SurveyMonkey has launched a new mobile-first People Powered Data™ platform and, at the same time, is repositioning and refreshing the brand to “Power the Curious.” The move comes 18 months into the tenure of CEO Zander Lurie, who took over after the untimely death of former CEO David Goldberg.
Commenting on the refresh, which includes a new logo and site design, Orit Peleg, Head of Brand Planning at Eleven explains: “When we were going through the branding exercise with SurveyMonkey, we discovered that curiosity is considered an important form of currency for the future. Similarly to IQ and EQ there’s a Curiosity Quotient that companies should be tapping into. We leveraged this learning when developing and expressing the new SurveyMonkey “Power the Curious” mission to help bring the company into the future. From there we made sure that the same sense of inquisitive energy was reflected in all of the new visual identity design elements.”
Matt Wakeman, Creative Director at the agency elaborates: “For the logo refresh, it was decided early on that the monkey should be respected … We cleaned up and optimized the logo for a mobile-first digital world by ensuring it could thrive at small sizes. It was made symmetrical. The tuft of hair on top of the monkey’s head was redrafted and enlarged to make it read better both as hair and secondarily as a checkmark … We opened up the holes in the ears to not fill in when rendering at lower screen resolutions. We also raised the ears slightly to feel more engaged and curious. The typography was simplified and customized, with approachability, legibility and longevity in mind. The color palette was expanded and rejuvenated to a brighter, fresher green, with bright supporting colors, more expressive of the outcomes of curiosity: creativity and innovation.”
“In terms of the broader visual identity, we asked ourselves what does curiosity look and feel like? How can it be captured and brought to life? How can we prod people to ask deeper questions, to ask why, how, what if? The culture at SurveyMonkey is both smart and analytical, while also playful and clever. This personality, represented by the monkey, is captured in vibrant photography of The Curious, intriguing objects, and dynamic secondary infographics that highlight unexpected statistics and findings, to spark intrigue and exploration …”
Sun Lee, VP of Brand Experience, SurveyMonkey, sums up the project nicely: “Throughout the whole process, it was more of a partnership than a typical agency and client relationship. The SurveyMonkey brand team partnered with Eleven to conceptualize the brand expression. From there, we developed a brand system to implement across multiple channels and applications. The SurveyMonkey team ran multiple creative testing along the way using SurveyMonkey Audience on both messaging and design. In the new look and feel we wanted to bring curiosity to life with nimble copy, vivid photography, and a bright color palette that represents SurveyMonkey’s brand personality: inquisitive, smart, supportive, playful.”