Evolving a successful brand

The leaders of DriveCam found themselves at a crossroads. The San Diego-based company had expanded its product portfolio through an acquisition and geographical expansion. It needed a revitalized brand to reflect the company’s present capabilities and future vision while meaningfully connecting with clients and employees.

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The need for an evolved company story, name and identity was clear. As it stood, the name DriveCam recognized only the company’s initial product offering. However, having spent five years building up the company to be number one in its space, many could argue against a name change. Because of this, the transition had to be navigated intentionally.

We were asked to develop a brand platform, identity and expression and guide the renaming of the company. And, we needed to do so in a way that would connect meaningfully with the company’s existing employees, clients, partners and investors.

“The challenge was to honor the past while creating space for future expansion.”

Julie Cunningham
Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications
Watch her testimonial video below.

Deepening our understanding

First, we needed to dive in and deepen our understanding of the company. To do so, we:

  • Conducted extensive interviews with key stakeholders including clients, partners, investors, industry influencers and employees.
  • Reviewed research and documents ranging from a 2010 Brand Declaration to the company website and various sales and marketing presentations.
  • Conducted a review of top competitors, paying careful attention to their positioning within the marketplace.

We then connected the common threads of these diverse perspectives. These collective insights would guide our next step — development of the brand platform.

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Ideation
Brand platform

Uncovering the building blocks

Through a process that is both art and science, we uncovered and developed a brand idea, voice and look-and-feel that would reflect the company’s evolution. We used our initial research to explore the core building blocks of the platform — core positioning, functional benefit, brand pillars, personality, values and brand story. Each of these elements plays an important role in expressing what drives the company, what makes it unique and what value it provides. Together, these elements shape the telling of the brand story across all media. Lytx’s promise stood at the center of our discovery — we deliver powerful insights that drive results for your company.

Name development

Capturing the core promise

Next, we turned to the name. It needed to stand the test of time, connect meaningfully with the company’s key audiences and truly capture the organization’s promise. During this phase, we looked into a broad range of possibilities to better capture the company’s distinct essence and benefit. We screened each option to ensure viability and tossed aside any initial ideas that fell short.
At its core the company is an analytics company, so we allowed this to inform our exploration. Ultimately, the name Lytx stuck — representing the company’s mission to help clients improve productivity, save costs, and — most importantly — save lives by harnessing the power of data.
We couldn’t discard the DriveCam name or overlook its importance, however. Research demonstrated a great deal of positive recognition in the DriveCam name. To preserve and grow that brand equity, we considered many possibilities. The ultimate decision was to keep DriveCam as the flagship product name and create a new company brand. To link the two brands together, the DriveCam product name became “DriveCam, powered by Lytx.”
To facilitate the name change, we developed a transitional messaging platform. It included specific messages to create context and positioning around the name transition from “DriveCam” to “DriveCam, powered by Lytx” for each of the company’s key audience segments.

“We changed our company name to Lytx because it articulates the power of what we do — we harness data to change human behavior and help good companies become even better.”

Brandon Nixon
Chief Executive Officer
Tagline development

Summarizing company value

In addition to creating the name and identity, we shaped a tagline to convey the company’s value proposition. “Delivering Insights. Driving results” sums up the company’s promise — help clients realize ROI by improving safety and efficiency, lowering operating and insurance costs, and achieving greater efficiency and compliance.

Brand expression

Bringing the brand to life

To bring the name and tagline to life, we created a distinct visual identity that drives home the company’s promise to help clients assemble and make sense of disparate pieces of data to drive positive change. The logo plays on the idea of clarity, featuring a frame that suggests focus and order, and the vibrant colors and style of photography allude to the brand promise. By including crops and details within the photography, the visual expression accentuates people behind wheel and the roads they drive. As a whole, the visual expression reinforces the company’s core purpose of making roads safer for drivers and passengers everywhere.
We also developed a messaging platform to guide consistent communication on brand, regardless of outlet. We knew it was important to consider the many audiences of the company. In addition to an overarching brand story, we crafted tailored messaging to speak to everyone who works at Lytx, everyone who uses Lytx products of services, and everyone who may eventually invest in Lytx.

Launch and transition communications plan

Navigating the transition

Given the brand equity with the existing DriveCam name and identity, careful navigation of the transition to the new brand was critical. We wanted to make sure the new identity wouldn’t alienate or confuse stakeholders. To minimize potential confusion and facilitate a smooth transition, we:

  • Intentionally designed an identity that pays subtle homage to Lytx’s old identity and positioning while demonstrating the company’s forward-thinking perspective.
  • Developed clear brand identity guidelines and gave everyone on the team the tools, training and knowledge to identify proper and improper use of the brand identity.
  • Designed a soft launch/internal sneak preview to give the Lytx team and key partners a sense of ownership in the new brand prior to its formal launch.
  • Shaped a plan to ease the transition through transitional lockups reinforcing the link between the old and new brand identity.
  • Purposefully guided Lytx to use every available channel to communicate clearly the meaning and purpose behind the new name and identity.
Touch point development

Continuing to tell the story

We developed a wide variety of materials to tell the brand story, including:

Brand video

A succinct expression of Lytx’s value, impact and rebrand story. Watch video at the top.

Website reskin and brand microsite

A new face for the refreshed brand story.

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Website

Corporate stationery and PPT templates

Materials to support the new brand

Leader ad

A print ad and animated banner ad telling the story of Lytx’s industry leadership.

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Truck wrap

To specifically reach truck drivers on the road, we designed advertising on three sides of a 52′ commercial truck. This touch point aimed to debunk narrow perceptions of the DriveCam name by emphasizing the higher promise of safety offered by Lytx.

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Brand architecture

In conjunction with the overarching brand expression, we explored a visual framework that could be applied across the full Lytx family of entities and offerings.

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Internal brand

Engaging internal teams

The company’s unique brand promise had been captured, but its successful delivery to customers required deep engagement within the company. With this in mind, we partnered with Lytx to make communication with employees an even greater priority. First, we created space to listen to employees through interviews with select employees across the organization. Insights from these conversations enabled us to communicate the purpose of the company in a way that personally linked to employees. Using these insights, we crafted intentional messages and touch points. Each aimed to generate emotional connections with employees, enable more authentic communication with customers and elevate business growth.

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Intranet mastheads

Elevating brand awareness

Targeted marketing efforts around the new brand have allowed Lytx to elevate awareness with C-suite prospects in some of the world’s largest transportation companies. The rebranding of Lytx has enabled the company to focus the market on its three key differentiators — video, predictive analytics and a cloud-based platform. Coupled with a concerted PR effort, Lytx has garnered feature stories in Forbes, USA Today, NY Times, LA Times and the Harvard Business Review since launching the new name in November 2013.

Client testimonial video
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Lytx components

  • Brand platform development
  • Visual and verbal expression
  • Name development
  • Logo development
  • Tagline development
  • Brand guidelines
  • Corporate stationery
  • Brand architecture
  • Brand video
  • Internal brand
  • Advertising

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