Unknown Speaker  0:00  
You don't have to love everything. In fact, I don't want you to love everything because I think criticism is a completely valuable part of making culture society better. I'm a great advocate of being critical about stuff. And in the past, people have told me on to critical and social media about things. But I think within that criticism has to come the caveat that you have to have the ability to be able to have your mind changed about something and then when you have that your mind changed about it, and own up about it and kind of like the person in the middle about it.

Blake Howard  0:37  
Everyone, Welcome to a change of brands show featuring behind the scenes stories of rebrand glory, drama, or disaster. I'm your host, Blake Howard. Today, we're getting the inside look into the 2020 rebrand of Fiverr a two way marketplace, kind of like TaskRabbit. But for freelance services. Here's a Fiverr commercial from 2020 to help you better understand what they do.

Unknown Speaker  1:03  
This entrepreneur brand logo was done by a top Freelancer on Fiverr is simply Wow. Those stylized brand guidelines that your designers can easily follow also know this guy's website with this lavish content. Although it took four revision rounds to get the results he imagined it's nothing less than a work of freelance brilliance. This designers new fashion line became the hottest thing on every Okay, that was a bit much on many fashion blogs thanks to fiverr.com freelancers, who managed and tracked her Instagram feed. And last but under no circumstances least this go get her had her amazing all new e commerce site built. And while Words cannot describe it, numbers can that that feeling of success and taking a brand forward one step at a time makes you speechless. For every step your business takes fiber, freelance services on demand.

Blake Howard  2:00  
Did you catch that? Their services include writing digital marketing, voiceover music and graphic design, which is what makes this story particularly interesting. In fact, when top notch design firm codo, who led the redesign posted their work on their own Instagram feed? Here are some of the comments disappointed that any agency would be willing to work with them with what they're doing to this industry. Trust Fiverr designers as much as Fiverr does. This is really nice. I can't believe they only paid you $5 For this whole project. Too bad Fiverr is not actually about promoting quality freelancers, but taking advantage of millions of desperate people instead. This could not be more ironic. And last but not least, what the eff Okay, some fair and some not so fair comments, but you get the point. Instead of using its own platform of which logo design is one of the top services listed. It hired kowtow, and you might remember them from season one when we discussed the Airbnb rebrand with Joey Roden. Many took offense to the fact that a marketplace that cheapens the value of graphic design would in turn hire a high end global firm to do the gig for them. It seemed hypocritical. Like one more Instagram commenter said, I'd love to be a fly on the wall in your studio Koto when you had the call to do this. Well, my friend today is your chance. For more context in history on Fiverr and what led up to the change of brand let's go to brand strategist Tracy Clark for our briefing.

Unknown Speaker  3:54  
Uber, DoorDash, Instacart, Airbnb. These are the big names that have all been normalized today's gig economy. But a decade ago when Fiverr was born, being a free agent felt a little riskier, and finding work was a lot more complicated. In February 2010, mica Coffman and Shai Winninger launched the fiber website from their HQ in Tel Aviv. The brand was born from a shared belief that there's more to life than the nine to five shuffle, and that there's got to be another maybe better way for people to earn an income. It's been said that for the right price, people will do almost anything, and fivers case that price was $5. In the platform's early days, businesses and individuals could find creatives to do almost anything for a five spot logo design, translation, voiceover work, consulting, pretty much anything that can be made and sold in the digital space. These gigs as Fiverr branded them were talent democratization of sorts, if you could do something and do it well. You could advertise yourself On the platform and get paid for your talents straightaway, Kaufman and winners bet paid off. Within just two years, the fiber platform amassed about 3 million registered freelancers, who generated more than 1.3 million transactions. It didn't hurt that Fiverr had also secured several rounds of funding from angel investors raking in a total of $20 million in 2012. As the company took off, it lifted the $5 flat fee so creatives could charge higher rates and move beyond quick tasks to make more expansive offerings. In 2017, Fiverr acquired video creation marketplace, VT me and the following year it purchase and CO and invoicing software company by 2019 fiber Star had ascended to IPO status. On its opening day fiber shares closed at 90% higher than the opening price. High fives

Unknown Speaker  5:53  
all around for fiver the Israeli startup is soaring on its US market debut shares were up more than 80% they opened $26 Each on the New York Stock Exchange any 4% jump above the IPO price. Fiverr is an online marketplace that connects companies with freelancers.

Unknown Speaker  6:11  
But as is tradition with any meteoric rise, there's always a dash of intrigue, complexity and controversy. First up were the accusations that Fiverr was taking the free in Freelancer a bit too literally with its rock bottom pricing approach to sourcing creative talent. Though the company had long abandoned it's only $5 model. The argument remained that fibers enormous platform undercuts the freelance community as a whole. Then there's Fiverr strange foray into the land of YouTubers. In 2017 Fiverr was entangled in a scandal with former YouTube mega star PewDiePie who used to unwitting Fiverr freelancers in India to create an anti semitic video. Though the platform eventually reinstated the Freelancers account. The headlines didn't help quell arguments of the platform harboring amateurs masquerading as pros. Finally, and the reason we're all here, fivers 2020 rebrand, the company hired design firm kowtow to refresh its look for decidedly more than $5 that decision to hire a professional design firm instead of the very people it promotes is a curious twist in fibers change a brand.

