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How do you grab the attention of hundreds of thousands of employees, across borders, language barriers and with wildly different roles?

This was the exact problem faced by DHL Express when launching its new ‘Smart Connect’ employee app. This platform connects employees across regions providing news, information and communication options, but as DHL Express had learned with its previous app, promotion would need to play a significant role in making it a success. To make this campaign stand out we needed to step away from the normal strong red and yellow brand.

A portal to possibility

Our creative idea was of the phone being a doorway or portal to ‘the world of DHL’, with bright, dynamic depictions of employees interacting with messages and pages that leapt out of the phone, larger than life.

We created five illustrations and animations showing different aspects of the app, with taglines such as ‘Stay Informed’ and ‘Start Chatting’. Ultimately, these were combined into a long-form animation that could be presented with region-specific audio for broad distribution.

The campaign was delivered to 220 countries, with the app being downloaded 67,000 in the first month.

The campaign went on to win Platinum in the Branded Content category at the international MUSE Creative Awards 2022.