This effective brand strategy uses design to revitalise our client’s internal IT department and boost efficiency by increasing employee awareness of company technology support services.
Background
IT departments are often stereotyped as rigid teams of people who create barriers instead of offering solutions. As part of our client’s aim to “be a great place to work” they wanted to change employee perceptions about their global IT department and increase efficiency by encouraging more people to use the services that they offer.
Challenge
To achieve buy-in from staff at key sites, we needed to completely change how people saw the IT team. The approach needed to be flexible, as staff requirements would vary from location to location, and disrupt old attitudes. To create a brand strategy that could be rolled out and adopted on a global level, it would be necessary to re-design the company IT experience from the ground up.
Solution
To address this challenging brief, we devised a new identity for the IT services team – AskIT – and, in collaboration with our client, we developed the new brand into four sub-areas:
The AskIT identifier is made up of colour-coded speech bubbles representing the variety of questions IT teams face, with the overlap effect evoking the transparency of the service. Round edges indicate a softer, more approachable experience, based on collaboration.
Each of the four sub-area names is described using a Q&A format, representative of conversations between IT and the colleagues they help.
The adaptability of the brand comes to life when applied to the diverse AstraZeneca environments, always aiming to blend in to ensure everyone embraces the initiative.
Colourful window vinyls further reinforce the idea of transparency; wood reflects the tactile, warm, approachable feel of the AskIT brand; aluminium offers a light functional approach for the mobile solution. All designed to integrate, sitting naturally within the AstraZeneca sites, welcoming people into a familiar area.
Using the conversational and approachable qualities of the brand, we developed fresh, easy to follow guidelines for a wide range of global suppliers and AstraZeneca teams to implement an AskIT space.
We also produced an instructional video showing how quick and easy it is to set up the mobile solutions.
Collaboration is also at the core of the new brand strategy, as we worked closely with AstraZeneca’s preferred suppliers Nochintz (interior designers) and JLL (AstraZeneca’s Global Real Estate Advisory supplier). This close collaboration ensured that the design can be easily adapted to the different locations and spaces allocated.
Result
Initial concepts received a phenomenal response, and we have been entrusted with guarding the brand and advising world-renowned architects Herzog & de Meuron, who have been commissioned to build AstraZeneca’s new Cambridge site.
The new brand has already been launched in multiple AstraZeneca locations, and will continue to roll out across its sites globally.