Blake Howard  7:26  
The previous fiber identity had been around since 2009. It was a fairly simple slab serif wordmark, which you don't really see much of anymore. A slab is where the typeface has the little squared and blocky feet much like a saref but blockier. In fun fact one of the cofounders designed the logo themselves. The word Mark sometimes sat inside a circle and sometimes stood alone with a little foi ligature within the name. Previously, Green was used as a primary brand color, but in my research, it was kind of hard to tell if it was bright Ghostbusters slime green or more of a soft minty green. But all in all, it was pretty basic. The new identity that Cotto created was much more energetic and modern, elevating the overall feel of the brand. It overhauled the usual suspects type color imagery, graphic elements and the overall brand voice for fiber. They kept the green at the core but introduced a bit more of a dark neutral green that really grounds the brighter green and secondary colors throughout. They evolved the word mark with a nice sans serif typeface which is really clean but has a little bit of spunk. The rest of the design system feels editorial, but modern and I really loved the portrait style photography of actual freelancers for hire on fiber. Be sure to see the change of brand for yourself the before and after at a change of brand.com. Just click on this episode and scroll down to see the breakdown. To get the inside scoop. I spoke with James Greenfield, one of the founders of Koto. He's based in London and back in 2019 Fiverr was doing a big marketing push to advertise all over the city. So he was intrigued one day when they reached out,

Unknown Speaker  9:04  
and so an email dropped in our inbox. It was the back end of 2019 I was super intrigued. Here's a company that's you know, definitely polarizes opinions of people. And at that time, had gone through a lot of change recently, I think you know, I live in a city in London, which is massively exposed to fivers marketing. And so I, I had seen them on the streets a lot. They were posting all over the place. So yeah, we got this email. It came in from a guy called Duncan who would go on to be our eventual client. And it was just super intriguing. And so as soon as it dropped, I got straight back to him and said, Yeah, I'd love to meet I'd love to know more about what you're trying to plan.

Blake Howard  9:35  
Did you or anyone on the curto team have concerns about taking on a project like this, given the nature of what fiber does?

Unknown Speaker  9:43  
Yeah, I think it'd be a lot. I didn't say that we didn't have a discussion about it. I'm always interested in like, why people perceive things to be controversial or not, you know, where's controversy lie. There's kind of the universal controversy which lies in maybe tobacco or things which are kind of seen to be harmful of society or the Maybe brands or products, which seem to be kind of culturally harmful to kind of society or people as a whole. But here's a brand that kind of, you know, lives in an interesting space. And so we had a discussion about it, I think we're pretty open and democratic as a company. And so what we do is if something comes in, we'll always discuss it, you know, we're heavy users of Slack. So every new business inquiry, we get goes into Slack, a large amount of the company will then discuss those discuss kind of like pros and cons, if it is something where we think there's like, lots of potential, but people are, you know, maybe not sure, whatever it will then go to the, to the whole full time team. And we'll have an open discussion. And, you know, some of those things recently have been maybe certain social networks or have been, you know, things which are seen to be maybe problematic in terms of device time, and stuff like that, you know, these are the things which obviously, you know, Tech has gone through this change where it was, you know, dare I say, back when we founded the company, pretty much universally seen as a positive, disrupting change something that was bringing new things to our life. Whereas, you know, seven years on, we're having very different discussions about it, and the role of that, and the impact that it has on families, economies, etc. So yet, we discussed this, and we got ourselves to a place where we decided that collectively, we were interested in it, and we should go and have a conversation about them, but we walked into it eyes open, you know, in other cases, we've seen to do projects with people or thought or controversial, which I've been really blindsided by and have been very surprised by I think, a good example of that is that we got a reasonable amount of criticism for working with Coca Cola on their fan to rebrand which was back in 2015, just when we started the company. And for me, I always kind of caught slightly off guard by that, whereas in the case of Fiverr, I knew that there would be some sections of particular design community who wouldn't be happy with us doing.

Blake Howard  11:43  
So Cotto has had some discussion about this opportunity. And ultimately, they felt like of all the organizations out there considered to be harmful to society. Fiber wasn't really one of them. And they decided to pursue the opportunity. The first, they still had to win it.

Unknown Speaker  11:59  
So yeah, super interesting, because, you know, there's no predefined way of working with it, you know, some companies we work with have a very kind of traditional RFP process, which will be you know, quite a lot of form filling quite a lot of jumping through hoops, let's say, in the case of Fiverr, it was very chemistry based. So had some initial chats with Duncan and the dev and Zack, who were the three client leads there, Duncan's British, and has a background in agency world. And the Dev had lived in London. So we had some shared experiences off the bat already, where we could talk about, you know, design in an informed way. At the beginning, we knew that they were talking to a number of different agencies. And so you know, that, you know, you're one of many. And so in that kind of situation, there, we were, presenting our credentials, presenting our thoughts presenting why we felt that we were the right fit for this project. And you know, that there's some other great agencies out there. And so you're kind of in that slightly nervous situation where you're kind of having these meetings, they feel Gray, you never feel like the chemistry is good, but maybe they're having just as good chemistry with someone else. You know, as much as Kate has had loads of successes. And we're really happy with a lot of the projects we put out. We've also had those projects that got away from us, or, you know, the chemistry was great, and it didn't lead anywhere. Having had those initial chats, we then met some of the other leadership at Fiverr, particularly the CEO, Mika, and the CMO Gali. And it was good, strong conversations where, you know, we work with quite a few Israeli startups, and they have a really clear communication style, which is this is what we want, this is why we want it and this is how we want this to go. And so you're left completely and no doubt about what they're looking for, which I personally quite like because you know where you're at with these things. And so we had some really good conversations yet again, I thought that the chemistry felt good. We put together a proposal. And that was a kind of a more of a classic one that included process included costs included some thoughts about, you know, what we thought the brand might need? And that always seemed to resonate pretty well.

Blake Howard  13:51  
I'm curious why they decided to open up kind of a process to find a really top notch design agency like Cotto to help them instead of using their own product. I think this could be at the core of some of the controversy around the rebrand. And with Fiverr in general, did you have any conversations about that or any perspective around why they didn't use their own product?

