From fusty to future-focused
Amid disruption in the industry, a long-established edtech company found itself losing market share because of its stuffy reputation. Its new CEO had to step up and be the face of a radical rebranding.
Background
CEOs are the face and voice of any corporation’s brand. In this case, the brand needed to change, and the CEO turned out to be a powerful vector for that transformation.
The client was a global education technology company based in the United States. Its decades of operation, previously seen as an asset, had become a liability.
Agile, AI-forward competitors were disrupting the space, while the client continued to be associated with outdated pen-and-paper methodology. Demand for the company’s products and services was cratering, along with its revenues.
The client was a global education technology company whose decades of operation had become a liability.
The company engaged Megaphone & Quill’s A.J. Wilson to help position the CEO as the face of its corporate rebranding.
Challenge
The company’s new CEO came to the job knowing that, to restore his organisation’s fortunes, he would have to preside over a revolution in the company’s image.
Several hurdles soon presented themselves.
- The company was perceived as a legacy institution—the opposite of its younger, more digitally-savvy competitors.
- Any innovation was being masked behind a quasi-academic image, more like a university department than a cutting-edge company.
- In projecting a fresh, innovative image, the company would run the risk of losing the advantages of brand recognition and customer trust that come with a long and storied history.
The company engaged Megaphone & Quill’s A.J. Wilson, a veteran speechwriter and ghostwriter, to help position the CEO as the face of this corporate rebranding.
(A.J. also helped the CEO develop clear, consistent messaging to reassure the workforce during a reorganisation. See our case study Communicating a challenging reorganisation.)
Finding the story
From prior work with the CEO (see our case study Communicating a challenging reorganisation) A.J. was familiar with his expansive and optimistic communication style.
He knew that the CEO embraced innovation and could tell a good story. It was A.J.’s job to find one for him to tell.
A.J. went on the hunt for innovative work taking place within the company. He didn’t have to look far: It turned out that the company’s R&D divisions had generated hundreds of patents and thousands of scientific papers.
Among other things, they had been creating proprietary AI models since the 1990s, long before the company’s scrappier competitors were founded.
A.J. went on the hunt for innovation taking place within the company.
“A.J.’s support helped us pivot our reputation so we can go into new spaces we hadn’t been in before.”
The problem was that these achievements were only being communicated to other experts in the field—those who understood the technical jargon of academic writing.
Potential customers, meanwhile, were either unaware of this work or unable to envisage how it could benefit them.
A.J. interviewed the company’s senior technical staff. He worked with them painstakingly to translate technical concepts into layman’s terms, and to extrapolate how the research would ultimately benefit customers in the form of new or updated products and services.
A.J. crafted these insights into an expansive narrative about the company’s commitment to innovation—and how this commitment helped its customers thrive.
Capitalising on a new image
A.J. made this expanded narrative the centrepiece of a suite of written communications assets for the CEO, including:
- Briefings for media engagements.
- Opinion pieces tackling the biggest issues facing the industry.
- A series of keynote speeches for conferences worldwide.
Each communications asset presented a vision for the future of education and how the company’s innovations would help shape that future.
As he toured the globe, presenting the new future-focused narrative to potential customers, the CEO began to attract interest not just from industry publications but from respected mainstream outlets. For example, he was interviewed about his vision by reporters from Forbes and TIME magazines.
The CEO began to attract interest from outlets like Forbes and TIME.
An expansive narrative drew attention from broader audiences.
At the same time, he found himself invited to speak on bigger and bigger stages.
This culminated in invitations to address two of the world’s most prestigious innovation conferences: The Milken Institute Global Conference and the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
This work set the stage for one of the company’s biggest moves yet: Its entry into the burgeoning field of workforce development. Previously, the company had lacked credibility in that market and its offerings there had been seen as limited.
Entering new markets
Combined with a landmark acquisition, the expanded narrative set the stage for market entry and kickstarted the company’s operations in a new space.
Without A.J.’s work to crystallize and present the expanded narrative, this would not have been possible.
One senior executive credits A.J. with helping the CEO “lean into the impact and the human element” of the company’s products and services, in turn allowing the company to achieve a “pivot to having a reputation so that we can go into new spaces that we hadn’t been before, with the same capabilities we have.”
The new narrative helped prepare the ground for the company’s entry into a new market.
New story, new customers.
Good leadership communication earned the CEO broader audiences and helped transform the company’s reputation. This, in turn, transformed its fortunes, lending it the credibility necessary to conquer an exciting new market.
Key results
Broadened the company’s credibility to pave the way for entry into a new market.
Garnered increased attention from mainstream media outlets.
Changed the conversation by unlocking the most prestigious keynote stages.
Repositioned the company as an industry leader for innovation.