Case Study: Salesforce
Building the foundation for a global, public-facing brand.
The coming of age of a global brand
As the first company to democratize the cloud, Salesforce had firmly established itself by the end of the 2000’s. The following decades have been characterized by explosive growth. To keep up with its ambitions, brand has a key role to play in driving awareness of its broader strategy. As the newly formed global brand team began to look at what support systems they needed to put in place they began by considering some of the key problems they needed to solve for:
- Employees don’t know where to go for information on brand
- There is no single hub for guidance on brand usage
- Guidelines are distributed across different teams and in different formats
- Assets are accessed without guidelines
- Regions and agencies outside of this team can’t find what ‘good’ use of brand looks like
- There is no engaging and comprehensive tool to onboard new employees to the brand
Ultimately, the Salesforce global brand team went with a solution that would provide them with a community of other brands to learn from and a technology ecosystem designed around the jobs to be done. Beam had several enterprise-level clients willing to learn from each other’s triumphs, mistakes, and features and this knowledge-sharing was imbedded throughout the process.
- “We were thoughtful about what brand content to make public on our platform,” shares Karen Sommerich, Director of Brand Strategy at Salesforce. “We want people to know what makes Salesforce the brand it is, and to understand why we make the decisions we make. So it was obvious to us to include in the public pages our brand origin story and brand promise.”
Pushing Innovation
Salesforce found that while working with us they could push their boundaries more than they initially planned for. They could add customized settings and features to fit their most unique needs. They were willing to put in the work—and make the most of our brand perspective. The constant-questioning culture of the partnership led to an important discussion: should part of this content be publicly facing?
They considered the risks but focused on the fact that their goal is to be a leader of design and brand, and to show that fact to the world. In order to increase brand equity, attract new design talent, and showcase experience, Salesforce decided to include a multitude of public-facing pages as well as expanded content for employees and partners behind a login. The principle of brand equity also resonated with Salesforce, reinforcing them as a community-focused brand.
They considered the risks but focused on the fact that their goal is to be a leader of design and brand, and to show that fact to the world. In order to increase brand equity, attract new design talent, and showcase experience, Salesforce decided to include a multitude of public-facing pages as well as expanded content for employees and partners behind a login. The principle of brand equity also resonated with Salesforce, reinforcing them as a community-focused brand.
“Another consideration in what content to make public is that our broad community of Salesforce advocates will want to use our logo, so we want to make sure they use it right and with our permission,” says Sommerich. “Therefore, we included the assets, guidelines, and permission request instructions for all to understand.”
With the right ecosystem, people, and processes in place, they were able to unlock the promise of the platform – to serve as a key resource in supporting initiatives with new, creative, ways to engage and inspire all while making a splash with the launch.
The next addition: a showcase gallery for the global Salesforce creative community to share best-in-class brand communications, providing design inspiration and recognition across international regions, teams, and mediums. This will promote global idea sharing, break down silos, and encourage on-brand executions.
When you have an innovative and community-driven company, the brand work is never over. As brand possibilities evolve, so does the platform alongside an organization growing its employee base by 10,000 per year, the challenges of educating and keeping everyone on-brand globally remains a challenge that’s never solved. At Beam, we’re with here every step of the way through the evolution and re-imagination of your brand engagement ecosystem.
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