Metaskills
Giving an old Brand a new purpose
Global Strategy Challenge
GOLD WINNER
Background
With the global pandemic raging, world famous Brand Strategist Marty Neumeier decided to set a challenge, which 150 strategists across the globe took him up on. I was put into one of 23 teams with 4 other people across the globe I had never met. With team name ‘CULTIV8’ we were ready to show some of the best judges in the branding world what we were made of!
The Challenge
Five briefs with two weeks for each and a weeks break for evaluation, feedback and winner announcement focused on the five ‘Metaskills’ from Marty’s book of the same name - Feeling, Seeing, Dreaming, Making and Learning.
For the challenge we had to choose a brand that has the potential to make the world a better place. We chose BP as a brand that could pivot and become a force for good for future generations.
The beginnings of a plan.
Insights
After weeks of research, we discovered that many companies, particularly small start-ups, are already developing amazing renewable energy sources but not in a cohesive way. Only a giant corporation working with governments and society as a whole can accelerate positive global systemic change.
We researched the latest economic, cultural and corporate operational methods to develop a case to take to BP, or any major player willing to take up the challenge for true systemic global change for a better future.
Audience
For this challenge, the main target audience were the judges but now it is over we intend to turn our learnings into a ‘project’ that we can take to large corporations, governments, communities, NGOs, philanthropists and the largest global advocates for positive change on Earth. This does not stop here!
Mapping the touchpoints.
Strategy
To create an entirely new type of global corporation that would change the world for the better, we needed to start by tweaking their image. With the change of BP - Beyond Petroleum to BE - Beyond Energy, a slight alteration to more natural colours were chosen to represent the new company and vision.
Strategy (continued)
The new name along with the tagline and purpose to ‘Energise Humanity’ were just the tip of the iceberg in their positioning. We worked out how a company like BP could engage and integrate into society with touchpoints that make customers and employees partners rather than consumers and workers.
We created a new agile way of working based on innovation and education based on self-management.
Next, we investigated how more holistic economic structures such as the doughnut, circular economy and cradle-to-cradle system could integrate seamlessly with this idea to deliver a huge positive impact on society and people’s lives.
Implementing just one of these ideas would have a major impact on life on Earth and the future of humanity but marrying them all would be a leap forward beyond the traditional systems we find ourselves dependent on.
A new Brand Book.
Creative
Most of the work on this project was Research, Insights and Strategy but we of course had to develop inspiring Creative, to help convey our complex ideas. Here are two examples of that creative.
The first video was created on the challenge to help conjure an emotional buy-in. This won us this module out of 23 global teams. The second video was created for the last module as a reflection of all the work done.
Please remember that these videos had zero budget and were created as of a labour of love with the resources we had and hours of hard work!
The work
As we started out looking into how a Brand could change to help humanity and the Earth flourish and work together more harmoniously we realised very quickly we have opened pandora’s box. Just because something is hard doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing. We developed the idea in line with the briefs set and looked at it from many angles. Really this is the tip of the iceberg but is a start and a step int he right direction.
“This team did a LOT of work! Clearly, they captured a ton of learning along the way, and did a great job of organizing their ideas into a system. It all ladders up to a brilliantly simple purpose statement: To energise humanity. Their concept video made the hair on my arms stand up.”
— Marty Neumeier
Notable Judges
Marty Neumeier
Marty Neumeier is an American author and speaker who writes on the topics of brand, design, innovation, and creativity and has worked with clients such as Adobe, Apple, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft. He currently serves as Director of CEO Branding for Liquid Agency, a branding agency headquartered in San Jose, California.
Chris Do
Chris Do is an Emmy award-winning designer, director, CEO and Chief Strategist of Blind and the founder of The Futur—an online education platform with the mission of teaching 1 billion people how to make a living doing what they love.
Robert Jones
Robert is a strategist at Wolff Olins, professor of brand leadership at the University of East Anglia. In 25 years at Wolff Olins, Robert has worked with organisations including Aviva, Barclays, Daimler, National Trust, Oxfam, Tate, Tesco, Virgin and Wikipedia.