Positioning, Strategy, Creative Direction, Identity, Product Design
Positioned for Growth
Today, Ground News has implemented the design and is executing the playbook flawlessly. Since re-brand and redesign launch, subscription growth has accelerated by factor of 4.
The Challenge
Ground News came to Levity in need of help transitioning from the early traction of an incredible, much needed product, to becoming a perennial player in a highly mature, saturated, and complex news and media industry. Our goal was to find the nerve center of the issue of our times - media bias, misinformation, echo chambers, confirmation bias... In doing we would need to overhaul and create a brand and experience built to weather the look-a-like and tangental competition as well as inevitable cultural and behavioral shifts overtime.
Going deep, we identified the root of today’s problem with news, the current and future consumer muse, segmenting out and creating messaging hierarchy as well as establishing a Brand Positioning and Proposition that in it’s nature was scalable for the Brand’s future growth.
Insight
Freedom of Thought is on the line. Our capacity for critical thinking, is compromised. We started with idea that Freedom of Democracy was at issue, but diving deeper, we understood this to be too limiting for brand set on scaling globally.
Insight identified and still very much immersed in Ground’s world and observing culture at large we honed in on what the brand was fighting for: Media Literacy. And yes, you dont fight against something, you fight for something. Media Literacy gave us fertile ground to explore opportunities for Ground to scale over-time. For example, partnerships with universities and institutions of higher learner. As a strategy this would also raise awarness, but cement Ground as go to source for news for up and coming generations.
Positioning
The World's First Information Utility
With purpose and a new positioning in place, the rest of the Brand Foundations flowed freely.
Equipping their readers with diverse perspectives across the political spectrum and providing bias ratings for news outlets and their stories alike - we challenged our design partner’s, Ralston Studios, to create and design a new brand identity for this informed news consumer.
With Levity oversight, Chris Ralston set to work reimaging a new visual identity with the aid of Corey Upton, and designing a web and app experience that reflected Ground's newly refined mission to “Well-inform the world.”
On a Mission to Well-Inform the World.
That was just the start, once cracking the code, we penned the Marketing Playbook and defined launch - for the first comparative news platform created to help readers think freely about the issues of our times.
Today, Ground News has implemented the design and is executing the playbook flawlessly. Since re-brand and redesign launch, subscription growth has accelerated by factor of 4.
Target Readership, Insights, Segmentation, Messaging
Brand and Creative Strategy - Colin Leary
Brand Identity, Art Direction, Product Design - Chris Ralston
Design - Corey Upton
Index
I spent 4 years at Y&R New York, moved to Amsterdam, The Netherlands to lead the Nike account at W+K Amsterdam. Joined Nike in 2007 and spent 10 years in brand & creative leadership positions at WHQ, EHQ, and Brazil. Eyeing a creative gap in the Ad industry as well as an emerging trend of big business consultancies moving in on the Ad & Media game, I founded Levity Creative in early 2018. Levity is a cross-disciplinary, international, brand & creative consultancy scaling to the challenge.