What was your objective for the rebrand?
Jessica English: Our over-arching goal with this rebrand was to shift perceptions of Dropbox from a place where you store your files to a place where active collaborative work happens – simply put, from the ‘file, sync, and share’ category to creative collaboration. We did a competitive analysis and recognised we were swimming in a sea of sameness among our competitors – both in the way we looked and in what we were saying.
Where do you start when embarking on this type of project?
Jessica: Any company focused on long-term growth needs to consider the importance of creating a deeper connection between your brand and your customers. This is especially important for Dropbox given the increasing competitive nature of the category in which we compete. Around January 2017 we started making more public statements about our philosophy and how work can be done better.
James Keating: It would be fair to say this is the biggest rebrand Dropbox has had in its 11-year history. There was a lot of soul-searching internally because employees feel very emotionally attached to our brand and there was a ton of work done to make sure we got that right so people buy into it internally as well.
"We did a competitive analysis and recognised we were swimming in a sea of sameness among our competitors"
The larger business risk when you are setting out to shift perceptions of who you have always been, is that you are no longer for the people you already serve. It’s really important you do this in a way that’s not excluding your core audience who already have an affinity and brand loyalty for you.
James: In EMEA the risk is that the campaign is created in isolation, with messaging and creative that doesn’t resonate. It was a really good process to go through working with the teams in San Francisco. From campaign inception, we were involved as much as we wanted to be, and we were regularly consulted, not just in terms of creative and messaging, but media plans were also aligned.
How do you balance a radical rebrand with the needs of your existing audience?
Jessica: Although we wanted to rebrand pretty wildly from a visual identity perspective, our products did not change. To find the balance is to maintain the integrity of the solutions we offer and communicate to customers that we’re not changing the way they interact with Dropbox. We’re just putting a finer point on what we stand for in customer service.
When you’ve launched a new brand, how do you keep the momentum up, internally as well as externally?
Jessica: We firmly believe that great brand work starts from the inside out. We were incredibly transparent with the company, having conversations with our internal teams to make sure they felt motivated and inspired by this new brand story. It’s really important for internal teams to have a north star, something to point to and base their strategies on, and that goes all the way from our people team to those that are making the products for our customers.
James: This campaign was launched around November when we got everyone together in Dublin for a “creative energy” day. It punctuates a lot of the stuff we do internally. Last month we celebrated women’s history month so we had a bunch of t-shirts that said ‘unleash your feminist energy’. And we regularly ask people in internal surveys whether they’re still inspired by our brand to make sure it does resonate.
"It really only works if everything feels as if it was written from the same pen"
As a tech brand, how important is it that the marketing aligns with the user experience?
Jessica: It is a Herculean effort! The way we ensured this was integrated across every customer touchpoint – whether that’s media marketing or the product interface – everything flipped at the same time so you wouldn’t see an advertisement out in the world and then get to an old-brand experience both in product and any of our information. It really only works if everything feels as if it was written from the same pen, and that’s both in the language we’re choosing and the design.
James: At Dropbox we have a team called EPD, which is a combination of engineering product and design, coupled with marketing. We worked really closely together to ensure there was a continuous flow from campaign to product experience to our customer experience team
