THE CHALLENGE:

Illuminet had undertaken an extensive overhaul of their brand, including a new, more contemporary logo and a top to bottom revision of its entire line of collateral materials. To make the shift in brand effective, employees would have to quickly abandon the use of all materials with the old logo, which was still very popular with employees.

To further complicate matters, the rollout of the new logo would have to be conducted in two time zones some 1,500 miles apart simultaneously. Following this rollout, a secondary communication plan had to be put in place to ensure that the old logo was no longer used and that the new logo was properly used in terms of color, placement and other graphic standards.

THE SOLUTION:

We always like to joke that we're always ahead of our time. Such was the case in initially trying to convince Illuminet that Men In Black would be a great theme for their logo launch. After all, the movie was a few years old and who would remember it? That was part of the strategy, though – play off a theme that was readily identifiable but could be made fresh as a parody. And then we come to find out that MIB 2 was due out in 2002. So we were either ahead or behind the times, depending upon how you look at it.

We started off with a teaser campaign with the simple theme: "It's Coming!" This included e-mail teasers, posters (shown here) and supporting collateral.

It was designed to create interest while maintaining a certain level of mystery. Employees wouldn't know until the last moment that an employee meeting was scheduled at both facilities simultaneously.

For the Men In Black theme, we hired some local talent to act as the MIB agents in Olympia and Overland Park.

As the meeting progressed, a video feed from the parking lot interrupted the live feed on the video screen. A black vehicle approached the entrance. Then, at both locations, agents stormed the meeting and made their way to the podium.

The agents then went through a script, interacting with the CEO in Overland Park and the President in Olympia about their mission. At the end, they unlocked brief cases at both locations. Inside were detonators.

When pressed the detonators activated a scrambled video feed on the screen. Interference was followed by the sound of tuning in a signal. The old logo flickered in and out. Then slowly the new logo appeared on screen (see the video).

The agents then departed the meeting with the Men In Black theme song, rewritten for the logo debut, playing in the background. Employees were then handed temporary tattoos, a logo style guide and other educational materials.

A secondary campaign kicked in to reinforce the new usage standards. For this we created a tongue in cheek series of posters that poked fun of 80s fashion while showing the proper use of the logo. The theme of the campaign was "Got Style? Get it at Brand Central on Illuminet's Intranet."

THE RESULT

The campaign was a rousing success and dramatically reduced the transition timeframe from the old logo to the new logo throughout the company. Staff had a lot of fun with the tattoos and educational materials on the Intranet. The use of the whacky sense of the 80s fashions in the follow up campaign was effective as the target audience could laugh at the clothes they used to wear in that memorable era of Miami Vice suits and Pretty in Pink sensibilities.