CASE STUDY

PENN Entertainment

Transforming a legacy casino brand into an omnichannel entertainment and gaming leader

Challenge

In 2021, the North American casino industry was at an exciting inflection point, with advancements in technology and the expansion of online gaming. Penn National Gaming was best known as a regional casino operator—but its leaders had the ambition to be at the forefront of the industry’s transformation.   

With the rapid growth in their online gaming business, the recent acquisition of theScore, and an upcoming acquisition of Barstool Sports, they were redefining their business and its frame of reference in the industry.   

Penn National Gaming’s brand was not poised for these shifts. The legacy corporate identity was rooted in a gaming- and US-focused name and traditional casino visuals. More broadly, the brand lacked meaningful relevance with consumers and prospective employees, inhibiting growth with younger generations and struggling to connect with the innovative talent it needed to support its transformation.  

Penn National Gaming turned to Prophet to help re-introduce the organization to the world and transform the brand to better communicate and connect with its employees, investors, regulators, partners and consumers.  

Solutions

We guided the organization’s c-suite leaders through a series of interactions and data-driven assessments, which helped us determine that the corporate brand should evoke the company’s ambition, resonate with employees and build trusted category leadership. This led us to a new name for the organization: PENN Entertainment. 

We then developed a new, simplified brand architecture model that enables PENN to organize complicated entities and offerings. We delineated clear roles and audiences for each level of the brand structure, which helped simplify and streamline the brand-building efforts and provide more equity across the organization’s ecosystem.    

Finally, we helped communicate the new brand with a comprehensive launch, developing a concise narrative and high-impact visuals that introduce PENN’s unique identity, ambitions and strategies.  

Results

Thanks to this broad approach, Prophet helped bring PENN Entertainment’s new story to life with internal employee videos, workforce engagement, corporate development materials, a refreshed corporate website and investor presentations.   

The new corporate brand enables PENN to demonstrate its unique positioning and assets for employees, investors, partners and regulators as it moves forward in today’s fast-changing gaming and entertainment industry.  

“I’m so proud of the work… It feels like we’re finally telling our story in the right way.”

Jennifer Weissman
CMO

CASE STUDY

PENN Entertainment

Reimagining PENN Entertainment’s Loyalty Program

Challenge

PENN Entertainment had transformed itself from a regional casino operator into a modern omnichannel entertainment and gaming company. As part of that transformation, Prophet worked with PENN’s leadership team to redefine its corporate brand so that the organization could better communicate and connect with its employees, investors, regulators, partners and consumers.  

As a next step in the brand’s transformation, PENN partnered with Prophet to extend the new corporate brand to the customer experience with a reimagined loyalty program that could serve as the connector across the organization’s casinos, sportsbooks, and online gaming products.   

Solutions

First, we conducted qualitative research sessions with different consumer segments, which helped reveal that flexibility is essential to PENN’s target personas. We then crafted a new vision and value proposition to serve the organization’s key personas.   

After a series of naming and branding exploration exercises, we developed a new program identity and name for the loyalty program, PENN Play.    

To bring the new loyalty program to life, we interjected PENN Play’s new energetic visual identity and voice across digital and in-person touchpoints, including websites, email and social. From there, we developed and executed the multi-channel “Well Played” campaign, which centered on the idea that engaging with PENN Play today will reap future rewards.

As part of this campaign, we formulated a multi-phase communications strategy, delivered creative assets for all communications, helped transition social accounts, and partnered with a media agency to optimize the paid media strategy.  

Results

PENN Play’s launch and first month has exceeded historical performance. It has also impressed customers, boosting organic followers on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. It’s driven new registrations and is increasing downloads of the app. And it’s given PENN Entertainment the connective tissue needed to strengthen the corporate brand and portfolio as it continues to build capabilities and acquire new offerings and customers. 

The campaign won a Silver at the 2023 W3 Awards in the Integrated Campaigns category.

Impact

+15%

web visits

+55%

app downloads

+20%

app active users

+15%

social media interactions

“We couldn’t be more pleased with how well the launch went.  Everything was smooth, connected and purposeful. There have been so many wonderful comments as I visit our properties, and the creative truly is a wow.”

Jennifer Weissman
CMO

CASE STUDY

Consumer Electronics Retailer

A consumer electronics retailer finds new growth territory through convergence

Challenge

For years, consumer electronics retailers focused their digital transformation efforts on individual product transactions and omnichannel retailing to drive revenue. Yet with digital commerce, companies offering greater transparency and choice to customers, and supply chain innovations enhancing accessibility of products, it has become nearly impossible for traditional retailers to compete on product assortment, channel mix or price. As a result, our client was experiencing declining margins for several consecutive quarters.

Solutions

To unlock uncommon growth, our client needed to converge transformation efforts around a whole new purpose and way of doing business that took into account the needs, behaviors and expectations of customers today. Through an iterative ideation process, Prophet uncovered loyalty-driving experiences that helped them reimagine their purpose and establish a new relationship with their customers and employees as not just a place to transact but a place to get great customer service.  To test our hypotheses, we engaged in service design processes that were rapid, iterative and collaborative, focusing on key experiences and pivoting based on customer feedback.