Unknown Speaker  14:14  
Yeah, no, I think it's a really, it's a really good question. I think Fiverr is doing something which is incredibly, incredibly hard. And is there's hardly any examples of it in the world right now, which is moving a brand that market. And that's like, you know, there's so few examples where people have managed to do it. And there's lots of examples where, you know, you take someone like Toyota, they tried to move their brand up market and in the end, they made Lexus because it was the only way to like, get themselves into a new price category to do something new. And in five years case, you know, it's got its name, it's got a piece of DNA. It used to be you do stuff for five bucks, and reputation Lee that hangs around that's like, you know, that's something that people will remember. But look at Fiverr today, it's an on demand freelance platform. It's very different from the company that started and you could say the same about, you know, even a company like Airbnb maybe started to be a little bit more kind of like Airbitz on people's floors or, you know, kind of like was a bit more price driven. And now you can rent like a $10,000, beautiful home for the evening or the weekend or whatever. And so, you know, as similarly being on a similar journey, what they knew well enough was that their history in recent times of brand building had been a series of marketing efforts. So, you know, marketing campaigns in New York marketing campaigns in London. And what was great was that was building awareness. And people knew who Fiverr was, and we're starting to understand where they fit into it. And, you know, particularly on the buyer side, you know, they like all good marketplaces, you have to have that really good equality between seller and buyer, you know, you don't have one, now, there's not going to come and vice versa. And so you have to keep both sides of your marketplace completely in line. But I think what they were self aware enough to realize was that, if they did do that, and go down that route of kind of pulling people from their own kind of user base, those people, we're probably going to continue to make them another marketing campaign or another marketing effort. Another thing that's another brick in the wall, and what Fiverr needed to do was to say, actually stop, what we got, what are we taking forward? What stays here in our past? And how do we do that. And I think the only way you're going to do that is to get some really good brand consultants to be able to take you through that journey, because it's complex. And you know, there's a lot of pieces involved. And, you know, historically, this is a company that's got some people that have worked there a long time, it's got some people that are quite new, it's got some people that see it one way, it's got a diverse audience base. Yes, lots of people talking about being global, here's a company that's actually truly global, you know, its sellers are all over the world. And so therefore, within that, we had to make something that really knew that global Ness was at the middle of a deal. And those people just aren't on Fiverr yet. Now, I think they might be in the future. And I think there's there is a destination where you can imagine people being able to do that. But at the moment, it's much more task based stuff, it's much more, you know, I want some help with my SEO, I want someone to write me a great script, I want somebody to sort out my social media strategy. And within that, it's a more of a defined goal based piece. Whereas what Fiverr needed for their brand to be in rent reinvented with someone to go actually, we're going to really kind of holistically look at this, how we're going to change it have confidence in that, because it's a massive investment from them from both the financial but an emotional point of view, but also from an audience point of view, you know, change as hard as you know, for people to kind of like manage, and any change that you put your audience through, can create change fatigue. And so they knew that they were going to do this, they had to do it properly, and had to be done well. And so I think it's just simply that they knew that their platform wasn't at a place yet where the people that can do this kind of work were working on available through that. That said, it's, you know, the favorite comment on our Instagram or anywhere else. And I've even had people say it to me in person, which is, why did they not get it off their own platform, and I get it, it's kind of like it's a nice story. And it kind of like does that. But I think it's a nice reflection of honesty on their part, they knew that they weren't there. Yeah. And if they had done that, they wouldn't have got what they need. And so therefore, it wouldn't have worked for that business problem.

Blake Howard  18:02  
And this is a fair point that James is making. Fiber isn't a two way marketplace for multi million dollar companies to find a brand consultant to lead them through a global comprehensive, rebrand with a lot at stake. It's more for startups and for upcoming organizations looking to go to market with a small investment in their brand. That type of client, however, was previously served by small design shops or freelancers on a more local level. What about them?

Unknown Speaker  18:30  
It's a very interesting thing, like I think, at the crux of the complaints. And the challenge with Fiverr, which I've heard again and again, is that in some way, going to Fiverr is robbing people of work within a locale or whatever. It's not the case, the data says it's not the case, that, you know, anecdotally, it's is not the case, if I'm starting something, and I have very limited income, and I want to just get something in place to get me going Fiverr delivers a solution that no local graphic designer wherever you live in the US, which is where most of the complaints come but also do come from Europe as well could afford and so what's actually going to happen is what what it's replacing is it's replacing that founder using Microsoft Word to do their identity, or for them to put something together in like, you know, one of those photocopy machines that used to get in the corner of a place in the gas station where you know, do your own business card or something like that. That's what it's replacing. It's not replacing someone who's going to spend that. And, you know, this is the thing I often have to say to people, it's like, you know, I can't hire a local graphic designer, you know, and if they live in a medium size or a large size US city, they're gonna want like maybe 10,000 US dollars to do a decent identity system. Some of these companies that are doing this identity, you know, that's maybe half their annual turnover. Of course, they can't afford to hire a graphic designer to do all those things and all the things they need. It just doesn't economically work for them. So that person's not being robbed of that work. That means that that founder can just do it. It's no different than saying like an HR benefits and payroll company. To me, that's delivering all of those big options for maybe someone that employs four people in a flower shop is robbing the local accountant and all these things. It's not because they still need all those things, it's just automating stuff, which means that the owner of that business can get back on with the things that they should be doing, which, let's say in this example, is selling flowers. I think also, as well, the secondary part of that, which is really important is, we live in a world where there's polarization around immigration, there's polarization around kind of like things. But in the West, we've happily bought goods made in other countries at very discount prices for many, many years. And suddenly, people are up in arms, because people are buying services, it's no different. It's like we, you know, I can't have somebody throw shade at us for kind of like working with fiber, when they've happily bought maybe clothes that are manufactured in the Far East, or they've bought technology or whatever. Oh, sorry. So the line is services, but goods, it's fine to buy those abroad, but it's not actually think it's not driving down price, because anyone can name their costs on there. So therefore, it's like saying that, you know, you could throw a similar thing at eBay, or you could throw a similar thing, Airbnb and what those marketplaces have shown in a mature way is eBay, if you have if you have a buyer, you can sell your thing at that price. And, you know, they're going to take a cut from you, but you're still going to get an amazing audience. You know, let, I've been selling some furniture recently, I would never have been able to reach the people that have bought my stuff without that marketplace without that platform. And so, you know, secondhand cars, all these kinds of things. And so it's no different, it just happens to be services rather than goods. And so it's, it's a scary thing to a lot of people. And I appreciate that fear. But I don't think it's reducing the number of designers in the west or us in any way, shape or form. One of the things that's interesting about graphic designers are like, they just see the logo maker, they just see the kind of like the graphic design services and don't realize that actually, this website's got like people that make music people that, you know, one of the things that we bought on Fiverr, at the beginning was that we bought a song for one of our team, and this guy wrote this song, we went back and forth with him on the lyrics. And then he recorded it. And then he performed the song as a video. And then we kind of presented it for this person's birthday. Honestly, it was like the quality was incredible. The recording was incredible. Everything about it. He was like I've had such fun making this, it's been like, he's like, You guys are crazy. But it's been really interesting doing it. And so, you know, I think it's probably a bit you know, and this is where I'm going to definitely get drummed out of the graphic designers union here. But I think graphic designers can be so obsessed with what they do that they forget the rest of the world is happening around them. This is a platform, that's way more than graphic design, there's so much other stuff going on there. And so we wanted to make sure that the competition was similar in terms of it had that kind of like that real spectrum, you know, the biggest companies in the world might kind of like fill their resource, you know, skills gaps, versus someone that wants to do something that's either kind of like they're starting out, or they need a creative piece or, or something, they just don't plan on hiring again, you know, this is the thing, it's like, a lot of the tasks on Fiverr, you do it, and then you don't need it done again, because your SEO sorted out once and unless Google changed their algorithm. That's not the kind of work you need week in week out. And so someone like, you know, five is great for that. Because I get somebody that's not necessarily in my network, they do the thing, they sought me out, and I get back to selling my flowers, or whatever my business does. I want

