Founded in 2009 as a pioneer in push notifications, Airship now gives brands the user-level data, engagement channels, AI orchestration, and services they need to deliver push notifications, emails, SMS, in-app messages, mobile wallet passes, and more, to exactly the right person in exactly the right moment — building trust, boosting engagement, driving action and growing value. Following interviews with both existing and prospective customers, Airship (then called Urban Airship) determined that after ten years, their brand was no longer serving the needs of their company. Although existing customers were satisfied with the service, prospective customers didn’t view them as a market leader, and the company was burdened by a legacy reputation as a provider of push notifications for developers. To remain relevant and competitive in the engagement platform space, they needed an update.
To create the new brand, we partnered with the internal brand and marketing team. We led workshops and brand exercises to figure out and discuss how to shift the company’s brand story to reflect its promise to customers. During these workshops, we determined what the values and keywords of the new brand would be, as well as debating what visual attributes best reflected the brand. The design team worked quickly to explore multiple options and to challenge the company’s perceptions about what the brand could be.
From the start, we knew that we needed to reestablish the brand space for Airship. Our research uncovered a competitive space that was undifferentiated and confusing. We looked for opportunities to set Airship’s brand apart, choosing a bold new look to energize the team and quickly frame Airship as the market leader.
All of us were eager to see how the brand would weather the stress of applying it across multiple domains at the same time. Working closely with the client teams, we began to update the brand across the company’s website and app. As we proceeded with the updates, we quickly made needed adjustments for a seamless transition.
Our content team worked closely with Airship’s marketing team to make sure that Airship’s updated brand reflected the full breadth of the company’s services: much more than a simple notifications provider for developers. Everything from the information architecture to how we discussed and visualized the platform was carefully constructed to support the brand story.
As we continued to build out the brand, we developed a system for applying the design across the various domains.
Airship is poised to continue its position as the market leader. They now have a unified story and a unique brand to support the services that were already there.
