INAP Rebrand :: Background
Following the acquisition of managed hosting and cloud provider SingleHop, INAP embarked on a major effort to refresh its corporate identity, voice and branding to coincide with its newly expanded product portfolio. The keystone project of this effort was a complete redesign of its corporate website with all-new visual and copy design.
Key Accomplishments
- Presented self-driven competitive analysis and brand identity recommendations to marketing and executive leadership
- Collaborated with senior-level BU leaders and product owners to distill key product features and translate to streamlined marketing website copy
- Worked closely with graphic designer to create coherent visual/copy narrative
- Redesigned INAP blog from the ground up
- Concepted, wrote and art directed video explaining key product differentiator
Competitive Analysis
Deliverable :: Brand deck that summarized tone and brand identity analysis of major competitors, inspiration from companies in other B2B industries, three recommendations for INAP brand persona.
Process :: In May 2018, the marketing team had received directives from executive leadership to complete the rebranding by the fall. In preparation, I volunteered to carry out a competitive analysis of the major players in our industry. My goal was to identify what our competitors were doing successfully with their brand identity and where there might be potential opportunities for INAP to build a differentiated brand voice.
I focused on “About” pages and corporate blogs, as well as any other pages that had copy that spoke directly to the ways competitors presented themselves, e.g., “Company Values” pages. In doing so, I categorized competitors into several archetypes, eventually creating a deck summarizing the strengths of our competitors and the areas where INAP had the opportunity to create a new brand identity that filled gaps in the industry. I also looked to B2B companies in other industries for examples of brand voices and corporate identities we might be able to draw inspiration from.
I presented my analysis to the marketing team, including the VP of global marketing, which comprised three distinct brand identities that I believed could guide the visual and content design of INAP’s new website. As a team, we narrowed the choice down to two. Once the visual design options for the website were solidified, we had a meeting to present our proposal to the executive leadership team, including SVPs and the CEO.
I presented a condensed version of my competitive analysis, summarizing the strengths and weaknesses of our competitors, and summaries of the two options for our corporate brand identity.
Copywriting
Deliverable :: Brand new marketing website, including new product pages.
Process :: Once the executive team had chosen the brand persona, the next step was writing copy for the website. Our first step was gathering technical details for the products, identifying what, if any, changes there had been since the website’s copy had last been refreshed.
At this step, we also made sure to collaborate with product owners and managers to determine the differentiators of our products. Then, using the brand persona and the key differentiating features to guide our copywriting, my manager, the senior communications manager, and I drafted copy for every page of our new website.
Operating as a particularly lean marketing team, we would write and edit product pages in batches, working at a weekly cadence that set our initial draft completion date in July 2018, in time for a robust stakeholder review period, in addition to sufficient time for our designer and front-end developers to build the pages.
Redesigning the Blog
Deliverable :: Completely redesigned corporate blog.
Process :: As editor in chief of the blog, another significant responsibility I had during the rebranding process was redesigning the INAP blog. My goal was to make it feel more like a news publication than a corporate blog. To achieve this, I opted for a greater emphasis on visual elements, including large images and large headlines, rather than a text-heavy approach, in addition to page-width boxes for featured content and a streamlined navigation bar.
I opted for a three-column layout, removed prominent datelines and implemented a scrolling sidebar and infinite scroll of related articles in every blog post to encourage browsing behavior.
Product Explainer Video
Deliverable :: New animated video with scripted voiceover featuring INAP’s key differentiator.
Process :: In our meetings with product stakeholders, we identified a key differentiator in our product portfolio that was not being properly showcased. I was given the task of writing and concepting a 90-second explainer video that would highlight the product’s features while explaining why it was a differentiator.
I started by thoroughly learning about the product from the network team, how it worked from a general technical standpoint and why it was a competitive advantage. I had written a blog post about the technology, so I revisited my research and conversations with a member of the sales team who had owned the product on the sales side for many years.
Then, I brainstormed a visual concept for the animated video. I settled on a traffic metaphor, as the product was for ensuring optimized routes for internet traffic. I wrote several drafts of the script, soliciting feedback from both the network team to check it for technical accuracy and co-workers on my team to make sure it remained accessible to a non-technical audience as well.
Once it was approved, I was introduced to our external video animation studio, providing concept design. The bulk of the project involved working with their animator to approve and modify style frames based on the various demands and input of all stakeholders. After several rounds, we settled on an animation style. Subsequent rounds of editing were carried out to tweak small technical details of the animation.