Blake Howard  23:21  
to jump back to the problem with Fiverr that you all were brought in to solve? Why did they decide to rebrand? Was it primarily driven on this need to go up market was that what they said, Hey, Cotto, help us solve this.

Unknown Speaker  23:33  
Now, I think their number one challenge when they came to us with consistency, loads of companies have that kind of move fast and break things kind of like mantra, and even if it's not written on the wall, that's a kind of similar thing. And you know, what's amazing is they built so much stuff in such a short period of time. But what it meant was that, to me, as a potential buyer, I was trying to navigate myself around this, at times, slightly confusing world of all of the things that they offer, you know, like, Where do I belong? Where am I going to. And so consistency was definitely one of the drivers off, which is they knew that to kind of get to that next stage, and you need to like rationalize tidy up, etc. I think one of the secondary concerns was around, actually being able to kind of like, tell the story in a clearer way, be a little bit better about this kind of stuff, show that you know, the potential that exists out there that this is something that's worthy of value. And then off the back of that we were like, you know, this upmarket piece, which we're obviously trying to do, needs to kind of like be counted in as well and factored in. And that's how we, we kind of need to do it. But it's an interesting and I don't mind admitting this is an interesting project that for us, our first round of creative didn't land with him. And I think we had to go through that process to really understand why it was wrong, to then really understand what the problem was. We had a great brief from them. We had really good briefing sessions in our immersion phase at the beginning. Duncan and Nadav both came to London and we spent time together in London. It's kind of Funny now, because we've lived in this world of COVID, for so long that the idea of flying across the world to do a business meeting seems a bit crazy to me 18 months later, but at the time, it obviously was a very, very kind of useful thing. And so we kind of really chewed this over, because we all knew it was complex. But we also knew that in getting into the doing was the only way that we were going to really start to really understand what the knotty problem was. So consistency was the primary driver at the beginning, but then it became bigger as we work through it, I know that they had had some previous efforts that had never really got off the ground in terms of looking at the brand. And one of the biggest challenges we had was that the logo that we were replacing the CEO himself at designed, and so therefore, obviously had his own kind of like, associative kind of emotional component to it, which was like, here's this thing I've designed, you guys have got to try and do better now, which I'm always pretty nervous about to be totally honest. Because, you know, you're like, Wow, you're so familiar with and you made it and so therefore, it's got like a double resonance. Whereas if I'm just dealing with a CEO, that's maybe not made it but has been familiar with it, then I've just got to kind of help take them away from that kind of that comfort blanket. And so, yeah, we had this issue on that front where they had been through these kinds of missteps in the past. And so I think, but that said, Meeker, the CEO incredible client was so like, challenge me, show me what this can do, you know, help me understand the value in this because my team are coming to me saying that we need to rebrand. So, I want you to also convince me on that

Blake Howard  26:24  
James and the koto team are learning more and more about the problem they're solving sort of building the plane as they fly. The first round of design might have been a mist, but they're learning what might work, which is sort of how the creative process happens. Sometimes. Another curveball that happens is the UK goes into full lockdown as the COVID 19 pandemic starts to unfold. And a big part of the koto process is doing these deep immersive in relational projects. And now James and the other Londoners on his team are only allowed to leave their house for an hour a day. But they did find other ways to keep their spirit of research alive.

Unknown Speaker  27:02  
The first thing we did was we just hired a load of people, because we just wanted to know what that was like. So you know, we hired a writer, I sent them some tasks, we hired a voiceover person, we did some other bits like that. And we put ourselves on Fiverr, just to see what that was like to have those kind of like, not as ourselves, obviously, that would be like a bit weird, but like that, you know, just to see what that was, like,

Blake Howard  27:24  
do you make up fun names?

