The Secret (And Framework) to a Successful Rebranding: Using Stay22 as a Case Study
A short story on how we successfully executed the rebranding of our travel tech startup: from our simple framework to the positive impact this project had on our team and company.
I was hired at Stay22 to organize and level up the skill set of the existing marketing team. In “startup language”, that meant sitting the right people in the right seat and getting sh** done. By bringing with me the do’s and don’t of my previous startup experience, I was “technically” capable of transferring and applying this knowledge to my team, my fellow colleagues and our exec team.
Over the course of my (short) stint at Stay, I was lucky to be able to tackle a handful of projects, and the most significant of it all was surely our company rebranding. Done entirely in-house and using very little resources — we spent less than a thousand dollars — this allowed us to gain more credibility from stakeholders, including investors, and increase user engagement. It also strengthened the bond between our team members and served as the foundation for the many current and ongoing projects of the marketing, sales and product teams.
So here’s the success story of the Stay22 rebranding and the framework I used to achieve it.
State of affairs (or stating to obvious)
I joined Stay22 because of its amazing team and product, not because of the colours of its logo or what the website looked like. In fact, I would have probably not joined the company if I only limited my research to these external factors.
Like many startups, the Stay22 logo had been created by one of the co-founders who was a genius dev, but not exactly a graphic designer. It was the same co-founder who came up with the name ‘Stay22’. He had chosen it because Stay.com domain was already taken and also because he was 22 when he started the company. Makes sense, right?
It took me very little time to realize Stay22’s brand (and company) image could be improved and even less time to decide I was going to make this rebranding project one of my first wins. It was clear to me that a company with such potential — great product, smart team, loyal and engaged user and partner base and 400% YoY growth — could be even more successful with a propelling brand image.
Plus, since I had led the rebranding efforts at Busbud, I knew I was fully capable of leading the ones at Stay22, even though resources were scarce, to say the least. This resource scarcity was definitely an add-on challenge to the already challenging rebranding project. It’s easy to create something when you have access to resources, but to create something out of nothing is, to me, the real definition of creating values — and that’s what I was hired to do.
Identifying allies — What resources do you have?
Prior to getting started on this rebranding project, I made sure to have the proper pieces in place and identified resources.
Being a seed-stage startup, Stay22 had no money to pay for a creative agency, but thankfully we had two designers in-house who could help me with this project: Ed, a self-taught graphic designer being at the mercy of our sales team, and Lulu, a graphic/product designer, who had just enrolled into a coding boot camp. I was going to roll with Ed, subtly “poaching” him back into my team.
Ed had started at Stay22 two years before me. He was one of those fake-it-until-you-make-it types of guys. He had taught himself graphic design using Sketch and was obsessed with UX, UI, and experience design. Over the course of my first few weeks at Stay, I had not only noticed his talents but how detail-oriented, driven and passionate he was — a great recipe for success.
Ed was the very first one I presented my vision of the Stay22 rebranding to. Of course, he was thrilled when I asked him to be the key stakeholder in this project. A lot of what you’ll see in this post is the fruit of his dedicated efforts and hard work — along with his collaboration with Lulu who pushed him to be a better and more accomplished designer.
Our (not-so) secret framework to rebranding — or how we successfully achieved it
Revisiting our brand essentials — where to get started
I kicked off Ed and I first meeting with an excel sheet that somewhat looked like a grocery list: logo, colours, calligraphy, photography, illustrations, icons, etc. I considered these items like our “brand essentials” and each of these either needed to be reviewed or redesigned from scratch.
For each one of these tasks, Ed and I set ourselves tight deadlines. I wanted to make sure we could roll this new branding in less than a month, just in time for our CEO’s roadshow.
At the end of this first meeting, we agreed we’d be presenting the revamped “brand essentials” to the Stay22 co-founders and exec team in the next 2 weeks. I also insisted on the following: 1) Lulu would have to agree with all design choices and elements and 2) both, Ed and Lulu would be running the show and present to our exec team. They’d also have to be able to justify each of their choices.
By having both of our designers agree on the style and new design elements, not only was I making sure we’d have stronger “design” arguments — avoiding subjective preferences or personal taste — but I’d also make sure that these two could later better collaborate together.
Here is where it started of:
And here’s what it came down to:
I had also asked Ed to include in his pitch few mockups and examples of tangible assets such as business cards, newsletters templates, decks and email signatures. This was going to give our exec team something concrete to grasp onto — see the branding outside of a screen, and in action.
The assets above are what Ed and Lulu presented to the Stay22 co-founders and exec team. Everyone agreed that both their work and presentation were excellent. This meant we could move forward — Victory!
Creating a voice guide — how the brand (and company) speaks to its stakeholders
Parallel to Stay22 rebranding, I was working with our Partner Success Manager to review the Stay22 personas, key audiences, and stakeholders as well as the customer journey. This would allow us to redefine the tone and voice we’d be using internally and externally.
From there, I worked with a content specialist to create the Stay22 Voice Guide, which included a series of guidelines for Stay22 voice and tone as well as a lexicon.
We were then able to redefine the Stay22 tagline, its value proposition and the “story” behind Stay22 — the name and company. All of it can be found in the Stay22 brand guidelines.
What comes after?
Aligning sales, marketing, and product — the art of coordinating efforts
Once our brand guidelines were created, we were able to move forward with the content strategy, the refactoring of our sales assets, and most urgently, the redesign of our website and some of our product components.
We soft-launched the new branding at the end of September 2019 and the Stay22 website was fully redesigned by the end of October. It took Ed less than a month — and a few late nights at the office supported by Lulu and some of dev team members — to review the UX, redesign all the components, learn to code and launch the Stay22 new website. The big reveal was right on time for WebSummit in Lisbon where we pitched Stay22.
On her side, Lulu was coordinating the product team efforts, making sure all product components would follow our new guidelines, including the new upcoming features of our partner dashboard.
Measuring success — the 100$ question
Measuring the success of rebranding efforts is not an easy feat, as most of it is qualitative.
When we started to roll out our new rebranding, Andrew, the Stay22 CEO, received immediate feedback from investors and community members. It was positive across the board — thankfully! The Stay22 newsletter template was even referenced as a “model follow”.
As we progressively rolled out the new website and some of the rebranded product components, our team then was able to quantitatively measure the variance in clicks, conversions, and engagement.
Less than 3 months after launching the new website, the number of clicks increased by 15% MoM, the bounce rate was down 12%, while the number of “demos” booked through the site was doubling every month. To us, this increase in engagement and these new leads were tangible data to rely on and validate that our rebranding efforts had a positive impact on the business.
Using rebranding to leverage trust and engagement
Looking back, there was much more to this rebranding than the redesign of a logo, the usage of new colours or the creation of brand guidelines : there was also the desire to level up my team’s skills and expertise, to see them successfully achieve a project, and reach their full potential.
There was also the hype, excitement, and pride of the entire Stay22 team as we presented the new branding. All of us felt like the company was stepping up, and we all played a part.
On a professional level, Stay22 rebranding was a win-win-win as it allowed our startup, my team and myself to gain and earn trust from our many stakeholders.
For some, Stay22 rebranding is a quick win or a flipping page into the company’s history. For Ed, Lulu and I, it’s a legacy we’ll proudly leave behind, an unforgettable experience we’ll carry over to our future endeavours.
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This rebranding project and article would have never been possible without the tremendous efforts and talent of both Eduardo Orellana and Lulu JY Xing. This post is dedicated to you and the many others you will inspire. Many thanks also to Roxanne Bernard and Alexandra Kahr — your support, guidance and expertise in communications gave Stay22 a brand new voice.
