Marketing Innovation
Design strategy acting as an agent of change
Arrow's brand strategy gave them a 'why.' They now needed to define 'what' categories of innovation they work in and "how" to tell their story to the world.
Goals
- Unify divisions and companies to create One Arrow; use design to create change internally.
- Help internal employees see themselves as a part of a larger initiative
- Create awareness and understanding of offerings internally and externally
- Unify sales collateral
- Move from products to solutions and identify key product innovation areas
- Merge ERP and CRM systems
- Tell their story to the world
Insight
Innovators of today are caught in a paradox of what's possible and what's practical. They're attracted to the promise of innovation but distracted by the hype.
Idea
The tension of the competing forces between what's possible and what's practical was perfect for Arrow to explore, exploit, and ultimately resolve. 20 years out is science fiction. 15 years out is fantasy. Arrow lives in the practical future of Five Years Out.
Expression
Five Years Out
Operationalizing the expression- Solutions Portfolio
The 'V' icon was created from the Arrow logo to visualize the expression of the brand. To bring that to life, a solutions portfolio was created and can be found here.
Arrow had over 300 ‘offerings’ that ranged from software to hardware to design engineering. After meeting with 52+ business units, conducting an immersion deep dive, facilitating workshops with key stakeholders, analyzing industry and brand drivers, studying market sizing, and auditing existing offerings, 10 solution areas were created that told the Arrow story today and acted as aspiration for the innovation of tomorrow.
In collaboration with a design team, icons were created to bring each solution to life, each with a distinct theme and identity. Positioning was written to describe each solution and is highlighted within a book that operationalized the system to global internal teams.
This system and the Five Years Out movement was launched in 8 months by the CEO at Arrow's yearly summit.
Impact
Five Years Out wasn't “just” a big idea to bring the purpose to life. It acts as a tagline, call to action, and selling platform rolled into one.
This revolutionized the way they go-to-market and cross-sell. Employee sentiment moved to an all time high as internal stakeholders pushed to get 'V's on everything from a powerpoint template to a shot glass.