Unknown Speaker  27:25  
Yeah, we're like made up like fake profiles. And we're not like used our photos. But you know, and then looked at like offering our services and went through that process, because that's equally you know, important to understand both sides of that. Talk to a lot of people. It's just the, you know, the secret thing, always again, and again, just like talk to people talk, talk talk really understand their kind of challenges. And we talked to people from all over the world as well, to make sure that we weren't just kind of like looking for people that existed within a kind of cultural bubble that we exist within, to really understand that, you know, and one of the things was amazing was the fire team had done a lot of work in the past to really understand their community. And so we had films, we had podcasts, we had videos, about meetups, we had all of this amazing community information. So even though we didn't get to go to those, they've done such a good job of cataloging those that we could experience them as a kind of, like secondhand piece. And so as a kind of, like, you know, history investigation piece, we were utilizing firsthand sources, which were very in depth, which allowed us to really understand the commonality that existed across those, and how we did that. And I think within that one thing that we were really working on in that kind of immersion there was to look at, like, okay, there's an appetite for change here. But how does change manifest itself, like, you know, change doesn't always have to be, you know, throw it all out and start again, and change. It's got many different ways of doing that. And so, that was one of the things that in that immersion phase we were really focused on, which was like, how does this change manifest itself? And why are we trying to do that change?

Blake Howard  28:51  
I love it. I've been thinking the whole time as you just explained that immersion process what your fake fiber username was, like Jimi blue land or you know, like, like I'm thinking slight like almost almost James Greenfield but just you know, just a little

Unknown Speaker  29:09  
I can't remember to be totally honest. I'm really sorry. I wish I knew a lot has happened in the last year and a half put it out.

Blake Howard  29:19  
Okay, when we come back from the break, we get a glimpse into the strategy and creative process and how Cotto responds to the design community's outrage when the work goes public. All that more after the break. Everyone I want to take a quick minute give a big old hat tip to match tickets where I work in our producing partner for this show. We specialize in helping growing brands take their identity to the next level. If you need help clarifying your message or standing out in the market be sure to visit us at matchstick calm that's Ma Te ch sdic.com pe and one more quick thing if you are a fellow brand nerd like me and are enjoying This series so far, be sure to tell a friend or leave us a review. Those really do help others find this podcast. Okay, back to the show

Okay, so you've got the immersion gone through kind of a deep understanding, you hired a musician, and they performed a song brilliantly. Yeah. And you got familiar with the product. What did you do next? You know, how did you kind of move the needle in terms of the creative process or getting the Fiber team aligned on where you wanted to head? What did you do next,

Unknown Speaker  30:40  
we didn't make this brand strategy phase. Next, one of the things that we didn't, we said, we did an immersion presentation. And in that immersion presentation, we outlined what we thought were a series of challenges that our brand faced in the near term, and codifying all of this amazing insight that we got, and really laid it out and said, Look, as far as we're concerned, these are the challenges you have. But then also, I think these are the opportunities that lay below those challenges. And we got really good reception to that we kind of went back and forth on a couple of them to really get the kind of specificity of the tonality of the language, right. But apart from that, we were kind of like in the right spot. And so off the back of that we then build out a brand strategy, which we did through a series of kind of like iterations of work. And so for that, we were working closely with the project team, which was Duncan, Nadav, and Zach, and then a couple of other people that kind of came in and out. And then we kind of built that up and then presented that up to the C suite and other important stakeholders at the company. And we concluded to come out with a piece of strategy that had a lot of input from them, they've done a lot of this work already. And so therefore, what we were doing was just adding in like, kind of like, some of that challenge and opportunity and codifying it into essentially a single page, because we're great believers at Cato that you want to try and get that strategic element of someone's brand on a single page. So that, you know, if I'm creating some marketing, or I'm launching a new product, or I'm expanding our Service Pool, I can understand that strategically, from a brand comprehension point of view, this is going to kind of like, sit in the same space as what I'm doing. And so therefore, it can kind of like all play in. And so that was kind of like a four week process about and we kind of came out the end of that with a new mission, new purpose, a brand idea that we could utilize within all of our executions, but also handing over to the internal creative team, and then any more future marketing partners that they could then utilize on that front, and then a positioning piece, which made sure that when we go back to that competitive set, people were hopefully clear, once they kind of exposed to the brand again, and again, how the brand positioned itself, what they were trying to offer, you know, and what's really interesting as the whole way, throughout this, we have the five guys kind of like half joking as half being serious that they were going to advertise at the Superbowl, which they did at the last Super Bowl. So we knew that we were kind of like working towards something that was going to be important for them. And so we wanted to make sure that we got this right. So yeah, that strategic phase was incredibly important, because that was then the grounding for us to be able to do the work. And in the next kind of visual and verbal phase.

Blake Howard  32:59  
Yeah, what was the brand idea? Do you remember, I'm curious how it was used,

Unknown Speaker  33:03  
the brand idea is where the world works, and trying to really make sure that that global piece came in. And then also that we were talking about the kind of piece of that and that kind of linked to the mission, which was five resists to change how the world works together, the mission is probably more broadly used by the whole company. But by having that brand idea, we just felt like you know, if I can do where world works as a kind of three piece. And so I'm always showing where I am, I'm always talking about the world. So I keep it truly global. And I'm always keeping it focused on work, then you get to a situation where you've got that kind of checklist of three things that you want to try and get out. And each of the pieces

Blake Howard  33:41  
where the world works, becomes their new strategic anchor for the brand. And the Cotto team moved into the design process, where their challenge now is bringing that idea to life visually.

