RingCentral | SMB
A creative process revamp to design more impactful work across the customer journey.
Creative Strategy
Brand Design
Creative Direction
Team Management
Challenge
RingCentral's marketing department underwent several organizational changes in late 2021. As a result, the new team was eager to examine, challenge, and update the current workflow between the Small-Medium Business (SMB) and Creative team to improve the creative process, output, and results. Therefore, with a customer-centric lens, we conducted several cross-department workshops to identify areas of opportunity that would help our existing challenges.
Process
The opportunity to build out this new process came during the buildout of a new evergreen campaign, one of SMB's big bets for the year. First, we aligned on the strategies, systems, and workflows to address the existing operational challenges. Then we applied them to the conception, production, and delivery of our creative executions. Next, working cross-functionally, we optimized our outputs to ensure we delivered our USPs at the right time and place across the customer journey. Throughout the process, we even 'stickerized' any reoccurring mantras to ensure the team stayed the course.
Anthem Video
Based on research conducted by marketing and product, the cross-functional team determined the need for an anthem video to introduce our product offering and highlight RingCentral's ability to help small businesses grow. Beyond striking the right balance between feature-benefit and customer-focused storytelling, we had to be mindful of the global brand campaign already in-market, showcase our top SMB USPs to tell the story, and ensure that the video aligned with our brand refresh.
Full Video
30-sec cutdown
“
The proof is in the pipeline. We trusted the process and maintained a highly collaborative environment, and the payoff was clear.
~ Sander Zaydman
Senior Director Marketing, RingCentral
Digital Ad Expressions
We utilized our updated operational processes, a new modular digital ad system, and an Agile production schedule to rapidly deploy our USP-specific paid media campaigns. Thanks to this cost-saving process we developed, we could rapidly A/B test illustration vs. lifestyle vs. global brand imagery and optimize ad expressions for copy and image.
Digital Ads by USP
We created custom animated illustrations for each USP through a combination of our external illustration partner and in-house design team. In addition, we ran tests against the static, 7-sec, and 15-sec display ad sets for each core USP.
Customer Testimonials
Working with our marketing, sales, and product partners, we developed a three-tier system for producing customer testimonial videos and supporting materials based on time, cost, and USP importance.
Content Marketing
Ebooks and other thought-leadership content are critical to a UCaaS business's sales cycle. Based on our learnings, we leveraged the brand illustrations throughout the designs. My team developed a templated system that visually distinguished the look, layout, and content type based on the target audience, allowing the content to be integrated into relevant campaigns more quickly.
Outcome
The mantra "trust the process" served us well. It took some ramp-up time to get the entire cross-functional partners on the same page, but the result was clear and quantifiable; fewer meetings, more effective creative produced faster, and higher morale across the team. Ultimately, these processes, workflows, and systems we created were recognized by leadership and implemented in other divisions of the brand marketing team.
Role
I served as SMB's creative lead, managing a team of 5 creatives. I worked closely with the Director of Marketing for SMB and my creative producer counterpart to plan quarterly outputs, scope projects, approve budgets and timetables, kickoff campaigns, review design & messaging, and clear any roadblocks for my team en route to final delivery for launch.
Team
In-house design and motion team, copywriters, in-house engineers, contract digital production partner, creative project manager, marketing and product marketing leads.
Tools
Adobe Creative Suite, Figma, Google Drive, Wrike