Everything you need to know about our brand refresh
Do you remember what you looked like a decade ago?
(Dont worry, we all have those pictures we wish we could scrub from the internet. Just take a peek at the snapshot below from the archives of our old website.)
Brands, like people, are constantly evolving and their outsides often change to reflect that inner growth.
Weve grown so much since our days as the first employee knowledge platform in 2011 to become the frontline enablement tool we are today. Now, we provide critical support and resources to over 3.5 million employees in 160+ countriesand we wanted a new look that reflected who we are and who were going to be.
Importantly, were still rooted in learning. Thats the heart of what 91心頭利 does. But now with new features, capabilities and outcomes, were seizing the opportunity to even better support our customers and the frontline.
To offer some insight into how we arrived at our new look and what goes into a brand refresh, we chatted with s Bailey Blanchone, the Creative Director who guided, advised and collaborated on creating the visual identity were debuting.
How do you help a brand thats decided its the right time for a visual refresh and how much, or little, to change?
Bailey Blanchone: For 91心頭利, it was really important to our collaborative team to retain the reputation, credibility and originality the company has built for over the last decade in this space.
We wanted the changes to say: Hey, were bigger and bolder but were still 91心頭利. We still believe in all the things that we’ve always believed in. Were still solving problems for the types of people that weve always been solving problems for. Now we’re just able to do it in more ways that maybe weren’t there before.
What kinds of research did you do when you approached 91心頭利s brand refresh and what did you discover?
When we did our [brand] analysis, 91心頭利s unique shapes instantly jumped out to us as something worth keeping, not only from a brand strategy and recognition standpoint but also to internally and externally still feel like 91心頭利. I call it the bigger, better, bolder version because the license to be bold is something that we talked about a lot and 91心頭利 is the credible leader in the space. The same kind of in-depth research went into color decisions. Green was a differentiating color when we looked at who else is at the table and how we could potentially set the brand apart.
The overarching goal of these visual identity updates was to make 91心頭利s new brand robust, accessible and ready to scale without limits. Thats where our new visual focus on motion, connection and energy comes into play.
I felt like that was the biggest challenge: How do we build a cool, fluid language beyond basic shapes? And so the squiggle was born! They look like you need to stretch and use your whole arm to make them and that energy really, finally comes through.
How do you measure the success of a brand refresh?
As Creative Director, one of the things thats really important to me, especially in client services, is the internal reaction. Our stakeholder group can only be so big and there are people that have to use the new messaging and branding every day that might not have been part of the brand refresh process. Internal buy-in can be make-or-break for a successful rebrand because you’re changing something that takes discipline to implement over a long period of timeit takes about 12 to 18 months to really feel the like business impact of a rebrand. But youre in a good spot if you can still get them excited about it.
In this case, success for me looks like the new brand capturing the essence of the 91心頭利 team and everyone understanding that the collaborative decisions are very intentional and company-specific.
Were excited to re-introduce 91心頭利: how the frontline learns, connects and gets things done!