Unknown Speaker  33:54  
So yeah, we'd worked really hard for like two and a bit weeks to go, I think it may have even been three to get to like this first phase. And we had three routes, one route, which was I guess, a little bit more evolutionary. So we kind of kept the fiber green kept some of the other elements, but we kind of added this whole new layer into it. We had another route, which was, I guess, more visually arresting than what they had, I think previously, they'd done a really nice job of it, but they've very much focused upon portraits of people, and then the sellers. And then what they've done is they hadn't really ever shown the other side of the marketplace, the buyer, and they hadn't really ever had a consistency in the way that they were showing this and so each campaign felt quite different which is nice from an intention point of view, but isn't nice from a kind of like a visual memory point of view. And then the third route we had a bit of a Hail Mary pass route just like slightly out there intentionally wanted to see what it looked like, you know, the client says to us, push us do something that makes us feel scared, like really makes us feel uncomfortable. You have to take that mantle and kind of like run with it right there. You also know it's a risk really. I was sat in my attic, which is where I worked for pretty much the whole pandemic which was very strange, because I've you know, had a 21 year career of working in busy design studios, you know, quite often with like, 50 6070 people in a room and here I am on my own, and all I can hear is my family downstairs, my same suburban street, that kind of like, you know, the noise been back some forwards. And I definitely missed that energy when it came to like creative creation. And that's kind of like coming together and stuff. So a lot of zooming a lot of slacking a bit of looming, you know, whatever software platform we were using to make sure that we were all kind of like communicating in some kind of effective way. And we did it in a really interesting process. Because we knew Fiverr was really global, we did something which we haven't really done before, which was, the London team authored one route, the Los Angeles team or a different route. And then the Berlin team authored the third route. And I was the kind of creative leader that kind of connects all these things together. So from a timezone point of view, obviously, PST and GMT are pretty far away from each other. And so we had to like really work on that to make sure that we could try and connect together there did a lot of like, this is kind of like golden two hours, which is the end of Europe and the beginning of West Coast, that a lot of kind of like intense, like, really trying to hammer stuff out in that period that. So I felt good about it. I felt like we put a lot of effort into it, but got to the end. And then you could kind of like read the room in, there's kind of like half in New York, half in Tel Aviv. And you could read that maybe we haven't quite got it. And what was amazing about it was we just cut straight to it had a very frank chat, we had a very frank chat, in fact, and it was really kind of like refreshing to be like none of these kind of like, yeah, great presentation, and you get the email three weeks later, which is like we didn't like any of it. And you got to go like, Oh my god, I'd never have guessed. And so we kind of like fresh out there. And then you see the CEO, and I had a very kind of like honest conversation with each other. And I was like, these are the things I think he was the things these things, I think, and it made me realize kind of like where we've missed the mark how we've missed the mark. And we then set to it and went away and didn't I think was another week and a half, maybe two came back to it. And in that second route really landed it. And what we realized was that the evolution, maybe we were evolving the wrong bits and leaving the right bits behind. And you know, trying to make sure that we like what we're taking forward, what we also got a real sense of what their creative ambition was. And I think what's very easy with a company that has creativity is hard to is to think that creativity always has to look or feel a certain way, which is, you know, for a lot of brands is kind of like colorful, and loud and bold and listen to stuff. And actually, this is an absolutely massive mainstream brand. And creativity is part of its offer, but isn't all of its whole offer. And so we kind of ended up with what we have now as a and it was pretty close that second presentation. Like, you know, there's a lot of craft in there, you know, we did a lot of work on the typography, we did a lot of work on the logo, we did a lot of work on color theory making sure that this exists in a product in a marketing situation. But if I showed you the kind of second presentation that route, you know, it's pretty much in there. And what was interesting was that the logo that we ended up with was actually on another route. And so we had a bit of kind of like cutting something out of one thing and placing it elsewhere. And that was actually the final piece that started to like really lock it all together.

Blake Howard  38:04  
Do you think the lack of physical time in person together had anything to do with the first round being a little off?

Unknown Speaker  38:14  
I think so I think he miscues and people's body language. When there's two screens in between you I don't think you have that ability to kind of feel empathetically what they're kind of saying. And I think this was also the beginning of the pandemic as well. Whereas it's the first big project I'd ever done where I'd had like one meeting, but we hadn't had any kind of like subsequent pieces. At that moment in time. I remember like going, we you know, we'll continue to work on this kind of digital thing. And I think like year and a half onwards, definitely got a much better at it. But it also made me convinced, and I'm still convinced now that you've got the option, it's a world lecture, you have to go and see people, you know, really kind of like understand where they're coming from. And you know, I've been to Tel Aviv quite a bit for work and culture, it's an absolutely fascinating place. But also you just have really good conversations with Israeli people, because they are so straightforward about stuff. And so I think I definitely missed that. And you know, we've, we've given a promise to each other that when we are allowed to travel where even though the project's over, we're doing some other work with them at the moment, but we're going to go and do the meetings that we would have done back at revamp, because we want to kind of like celebrate it and have a have those kinds of conversations, which we feel were kind of like, taken from us by the circumstance of what was happening at the world and that moment in time.

Blake Howard  39:27  
Okay, let's talk a little bit about the work and where you landed, what did you feel like was really special about it?

