Hakkoda’s Challenge:

Introduced to us by our friends at Tercera, Hakkoda is a startup that was looking to shake things up a bit. Their founders, all of whom have deep experience in the Snowflake ecosystem, had all come from big consulting firms (think Deloitte and McKinsey), and knew they wanted to do things differently. For starters, they wanted to make things easy, like a SaaS company would, in addition to being accessible and innovative. They also wanted to attract and hire talent that really cared about their jobs. So how could they do all of this and create a differentiated and memorable brand that remained true to their roots?

Our Sublime Solution:

When it came to their brand, what mattered most for Hakkoda was that it reflected their culture. To get a full grasp on what that was and bring it to life, we started by taking them through our entire branding process. We talked to their co-founders, potential customers, and looked at their competitive landscape, and quickly realized that everyone in this space was using the same type of imagery and language. We used all of this information as input for our branding workshop, during which we:

• Identified their buyers and created persona profiles for each one
• Brainstormed their mission statement and values
• Went through a series of exercises to create their brand voice and personality
• Talked through their messaging framework
• Brainstormed the foundation of their brand design

A lot of times you’ll see businesses, especially in tech, use stock images or generic clip art that’s far from unique to their brand. With Hakkoda, we wanted their graphics to reflect their personality and to tell just as much of their individual brand story as the words we chose. Since they have headquarters in both the US and Costa Rica, we were sure to infuse tropical elements and flare, including an iconic Costa Rican wheel used on traditional carts. The founders care about a work/life balance and know that people are more than just their jobs. To convey this we designed graphic silhouettes of people working on computers that also showed what else was going on inside them (like passions such as kayaking, surfing, etc.).

With the messaging, we refreshed their mission and values to make them more aspirational and reflective of Hakkoda’s adventurous, people-first spirit that celebrates life and champion’s changemakers. We crafted a tone of voice that reflected their personality as a company, touching on being smart and people-centric. We infused that voice across their brand messaing and elevator pitch that could be used as a guide for marketing materials across the board.

Once this brand foundation was established, we applied these design elements and messaging into what is now Hakkoda’s website. Last, but certainly not least, we developed a creative ad campaign that was hyper-targeted to two of their main buyer personas. While we were able to be creative and have fun throughout the entire branding process, this campaign allowed us to really think outside the box, developing pithy headlines and graphics to help convert customers.