Brand change Signify: from single to multi-brand strategy

Signify

Don’t say Philips Lightning, say Signify – the global market leader in lighting and high-end, energy-efficient lighting products, systems and services. Signify’s mission? To turn light sources into data collection points to connect devices, places and people through light. To help users, businesses and cities to save energy and contribute to making life safer, more comfortable and liveable and to make lighting the world more sustainable.

A scope tailored to international ambitions

Changing from a single to a multi-brand strategy is complicated. One of the biggest challenges during this project was the extensive scope. For instance, the existing website had to be partly migrated to a brand new domain. All Philips Lighting product content remained on the old website, while all corporate content was given a new home with Signify’s completely new brand identity.

This meant for instance: content adaptions for around 200 websites, translations of as many as 72 websites and a complete redesign of the e-mail marketing package. The organisation also wanted to change from local to central marketing. This naturally required crystal-clear communication and training sessions on the changes for the local teams.

How do you tackle such a comprehensive project? And how do you ensure successful management and maintenance of all digital touchpoints, also when the project is finished? Together with Signify, we worked on the processes and collaborated in the daily global operation.

“Switching to central messaging was a challenge. You have to manage feedback from, in this case, 30 different markets that used to make decisions independently. Our guidelines and training sessions helped Signify to manage everything, also after the completion of the project.”

Maarten van Haperen, Managing Consultant at iO

Analysing impact and engaging stakeholders with clear content packages

To manage the project within the set deadline, we used an established approach. In the first phase, we proactively made an impact analysis and investigated the impact of the changes in IT, privacy, legal and the various touchpoints. We engaged all local and central stakeholders early to make the project a real success.

We then made it manageable for everyone involved to work towards the end results. From the local marketeer in Central America, to the central IT team. We set up a project organisation with clear roles and responsibilities in both teams. We also used clear content packages to clarify what was needed to achieve a complete and qualitative outcome. Think for example of design, IT components and content when making a web page. The delivery of the content packages was set up using agile methodologies, such as sprints and demos. This way, we ensured clarity while keeping flexibility.

Realising what you promise – from organisation to every digital touchpoint

Then, based on the plan of action, implementation began. We checked everything very carefully. Is everything we need in place? And what needs to be done to realise what we promised? In the fourth and last phase, we gave the project to Signify using, among other things, new guidelines and training sessions, including clear role descriptions for the central team and the national organisations. This allows Signify to manage and maintain all digital touchpoints, also after the completion of the project.

Foundation for future projects

Thanks to this structured approach, we met the tight deadline. All websites were live, on time and on scope. Thanks to the introduction of the content packages and associated agreed parameters, we ensured peace of mind in the project. The process we introduced therefore forms the foundation for current and future brand extensions, rebranding or migration projects at Signify.