Unknown Speaker  39:33  
So I think one thing that we've landed on is with a really like, timeless logo, and I think it's quite hard to make timeless logos because we're also bombarded more than ever as designers with like, what's happening in black brand right now, you know, what's happening in graphic design right now. And, and so therefore, I think one of the constraints being that we were looking at, like an evolution of sorts is that I think it allowed us to make something which you I can see that still existing in years to come. And for me, I'm always focused on trying to jump trends to a certain level, like, I think certain parts of a brand, whether that's art direction, or illustration, use, even like maybe like some product colors and stuff can naturally feel trendy, particularly if you're offering for maybe like a youth market. But here's like, you know, 16 to 64 Market, the world of work, this needs to be timeless. And this also needs to work just as well, in West Africa, as it does in South America, as it does in Alaska, as it does in Russia, as it does in London, as it does in Singapore, you know, wherever else you pick. And so to do that, you have to adopt the mind state of the kind of the big global corporation who has that ability to be able to like land itself in all those places. So that was kind of like a key thing for us. And I'm really happy with that. I also really like the shorthand ligature of the FSI because I think there's an interesting thing, which is, I think a lot of companies will either kind of go heavy on the symbol which and you know, I can't say anything wrong about that, because I made loads of symbols in my creative life. And I love a good symbol. But in this case, here, we thought that kind of word Mark was better. But I feel like a word mark, particularly in the world of shorthand, whether that's an app icon, whether that's an avatar, something can feel a little bit inconsequential at times, you lose that boldness, you lose that kind of like that thing that's really going to stand up, particularly, you know, in like this world, it's a very kind of demand heavy space, which is like, Oh, my God, I've got all these things shouting at me. And I've always found that, you know, certain brands lose out in that space, like, you know, a client of ours on us, I felt like when they had a black and white logo, I was always searching for it all over my iPhone, I could never find it. And, you know, I think it was because it's recessive. And it sat back. And so we were keen that Fiverr really made sure that it works in every place where it needs to be. And so that the foi ligature ended up being a pretty smart way of doing that. And it actually took us a while to get to that, because we were like, Rs, does it need a symbol does? Is it the full stop? Like, you know, kind of going backwards and forwards? Is there a way that we can kind of like get this kind of like rammed in there. So it's still bold, but it's the whole word. And you ask yourself, all these kind of like questions, am I missing something is that you know, etc, etc. I think the green as well, what we realized was, the more that we work with them was that the green was pretty iconic for them. And so therefore, we need to do that. And also, they've been really brave with color. In the past, they had these amazing pink posters that have been all over New York, you know, they didn't shy away from colors, which other companies in their situation would do. And so we kind of landed a color palette that understood that the green would always be the king. And then we built everything around that. And then typographically, we wanted to actually probably make the biggest change there, move away from what was kind of slightly unforgettable typography in the past, and build something out. That meant that, you know, we've got this great color palette where green, still the hero, but we've got these pinks, and oranges, which we've inherited from the past, we've added in these kind of these browns, and these Burgundy's and other colors that exist in that way, you know, for a while we play with the blue, but we just decided that actually, that was probably not the right way to go. And we wanted to kind of have a very particular warmth in terms of all these colors, I think that's one thing that ties it together is I feel like even the Greens got like an element of warmth to it, which isn't, you can't always say that for every grade. And then with the typography, the key thing we wanted to do was to be able to mediate change within a piece of copy. So we've got these two typefaces, which are very different in terms of the way that they operate. And that's intentional, because we wanted to create that kind of high contrast, you know, I can put one next to the other. And I get into this situation where I can call a word out. And so, you know, we've done that with a combination of underlining type change and color, because one of the things that we really felt about Viva was that they've got a lot plans, they've got a lot of sub brands, they got a lot of stuff they're expressing, if we make this too singular and approach, they're just gonna have to make new stuff. And then if they make new stuff, the horse has bolted, the brands kind of like starting to kind of fall to bits even before you started. And so it was really important that we made sure that we had that. And an interesting thing about the art direction was that we set the rules, but we've never directed any of those photos. a fiver team has briefed people all around the world to go and take those photos, partly because we're locked in a pandemic, but also because that's the ultimate test for it. If the rules are good, and they stand up the test of time, you know, I think as a set, you wouldn't know that lots of different photographers have shot them. So I think it's probably a testament to the fact that that works. There's

Blake Howard  44:19  
two major steps remain first socializing it supporting the Fiber team to float it around internally, which is always a bit scary because those outside of the creative process aren't as emotionally connected to the work like that project team is. This is also where last minute sweepers like to come in and steal the joy out of the process with last minute feedback. They actually pose a great threat for undermining all of the work done thus far. It requires really strong internal leadership to defend and sway those who have loud voices. And the second track that needed to take place was design detailing iteratively working through color testability typography, use translating the design system into the front end of the product and letting the product team use it, beat it up, tear it to pieces, make a few tweaks and changes. And then essentially, you had to sit around and wait for launch, fingers crossed that all would continue to stay on the tracks. And from an agency point of view, this is a bit like sending your child off to college, you've raised them you've poured into them, you love them, you've groomed them to be polite, but brave shielded them from harm's way. And then off, they go out of the nest. And you just hope and pray they come back without too many scratches. And this waiting period was beneficial for Fiverr because they needed time to get ready for launch. They wanted to share it with their community first and foremost, in an appropriate way and then flip the switch for a public launch. James back at Coto however, was not out of the hot seat just yet. Fiverr had a virtual conference for their community to roll out the brand.

Unknown Speaker  46:00  
I talked at that event, the community so that the community could ask questions about the brand, what we were doing, etc, etc. And I remember I was in my attic again, and I logged on to kind of give the keynote. And there's like 500 people in the waiting room. And I was like, wow, this is so weird. I'm talking to all these people, I can't see any of them. And then the questions sidebar was just like, it was a bit like and then have you ever watch sport online, it was a bit like when people are just like commenting about everything that's going on. And then we had a q&a at the end where they were picking questions out the sidebar. And that was kind of like, I guess our final hurdle to get that kind of community buy in to make sure that they were happy. Because for a lot of people, this is their business, you know, if I'm changing the brand, this is changing how they sell themselves, and it's maybe out of their control. And what we found in the immersion process was that for a lot of people like Fiverr had been instrumental in their life, you know, incredible stories of people paying medical bills for families that they couldn't afford incredible stories of people being able to work from home so they could look after relatives, when previously they'd have to have like work in an office or wherever. So, you know, the freedom for people to work where they wanted when they wanted, which allowed, you know, childcare, etc, etc. So I understand why these people were all completely invested in getting this right, because they had a good thing, and they didn't want us to change it. And you know, change is a scary thing to deal with. So that was our final hurdle. Obviously, the last piece of the puzzle was then when we were allowed to talk about a project, which was subsequently quite a lot later,

Blake Howard  47:19  
James is getting peppered with questions from the community and for the most part five or freelancers. Just want to understand why why the change why now, which is a fundamental part to address in change management. But he was able to easily quell the crowd. The design community at large, however, might not be so easily swayed.

