After our successful brand standards workshops for financial services giant ING’s internal designers and writers, we converted the Brand Lab into interactive online training that insures communicators will always be on-brand.

Situation

Even with a robust and carefully defined brand standards, the communicators within the business groups of ING US Financial Services were not consistently communicating their brand. To help internal communicators better understand and express their brand, ING asked us to design and conduct full day live Brand Labs to teach ING writers, designers and compliance officers how to be more “on brand.” With the award- winning success of the live Brand Labs, ING asked us to convert the Brand Lab curriculum into an interactive self-guided tutorial for ING’s online Learning Centre.

Solution

Our challenge was to translate the vibrant workshop discussions and exercises from the live Brand Lab into a parallel online interactive experience. By interacting with on-screen instructions and simulations of the creative work process, communicators had multiple opportunities to practice using the elements of the brand.

The online ING Brand Lab was divided into five tracks targeted to different functional audiences within ING and its marketing partners who are responsible for creating, evaluating and producing marketing communications: General employees, executives, advertising & marketing professionals; writers; and designers — to accommodate their level of familiarity, time and knowledge. To replace the live facilitated experience, the online version uses an audio narration

The online version of the Brand Lab incorporates and adapts all of the content from the live workshops and adds other lessons: Basics of branding, ING brand strategy, ING brand platform including brand voice, brand personality and brand promise, separate sections for writers and designers, a Brand IQ test, and keeps the video interviews with famous writers and designers.