Telling the Pepper Story
PEPPER GLOBAL
Redesigning a brand & crafting a message.
Telling the story of Pepper Global.
EIGHTFOUR partnered with Pepper Global not only to create it’s new global online presence, but do a deep dive into their brand itself & how the many different services are communicated.
Pepper Global is a truly global financial services company operating in 14 countries that builds, scales, finances and manages lending & loan servicing businesses. But it doesn’t stop there. Pepper’s services are broad and wide ranging, also being experts in data & analytics & investment strategy.
Part of the challenge of the project was figuring out how to communicate such a wide array of services & specialisms without losing sight of the core of the company which is grounded in lending & servicing. Also how we bridge the gap between a company with 20+ years of experience – rooted in customer service & customer needs – with new insights achieved through Pepper’s own proprietary data platform platform.
What we did:
Over the course of 2021, EIGHTFOUR employed every part of the agency – Research, planning, content strategy, I.A. Prototyping, Content creation, Design, Copywriting & build – to create a reinvigorated Pepper Global brand that bridged the gap between customer & technology and communicated its core business as well as their wider specialisms.
LEARNING ON THE JOB
Every so often a project comes along which really stretches our imagination (and brain). Part of the glory of taking on a project like this is the learning process. Never have we learned so much about an industry and its peripheries in such a short period of time. Most of the EIGHTFOUR team now consider themselves financial specialists and experts in data analysis.
When we took on the project, the creative team felt like if we were going to do a proper job, we had to learn everything (and we mean absolutely everything) about Pepper. We took on a lengthy investigation phase consisting of one on one as well as group interviews with stakeholders from all over the world. Only after this phase was complete did we feel like we had the knowledge capable of describing such a unique business to the world.
GETTING TO KNOW PEPPER & THE MARKET
We never do anything without immersing ourselves in both the business and the wider industry. Given how specialised Pepper’s business has become, we gave particular attention to the research phase. EIGHTFOUR spent several weeks talking to stakeholders from all over the world doing a deep dive in understanding the brand, the business and organisational structure, it’s operations, how it’s evolved over the last quarter century, and where it’s headed in the future.
A NEW VISUAL LANGUAGE
One thing that became apparent during the course of research was that Pepper isn’t your typical, faceless conglomerate. They’re a global team very much focused on extending the business through innovative tech, but only in ways that serve the customer. We felt the brand needed to take a more organic & grass roots direction, while maintaining the brand essence of where they were currently.
We worked to establish an entirely new set of iconography, type & heading treatments, all working together to create a sense of organic approachability.
ESTABLISHING THE TONE. TELLING THE STORY
Because copywriting & content planning was perhaps the most crucial part of this project, Shehan was part of the interview process from the beginning. We worked with the client in a collaborative effort to make sure we captured the essence of the company & it’s values, spoke in the right tone, effectively communicated the many services of Pepper & told the brand story in a compelling way.
DESIGNING THE LOOK
With all projects, we never go straight into page designs. The first step our designers undertake is a style-scaping, where we let loose & get creative. The goal is to experiment with different styles until we establish how the new brand can live in the online space. We play with copy, image, type, treatments & other elements until we get something we find well represents the brand.
CONTENT PLANNING & INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
The first step of the creative process was to plan the content, which meant collaborating on an information architecture that we felt would provide a logical sequence in story telling while providing all the facts & figures potential investors or partners would require.
BUILDING THE FOUNDATION
As is the case with all projects at EIGHTFOUR, we build on strong foundations. We constructed a meticulous prototype used to show content structure & how the story telling would take shape for the client & how components were placed & potentially re-used for our developers.
THE FINISHED DESIGN
Since Pepper has a long history and well established brand, our challenge was to work within the existing brand style, yet reinvigorate the brand with a new interpretation that was fresh, modern, approachable and human.
A NEW FACE
We knew photography would be crucial. Very often it’s overlooked as a ‘nice to have’, but in reality companies are judged by the impression & perception they leave, & very often that first impression is cemented online. We developed a new collection of photography that was true to the brand but evolved with new treatments that highlighted the central element of the Pepper business - People.
EMPOWERING PEOPLE & BUILDING TALENT
One of the key objectives of the site was appealing to an Asian-centric audience. Since the world is moving in that direction, we had to tread a delicate balance between emphasis on people & emphasis on performance metrics. The experience of the site was grounded in Pepper’s dedication to its people and building talent.
THE COLLAGE
To reflect Pepper's growing diversity across cultures, countries and activities, we've developed new ways of treating imagery on the website. We call it the 'collage' and it helps to represent the many facets of Pepper and provide a visual point of interest for the viewer.
JOINING THE TEAM
We were immediately struck by the cohesiveness & shared vision among the Pepper team. We knew early on that one thing we wanted to hit home was just how much of Pepper’s success is due to the team & how that message can be utilised in attracting new talent.
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