Unknown Speaker  47:40  
It's a really interesting thing, isn't it? I think the thing I was most concerned about was that for the team for because you know, for some of them, they had spent months and months working on something which was like, you know, intense, very hard work, lots of hours put into it, lots of crafts, and being on the end of kind of like Snipes and trolling, however kind of like experienced you are is a tough thing to deal with. And so that was my major concern for me personally, I think I have got so much flak when we done Airbnb that I think I'm kind of like I'm over it a bit. Really, it doesn't affect me in the same way anymore. Just because, you know, we did Airbnb, we have like a song recorded about us. And you know, I have like a Tumblr of all the logo alternatives. And you know, you have people like it was a trending topic on Twitter, for God's sake, you know, it's just like crazy stuff. For me personally, it's a bit like water off a duck's back. I also think as well as an amazing example of the old adage, which is, there's no publicity, like, you know, publicity is still good publicity. It's still to this day, our most viewed post and most liked post on our Instagram, by quite some way, most commented as well. And there's obviously some very spicy comments in there. And, you know, I think the criticism that you actually probably take more than any is like, shame, we didn't do this with the type or that's probably not as good as it could be, or you know, that brand new comments are probably always the ones that cut me the most, because a lot of them come from a place of knowledge. And you know, and I think there's no worse comment than like, hota losing it about or, you know, it's not as good as it used to be. So I'm always wanting us to get better and like, keep evolving and like, they're the ones where I'm always like, spirit. And within that, I think it was a good conversation. I saw like some, you know, there was some nasty stuff on there. And I got sent quite a lot of nasty DMS and stuff. But in the end, people love the work. We have a lot of new clients that have come to us who've come to us having seen that work and are incredibly interested in it got a very happy client who's incredibly complimentary about us and we're doing another project with him right now. This is our kind of like natural third project we've done with him since

Blake Howard  49:36  
whether you agree with Kodos decision to take on this work or not. Online comment culture feels like it's at an all time high watermark. Cotto isn't afraid of this type of feedback, however, and has received a fair amount of criticism on many occasions.

Unknown Speaker  49:53  
You don't have to love everything. In fact, I don't want you to love everything because I think criticism is a completely valuable part of making culture society better. I'm a great advocate of being critical about stuff. And in the past, people have told me on to critical and social media about things. But I think within that criticism has to come the caveat that you have to have the ability to be able to have your mind changed about something. And then when you have had your mind changed about it, put your hand up and own up about it and kind of like meet the person in the middle about it.

Blake Howard  50:20  
From a design point of view, this work is really well done. But it did come with some emotional weight for the Cotto team to carry, discussing it up front being thrust into remote working during the pandemic, or just seeing those nasty comments from their fellow designers online. It all adds up and comes with a price. This project definitely started a conversation and I believe that's good for the design community. All designers need to thoughtfully consider their moral boundaries as it relates to their profession. Again, here's James,

Unknown Speaker  50:51  
I think one of my other takeaways is it will never not be controversial for us to work on projects, which are affecting a status quo. And I think that's, you know, that's what Airbnb is definitely an affecting status quo. You know, we've recently not that I led that project, we've recently rebranded discord that created a lot of conversation because it affected that company's status quo. And I think within that, if we're doing that, then you're going to get people that you know, want to want to kind of disparage that or change that, you know, we've done a brand about a year ago now for a company in the cell based meat space called meetable. And that doesn't exist yet. No one's eating that meat. Yeah, it's not a thing. And so therefore, it's universally welcomed as a piece of branding. I think if we had done that rebrand, and there was food on the shelves, and there was more of a conversation about and it wasn't this kind of huge thing. I think that could have been equally kind of like, you know, people would have discussed it with equal kind of like Vega. And so for me, I think it just, that's the thing I look back on I'm like, it's almost means that you're doing important work if people start shouting about it, because it means that people want to discuss it, they feel strongly enough about this thing, whatever you're doing, to kind of like affect them in some kind of way. And so that's where we want to be, we want to be doing that work, because that means that we're pushing culture, or we're pushing society one way or another.

Blake Howard  52:13  
As for fiber, the new brand identity has propelled them up market, they did indeed launch Super Bowl ads and have had a massive start to 2021 was one of the highest q1 revenue figures reported in company history at an increase of about 100%, year over year. As for James, he's very proud of the fiber work and he sees the bigger opportunity and trend for other b2b businesses.

Unknown Speaker  52:37  
And I also think as well, it's at the beginning of a curve where b2b businesses are waking up to the idea that actually they can't have that kind of old school, red or blue brand, very static, very kind of like, you know, corporate America that actually really needs to stand out. Because in the world of kind of technological innovation we're in, there's five other people trying to do what you're doing at this moment in time. And so therefore, you need to stay ahead. And so I think that piece is the piece that I will kind of say that I think five is in a good place. Because I go back to their competitive set a freelancer and Upwork I feel like their brand is miles ahead of both those guys now has a lot more going for it has an ability to be able to be kind of reactive, proactive, is more flexible. And so those are the things that I think are gonna kind of like push them forward. So I think from a timing point of view, probably on their design rather than luck. It was a good moment in time in the company's evolution.

Blake Howard  53:34  
Okay, thanks for listening and special thanks to James Greenfield and others at Coto for being so vulnerable and transparent with this process and for giving us a behind the scenes look at the work. To see more visuals from today's episode, head on over to a change of brand.com. And if you liked today's show, please share it with a fellow brand nerd and leave us a review on Apple podcasts. Today's episode was edited by Matt Ellen, co written by Pamela Hinman fact checked by Jill Jefferies and special thanks to Tracy Clark for our briefing, and Rachel Jackson for today's episode artwork. I'm your host Blake Howard, signing off

Transcribed by https://otter.ai