Qvidian

In June of 2010, Sant merged with another player in the sales enablement space, Massachusetts-based, Kadient Inc. While the two companies continued to operate under their separate brand names, they needed help creating a new unified brand.

The Challenge

Sant and Kadient engaged Minneapolis-based, Strategic Name Development to create a name that was unique and ownable — a name that could allow them to easily establish an online presence for their combined service offering. After a few rounds of name generation, the marketing teams at Sant and Kadient selected Qvidian from a pool of nearly 100 names. While Strategic Name Development had solid reasoning for what Qvidian meant – we knew from past experience that a name doesn’t mean anything until people actually interact with the product or service.

We needed to craft a new brand identity and positioning and transforming them into creative executions for the web, print, business collateral, and trade show booth. In just 4 months.

The Solution

We had a name and a launch date, so it was time to dig into Qvidian. Prior to merger, each company had strong recognition for what they brought to the sales enablement space.

The Sant Corporation was a forward-thinking and enthusiastic partner for corporate sales teams. With Sant Suite, their sales automation SaaS, Sant created sales effectiveness through RFP response time and content, sales proposal generation, engaging presentations, and sales data management.

Kadient was a powerful and dynamic company that had established a leadership position through dynamic playbooks that delivered “the right information specific to the sales situation at the right time in the right place” to corporate sales teams.

Their competition, companies like Savo and iCentera, were all aiming at the same target – making sales teams more effective through better communication and access to materials.

But we knew that Qvidian’s primary prospect, the VP of Sales at a Fortune 1000 company, was not just looking for improvement, he was looking for success. He, and his shareholders, weren’t just concerned with hitting the target. They wanted to hit the bullseye.

Ultimately, it was about winning.

Both Sant Suite and Kadient had already proven to expedite sales cycles, improve win-rates, and deliver ROI. The combined company had a legacy of wins. And that is where we found their sweet spot. Qvidian could throw a stake in the ground by providing sales teams the guidance to win consistently. Through proven, dynamic tools, and integrated best practices, Qvidian enables sales organizations to confidently engage prospects and win more often.

And, the Client was thrilled with this new positioning. According to Brian Vass, Vice President of Marketing:

We get a strong sense of WHO we are going to be as a combined company, and WHY it matters. It’s clear that you have listened well up to this point and we’re excited to see how this translates into the creative.

Focusing on Qvidian providing the guidance to win consistently helped generate some strong lines, logos, and mood boards, including one we were feeling pretty good about—The Business of Winning. The concept featured sales people confidently conducting business while sporting some of the “tools of the game” — eye black, taped fingers, cleats, etc.

The interactive and traditional teams worked in tandem to push the images of sales people sporting the “tools of the game” — eye black, taped fingers, cleats, etc. — into the website, print ads, sales collateral, trade show materials, and business cards.

And the Client liked it, too. In fact, the feedback was unanimously positive. And this winning attitude carried through to the internal launch of the brand, which was celebrated with a tailgate party and everyone became a Sales Gamechanger.

What I Did

I was responsible for strategy and positioning work, creating the Business of Winning tagline, creating the Sales Gamechanger campaign, concepting the site’s functionality and user experience, and crafting top-level site messaging and content.

Credits

Content Strategy: Sean Biehle
Strategist: Jacqui Killen
Art Director: Brandon Blank
Designer: Ryan Bennett
Web Developers: Jeff Lay, Ian Monk, Robb Heddrick

Gallery

Click an image below to view screenshots.

Kadient Homepage

Image 1 of 17