, we started to build a picture of how the aviation industry might evolve in the future. Through that research, we learned that cities were an important piece of the strategy, as increased urbanization is leading to more air travel.

We realized that Turkish Airlines had the opportunity to highlight its urban credentials, in particular Istanbul, a city with a rich heritage and a modern, vibrant and entrepreneurial community. Istanbul is a place of contrasts, and compared to the cities of competitor airlines from Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha this was a huge differentiator.

Results

We created a unique customer experience and brand identity for Turkish Airlines around the idea of being “Delightfully Different” involving every part of the customer journey before, during and after the flight. We created moments that surprise and delight; whether it’s serving traditional Turkish coffee and tea at 35,000 feet with Flying Chefs or making the arrival lounge at Ataturk Airport as special and relaxing as the flying experience. Our ambition was to create memorable occasions that reminded passengers why Turkish is different.

We developed briefs using the new positioning for a new visual identity and corporate design, advertising, PR and digital campaigns, along with sponsorship opportunities for the brand. The rollout of the new concepts began with a new advertising campaign featuring Kobe Bryant and Lionel Messi (already viewed over 140 million times on YouTube) and the launch of the new in-flight catering concepts.

Turkish Airlines continues to soar. Since the launch, passenger numbers increased 24%, revenue 28% and operating profit 12%. In the often-turbulent business of airlines, that’s some Delightfully Different news we can all toast to.

Impact

24%

more passengers

28%

increase in revenue

12%

increase in operating profit

CASE STUDY

T Mobile

Addressing telecom customer frustrations

Challenge

T-Mobile wanted to clearly differentiate itself from its wireless competitors and from tried and tired industry practices. Company executives were contemplating a radical new approach to address customer frustration and challenge industry norms.

Solution

T-Mobile tapped Prophet’s deep expertise in brand strategy and analytics to supplement its own efforts aimed at addressing customer frustration with the unnecessary cost and complexity of the wireless industry. Prophet helped T-Mobile conduct extensive market research that identified ways in which the brand could inspire, influence and compel consumers to act.

Prophet’s research and counsel helped T-Mobile confirm a core tenet of its “Un-carrier strategy” – there was a distinct opportunity for a wireless carrier who didn’t act like one. Research showed consumers were generally fed up with what they saw as wireless carrier apathy toward their needs. The resulting T-Mobile brand strategy differentiated the company from its competitors by emphasizing simplicity, fairness and value. Prophet also helped T-Mobile carry its Un-carrier efforts forward through an activation plan that included customer experience design and a development and measurement system to track progress and inform performance targets.

Results

Since the Un-carrier launch in March, T-Mobile has steadily brought this strategy to life at every brand touchpoint. The comprehensive brand program extends from positioning, messaging and communications to customer experience and employee engagement.

The company has gained 1.1 million customers in the quarter following the announcement of its new Un-carrier strategy, the largest customer growth in four years, and Fast Company named T-Mobile as one of 2014’s Most Innovative Companies.

Impact

1

fastest-growing wireless company in the U.S.

17

quarters of customer and revenue growth

5B

dollars in annualized revenue growth

CASE STUDY

AIA

Real solutions for ‘The Real Life Company’

Challenge

After a record-breaking IPO, AIA set out a new vision to become the pre-eminent life insurer in the Asia Pacific region. They also adopted a new brand positioning to become The Real Life Company, which promises to “genuinely engage in people’s lives, providing the right financial solutions to them and their families in a constantly changing world.”

Prophet was engaged to develop a brand activation campaign to launch the new brand positioning to employees and agents and to help them understand how best to bring the brand promise to life. We recommended a strategy to engage the target audience by crowdsourcing real-life stories from across the region which speaks to the tangible and inspiring ways employees and agents live up to the brand in their daily lives. This provided substance and proof points for the new brand positioning and made the brand promise real to customers.

Solutions

We themed the brand activation campaign around a people-centric idea – “You Make Us The Real Life Company”.

A series of real life stores were crowd sourced from employees and agents and brought to life through an inspiring internal engagement campaign. The campaign demonstrated how AIA people go the extra mile to take great care of customers and each other in the ups and downs of everyday life.

Results

The campaign has created a simple and memorable brand engagement idea that resonates with everyone in each of AIA’s markets (in multiple languages). Over 11,000 agents in Thailand were introduced to the new brand positioning through 200 workshops conducted over a three-month period.

CASE STUDY

Gourmet Burger Kitchen

Creating a new visual and verbal identity

Challenge

Founded in 2001, Gourmet Burger Kitchen (GBK) helped move the burger from grease to gourmet indulgence in the UK. But, after a period of rapid growth as customers’ expectations changed and the market began bustling with new competitors, GBK was beginning to lose its personality and direction. Already tackling some of the issues head on, the senior team brought us on board to help define a clear purpose that could drive real change across a large, multi-lingual service organization.

Solutions

Through a series of workshops, we helped GBK rediscover what brought them together, what mattered most to them and what would help them stand out in the market – their burger obsession. This key insight led to five core beliefs and a brand strategy that would be applied across every aspect of the company’s operations from menu creation, retail environment design and hiring practices.

Results

The result is a brand platform that the GBK leadership has personally invested in and has been passionate about advocating across the company. We created a new visual and verbal identity to reinforce the idea of this gang of obsessives coming together to spread burger joy. With inspiration from existing clubs — from Hell’s Angels to the Boy Scouts — the new identity never takes itself too seriously but venerates the gourmet burgers at the heart of everything they do.

