Creating true brand connection and revenue-generating demand for Telesign

In this customer story, I’m talking about building one of my absolute favorite brands and demand ecosystems of all time — the fraud prevention and engagement company, Telesign.

To begin the story, I must share that the time I spent at Telesign was one of the best experiences of my almost two-decade career.

Mostly, this is due to Telesign’s incredible leadership team, and their love and appreciation for their people. The CEO, Joe Burton, combines setting a high bar for performance with all of the encouragement needed to help his staff to show up as their best selves and enjoy the work ahead.

As a result, the company values we wrote down on paper truly sang through the organisation, making it a place where work truly didn’t feel like “work” every day. Brands and companies truly “sing” on the outside when they are healthy on the inside — and this is certainly the case with Telesign.

When I joined Telesign in 2021, the brand and demand generation strategy was ready for a glow-up. After being given the green light by my CMO, Kristi Melani, my creative team, content team and I went to town.

At first glance, there is nothing sexy about fraud prevention. Most people hold the perception is that it’s a “far away” problem. In reality, fraud affects millions of people each year on every platform they touch. Online dating, shopping, job hunting — every activity we engage in on-screen carries the risk of identity theft or fraud. Every day internet users (aka, everyone) need fraud prevention more than they typically realise.

Telesign’s customers were the businesses providing these online services… yet the beneficiaries of Telesign’s products were ultimately those businesses’ customers themselves. So instead of simply focusing the brand directly at businesses, we let the positive effects Telesign products had on customers speak for themselves in a clear storytelling format.

Then, we used that brand to create a multi-touch journey to attract, engage and convert potential customers.

First, let’s dive into how we refreshed the brand.

Firstly, we had to create a mission statement that everyone could get behind. As I mentioned in my Branding in Space series, a good mission statement is short, pithy, and gives an answer to the question, “Why do you get up and dedicate your working hours to this cause every day?”

After a series of fun brand exercises with my colleagues and CMO, we settled on, “We exist to make the digital world a more trustworthy place for everyone.”

It was inclusive, reassuring, and cued into the human need for certainty in an uncertain (and sometimes unpredictable) world.

For the Telesign voice, we followed suit, creating a trustworthy, committed, authentic tone that eventually resonated through Telesign’s growing, rich library of content and resources.

The logo followed suit as well. Combining common symbols of identity, continuity and trust, my rockstar Creative Director and I created a new mark for the brand that resonated with the company’s mission.

For the Telesign brand palette, we chose a range revolving around indigo. We found that indigo had the calming effect of blue (ie, “My customers’ identities are safe in Telesign’s hands.”) — but spiced it up with a bit of creativity (ie, “Telesign is constantly innovating to keep customer information even more secure.”).

To add interest to the visuals and satisfy our customers’ human need for curiosity, we created a suite of visuals that illuminated the website, suite of sales tools, and brand collateral. Each commonly referenced topic was given a character or sign.

Subliminally, we added supergraphics to spice up the motion and nuance in the Telesign brand experience. Themes like “coming together” and “security” were reinforced in the audience’s mind through simple shape and colour.

For the brand’s campaign photography, we created scenes that were relatable, easy to understand and inclusive — showing Telesign’s customers’ end users enjoying life free from the stress of potential harm. These images reinforced their human need for certainty and the trust that could be placed in Telesign’s capable hands.

The result of this thoughtful branding process?

A cohesive and interesting web ecosystem, an invigorated company, incredible revenue results and a bit of envy from competitors.

I heard through the grapevine shortly after my Telesign tenure that they had become a “weekly discussion item” on a competitors roster due to all the cool stuff they were putting out into the marketplace.

From brand ads, to event booths, to employee touchpoints, the Telesign brand continues to imbue all that encounter it with purpose, meaning and a compelling reason to trust Telesign.

Now, let’s talk about how the newly refreshed brand expanded its footprint through a content-rich demand generation ecosystem.

To begin generating demand, we built a content ecosystem that positioned our customers’ end consumers as the stars of the show.

In our customer-focused YouTube series, we told the stories of these end consumers in their own environments. These pieces read as a “behind the scenes” look into the affect safe, secure access to technology has on their lives.

“Squeezing all the juice out of the storytelling orange,” this series was used in different formats across multiple customer touchpoints.

These pieces made an impact across multiple parts of the customer journey including B2B events, social media, paid acquisition and the Telesign blog.

To pull our potential customers further toward purchase, we complimented this quality content with a rich, easy-to-digest product educational system.

Events, webinars and sales resources enabled our go-to-market team turn these warmed-up leads into revenue-generating customers.

To learn more about Telesign, check them out here! It’s an absolutely fantastic company to work with and for.