Branding / Advertising / Design
DATA DRIVEN
NetApp had a perception problem. The market still saw them as a storage company, a category buyers treat as a commodity, even though the business had become one of the most capable players in making data actually work. The rebrand had to move them out of the storage aisle and reposition them as data experts.
I came up with the creative idea, wrote the tagline and headlines, and designed the campaign across every touchpoint. The idea starts from a simple truth: data is only worth as much as the vision behind it. So I built a portrait system where every face is made from hundreds of small images, each one a real moment data touches, from city skylines and research labs to sport, art and travel. From a distance you see a person, and up close you see the millions of data points that make up their vision. The tagline, “Data visionaries wanted,” made the campaign about the audience instead of the product, inviting them to see themselves as the kind of leader NetApp partners with. Headlines like “Unite your data. Unify your vision” and “Millions of data points. A singular vision” gave each execution its own angle while keeping the same visual logic.
The work rolled out globally across print and digital advertising, large-format posters, video, a social program with an interactive 360 mobile experience, and a redesigned website hub where visitors could explore how data is changing the world city by city.
It worked because the visual metaphor was the message, so people got the repositioning before they read a word. NetApp.com traffic tripled, and 70% of people who saw the campaign described NetApp as “a new company.”