Results

We prototyped new formats, built an MVP of a platform service for customer support, and detailed an operational blueprint that could be piloted at the enterprise level. In addition to a new value proposition, we also build a website to socialize the tools and visual mock-ups that would help bring everyone from the C-suite to sales teams on board.

CASE STUDY

AXA

Meet Emma, the future of humanized insurance experience

Challenge

AXA is one of the world’s leading insurance companies offering diverse financial services globally. To successfully grow its business in Asia, the client recognized the need to create a more consistent and human brand throughout the region.

On the back of a new global vision – from Payer to Partner – AXA partnered with Prophet to develop an Asia-specific solution that would deliver on their ambition to:

  1. create a more consistent customer journey and brand experience across the region
  2. develop a new customer engagement proposition that also humanize the experience through a new digital platform
  3. develop digital touchpoints to drive greater engagement with existing and potential customers.

Solutions

Through deep consumer research and segmentation, Prophet partnered with AXA to create a regional well-being strategy, develop a new customer experience, and run UX & UI sprints to design a new digital product.

We began by conducting a multi-country regional segmentation, incorporating both qualitative and quantitative research across five key markets in Asia (China, Hong Kong, Philippines, Thailand and Japan). Over 4,000 customers were surveyed to better understand what they wanted from an insurance company when it came to their health, well-being and mental health. This research created the foundation for the development of a value proposition that defined the future of digital customer experience (DCX) at AXA.

To bring the strategy to life, we set out to reimagine the customer experience, taking a fresh look at how to create a new insurance platform that combined insurance e-servicing, 3rd party health and wellness digital services and a new conversational chatbot and virtual concierge. Importantly, at the core of this new experience was an empathetic and human approach on well-being topics for customers, elevating the AXA brand on an experience level never attempted at the organization.

From this strategic foundation, Emma was born — AXA’s first humanized user interface, which became the core of the brand’s new digital customer experience. This seamless experience – from claims to servicing, health content, symptom checker, and more – was embodied in a single Emma ecosystem for current AXA customers as well as prospects.

With Payer to Partner at the core of its proposition, Emma’s persona was designed to be an Empathetic Navigator, helping individuals find the solutions and content most relevant to their well-being needs. Prophet further “personified” Emma, crafting a real-life avatar, her tone of voice, and the visual expression across a full identity system.

A key highlight of the process was a two-day Hackathon to create “Emma”. Over 70 global leaders and stakeholders across diverse disciplines gathered together to “hack” the Emma experience. It was the first time in AXA’s history and probably the largest cross geographic collaboration of its kind.

Results

Emma was piloted then launched in Hong Kong in Q4 of 2019.

Emma is bridging the gap between digital engagement and financial advisor partners. As of 1H of 2020, Emma’s launch in Hong Kong drew more than 2 million logins, exceeding expectations. Emma is now being rolled out across the rest of Asia.

The digital brand experience we created for AXA won the gold award for “Best Use of Digital in the Financial Services Sector” at the 2021 Digital Impact Awards Asia, as well as two awards at the 2020 Transform Awards Asia, including a gold award for “Best Brand Experience” and a silver award for “Best Visual Identity” from the financial services sector.

CASE STUDY

Poly

Creating the “We’re a go” digital campaign

Challenge

When the words “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” were uttered, they were heard by millions of Americans through Plantronics audio.  To celebrate its part in Apollo 11’s spaceflight on the 50th Anniversary of this momentous event, Poly asked Prophet to create a campaign that would connect their past to the present, and the Poly and Plantronics brands together.

Solution

Working as an integrated team, Prophet crafted three campaign concepts before selecting one to build into a multi-channel campaign. Executions included a microsite, paid and organic social media posts including video, display advertising and materials for a gala event and launch at the NYSE.

Results

The campaign far exceeded the goals established by Poly – with more than double the number of social engagements and over five times the number of views on the microsite. Together we built a powerful, engaging campaign that shared Poly’s unique story and relentless relevance 50 years later.

In Nov. 2019, the Prophet team won two North America Transform Awards for their work with Poly.

  • SILVER award for ‘Best corporate rebrand following a merger or acquisition’
  • BRONZE award for ‘Best visual identity from the technology, media and telecommunications sector’

Five Wins at the North America Transform Awards

CASE STUDY

Schneider Electric

Driving demand for a global energy management company

Challenge

Schneider Electric is a global specialist in energy management with operations in more than 100 countries. The company recognized that future business growth depended upon driving demand among end customers and the contractors who work most closely with them.

Solutions

In a complicated and multi-layered value chain, digital communications are crucial to forging relationships with end customers and contractors, while enhancing relationships with existing channel partners. By driving a deep understanding of how customers make decisions, and the role that digital plays in helping them, Prophet partnered with Schneider to identify and pursue opportunities to better engage customers across the entire value chain.

Results

Despite challenging market conditions and a slowdown in new economies, the execution of this strategy saw revenues increase by 6.6%. Customized online portals enabled Schneider to increase the share of wallets among contractors by helping them make smarter project execution decisions. The organization also drove greater demand with end-users through tools such as Building Insights – a building energy management platform.

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