CASE STUDY

Emart Traders

A Winning Retail Format in Just 100 Days

Challenge

Ranking 10th among the world’s largest economic powers and fourth in Asia, South Korea’s retail market may be fast-growing, but so is the influx of competitors.

Emart, the country’s largest retailer and Korea’s first hypermarket, wanted to ensure it could maintain its competitive advantage and provide customers with novel new ways to shop. Besides sharpening the value proposition of its hypermarket flagship, Emart knew it needed to explore new retail concepts to achieve transformative growth.

Solutions

Prophet worked with Emart to explore alternate retail formats that would resonate with consumers’ unique and evolving behaviors. One of the three new businesses our team developed was a warehouse shopping concept to compete with the likes of Costco and Sam’s Club launching in the region. The biggest challenge? Emart wanted to launch the warehouse format in just 100 days.

Prophet was tasked to develop the customer strategy, brand positioning and design the store concept. With just over three months to take the initial idea from the Chairman’s whiteboard sketch to the doors opening, Prophet’s agile team moved fast.  We worked closely with Emart in weekly sprints to create the name, Emart Traders, and develop a differentiated brand identity. We then partnered with Emart’s implementation teams to build out the first store.

To stand out against the competition, Traders’ customer experience needed to make consumers feel like smart shoppers. It had to offer the emotional thrill that comes from getting a good deal on top-quality items. And it had to be fun.

Traders launched with a significant competitive difference – unlike Costco or Sam’s Club, it has no membership fees. The store features a warehouse aesthetic, including pallets, industrial fixtures and wood finishes suggestive of packing crates. The merchandising strategy is founded on a distinct shopping experience of discovering unbeatable offers. With right-out-of-the-box freshness in every aisle, Traders offers a tailored product mix seeing value-priced and high-quality store brands housed side-by-side.

Results

The first Traders store opened with great success, generating $100 million in sales in its first year. It has subsequently grown to include 20 locations, creating a $1 billion brand in five years. With gross sales up 26.4% year on year, Traders has become a continuous growth engine for Emart, helping it outpace other retail formats in the market and contributing nearly a fifth of total revenue for the group.

Impact

100m

USD Sales generated in the first year

20x

Stores opened since launch

1b

Dollar-brand created in five years

CASE STUDY

Cathay Pacific Airways

Driving true customer loyalty

Challenge

Cathay Pacific has long been known for delivery of exceptional customer service and experiences, voted “World’s Best Airline” more times than any other. However, they found that their loyalty program, Marco Polo Club, was outdated. Passenger recognition and reward were based on sectors and miles flown system that was not properly recognizing the contribution from fares that passengers paid.

The rewards and benefits offered by Cathay Pacific were out-of-sync with passenger value and competitor customer loyalty programs. This resulted in a missed opportunity to create stronger loyalty and patronage – particularly for leisure and family travelers. Our challenge was to help Cathay Pacific better understand its customer base and create a program that would drive share of wallet and desired behaviors – and ultimately bring balance back to the loyalty equation.

Solutions

Prophet helped by improving the fairness and transparency of the Marco Polo Club. We revisited program benefits to determine which would align with Cathay Pacific’s customer-oriented nature and how they could offer other unique and inspiring loyalty benefits.

We aimed to create a long-term, sustainable solution for Marco Polo Club by employing a “parallel-path” approach:

  1. An analytical investigation using over three million customer transactions.
  2. Ideation of key benefits for each program tier to identify what matters most for different customer types.

The synthesis of creative insight and analytical modeling informed the final Marco Polo Club redesign – new program tiers supported by business cases to help Cathay Pacific bring the new model to life.

The revamped scheme uses club points to replace club miles and sectors, providing benefits and a customer experience more accurately aligned with customer profiles. Points are based on a combination of fare class, cabin and distance flown; and the program offers the most valued benefits for lower tiers plus additional benefits for elite members.

Benefits span the customer experience, from reservations to check-in and baggage, to lounge access and more. There are new rewards for mid-tier customers such as additional companion benefits, and a renewed sense of exclusivity for their most high-value customers.

Results

Cathay Pacific rolled out its new strategy and believes the redesigned loyalty program allows optimal rewarding of its most valuable customers while providing the most important benefits to today’s frequent flyers.

CASE STUDY

Bank of East Asia

Creating a bold statement in retail banking

Challenge

Bank of East Asia (BEA) is the largest independent local bank in Hong Kong with a large retail branch network. In light of new competition, BEA hoped to extend its reach to customers and enhance its retail visibility. Prophet worked with BEA to create a coherent and impactful brand communication system to help the bank stand out across all channels.

Solutions

The new look is based on a band of five colored “light rays” symbolizing the five core values of the bank. It is designed to project a forward-looking image, making a bolder statement on a street level. As part of the branding campaign, a new tagline “Enriching your world” and four secondary messages have been developed.

Together, they communicate BEA’s commitment to helping customers improve their lives and achieve their goals through the provision of quality banking and financial services. BEA launched its new image through a high-profile advertising campaign including print, bus advertisements, outdoor billboards in the Central, TST, Hong Kong MTR Station, TST Piers and online advertisements.

Prophet ensured consistent delivery throughout the process, from concept to execution, as a long-term partner dedicated to elevating the brand to the next level.

Results

The end result is a dynamic visual and verbal communication approach that brings the brand to life, and significantly differentiates BEA from its competitors in retail environment, enhances the brand visibility and favorability.

Overall, the customers feel very positive about the change, more than 80% of customers reckon that the new look has enhanced the BEA brand image, and the majority of current customers are willing to recommend BEA to others.

Interested in learning more about how Prophet helps companies develop unique brand strategies, create engaging customer experiences and drive business growth? Explore our collection of case studies.

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