Developing a New Brand Identity & Website to Enable an Era of Growth

After Thirdera was formed through the merger of three former competitors in the ServiceNow space, a new and exciting brand was needed to fuel unity and set the stage for future growth. 

Thirdera is a ServiceNow partner focused on digital transformation and innovation. They enable enterprise businesses to harness the full potential and unlock the most value of ServiceNow’s platform capabilities. 

The company’s Elite-level and four badge ServiceNow status signaled its expertise and accreditations, however, it didn’t have an established brand or web presence to back its legacy up. Once new roles were deployed and goals defined, they enlisted a brand and website partner that could take them into a new era of growth. 

Thirdera engaged Salted Stone to create a fresh brand identity and new website on HubSpot CMS, launched in May 2022. 

The challenge

Despite deep expertise in ServiceNow, the name Thirdera was new in the space. Formerly Evergreen Systems, in early 2021 the company merged with two other successful ServiceNow partners — Cerna Solutions and Novo/Scale. 

But the merger necessitated more than a simple name change. Blending three brands into one newly formed company called for a single identity that fit Thirdera’s future direction and had room for the legacy’s brands’ unique characteristics. A distinctive new look and feel would mean they could take a firm position in-market as an elite, global pure-play ServiceNow partner.

There was also no single established digital presence. Evergreen Systems, Cerna Solutions, and Novo/Scale all had independent websites and individualized messaging, none of which was right for Thirdera’s yet-to-be-developed website. 

The company required a modern, UX- and SEO-optimized solution built from scratch that was able to communicate priority messages and drive lead generation. We knew it would take skill, experience, and creativity to create something new that the whole Thirdera team could identify with and rally behind.

Salted Stone’s approach

In order to achieve Thirdera’s goals, Salted Stone began with its website roadmapping process and ran brand identity activities simultaneously. This allowed our teams to collaborate on outputs and deliver our solutions ahead of a May 2022 deadline. 

We kicked off with a series of roadmap workshops, where we learned about the company’s goals, target audience, service offering, and desired website functionality. Our process ensured we prioritized user needs as well. 

Andrew Siskind, roadmap facilitator and Salted Stone’s Creative Director, leveraged everything we learned to architect a sitemap that could be designed and built quickly, in time for Thirdera’s first major PR push, and accounted for future incremental growth. The sitemap provided our team with the foundation for Thirdera’s information architecture and website project scope.

Visual Identity

With our sights set on creating an identity that challenged the status quo, we digested and then waved goodbye to the old brands. We followed our process to create a new visual identity for Thirdera, including mood boards, style tiles, and logo design, culminating in a brand new style guide.

We set the creative direction with a mood board exercise that pulled from diverse inspiration based on input from the client team. Our design team wanted a deep understanding of Thirdera’s preferences before entering the website design phase. We pitched three potential directions, landing on a “Dark and Futuristic” theme. 

Thirdera’s feedback progressed the initial concept into style tiles, and our team ensured the whole process was collaborative. During the second style tile meeting, we realized Thirdera wanted to incorporate a vaporwave aesthetic, which heavily influenced the third and final rounds of style tiles.

This exercise documented Thirdera’s design rules to inspire the final style guide and website design (more on that below).

Style Tiles help us to visualize the individual elements of a visual brand side-by-side.

Thirdera’s feedback progressed the initial concept into style tiles, and our team ensured the whole process was collaborative. During the second style tile meeting, we realized Thirdera wanted to incorporate a vaporwave aesthetic, which heavily influenced the third and final rounds of style tiles.

This exercise documented Thirdera’s design rules to inspire the final style guide and website design (more on that below).

Our iterative process lets us collaborate with clients to realize their vision.

Next, we ideated logomark and logotype concepts. Our design team sought inspiration from the number “3” for “Third” and “E” for “Era”. These seemingly simple elements are integral to Thirdera’s vision to become leaders in their industry.  

We also explored a vibrant color palette that would play well with light and dark backgrounds. Hundreds of ideas were whittled down to six, then after receiving feedback and one more iteration, Thirdera chose the winner: Two interlocking “E”s positioned alongside its brand name.

Salted Stone’s visual identity process resulted in an actionable style guide, complete with typography, UI, and messaging guidelines, that encapsulated the desired “visionary” and “high-tech” image.   

Once Thirdera approved the Visual Identity (and website scope of work based on the roadmap), we began the website development process.

Copywriting

Andrew Siskind worked closely with Thirdera on developing the brand’s core messaging concurrently with the Visual Identity exercises. A unified messaging framework was established which, together with the sitemap, gave our editorial team clear content guidance.

Using Thirdera’s suggestions, we wrote copy for the MVP pages while keeping user intent top of mind and integrating SEO best practices. We also provided support for multi-language translations completed post-launch.

Website Design

We wireframed selected pages to visually map out the page structure and UI elements. Our approved style tiles were used as a design baseline, from which we iterated a single page template until Thirdera signed off. 

That was our green light to shift into applying the approved treatment across all MVP pages. They feature glowing neon vaporwave elements against a stark black backdrop, as shown below. The result is hip, yet professional, as expected of an elite and innovative ServiceNow partner. 

The Homepage makes a bold first impression, differentiating Thirdera from their competitors.

HubSpot CMS Development

Manageability was a core driver of Thirdera’s decision to build the website in HubSpot CMS. 

It offers enough flexibility to independently add and remove modules from pages, or create new pages as required, all in a seamless, no-code environment optimized for marketers. 

We developed 17 templates and 7 pages that supported the company’s needs while allowing a consistent user experience. Months on from launch, Thirdera has repeatedly leveraged these templates for use as new service pages. 

A landing page, also built on HubSpot CMS, was expedited ahead of the website build to help Thirdera make an important company announcement.

But we weren’t done just yet. Before handover, Salted Stone used its meticulous QA process to give the website copy, design, and UI elements a final polish

Though sleek and stylish, the page layouts are optimized for readability and are easy to edit and manage over time.

The results

Three months on from website roadmapping, and Thirdera’s website officially went live!

Here’s what Salted Stone successfully achieved:

• Met the February 2022 deadline for developing a landing page (timed to facilitate a company announcement)
• Met the May 2022 deadline for launching the new brand and website
• Supported the merger and Thirdera’s efforts to differentiate itself as cutting edge
• Developed a memorable brand identity that was dynamic enough to lend itself to website growth and future marketing campaigns
• Post-launch support for ongoing website optimization and site management training.

Daniel Kwok, Salted Stone’s Client Success Manager and Account Manager who drove the project, believes success came from having a clear vision and collaborative approach.

“Through a clear vision and collaborative effort across both teams, we were able to successfully bring three companies together under a new brand that represented the next generation of ServiceNow partners Thirdera was set to become! ”
— Daniel Kwok, Client Success Manager at Salted Stone

But the most rewarding aspect was hearing the positive impact the project had on Thirdera’s business. Christina Nahal, Thirdera’s SVP of Marketing was ecstatic with the outcome.

“When it came to introducing Thirdera to the world, working with Salted Stone was the missing piece of the puzzle. Their process-driven approach had just the right balance between space for creativity and reliability on the project management side. Nothing felt rushed, but we moved quickly, and the collaborative end result is a brand and web presence that inspires us”
– Christina Nahal, SVP of Marketing at Thirdera

Thirdera has since gone on to acquire more ServiceNow partners and launch additional offerings that fit with new branding naturally. The company is so proud of its new identity, they have even launched an online store, so brand evangelists can rep Thirdera merchandise. 

The project results are a testament to Salted Stone’s agility and proven website design and development process. We look forward to seeing Thirdera’s brand awareness continue to skyrocket!