Brand transformation | Sinch
A global B2B tech company merging many brands together to take on a rising competitor
Sinch needed to merge several brands and portfolios into one while transitioning to a new leadership team. Their biggest competitor, Twilio, was starting to make moves into the enterprise space, and Sinch needed to evolve into a more modern, digitally-forward brand in order to keep the advantage.
They came to my team for an end-to-end brand repositioning and transformation.
Challenge:
The goals of the brand transformation were to:
Develop positioning to differentiate in an increasingly competitive market
Manage the transition to a new name
Create a communication platform (messaging strategy) that could be used to unite a rapidly growing portfolio and global regions
Have a new and engaging visual identity that would appeal to modern digital native brands, but still reflect their robust technical and global leadership
Activate the brand through a new website and creative marketing assets
Revamp sales enablement and other communication assets to reflect the new narrative and a vertically-focused approach, rather than product-focused.
My role: Strategic lead, project lead, writer, creative and messaging advisor
Actions: I led C-level executives, sales leads, HR leads, product teams and creatives through bold change as we transformed CLX Communications into Sinch. Besides leading the cross-functional team and managing the project, I personally developed the verbal identity (positioning, messaging, brand voice, etc). Our keys to success were to:
Manage a very tight timeframe by working in sprints, covering one deliverable each week, and iterating and testing with the target audience
Daring to challenge the Sinch team by choosing unexpected and vibrant visual identity paths, which took them to surprising places that they ended up really loving that really brought the Sinch value proposition to life
Having close, frequent communication with all stakeholders to anchor decisions and manage expectations
Stay emotionally open as a creative strategy team to avoid stress and miscommunications during such a high-pressure, fast project
Outcome:
We launched the new brand in Q1 2019, and Sinch’s success has been exceptional ever since. By Q4, they had 42% gross profit and have seen a big improvement across a wide variety of global brand KPIs. Employees from around the world have shown that they are exceptionally proud of the brand, which was one of the most critical asks from the executive team at the beginning.
Sinch brand brought to life in thought leadership
Sinch web home page
Sinch web solution page
Overview of vibrant Sinch visual identity
The new Sinch brand, brought to life at MWC 2019
Some of the Sinch team