How UST went from ‘best-kept secret’ to tripling engagement benchmarks

After a shiny new rebrand, information technology company UST challenged design consultancy The Frameworks to bring it to life – by developing a campaign to drive awareness and demand among blue-chip businesses around the world. 

The Frameworks landed on an idea to elevate the brand from its day-to-day business, by exploring the impact of a UST partnership on the people and communities around it.

Since the ‘Boundless’ campaign launched, traffic to UST’s website has increased by 70%. 

The challenge

Fresh from the rebrand, the campaign needed to clearly and compellingly answer a simple question: “Why UST?”

The Frameworks realised that the closer it got to understanding UST’s new brand message, ‘Together we build for boundless impact’, the harder it was to pin down precisely what made the business unique. 

As a global consultancy specialising in digital transformation, UST was struggling to distinguish itself in a crowded market. There was a strong sense among customers that UST is a “best-kept secret” – that it is difficult to quantify the impact of a partnership until you truly experience it.

The solution

The Frameworks understood that UST is a brand that’s felt. “Boundless impact” is more than a guiding principle: it’s a feeling that’s present in every engagement, interaction and reaction. 

This provided the perfect platform to humanise the brand – and deliver a fresh perspective on digital transformation. The resulting campaign, called 'Boundless’, set out to capture this feeling and explore the ongoing impact of its work.

The campaign was underpinned with discrete content programmes designed to show, not tell, what “boundless impact” means. Boundless Stories uses interactive storytelling to demonstrate the ongoing ripple effect of UST’s partnerships from a number of perspectives. Boundless Thinkers is a thought leadership series that captures the ideas and opinions of innovators within and around the business.

Working closely with media partners, the engaging content hoped to attract visitors to the Boundless digital experience via multiple digital and social channels. These included paid digital channels, such as Google Display, Apple News, Forbes and Wired, and owned channels, such as LinkedIn and Facebook.

The results

The content ranged from static and animated tiles on LinkedIn to media-rich video content on high-profile properties like Wired and the Wall Street Journal. The Nourish and Bloom Boundless Stories video published on Wired achieved 55% engagement, which is significantly higher than Wired’s benchmark of 20%. 

Visits to UST.com are primarily through ads and social media. Since the Boundless campaign launched, traffic to UST’s website has increased by 70% and there have been over 1.5 million impressions on Boundless content on UST's social channels. 

Leslie Schultz, Chief Marketing Officer at UST, said: “UST is trusted as a refreshingly different sort of technology partner by the people who know and work with us – they actually say they can feel the values and identity of our people and our brand – but until now word has spread primarily through organic networking and referrals. This campaign is our first step towards telling the UST story and sharing the ‘boundless’ impact we have on our clients, their customers and communities everywhere.”