We are Okta's EMEA marketing communications agency. Our scope of work encompasses a close strategic and creative partnership focused primarily around Demand Generation, Sales Enablement & events. This partnership has yielded significant business outcomes to date, alongside two gold B2B Marketing Awards for our campaigns; including writing the gold submission for Isabelle Duarte, SVP/CMO to be awarded Marketer of the Year. Our partnership with Okta's EMEA team is the blueprint for how we work most successfully with clients.
Like many B2B tech brands Okta have brand design guidelines, but no discernible distinctive assets to work as a mental shortcut and grow brand awareness. Circles were a design motif, that we evolved into an idea – "Circles of Trust'. With no separate brand budget, we represented those verified by Okta as isometric characters standing inside a blue, metaphorical circle of trust. This visual device worked across the smallest media spaces from email signatures to ebooks, with hundreds of variations, but all using the same distinctive blue circle. Repeated use of this distinctive asset across all Demand Generation campaigns grew brand awareness significantly without the need for a separate brand budget.
It was a low cost, high impact creative approach that understood how human brains need multiple exposures to distinctive assets (visual in this case), across multiple media channels to grow brand awareness. From email campaigns to ebooks to virtual events. From static media to animated formats, 'Circles of trust' is a great example of building a relevant brand idea in the most economical way.
The theme of trust was then incorporated into Okta's flagship Forum identity event for IT and security leaders across Europe. Celebrating the opportunity to renew connections and meet face-to-face once more, we created the event theme 'Building Trust Together'.
We worked closely with Okta to devise a range of speaker tracks for the event, covering diverse trends in identity security.
A suite of assets with distinct branding supported the event, from free-standing flag banners to digital social media ads.
An on-site briefing centre for C-suite executives allowed Okta to reach out to their most valuable customers in a private space for one-to-one discussions and demos.
We invited attendees to discuss the one identity security challenge they’d like to cast away in a Room 101-style podcast. From this, Okta gained a rich source of customer insights and content for future campaigns.
After Forum had finished, Okta wanted to hold a dedicated evening event for its UK & Ireland User Group. We created
The Okta Speakeasy bar, serving 1920s themed food and cocktails in a space decorated with Prohibition themed visuals.
Forum Europe is also an opportunity for Okta to reach out to its extensive partner network. We designed and facilitated
Partner Summit 22, which took place the following day with a capacity attendance of 145 partners from across Europe.
Characters are one of the most effective distinctive assets a brand can use.
Knowing who is who sits at the heart of Identity. So who better to deliver this literal message in a lateral way, than The Invisible Man? Delivered via a video mailer across EMEA and then re-worked for content syndication, The Invisible Man is a great example of how the right character can elevate the meaning of the message you are trying to deliver to your audience.
Characters can work as brand advocates, or in this case, as a brand adversary. The Nightmare Customer was created as a brand adversary for Okta's Customer Identity offering. Through an interactive video at virtual events, she then guided Okta prospects to the most relevant content for them, ensuring the experience was both memorable and meaningful for all buyer personas regardless of where they were on the buyer journey or their specific job role. Below are three of the many sections created, all helping to land the idea that Okta can help you please even the Nightmare Customer.
Characters can also personify the audience. IT Ninjas + Okta was an EMEA-wide series of pain point/solution animations created to demonstrate the value of Okta's CIAM platform. Visualising IT challenges as Ninja Warrior style challenges allowed us to flatter the IT audience we were talking to while showing how Okta could automate many of the manual tasks they were challenged with. Serious messages, delivered in a fun, memorable way.
'The world's most valuable commodity' was a top of funnel content film created for Okta's 'Building Digital Trust' campaign. It's modular narrative structure allowed it to be used as a longer length brand piece or cut down to focus more on driving downloads of the core report.
'Flowbotics' was a campaign idea for Okta APAC. To demonstrate how Okta's security technology can make customer experience an enjoyable flowing experience, we brought to life a series of fearsome robotic security guards, busting some flowing moves to capture attention and land Okta's key Customer Identity messages in social feeds.