BRAND GUIDELINES AND SYSTEMS
Building Brand with Purpose
When I started at ServiceNow in 2017, the company had a logo and a color palette, but no real brand strategy or identity to guide us.
The following year, John Donahoe joined as CEO and brought with him Alan Marks, a master brand-builder and an all-around amazing guy. I had the privilege of observing as our leadership worked with AKQA to establish a new brand identity and purpose. They uncovered that our mission was to make the world work better for everyone. From there, my team and I got to work to extend this vision across the global organization.
Today, as a creative director, my job is to deliver high-impact strategies that bring our purpose to life in a consistent and scalable way. My team embodies our brand by developing creative experiences and brand systems that resonate across all channels.
Here are a few of my favorite projects. Enjoy!
Brand Video Guidelines
In 2018, ServiceNow underwent a major rebranding to emphasize a people-focused purpose. As the lead of the video and motion team, my role was to extend this refreshed identity into our video content by developing comprehensive brand video guidelines.
Opportunity
Our goal was to shift from a technical focus to human-centered storytelling. Our research revealed a lack of cohesion across video content produced by marketing, sales, and communications teams, with a wide range of styles and inconsistent messaging. We worked closely with our business partners to understand their needs and build a scalable framework that could be utilized by creators of varying skill levels.
Impact
The introduction of the brand video guidelines transformed ServiceNow’s approach to video content creation. By providing a clear, cohesive framework, we empowered internal teams and external agencies to produce videos that consistently reflected our brand’s purpose and identity. The guidelines unified the visual and narrative style of our videos, enhancing the overall brand experience and making our storytelling more human, impactful, and engaging, while strengthening the connection between ServiceNow and its audience.
As of 2024, I’m continuing to update and evolve our Brand Video and Film Guidelines. The latest update focuses on AI tools and enhancing our production workflow.
Results
Global consistency within six months of launch
Team
My role - Creative director, co-writer
Writer - Brian Ahern
Layout Designer - Annie Wei-Hsin Lo
Editor - Ryan Thompson
Program Manager - Daniel Koga
Broadcast Experience & Brand System
From the time the shutdown occurred, Knowledge, our biggest annual event, was scheduled to start in less than two months. We quickly pivoted from a live event to a virtual broadcast. Our team pulled together to create a solution for Knowledge that would exceed expectations, achieving over 1 million minutes viewed. With Knowledge successfully behind us, we scaled our broadcast solution to unify all our events into one high-impact brand experience, including our annual Sales Kickoff, Employee Kickoff, Fall events, and product releases.
With rapid training, the toolkit enabled global agencies and internal partners to develop consistent localized keynote and session experiences.
Sonic Identity
Since we were going from a live event to a broadcast, we needed to strive for a high-energy visual and audio experience. We partnered with Sister Music to create the sonic identity for ServiceNow. We wanted to create something unexpected and inspiring to help us stand apart from our competitors. The multi-layered track and its components are used at tier-one events, campaigns, and videos.
Results
High-quality and consistent brand experiences across virtual events
Team
My role - Creative Director
Event Creative Director - John Ueland
Program Manager - Gordana Skjerven
Art Director - Jonathan Pharr
Animation - Annie Liao & Angela Yu
Music Agency - Sister
Virtual Go Live Celebration and Guidelines
The Go Live cake is a celebration highlighting the partnership and hard work that goes into a successful customer installation of the ServiceNow Platform.
To make this milestone memorable during the pandemic and beyond, we created a virtual Go Live experience. This reusable video scales globally in place of the traditional Go Live in-person celebrations. The system can be customized with the customer's brand colors, photos, and localized text.
The Go Live Cake experience has a broad audience - including customers, partners, and ServiceNow employees. It is shared internally by both the customer and within ServiceNow, as well as on social media channels.
Results
Global Celebrations continued into the pandemic
Team
My role - Creative Director
Art Direction - Jonathan Pharr
Animation - Abby Chang
Program Manager - Daniel Koga
Demo System and Guidelines
Screenshare demos are great for our users, but buyers of our product benefit from a higher-level demo that communicates the broader impact and outcomes that our solutions bring.
To make demos that communicate and connect emotionally to our C-Suite audience, the buyers, our goal was to create a product demo system that delivers consistent visuals and messaging with an authentic storytelling approach unique to ServiceNow. Every demo experience must lead with people at the center of everything we do.
We conducted an internal audit of our tier-one channels, including; keynotes/broadcasts, product demos, .com, and corporate communications. We found dry demos, campy stories, and flat humor created by siloed internal teams and agencies. The status quo for many of our peers is standard screen share demos and poor delivery. We interviewed internal business partners and consolidated feedback.
We created an innovative, modular, scalable demo system unique to ServiceNow. We showcase technology in service to people and bring to life how behind every great experience is a great workflow—increasing the perception of ServiceNow as a strategic business partner and platform company.
Results
Tier one demos for
C-suite audience that delivered high brand impact
Team
My role - Creative Director
Program manager - Gordana Skjerven
Art Direction - Jonathan Pharr
Animation - Annie Liao & Angela Yu
Senior Design Manager - Suruchi Deodhar
Design - Omran Isso
Video - Camron Farboud
