Dolby rebrand

in house strategist @ Dolby

Challenge

Pivot Dolby, historically a licensing and partner based B2B company, to a B2C experience forward company that for the first time, speaks directly to the consumer.

solution

As the sole strategist, I led the creation of a new brand positioning and value proposition, including work on brand architecture, brand archetypes, personality, and values. I was in charge of anything strategy and copy related for the entire process, also managing a team of 2 writers and guiding them in evolving the brand voice and tone, culminating in a new marketing style guide and writing guidelines.

Embedded with the design team, I worked closely with the designers and creative director in the evolution to our new brand logos and refreshed visual identity design system, presenting strategic rationale with the team during sell-in to senior leadership and the CMO.

As the point person for the brand guidelines refresh, I worked with design, product marketing, legal, and a production agency to revise 11 different product brand guidelines, addressing all requested changes from stakeholders and acting as the final decision maker for all edits.

process

The first step involved demonstrating to company leadership the need for a rebrand through both desktop and primary research that showed the value of a brand evolution to match new internal priorities within a company.

Once sold through, the thinking behind rebrand focused on three areas:

THE WHY: Give consumers a reason to believe and help build brand affinity by elevating the “why” of our brand (to give consumers unforgettable and transformative entertainment experiences), instead of communicating only the “what” of the company (providing audio and visual technologies).

THE MASTER BRAND: Leverage existing consumer research showing high master brand awareness by centering the new visual design system and marketing on the Dolby master brand over our sub brands (Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos etc). New logos featured “Dolby” more prominently over the technology “Vision” or “Atmos” and communications focused on piquing mass interest in having an experience “in Dolby”.

BRAND FOR ME: Be a more welcoming and relatable brand in our marketing and visual communications by inviting the consumers inside the world of Dolby, instead of just remaining a forgotten technology in the background.

Evolved brand positioning

The first step of the process involved reframing the juxtaposition of our desired value proposition (THE WHY) vs our actual product (THE WHAT) and how we offer it (THE HOW).

bROADENING THE AUDIENCE

In pivoting the brand, we needed to break apart our multiple audiences and be more specific about the desired takeaway for each of these diverse perspectives.

logo evolution

A refresh of the brand’s visual components (the most memorable and visible parts of the brand) was needed to match our new narrative. The evolution of the logo retained historic elements while updating the look and feel. One most notable change was utilizing the iconic double D in our marketing campaigns as a portal inviting people into the world of Dolby.

brand evolution reel

A video created by the team that was used to introduce the brand evolution to internal stakeholders and employees.