Discovering A Platform Hidden in Plain Sight

When Nothing is Lost in Translation 

Translation is big business for Lionbridge, a world-class provider of seamless translations across the globe. From vocal recognition bots (like Alexa and Siri) to video games (like Minecraft and Fortnite), Lionbridge develops machine intelligence and localized content for just about everyone. An industry leader, Lionbridge works with big brands and global businesses, such as Microsoft, Google, and Apple, offering services in over 350 languages! 

With digital disruption shaking every market, Lionbridge tapped Vivaldi to be its strategic and creative partner on a journey to reimagine their business. We worked closely with the Lionbridge leadership team to create a multi-sided platform strategy to unlock new opportunities and bring to life a visual language that can be understood by the global community it serves—breaking barriers, building bridges. 

One Platform. 

We evaluated the overall industry context for future growth opportunities. After consideration of multiple strategic options, we led the team through a massive reinvention of their business model and further supported the change with a rebranding of assets across its global operations.

A significant departure from the business strategy of existing incumbents that manage highly efficient yet traditional pipeline businesses, a multi-sided platform business strategy presented itself as a strong, long-lasting new business model. Platform economics, governance rules, and other key dimensions called for a connected and curated network of language professionals on one side and the broad range of customers with specialized needs on the other side.

Conventional wisdom in the industry was to brand the company’s product or service offering, Vivaldi recommended a significant departure from this industry practice by instead positioning Lionbridge around its biggest assets — their people. With a network of over 100,000 language professionals, Lionbridge exhibits a unique culture of professionals with values and beliefs that provide a passion, quality, and skill to a broad range services.

Breaking Barriers. Building Bridges.

The brand strategy was the blueprint for translating the strategy into experience and design. The visual identity included a comprehensive design language with a new iconography to reflect the breadth and depths of Lionbridge’s industry experience as well as service capabilities – from vision to life.

A comprehensive revamp of the company’s digital strategy required the team to envision a new Lionbridge experienced through an enterprise-level website, with an initial website  launch available within weeks. This was quickly followed by a number of global launch activities that connected the business and brand strategy with the visual identity to assert the new brand across people, processes, and products. Naturally, every effort required the assets to be available in about multiple languages simultaneously.

The new Lionbridge was born of our desire to invent and implement higher standards for all our stakeholders, to ensure that brand strategy was the face of its business strategy – watch them as they build a more connected world: www.lionbridge.com

• Topics:
• Brand Management
• Innovation
• Platform Strategy